are the first things you learnt about seo still true?
TRANSCRIPT
Are the first things you learnt about SEO still true?
Sam Nemzer
Set up laptop
NBED image
Title tags should be 50-60 characters
Title tags should be 50-60 characters
https://moz.com/blog/new-title-tag-guidelines-preview-tool
Titles over 60 characters will be truncated
The data
Things change over time
Things change over time
Titles are getting longer
Why are titles getting longer?
The distribution is getting wider
Why are title lengths varying more?
2014
Titles are now breaking on whole words
It’s not about what I found
It’s about questioning received ideas
3 SEO “facts” we take for granted
1. GA gives you accurate user data
2. Rank tracking tools will tell you your rankings for given keywords
3. Google is smart enough to do your legwork for you
1. GA gives you accurate user data
2. Rank tracking tools will tell you your rankings for given keywords
3. Google is smart enough to do your legwork for you
A user is not a user
A session is not a session
Your traffic might not actually be from your website
https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/adblockreport/
Adblock is killing your analytics data
Solution:
Corroborate with another data source(Server log-based analytics)
1. GA gives you accurate user data
2. Rank tracking tools will tell you your rankings for given keywords
3. Google is smart enough to do your legwork for you
Exact agreement 19% of the time
Average difference 5.3 positions
Exact agreement 21% of the time
Average difference 6.9 positions
Exact agreement 22% of the time
Average difference 4.5 positions
Rank Tracking does serve a purpose
Useful for tracking trends over time and aggregate, top-level data
Just don’t read too much into the specifics
Corroborate with multiple sources where possible
1. GA gives you accurate user data
2. Rank tracking tools will tell you your rankings for given keywords
3. Google is smart enough to do your legwork for you
We used to think that we need to optimise a page for every possible
keyword
Now we think that exact keywords don’t matter - Google will work things out…
I did some research...
dis.tl/keyword-synonyms
10 sets of 10 close synonym keywords
I did some research...
dis.tl/keyword-synonyms
10 sets of 10 close synonym keywords
On average only 60% of results are shared between top 10 results
Not the solution:
Stuff your page with every possible variation of a keyword
The solution:
Understand the subtle differences in intent between variations, and make your
pages satisfy that intent
Honesty time:
Most of what I found out will be wrong or irrelevant in 6 months
It’s not about what I learnt.
It’s about encouraging you to do it for yourself.
Thanks