search ranking factors trends 2011 semstandard
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Social Media signals are rising in importance.TRANSCRIPT
On Beyond SERPsSearch Trends: 2011
Gillian Muessig, President & Co-founder, SEOmoz
March 2011
22 million in Poland are online NOW
• 23% bought something online Q1 2009
• 40% Polish Internet retailers suffered NO downturn in 2009
http://www.internetworldstats.com/eu/pl.htm
Global Share of Searches
Click-Through Rates
http://www.seomad.com/SEOBlog/google-organic-click-through-rate-ctr.html
Today’s Menu
• SEO Becomes Inbound Marketing• Ranking Factor Changes• Mobile Marketing• Content• All About Links• Reputation Management
It Used to be So Simple
In the Old Days
Customer Service
1. It was a counter or a desk2. And if a customer wasn’t happy,
maybe 100 people heard about it
Then the Internet Showed Up
And Things Got More ComplicatedWe have a whole new universe, unfettered by the laws of time and space. We have the opportunity to populate that universe. I take that opportunity as an obligation.
Rand Fishkin, 1997
Traditional SEO vs PPC
Organic vs. Paid Search
Organic
Paid
Organic vs. Paid Spend
92% of Clicks
8% of Clicks
Inbound Marketing
Working in the Marketing Cloud
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-rich-get-richer-true-in-seo-social-all-organic-marketing
Blogs + Blogging
Comment Marketing
News/Media/PRSEO
Social Networks
Word of Mouth
Q+A Sites
Forums
Online Video
Podcasting
Webinars
Research/White Papers
Infographics
Social Bookmarking
INBOUND MARKETING!(AKA “free” traffic sources)
Direct/Referring Links
Type-In Traffic
Our only marketing expense? Flights + hotels for conferences/eventsMore at http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-history-of-seomoz
How’d You Do That?
Inbound Marketing
A Blog We Update Every Day
“Viral” Targeted Content
http://guides.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-search-engine-optimization
“Viral” Targeted Content
http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors
Great Graphics DO Count!
http://www.seomoz.org/seo-industry-survey
Hot Graphics + Illustrations
Build it and they’ll come?
Nope. Build it, then market it.
Comment Generously
http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.htmlhttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/recommendations-blog-commenting-marketing-strategy
“Skip” the Competitive SERPs
Vertical Search
Local Results
Image Results in SERPs
Video Results
News & Blog Results
Shopping Results
Instant Answers
Leverage the QDF Algorithm
Watch the actual commercial at: http://www.hulu.com/adzone2011#50120562
Social Signals
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-do-tweets-influence-search-rankings-an-experiment-for-a-cause
Page A646 links from 36 root domains
2 tweets
Page B1 link from 1 root domain
522 tweets
Increasingly Important
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-do-tweets-influence-search-rankings-an-experiment-for-a-cause
Page A646 links from 36 root domains
2 tweets
Page B1 link from 1 root domain
522 tweets
Page B – the tweeted version –
ranks #1!
Social Networks
Data and charts of our Facebook and Twitter account performance via http://export.ly
Social News / Bookmarking
http://news.ycombinator.com, http://delicious.com, http://stumbleupon.com and http://reddit.com have historically performed best for us, but you should test results
Q+A Sites / Forums
Involve a Sharing-Incented Community
The brilliant strategy by http://www.urbanspoon.com made them one of the biggest players in the local restaurant business and got them acquired by IAC
Conferences + Events
Email Marketing
We use/love http://www.mailchimp.com (who now has a cool free option for early stage folks)
SEO
Competitive Research
Sort of a shameless plug, but http://www.opensiteexplorer.org is the best way to do this
Build Your Community
Build Your Own Social Community
http://mashable.com/2010/11/15/biggest-facebook-brands/
but…!
The BIG But
• Those are big brands• My message isn’t simple• My target market is old fashioned• My case is complicated… it’s special
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-do-tweets-influence-search-rankings-an-experiment-for-a-cause
Yup. Everybody’s Doing It
The Vatican Gets It
http://www.inquisitr.com/58739/pope-urges-priests-to-embrace-social-media-start-blogging/
“That interactivity — and the potential it brings to the church's evangelization mission — is behind the Vatican's new social media push, the culmination of which will be launched at Easter with a new… Vatican information web portal whose contents are specifically designed to be tweeted, posted and blogged.”
