Practical Seo and internet marketing advice

Practical Advice for SEOand Internet Marketing

Charlie KalechDirector, J-Town Internet Services Ltd.February 27, 2014

What Is

SEO Has Changed A Lot In The Last 10 Years

[AltaVista] [AllTheWeb/Lycos] [HotBot] [7Search] [About.com] [Enhance (Formerly Ah-Ha)] [AOL Web Sites] [AskJeeves (Teoma)] [Xuppa (Formerly Bay9)] [FindWhat] [Google] [Kanoodle] [LookSmart] [Lycos] [MSN] [Netscape] [Open Directory] [Overture (Formerly Goto)] [Yahoo Directory] [Yahoo Web Results]



Panda was released in February 2011.

This change and future Panda updates aimedto adjust site rankings based on website quality.

This includes Website design

Trustworthiness

Speed

Frequency of visitors returning to the website

Reportedly this change affected the rankings of almost 12 percent of all search results.


April 24, 2012

The update was aimed atdecreasing search engine rankingsof websites based onpoor quality backlinks(websites linking to your site).


Google started using Hummingbird around August 30, 2013

No One Noticed

Google announced Hummingbird on September 26, 2013

Hummingbird Reflects That Where We Search and How We Search Has Changed

No More Exact Match Keywords

How It Used To BeKeyword ResearchOptimized ContentInbound Link-Building

How It Used To BeResults = Keyword Ranking on SERPs

Today People Don'tSearch That Way Anymore

Search engines understanding keywords aren't enough to know what people mean.

Now they are working on intent.

Predictive Search

Conversational Search

Predictive Search

Knowing what a user will search for before they search for it and showing it to them before they search for it.

Google Suggest:

Predictive Search












What Does This SERPHave To Do With Keywords?

Old SchoolKeywords + Links + Code

New SchoolKeywords + Links + CodeRelevance + Authority + Functionality

RelevanceAuthorityFunctionality

Old SchoolExact Match KeywordsInbound LinksPage RankClean CodeTagsSEF URLs

New SchoolBroad-Based Keywords Focused on IntentIntegrated ContextAuthorshipSocial Signals(The Above +)Responsive DesignSpeedSchema

Relevance:Broad-Based Content Focused on IntentIntegrated Content

Focus on a searcher's intent as Google does.

What are they looking for and what value can you provide.


You can't capture all the keywords

Updates like Hummingbird broaden the results for keyword searches

Most Searches Are Unique


Hummingbird is the death of keywords in the way that we know it

No more brute force, rigid definitions. Google is now examining the searchers query as a whole and processing the meaning behind it by putting it in context.

This is coupled with: Previous search queries

Searcher's behavior

User's online context

Social media

Other Google products


We used to make revolving doors to get people into our sites.

We would have lots of specific landing pages instead of real valuable content which should be shared among many relevant keywords.


Paradigm Shift:Change Your Relationship

FromExact match keyword -> landing page

ToBroad performance of search traffic across a site using groups of phrases served by that content


Instead of thinking about keywords,think about the questions someone would ask to find your company online and create content around that. Think of the searcher's intent, not the exact words


Create Greater Value Across Your Whole Site

Generates more authority

Earns links with better more valuable content

Google will then rank your pages just because of who you are and your authority, even if you have done very little work to optimize them

Authority:A Different Kind of Inbound Link

Authority:Most Trusted Sourcesof Brand Information & MessagingFor Consumers Around the WorldIs Social Media92% Trust earned media, such as recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising70% Online Consumer Reviews

http://www.nielsen.com/content/corporate/us/en/newswire/2012/consumer-trust-in-online-social-and-mobile-advertising-grows.html

Authority: Authorship

Authority: Authorship

You EARN links because of the online reputation and authority you have built up

Authority: Authorship + SocialLinks shared through Twitter and Facebook have a direct impact on rankings. As does who is sharing them

Authority: Authorship + Social

Dec 2010 http://searchengineland.com/what-social-signals-do-google-bing-really-count-55389

