Ask the SEOs at SMX West 09

Second class of the day! Coffee, coffee, coffee (decaf, decaf, decaf - thanks Julie!!)
Moderator: Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Land
Speakers: Greg Boser, President and CEO, 3 Dog Media; Bruce Clay, President, Bruce Clay, Inc.; Todd Friesen, President, Oilman SEO; Rae Hoffman (sugarrae), Owner, Sugarrae Internet Consulting; Jill Whalen, CEO and Founder, High Rankings.

My notes:

• When doing a new website, upload the old xml sitemap once the 301s are in place to enable the search engines to find the old pages (with new 301s) quickly.
• Dashes - not underscores when building page names!!!
• Don't use the company name in the title tag.
• WordPress requires a lot of customization to become seo-friendly. Brew a large pot of coffee per Greg Boser.
  • First step, permalink plugin, then seo plugin, then redirect plugin (SuperCache) per Todd Friesen.
• Don't go crazy with nofollow links. What BC said way back when is true - link juice is like love, you have to give some to get some!
  
• Links, links, links - anchor text, anchor text, anchor text. Authority links first.
• It is normal for a new website to rank high in the beginning and then drop - this is not a penalty, it's a "testing" ground.
• Here's what I'm going to tell you, now I'm telling you, now I'm reviewing what I told you - go Brian Bluff!
• Question: What is the ideal keyword density? Answer: Yes - go Bruce Clay!

My questions:

• Here's my question -Which option is the best scenario?
  1. Get the website up and live and then implement seo - or
  2. Wait on launch until all seo is in place
  Case in point, we were waiting for some changes to be made to a cms in order to implement the seo so we had the client delay their website launch by six weeks and I'm wondering if that was the right decision.
• True or false - no commas in the keyword tag allows the search engines to put together their own phrases whenever possible.
• We've all heard that the PageRank reported in the Google Toolbar is not always an accurate representation. Because we know that PageRank needs to be at least considered, what is the best way to get this data?
  

Three main points:

1. Dashes - not underscores when building page names!!!
2. Don't use the company name in the title tag - except for the About Us page. Include it in the meta description.
   
3. Don't go crazy with nofollow links.