Workshop: Introduction of SEO for Rockaway
Prague – 2nd April, 2015
Matthäus Michalik has over 6 years of business experience in online marketing
• Working for AKM3 for 3,5 years
• Senior SEO Consultant
• Ex-teamlead linkmarketinginternational
• Key account management
• Technical and strategic search engine optimization
• App store optimization
• Previous positions:
• Hitmeister – Online market place
• SoQuero – Performance agency from Franfurt
• Speaker on national and international conferences
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AKM3 Consists of 130+ International Employees with a lot of Online Marketing Experience
Founded: 2009
Clients: from startups to big firms and corporate enterprises
Approach: Internationality, Sustainability, Transparency
Member of Publicis/Performicssince 2014
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We are not „only“ a search and content marketing agency but also a cigar retailer
• Strategic approach choosing the product to be sold
• Own financing – ROI oriented
• Two brands: Noblego and Cigarmaxx
• Complementing magazine: zigarren.org
• Preview: niche shops
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Agenda
• Classification of SEO in the online marketing mix
• Strategic questions in SEO
• Classification of onpage factors
• Onpage factors
• Classification of offpage factors
• SEO-KPIs
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Classification of SEO in the Online Marketing Mix
• SEO vs. other (online) marketingchannels
• SEO as online marketing channel
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Online Marketing: Channels and orthogonal disciplines
Website of the advertiser
Online Marketing
Online marketing channels for acquisition of clients: SEO, SEA, Display, SMA, Affiliate,
PSM, …
Orthogonal online marketing disciplines: CRM (eMail and SMO), CRO, Web analysis,
Business Intelligence
„Working with clients on the website“
„Winning website visitors as potential
clients“
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Integration of Channels – SEO has a Special Standing
On theadvertising platform CPX
With the advertiser TKP
Shared PPC
SEAPSM
AffiliateWhite-label
SMA
eMail Display
Perform.Display
RatherLow
Rather High
“Risk” of advertising
Wastage
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Applicability of the Marketing Channels
Applicability of the channel
With few business models With many business models
SEAPSM AffiliateWhite-label
eMail SEO
SMADisplay
Performance Display
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Features of Marketing Channels vs. SEO
Not so good Very good
Other online
marketingSEO
Transparency of effect
Sustainably managed marketing investments
Traffic ratio in relation to company size
Proximity of time between measure & effect
Cost-Benefit (=Traffic) development
Features
OM channels
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1. Brand starts communication
2. Success: Client responds
2. Success: Brands respond
1. Client searches
Classic Brand Communication
Communication in the pull channel search
Classic Brand Communication vs. Communication with Search: Common „misunderstandings“
Potential critical issues
• Brand is not visible everywhere
• Brand induces expensive searches, but cannot be found
• Visible, but ranks badly
• Visible, but unlikely to be clicked, because of bad Titles & Descriptions
• Visible, but with wrong landing page
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Search Marketing: The Full Power of Pull!
• Unique chance to communicate with litte wastage
• Classic brand communication indicates searches – but who isgetting the leads?
• Communication rules come from user and search engine and not from brand
• Budgeting: Brand communication: Top-down and campaignbased search: Bottom-up and demand oriented
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Differences between SEA and SEO
SEOSearch EngineOptimization
SEASearch Engine
Advertising
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SEA key facts
SEA
• Format: Text links based on search requests (Keywords)
• Advantage: high outreach, full control (freely scalable), fast!
• Challenge: dominance of Google, direct-competitive pricing
• Billing: CPC
Key success factors SEA
• Keyword research
• Account structures
• Quality score
• Testing
• Optimization
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SEO key facts
SEO
• Format: Text links in the “organic area”
• Advantage: (seemingly) free, different cost-benefit development
• Challenge: complex!, Google does not want to be manipulated, latency
• Billing: hardly any variable costs
• Market: DIY Tools, agencies, advisors ...
Key success factors SEO
• This workshop!