The Vatican Gets It
Yahoo News, Dec 2010
“What we found is Facebook doesn’t just share information, it creates community,”
“People begin talking to each other and sharing ideas.”
Monseignor Paul Tighe
Community Dictates Your
Business Strategy
Way Beyond Focus Groups
• What goes into triage now• What to improve• Better pricing models• What features to add• What to clarify • How to package your products• Change or improve your USP
Changes in the Link Ranking Factors
Algorithmic Ranking FactorsComponents of Google’s Ranking Algo
Crawl & Index
Without links, the engines might never
find this page
Links Are Still Crucial
MMM… LINK GRAPHS ARE DELICIOUS!
Many Domains vs. One Domain
VS.
Query-Independent Metrics
Via www.opensiteexplorer.org
Domain Authority
The Concept of TrustRank
Just Say No!
Google: We Use PageRank to Crawl
Choose Something Important to Track
• Key Performance Indicators• Follow the cash backwards• Keep an eye on the competition• Know your playing field
Short Tail/Long Tail Search Stats
Short Tail/Long Tail Conversion Stats
The Search Demand Curve
Choose what you REALLY want to rank #1 for now.
We’re super-connected
US mobile ad spend - http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/but only 21% of the global mobile ad market – and Apple is making headway
97% of US Mobile Ad-share
12
ATT Speaks Out
ATT economist and business landscape forecaster
Massive Increase In Data Usage
Observations - • Primarily Internet based activities
movies/YouTube• Sucks down cellular bandwidth
Response - • AT&T ended unlimited data plans
What It Really Means
• People are using smartphones in much the same way as PC’s
• Smart phones are becoming our PC
ATT economist and business landscape forecaster
Smartphones Replace CellsObservations – • With each new technology, the time
between introduction and near-ubiquitous adaptation shortens significantly.
Prediction – • We are only a few years from
near total replacement of cell phones with smartphones.”
ATT economist and business landscape forecaster
Mobile is Eating the Desktop
Observations -• Q4 2010 worldwide smartphones sales
exceeded 100 million• Exceeded the sales of PC’s for the first time• Oil exceeded $100USD per barrel, production
is steady and prices will increase
ATT economist and business landscape forecaster
Implications for Mobile Market
Predictions - • Mobile sales will near a peak in a few years
followed by slower steady growth as older smartphones are replaced
• Smartphone applications will continue to explode for many years
ATT economist and business landscape forecaster
Implications for Mobile Market
Predictions - • As we become more familiar with
smartphones, internet sales from smartphones will grow rapidly, partially replacing PC Internet sales
• All internet sales will increase as travel becomes more costly
ATT economist and business landscape forecaster
How do I begin thinking about mobile marketing?
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-rich-get-richer-true-in-seo-social-all-organic-marketing
Blogs + Blogging
Comment Marketing
News/Media/PRSEO
Social Networks
Word of Mouth
Q+A Sites
Forums
Online Video
Podcasting
Webinars
Research/White Papers
Infographics
Social Bookmarking
INBOUND MARKETING!(AKA “free” traffic sources)
Direct/Referring Links
Type-In Traffic
http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/report-google-controls-97-of-mobile-paid-search-13632/
Think Anytime, Anywhere
Think Small
The Xun Chi 138, The World’s Smallest Camera Phone
And Not So Small
Apple iPad II
Think Fast
How much info can you consume before the light turns?
Think Hyper-Local
• News• Services• Vendors
• Icons• Maps• Suggested search
Think High Conversions
http://searchengineland.com/yelp-35-percent-of-searches-mobile-now-63518
• Deeper engagement by mobile users vs. PC users has been confirmed again and again by Google, Microsoft and Facebook in their statements about mobile usage
• In many contexts conversions are higher and leads are better because of the greater intent or needs of mobile users
Think Sticky
TrafficWeatherPricing/discountsAvailabilityEventsFriend locatorsGaming
Think Sticky
H&R Block helps taxpayers track their Income Tax Refunds in progress
http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/
Think Hyper-Niche
http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/
Top 10 Produce’s app Locale, traces strawberries to independent growers by scanning package bar codes with mobile devices
Think (Sponsored) Games
• Digital test drive an Audi via mobile game
Luxury Daily Today
Game Mechanics
Points & Levels
Match Apps w/Consumers
• Leverage rich customer and contextual intelligence
• Remove barriers to download and use• Make content recommendations
based on interests and the context when they are most receptive
Time & Place
• Know when your customer leaves work
• Geo-locate them• Promote a local
• Happy hour• Restaurant• Coffee Shop• Sale
http://www.corbisimages.com/Enlargement/42-17251464.html
It’s About Relevance
What’s new in Content?