Bing:We do look at the social authority of a user. We look at how many people you follow, how many follow you, and this can add a little weight to a listing in regular search results. It carries much more weight in Bing Social Search, where tweets from more authoritative people will flow to the top when best match relevancy is used.Google:... [Social Authority] is used as a signal in our organic and news rankings. We also use it to enhance our news universal by marking how many people shared an article.Danny Sullivan:Do you try to calculate the authority of someone who tweets that might be assigned to their Twitter page. Do you try to know, if you will, who they are?Bing:Yes. We do calculate the authority of someone who tweets. For known public figures or publishers, we do associate them with who they are. (For example, query for Danny Sullivan)Google: Yeswe do compute and use author quality. We dont know who anyone is in real life :-)Danny Sullivan: Do you calculate whether a link should carry more weight depending on the person who tweets it?Bing:Yes.Google:Yes we do use this as a signal, especially in the Top links section [of Google Realtime Search]. Author authorityis independent of PageRank, but it is currently only used in limited situations in ordinary web search.

Valuable Content and Your Social Media Strategy Naturally Give You Authority and Relevance Which Will Allow You To Rank Well

RelevanceAuthorityFunctionality

Old SchoolExact Match KeywordsInbound LinksPage RankClean CodeTagsSEF URLs

New SchoolBroad-Based Keywords Focused on IntentIntegrated ContextAuthorshipSocial Signals(The Above +)Responsive DesignSpeedSchema

Functionality: Mobile

91% of all Americans now own a cell phone63% of cell phone owners use their phone to go online57% of all American adults are cell Internet users34% of these mostly use their phone to access the internetPew Research Sept. 2013


"Smartphone users are a significant and fast-growing segment of internet users, and at Google, we want them to experience the full richness of the web"

Yoshikiyo Kato, software engineer at Google.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/changes-in-rankings-of-smartphone_11.html


Google Recommends Responsive Design

https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/details


http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/research-studies/creating-moments-that-matter.html

Google Research: 61% of mobile searchers who land on non-optimized site will immediately leave the site and return to Google


If you do not have a mobile optimized site you will lose visitors and rankings (and business)

Functionality: Schema

Microdata coded to produce rich snippets (extra information) used by Bing, Google, Yahoo!

Functionality: Schema

You Must Have a Google+ Profile and a Google+ Local Business Page

Use What Google Gives You & Integrate

Functionality: SchemaRich snippet types supported by Google

BreadcrumbsEventsMusicOrganizationsPeopleProductsRecipesReview ratingsReviewsSoftware applicationsVideos: Facebook Share and RDFaschema.org markup for videosSupported software application types

Functionality: SchemaCoding of sites using microdata to produce rich snippets (extra information) in searchTools: https://www.google.com/webmasters/markup-helperWordPress SEO by Yoasthttp://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippetsList of Schemas: http://schema.org/docs/schemas.htmlList of Rich Snippets: https://support.google.com/webmasters/topic/1088474?hl=en&ref_topic=21997

Contribute Something of Value to Your Community!Measure success not on ranking, but on how search traffic performsWe Want Business, Not Rankings

Measure Performance, Not Keyword MetricsFollowing Hummingbird and Not Provided

What You Need To Do Stop outsmarting search engines, think like people, Be awesome and Create Great Content for a great product

What You Need To Do Target Your Community and Contribute Real ValueMeet the needs of your customers And those who will reach your customers Reach out and learn your industry and peers

What You Need To DoCreate clear sales funnels for each avatarCreate a way to engage repeatedly Social Media, Lists (and follow-up!)

What You Need To Do

No company today should utilize SEO without a social media strategy. Increase your digital footprint and cross promote your content and brand.Develop relationships with customers and strategic partners.

What You Need To DoGet links by building great content and coverage Don't build links artificially.Be a true resource and they will link to you.Content Needs To Be Fun

Useful

Engaging

Likable

Linkable

Sharable

Thank You

Charlie Kalech
Director, J-Town Internet Services Ltd.

[email protected]@CharlieKalech

For More Resources Fan Us on Facebookhttp://facebook.com/jtownproductions

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Practical Seo and internet marketing advice