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Understand what Google cares about in search rankings. Learn about social signals, schema markup, video content, and user experience. Get tips on link building and recovering from Penguin updates. Avoid common mistakes and focus on building a compelling brand.
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Understand the Search Landscape Search engines have over 30 trillion pages to sift through. Why should your website matter?
Social Signals Matter…but they aren’t #1 • Just having a G+ Share button on your site can cause your page to be indexed, in absence of all other signals. • Sharing on Google+ or Facebook will cause the page to be indexed; 4-5 days and 7-8 days respectively (“Google+ indexes like a bunny rabbit!”) • Sharing on Twitter? No documented indexing effect. • Floating share? Increase sharing 20-30%!
Schema Markup: Feed the Search Engines Authorship Breadcrumbs, ratings, pricing Video thumbnails Events
Please Use Author Markup. PLEASE. Can DOUBLE your click-through rate! Figure this (and Google+) out NOW before “AUTHOR RANK” takes effect (someday…) Your Google+ personal page has Page Rank Use bylines in PDF, Word, PowerPoint documents – search engines can infer authorship
Are you doing VIDEO already? “Using video is like throwing gasoline on your online marketing… users retain 50% more from video than from written content.” This is the most I’ve ever heard video discussed at a conference… • It is a form of CONTENT – post it regularly • Use video schema to improve click through • It is the ‘long tail keyword killer’ and gets clicks
Focus on User Experience Be a visitor to your own site – is it clear what you expect people to do? SEO and CRO (conversion rate optimization) Consider use cases. Ex: if you were in a car accident and suffered a broken leg and a head injury, do you know where to go? Read your content – is it a brag book all about your greatness, or does it provide helpful information for a visitor?
Content… yawn, excuse me? Get creative with your content… • Find a topical piece, improve on it for your site • Create controversy, look at another side • Offbeat or extreme example of a concept • Create a how to guide • Create a story with images • Event timelines • Comparison article • VIDEO
Content: Stop Being BORING! Take another look at headlines and page titles – “just the facts, ma’am” vs. “whoa! Check this out!”
Content Curation Tools Content Curation <> Content Aggregation Give content context, meaning, added value • List.ly (Curate your posts from other sites, allow voting, can embed on your site) • Scoop.it (social curation network, highly educated audience, create pages about specific topics) • Spundge(pull content into a blog, preserve formatting from original posts) • Storify(curate event info after the fact, add deper context)
Link Building Nothing has changed.
Link Building the Wrong Way NO blog link networks “link to my blog and I’ll link to yours… 500 times with the same spammy anchor text!” NO article directories “should I not have 100 articles available on free directories that any skeevy website can grab and link back to me?” NO link hoarding “I get links wherever I can, no matter what… or I pay $100 month for hundreds of links!”
Link Building the Right Way Professional profile sites (Avvo, Justia, etc.) Comment in RELEVANT professional forums High-quality, local citation websites Community websites (BBB, Chamber of Commerce) Hosting a special event, talk or seminar? Post your event to social calendars like Eventbrite, Zvents and local event calendars Guest posts on RELEVANT sites in your area
Penguin Recovery: How Did They Do That? • Clean up the “bad” (low value) links • Ask webmasters to take down the bad links • Document your efforts • Disavow links you can’t get rid of (last resort!) • Get new, high-value links • Add great content (helps get links!) “We can see patterns in your website’s backlinks – good and bad.” (Duane Forrester, Bing Webmaster Tools) “If anybody tells you the search engines can’t detect something… RUN!” (Matt Cutts, Google)
What You Are Doing WRONG • You’re focused on today, not the future (i.e. Google+ authorship – don’t wait for author rank to matter) • You rely too much on tools – don’t let tools make decisions for you – THINK and ANALYZE • You overlook the basics. • You think you DESERVE to rank. So do all the other eleventy billion business owners. • Content isn’t really king… you can’t just put up content and call it a day. If you don’t have a detailed marketing plan to promote your content, it won’t do you any good.
That ONE Piece of Advice… Times Six Always check your backlinks, remove the weakest links. Use Google and Bing Webmaster Tools. Don’t get so caught up in mobile vs. responsive design – consider apps to break you dependence on search. Don’t be generic in what you SELL, in your CONTENT, in your MARKETING. Build your brand. Focus on, in this order: CONTENT, SOCIAL, USER EXPERIENCE, LINKS, SEO. Make something compelling. Optimize your User Experience. Mobile matters.
Straight from Google (aka Matt Cutts) Google does not discuss all updates as there are >500 per year Panda updates roll out 10 days each month Penguin 2.0 on May 22 was large enough to discuss (~3% English language queries) – affected links to internal pages, while Penguin 1.0 only targeted home page links. Algorithm changes target types of spammy behavior (types of link building techniques) – more to come New! Hit by manual webspam penalty? You’ll get some sample links in Google Webmaster Tools
Straight from Google (aka Matt Cutt) • Mobile is happening faster than anybody anticipated – you better be ready. • Mobile site problems could affect mobile rankings • Mobile redirects are a common problem • Mobile load times will matter • Check your page load times – desktop and mobile – “a fast site won’t help you rank better, but a slow site could make you rank lower” (think user experience) • Looking for ways to determine if a website is an authority in a certain space. If you’re determined to be an authority, your site will rank better.