Recent Changes
Panda/Farmer Update
• The Panda/Farmer Update has decreased the power of exact match domains
• Decreased the value of low-quality links, thereby increasing the importance of Domain Trust
• Slammed link farms, paid links, and low content/low value pages
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/link-anatomy-understanding-the-value-of-a-link
Topic Modeling
Topic models provide a simple way to analyze large volumes of unlabeled text.
Topic Modeling
A "topic" consists of a cluster of words that frequently occur together.
Topic ModelingUsing contextual clues, topic models can connect words with similar meanings and distinguish between uses of words with multiple meanings.
http://www.stanford.edu/~kaisa/research.html
Topic Modeling
Why Engines Need Topic Modeling
Term Frequency & Inverse Document Frequency
Co-Occurrence
Topic Modeling
Topic Modeling
Content-related signals require the ability to determine INTENT
Rock or baseball?Are you SURE?
Content Related Signals
Simplistic Term Vector Model
Correlations Are Strong
Causation vs Correlation
Perhaps, good links are more likely to point to pages that are more "relevant" via a topic model
Maybe there’s another aspect of Google's algorithm we don't yet understand
LDA Tool in the SEOmoz Labs
www.seomoz.org/labs/lda
URL input box
It’s All Relative
•Don't presume that getting a 15% or a 20% is a terrible result
•Some queries simply won't produce results that fit remarkably well with given topics
Out of the SERPs!
Keyword spamming might improve your LDA score, …but not your rankings
There’s Still Lots of Work to Do
•Correlations are good, but don’t get carried away
•There is a tool to help grade & improve page content
•YOUR in-field results will tell us whether it can really help improve rankings
Read more at:http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lda-and-googles-rankings-well-correlated
Reputation Management
The Gatekeepers
The Gatekeepers
The Size of Your Reputation
Something untrue is posted to Wikipedia
Journalist uses Wikipedia as factual resource
Powerful newspaper posts the untrue content
Wikipedia uses/references powerful newspaper
You’re screwed!
Wiki Circularity*
*Coined by Tom Critchlow
Black Hats Can Hurt You!
• They build black hat links to your page(s)• Report the bad links• When your site is down and the page is
returning an error message, they request its remove the page (lasts ~6 mnths)!!
SERP Strategy – Own them
• Sub-domains / new domains• Professional Affiliations• Local• Shopping• Hosted content:
• Profile pages / twitter• Video* / Images
*Turn off comments on YouTube Videos
Tactics: Keyword Research
Target• Brand + scam, con, hoax, etc.• Long tail• Related issues / news
Tactics: Content Development
Top Rankers - • Video content• Local listings / content• Timely content (news-related)• Social media content
Redress Strategy: Fight Back
Legal options - • Libel / slander• Copyright infringement• DMCA
Redress Strategy: Fight Back
Look at all costs - • Lost sales, referrals, existing customers
vs.• Attorney fees & staff costs• Loss of focus
Redress Strategy: Turn Tables
• Repeat the offending phrase used and turn the tables -
XYZ Corp warns about scam website ABC.comABC.com website reports: XYZ Corp scam!
Direct Response Strategy
• Monitor your brand• Respond instantly• Own your errors; solve problems• Let your community manage trolls
monitor assess decide engage review
Social RM Strategy: Engage
Pro-Active Strategy
• Develop a culture of transparency• Build community around your brand• Empower your power members
JC Penney: A Cautionary Tale
• What happened?• Can it happen to you?• Is YOUR SEO team certified?• What are the ramifications?
Thank You!
Try SEOmoz PRO free for 45 days
Use the code: SEMstandard2011
[email protected] | @SEOmom | www.seomoz.org
Q+A
Gillian MuessigPresident & Co-Founder SEOmozCEO Coach, WebmasterRadio.fm
• Twitter: @SEOmom
• Blog: www.seomoz.org/blog
• Email: [email protected]