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SEO has many disadvantages
• Google‘s Algorithm = unknown + keeps changing
• Competitive environment? Successdeterministically impossible withouttouching the limits (not legally) defined byGoogle – danger of„penalties“
• Latency & no transparency of effect
• Very high complexity with longtail-topics andexperience rare
• Internationalisation difficult
• Big companies sometimes have little traffic
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Advantages of SEO: „Few but WOW!“
• By far the cheapest channel –can be as cheap and abundant, so that even other channels maybe cross-subsidised
• By far the most sustainablechannel
• Potential for differentiation
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Influence Factors for Ranking Development
Development ofsearch engines
Own SEO effortsSEO of
competitors
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There are many reasons for the plurality of searchengine results
Reasons for the pluralityof search engine results
Through web offers Through Google
• New competitors• SEO progress of
existing competitors• SEO mistakes made
by competitors
• Updates• Pentalties• Experiments• New kinds of search
results/ presentations• Google Suggest
Through Searchers
• Search as one ofmany succeedingsearch steps
• Place• Gadget• Search history
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Before we approach SEO
We must understand the user!!
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The AIDA Model
Ph
ases
be
fore
the
de
cision
tob
uy
Action
Desire
Interest
Attention
Conversion losses: People who do not reach the phase afterwards
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Search types in the AIDA Model
Searchtypes
Informational searches Transactional searches
Navigational searches
Attention Interest Desire ActionBuyingprocess
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Goals of the AIDA Model
Attention Interest Desire ActionBuyingprocess
Goals
Image & Branding
Traffic & Impressions
Conversions
Creating Demand
Covering DemandDemand
Search types
Informational searches Transactional searches
Navigational searches
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SEO is applicable in the entire AIDA Model
Attention Interest Desire ActionBuyingprocess
Creating demand
Covering demandDemand
Goals
Image & Branding
Traffic & Impressions
Conversions
ChannelsSEA / PSM
SEO
Affiliate / Perform. Display / SMA
Display / eMail
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Agenda
1. Classification of SEO in the online marketing mix
2. Strategic questions in SEO
3. Classification of onpage factors
4. Onpage factors
5. Classification of offpage factors
6. SEO KPIs
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Strategic questions in SEO
• Classification
• Make-or-Buy andstakeholders
• Keyword strategy
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6 types of SEOs can be distinguished as their tasks differ significantly
How big is the team?
small
medium to large
Optimisation – for what?
Websites of the employer
Own Websites Websites of the client
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Classification of SEO disciplines
SEO
Onpage
Offpage
“Strategic”
Content
Links
Social Signals
Keywords
Informationstructures
Technology
Semantics
KPIs / Reporting
Process-oriented
Project-oriented
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Relevance of different SEO areas for different business models
• Types of business models on the internet
• Reach-oriented, e.g. Bild.de or Welt.de
Often rich in Content & Links, but info structures (and keywords) are a challenge
• Transaction-oriented, e.g. Zalando.de or Noblego.de
Content and Links are biggest challenge
• Subscription, e.g. eDarling.de
from SEO perspective similar to transaction-oriented businessmodels
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B2B vs B2C
• Often smaller target group
• Target group basically knows itsdemand
• Target group can be adressed via informational content and brandpresentation
• Impulse buying unlikely, longdecision-making process
• Search and buy behaviourdepends on product
• Broad target group
• Impulse buying more likely
B2B - Website B2C - Website
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Revenue
Biggestloss
BreakevenPoint I
Biggestprofit
BreakevenPoint II
Effort
Profit
Revenue
Costs
Marginal costs
Overheads
Overheads
The Pareto-Principle is also applicable in SEO – overoptimising is inefficient!
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What to consider when cooperating?
