Which social media sites are most helpful for SEO? What common mistakes should you avoid when optimizing a site for search? Which factors do search engine algorithms weight most heavily in determining search position? How can you generate more clicks even when your site isn't in one of the top three spots in search results?

Get the answers to all of these questions and others here in the final(!) set of the best posts of last year on search engine optimization.

Search, Social and Direct Traffic by ProBlogger

Darren Rowse provides a detailed analysis of his blog visits from various sources—which, given the obscene volume of traffic his blog draws, is probably fairly representative of blogs in general. Among his findings: organic search is the source of both the highest volume and best quality of traffic. Social traffic (e.g. StumbleUpon and Digg) is "spiky" and doesn't convert well, but supports SEO through the links generated. There's lots more red meat for web analytics data junkies as well.


Six Things You Might Be Doing Wrong (And How to Fix Them)! by Search Engine Watch

The insightful Carrie Hill writes that "In doing a wide variety research into what is and isn't working for a small business Web site, I find the most frequent issues fall within the following six categories." These include duplicate content, lack of keyword research, ignoring link building, and...read her post!


27 Quick Tips To Top Search Engine Rankings by Mike's Marketing Tools

Michael Wong condenses all of the top SEO techniques into this one relatively short article, from generating internal and incoming links and the proper use of meta tags to guidance on site maps, keyword density and moving Javascript into separate files.


How to make sure search-engine users find your Web site by IT World Canada

In this SEO for Dummies-style piece, Christopher Null interviews Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz, Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land, and Michael H. Fleischner, author of SEO Made Simple: Strategies For Dominating The World's Largest Search Engine to share their best tips and tricks for SEO newbies. Still, even experienced SEOs may find some useful tips here.


Is SEO Worth the Cost & Effort? by SEO Book

Aaron Wall makes the case for SEO with a brief case study of two similar websites. Though one may quibble with details here (on-page optimization accounts for only 5% of search position for competitive keywords?!) but his overall argument is pretty incontestable.


“Google Window Dressing” – 12 Ways To Squeeze Every Last Drop Of Traffic From Your Current Rankings by SEOptimise

In this brilliant piece, Max Capener provides a dozen tips for optimizing meta description tags to help get the click even when your site doesn't get a top 3 spot in the search rankings. These tactics range from adding a phone number or special characters to your description to catch the searcher's eye to keeping title tags as short as possible and using friendly URLs. As Max notes, "No significant weight is given to the meta description for SEO purposes. It is therefore a great opportunity to use this space to help sell the click."


Google’s Top Search Engine Ranking Factors by Green Marketing 2.0

While noting that "Google’s ranking algorithm takes into account approximately 200+ attributes when determining the position of websites in search engine results," Lorna Li details the top 10 factors that account for most of the ranking results. This helpful post shows the relative importance of keywords, links, site age and other factors.


The SEO Success Pyramid by Small Business Search Marketing

In this outstanding post, frequent best-of contributor Matt McGee provides a visual model of SEO in pyramid form, with factors such as Planning and Patience at the base, rising to Trust at the peak. The post links to a full-size printable version of the model, handy for tacking up on your wall for inspiration and guidance when scoping out a new SEO project.

Previous posts in this series:

Best of 2008: SEO Guidance, Part 1
Best of 2008: Interactive PR, Part 1
Best of 2008: SEO Tools, Part 1
Best of 2008: Search Engine Marketing
Best of 2008: Web Analytics
Best of 2008: Email Marketing Tips
Best of 2008: SEO Keyword Tips & Tools
Best of 2008: Sales & Marketing Copywriting
Best of 2008: SEO Link Building
Best of 2008: Website Design
Best of 2008: WordPress Tools and Tips
Best of 2008: Web & SEO Copywriting
Best of 2008: SEO Guidance, Part 2
Best of 2008: Social Media Optimization, Part 1
Best of 2008: AdWords Tips and Tactics, Part 1
Best of 2008: SEO Tools, Part 2
Best of 2008: SEM Landing Pages
Best of 2008: Blogging for Business, Part 1
Best of 2008: Interactive PR, Part 2
Best of 2008: SEO Guidance, Part 3
Best of 2008: Social Media Optimization, Part 2
Best of 2008: AdWords Tips and Tactics, Part 2
Best of 2008: Strategy and Branding, Part 1
Best of 2008: Cool Web Tools, Part 1
Best of 2008: Blogging for Business, Part 2
Best of 2008: Random but Interesting, Part 1
Best of 2008: SEO Guidance, Part 4
Best of 2008: Social Media Optimization, Part 3
Best of 2008: Strategy and Branding, Part 2
Best of 2008: Cool Web Tools, Part 2
Best of 2008: Social Media Optimization, Part 4

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Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom