the best seo advice you will never hear

The Best SEO Advice That You Will Never Hear

REDUCING SEO TO 2 BUCKETS

Getting the most out of the site you already have.

Building new content and features to drive new traffic.

Imma talk aboot this.

EVERYBODY’S GOT AN AGENDA

1. Platforms2. Content3. Ecommerce4. Onsite Search5. Quick Break6. Quick Hits7. Not Provided8. Reporting9. Speed Round

1. THE TRUTH ABOUT PLATFORMS & CMS

POPULAR PLATFORMS & CMS

• Demandware• eBay GSI Commerce• IBM Websphere• Hybris• Oracle ATG• RedPrairie• Wordpress• Drupal• Joomla• Magento

and many more…

THE TRUTH

Because the organic search channel drives such a large percentage of overall site traffic and revenue, companies that build platforms cannot afford to have crappy and/or non-existent SEO features.

TL;DR If the platform isn’t SEO friendly, nobody will buy it.

They send in their best sales people.

And then this guy asks: “What about SEO?”

“What my associate is trying to say is that, uh, our new platform is really cool.”

But don’t look under the hood…

“OMG.”

TIPS ON WHAT TO EXPECT

• Today’s platforms are so much better for SEO compared to 5-10 years ago.

• Every platform has limitations.

• Figure out what they are early on.

• People love when you can take Dev work off their list. (Hint: It’s because their Dev calendar is already full.)

PRO TIP:

Allocate a developer to create workarounds and solutions to speed up platform processes related to SEO.

QUESTIONS TO ASK

• Ask specific questions about the platform’s SEO features:

o How do I bulk update all meta tags?o How do I edit robots.txt files?o How do I edit on-page copy (product names & desc)?o How do I bulk edit H tags and Alt tags?o Where can I create redirects (single & bulk)?o Where can I add rel-alternate tags?o Where can I add HREFLANG tags?o How do I generate XML sitemaps?o How do I do all of that stuff for the mobile site?o How do I add schema.org tags to the source code on

specific templates?

PRO TIP:

“Yes, our platform can do that.”

Make them show you how to do everything you are asking them about.

SHOW ME

NEXT STEP: FIND THE GOOD STUFF

• Find out what makes your platform good for SEO.

• Does your platform offer you any competitive advantages?

• What features does it have that the other platforms don’t have?

And that brings us to…

2. UNDERAPPRECIATED CONTENT OPPORTUNITIES

HERE’S A GREAT EXAMPLE

Source: http://searchengineland.com/twitter-seo-more-visitors-208160

HOW DID THEY DO IT?

UPDATE THE ROBOTS.TXT

FEB. 25, 2014 FEB. 26, 2014

https://twitter.com/robots.txt

Note: Twitter updated the exclusions for all other search engines as well.

JUST SO WE’RE CLEAR

Before Feb-25th, hashtag URLs were not being crawled and/or indexed.

As of Feb-26th, Twitter allows crawling and indexing of URLs in the /hashtag/ sub-directory.Example URLs include:

• https://twitter.com/hashtag/worldcup• https://twitter.com/hashtag/mikebrown• https://twitter.com/hashtag/fb• https://twitter.com/hashtag/ukraine

URL SPECIFICALLY FOR #WORLDCUP

IT WORKS!!!

The Takeaway here is:

In terms of its value to searchers, Google likes the ‘hashtag’ page

more than any single Tweet and/or any single Twitter account

related to the World Cup.

We have seen this before…but where?

TUMBLR.COM ‘TAGGED’ PAGES

CHUCK NORRIS

TUMBLR.COM RANKS FOR STUFF

POSITIONS 5 & 6!!!

IT’S SO RELEVANT. DUH!

“Just look at all that value!” - Google

ONCE AGAIN…

The Takeaway here is:

In terms of its value to searchers, Google likes the

‘tagged’ page more than any single Tumblr post and/or any single Tumblr account related

to ‘Chuck Norris gifs’.

Does anyone else do this?

SOMETHING SOMETHING DARK SIDE

HOW MANY /TAG/ PAGES?

‘TAG’ PAGES RANK FOR STUFF.

RELEVANT FOR ‘STAR WARS DAY’

Small Case Study (Kinda)

Time Frame: June 1st – August 31st

Data:• Roughly 5,000 pages indexed• 810 /tag/ pages driving traffic

Total Organic Visits: 78,767Organic Visits to /tag/ pages: 7,803

Results: /tag/ pages generated 10% of organic visits

FROM ONE OF MY SITES

What about a big site on Wordpress?

WAIT. HOW MANY /TAG/ PAGES?!

36% of their indexed pages are /tag/ URLs.

preziwattpadretailmenotmodclothsurvey monkeystumbleuponpolyvoreone kings lanevuduwarby parkeryahoo japanvkontaktesongzajibjabustreampractice fusionjackthreads

hipmunkgroupmekindle paperwhiterebtelanswers.comtinychatretail me notodeskdiapers.comslideshareamazon freshurban spoonstatcounterpopcorn timethumbtackticketflyhotel tonight

OKAY. I GET IT ALREADY.

But wait. There’s more!

THIS.CHANGES.EVERYTHING.

#TCE because now we’re

talking about money.

“Reasonably.”

And that brings us to…

3. ECOMMERCE

EVERY SEARCH IS A BATTLE FOR THE TOP SPOT.

“If it don’t make dollars, it don’t make sense.”

- Deion Sanders#PrimeTime

“You don't solve money problems with money.”

- Dr. Phil#DayTime

“You solve money problems with lifestyle, values and priorities.”

SO, KERRY, WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?

Techcrunch.com has a /tag/ page that is ranking on Page 1 of Google for a *product* keyword:

This tells us something about the power of creating pages that group several pieces of specific content related to one keyword or phrase. In retail, this is a Category page.

JESSE PINKMAN IS EXCITED ABOUT THIS.

How do we use that information? I’m glad I asked.

EXAMPLE OF A CATEGORY PAGE

EXAMPLE OF A CATEGORY PAGE continued…

WHAT ABOUT SMALL SUBSETS OF CATEGORIES?

These websites are building pages specifically for

‘womens green sweaters’!

ALSO, THE URLS ARE PRETTY.

Google Results:

1. http://www.amazon.com/s?rh=n%3A1044456%2Cp_n_size_browse-vebin%3A2343355011

2. http://www.landsend.com/shop/womens-sweaters-cardigans-green/-/N-fy2Zt2

3. http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/womens-sweaters/green

4. http://www1.macys.com/cms/slp/2/Green-Sweater

8. http://www.target.com/th/womens+green+cardigan+sweater

THE PAGE IS OPTIMIZED.

Key Takeaway:

These pages are optimized for longtail searches AND they deliver on the intent and expectation of the searcher.

How do I create pages like this?

GETTING STARTED

1.Determine your platforms capabilities.2.Be sure you can do it in a way that doesn’t

violate Google Webmaster Guidelines.(i.e. Know your platform!)

3.Take a look at your product inventory.4.Take a look at the filters for categories and

products.5.Mix & match the filters with the categories and

products.6.Build the pages that need to be built.

EXAMPLE: womens small blue cardigan sweaters

NICE, INDEXABLE URLS FOR FILTERS. OR NOT.

Sweaters URL: http://www.target.com/c/sweaters-women-s-clothing/-/N-5xtbx#?lnk=ct_menu_01_9&intc=1865087|null

Canonical: http://www.target.com/c/sweaters-women-s-clothing/-/N-5xtbx

Womens small blue cardigan http://www.target.com/c/sweaters-women-s-clothing/-/N-5xtbx#navigation=true&category=5xtbx&searchTerm=&view_type=large&sort_by=Featured&faceted_value=55zkqZ5y70hZ5y34v&offset=0&response_group=Items&isLeaf=true&parent_category_id=5xtcm&custom_price=false&min_price=from&max_price=to

Canonical: http://www.target.com/c/sweaters-women-s-clothing/-/N-5xtbx

IT’S LIKE A GIGANTIC DATABASE OF MASHUPS

Think about your categories and products like SyFy thinks about its movie line-up. What combinations

your customers want to see?

SOME PEOPLE AUTOMATE IT…

…by creating systems that build a

database of URLs based on product

feeds data and analytics data.

THAT’S A LITTLE OVERBOARD.

How can we do it?

4. ONSITE SEARCH

If you’re not looking at your

website’s onsite search data, this owl disapproves of your entire SEO

campaign.

If this is your first time to look at your website’s

onsite search data, brace yourselves.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Look at your site’s onsite search data.2. Use that data to determine what your

customers are looking for.3. Take all of that and build some pages

that target your customers’ needs.

5. QUICK BREAK

LET’S SEND A MESSAGE TO MATT CUTTS

HI, MATT! WE MISS YOU, BUT PLEASE TAKE AS MUCH TIME AS

YOU NEED!

6. QUICK HITS

Site Stability & Reliability

SITE STABILITY & ITS EFFECTS ON RANKINGS

Lesson: Google is fast to drop you out of the SERPs.

Site 1: Server errors for 3-4 days.

SITE STABILITY & ITS EFFECTS ON RANKINGS

Lesson: Google is fast to drop you out of the SERPs.

Site 2: Site down for 8 weeks.

YOU SEE…WEBSITES ARE KINDA LIKE FAMILIES.

LOVELY PARENTS, BEAUTIFUL KIDS, NICE HOUSE…

BUT DON’T FORGET ABOUT YOUR COUSIN.

“SH!TTER WAS FULL!”

“IT’S TIME TO CLEAN UP YOUR SH!T.” - @kerrydean

Site B

Lesson: Fix your 4xx & 5xx status codes.

XML Sitemaps

REMEMBER THESE THINGS?

Everyone takes it for granted that their sitemaps are complete, accurate, and up-to-date.

DUANE’S ADVICE

“Right, because if you start showing me 301s in here, rel=canonicals, 404 errors, all of that, I'm going to start distrusting your sitemap and I'm just not going to bother with it anymore.”- @DuaneForrester (Mar. 3, 2011)

Source: http://moz.com/blog/bings-duane-forrester-on-webmaster-tools-metrics-and-sitemap-quality-thresholds

KERRY’S XML SITEMAPS TO-DO LIST

1. Go find all of your XML sitemap file(s)2. Make sure they are listed in your robots.txt3. Crawl all of your sitemaps4. Look for any URLs that are no returning a 200

status code; fix them or remove them from the sitemap.

5. If possible, break your sitemaps into groups by products and/or categories.

6. If you can, break them into smaller batches. It makes it easier to diagnose problems.

Rel=Alternate Tags for Your International Sites

URL SPECIFICALLY FOR #WORLDCUP

Look at all those rel-alternate tags in their source code!

If you have international versions of your site, you should think about this.

I Built a Spreadsheet

CAN YOU SPOT THE ALGO UPDATES?

WAS MY SITE AFFECTED BY AN UPDATE?

3 DAYS BEFORE AND AFTER

FULL VIEW!

Using your organic visits data (from Google) will give you some ideas about the effects of

any particular algorithm update.

DO THE SAME THING WITH RANKINGS DATA.

7. NOT PROVIDED

Not Provided? Uggghhh…

“I can’t be worried about that shit. Life goes on, man.”

BEST QUOTE OF 2014

“I’m so over ‘Not Provided’.”- @Rhea

QUOTING MYSELF

“If you haven’t figured out how to move forward after

Not Provided, grab a watch -because you’re late!”

- @KerryDean

ME, TOO.

“Yeah, well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.”

Okay…so what can you do about ‘Not Provided’?

THE EASIEST THING TO DO

ORGANIC CHANNEL LANDING PAGE

COUNT THE NUMBER OF LANDING PAGES

THAT NUMBER RIGHT THERE

TREND IT & LOOK FOR NOTEABLE SHIFTS

8. SEO REPORTING

30+ KPI’Sx 3 DEVICE TYPESx 3 OPERATING SYSTEMSx 3 BROWSERSx SOME OTHER DIMENSIONS= A LOT OF REPORTS!

SO MANY REPORTS, SO MUCH TIME…RIGHT?

“Napoleon, like anyone can even know that.”

TODAY, WE HAVE TO DRILL DEEPER.

BUT SOMETIMES LOOKING FOR INSIGHTS CAN SEEM LIKE THIS.

WE HAVE TO PUT ON OUR THINKING CAPS.

SEO REPORTS ARE LIKE CATS – YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY.

WELL…UNTIL YOU BECOME THE CRAZY CAT LADY OF SEO.

“Information is powerful. But it is how we use it that will define us.” - @Avinash

#SMALLDATA

MY FAVORITE HASHTAG

1. DETERMINE WHICH KPI’s MATTER TO YOUR CLIENT.

2. DETERMINE WHICH KPI’s ACCURATELY MEASURE THE SUCCESS/FAILURE OF YOUR SEO CAMPAIGN.

3. DETERMINE WHICH KPI’s ARE ACTIONABLE.

THE GOALS OF REPORTING

THINGS YOU CAN DO WITH:

+13 more: CH,DK,FI,HK,IE,IL,MX,NL,NO,PL,SE,SG,TR

SEMRush Organic Research Positions

You can download this data by month going all the way back to Jan-2012.

DO IT!

Once you have the data, there is only one thing left to do…

TABLES!

First, add a few new columns.

What can you do with this data?

1. Ranking Trends for Keywords (Position Groups)

2. # of Keywords Ranking for a Set of Keywords

3. # of Keywords Ranking for All URLs

3. (CONT…) # of Keywords Ranking for All URLs

4. Keyword Tiers (Y/Y Comparisons)

5. Trended Keyword Tiers

6. Plot URL Ranking Data Over Actual Visits Data

1. Segment groups of URLs by:o Producto Categoryo Sub-Catso Sub-Domains

2. Filter each group by:o Brand vs Non-Brando Search Volume Tiers

The SEMRush Data Allows You To:

9. SPEED ROUND

STOP READING ABOUT SEO.

START DOING SEO.

THE BEST SEO ADVICE EVER

STOP READING SEO BLOGS.

START WRITING FOR SEO BLOGS.

STOP ENGAGING WITH OTHER PEOPLE’S CONTENT.

START CREATING YOUR OWN CONTENT.

REGARDING CONTENT:

You should look at your content the same way Uncle Jesse looked at Aunt Becky. You should love it until death.

You should love your content as much as Macho Man loved Miss Elizabeth.

HULK HOGAN SHOULD BE POINTING AT YOU!

REGARDING GOOGLE:

THIS IS WHAT THEY DO. GET USED TO IT. FIND OPPORTUNITIES IN THE CHANGES.

REGARDING YOUR CLIENTS:

I suggest you gentlemen invent a way to put a square

peg in a round hole.

“We've got to find a way to make this... fit into the hole for this... using nothing but that.”

That is SEO.

The good news is that SEO’s love a challenge.

Meet every challenge with this statement:

“I’m your Huckleberry.”

ONE LAST PIECE OF ADVICE:

THANKS!

End every presentation with a cat gif.

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