Cooperation between inhouseSEO team and agency
Company-basedcritieria
SEO-based critieria
• Company size• Lifecycle• Budget• Internal focus
• Offpage vs. Onpage• Unique vs. continual• Processes in SEO
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Stakeholders in SEO
Stakeholders
• Management
• Marketing
• Technique
• Editorial
• Distribution / Purchase
• Product management
Challenges
• Minimisation of barriersat implementation
• Implementation via SEO and management
• Marginal costs / opportunity costs ofoptimisation
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Criteria when distinguishing keywords
Keyword types
Defend & Conquerkeywords
Informational, transactional and
navigational keywords
Shorthead, mid andlongtail keywods
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The keyword set consists of defend and conquerkeywords
Defend Conquer
Type of KW
Availability
Goal
Example
NavigationalInformationalTransactional
Rather simple Rather difficult
Securing brandequity
Winning newvisitors
Slogans, brands & own products
Generic keywords
Necessity Compulsory Freestyle
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How it should not be
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And should neither be
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And neither like this
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Shorthead and Longtail
28%
33%
20%
10%
5% 5%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
1 Keyword 2 Keywords 3 Keywords 4 Keywords 5 Keywords Mehr als 5Keywords
Number of keywords per search query
More than5 Keywords
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Search behaviour depends on business model
Sear
ch v
olu
me
per
key
wo
rd
Number of keywordsPublishing website
with much user-generated content
e.g. forums or smallads -> extremely
longtail
Online shop ortravel portal„Centre“ very
strongly markedand attractive
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Informational, transactional and navigational searchqueries
• Navigational Keywords (33%) – Defend keywords– Typical searches: Brand Embassy, Brand Embassy Tool
– The user specifically searches for a page and expects only one matching result
• Informational Keywords (33%) – Conquer keywords– Typical searches: „How to satisfy Customers on Facebook“; „What is
social customer care“
– User expects a response to the query
• Transactional Keywords (33%) – Conquer keywords – Typical Searches: “Social Customer Care Tool"; “Social Media
Management Tool"
– Very specific searches, users intend to carry out a specific action
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Informational, transactional and navigational searchqueries
Transactional
Informational Navigational
Transactional + Navigational„Sign up Brand Embassy“
Transactional + informational„Which Social Customer Care ist the best?“
Navigational + Informational„Social Customer Care Software“
Possibly a confused searcher!
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The Keyword Strategy
• Long term definition of chance and potential
• Examination of own product or service
• Long term orientation in search marketing
• Can be changed, but the „cornerstones“ of the keyword strategy have tobe determined in the strategic planning phase
• Should be repeated within the project phases
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Process towards the keyword strategy
Status Quo Analysis
Keyword Research•Brainstorming• Keyword
Planner•Google
Suggest• Synonyms• Competitor
analysis
Data collection• Search volume• Conversion
proximity• Competition• No
misunderstandings
• Currentpositions
Fixing keywordprioritisation
Keyword Strategy
Keyword Mapping
Keyword based URL basedNumber ofkeywords
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Factors for keyword selection
Factors for keywordselection
Provider-based and targetgroup-based factors
Competitor-based factors
• Different uses of language• Current rankings• Affiliation of the keyword to
specific phase of action• Existence of contents /
respective effort to create it• Transactional vs.
informational vs. navigational
• Type of intended transaction• Budget & time span
• Quality of SEO strategiesof competing websites
• Keyword strategy ofcompeting websites
• Competition throughGoogle e.g. via AdWords, Universal Search orKnowledge Graph
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Where do users click in the SERPs?
18.20%
10.05%
7.22%
4.81%
3.09%2.78%
1.88%1.75%
1.52%
1.04%
0,00%
2,00%
4,00%
6,00%
8,00%
10,00%
12,00%
14,00%
16,00%
18,00%
20,00%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Click rate (CTR) depending on SERP position
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Example keyword research phase: data collection / analysis of potential
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Search volume data from the Google Keyword tool isreliable (customer exhamlpe)
Keyword Suchvolumen KT Suchvolumen SEA
keyword2 27100 21182 78,16%
keyword3 27100 22610 83,43%
keyword4 14800 11268 76,14%
keyword5 14800 15457 104,44%
keyword6 12100 12722 105,14%
keyword7 9900 9427 95,22%
keyword8 6600 5285 80,08%
keyword9 6600 2266 34,33%
keyword10 6600 7679 116,35%
keyword11 6600 6174 93,55%
keyword12 5400 6904 127,85%
keyword13 4400 4217 95,84%
keyword14 4400 3879 88,16%
keyword15 4400 4339 98,61%
keyword16 4400 1459 33,16%
keyword17 2900 2484 85,66%
keyword18 2900 2741 94,52%
keyword19 2400 1101 45,88%
keyword20 2400 2544 106,00%
keyword21 2400 3248 135,33%
keyword22 2400 2181 90,88%
keyword23 2400 3255 135,63%
keyword24 2400 1535 63,96%
keyword25 2400 161 6,71%
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Agenda
1. Classification of SEO in the online marketing mix
2. Strategic questions in SEO
3. Classification of onpage factors
4. Onpage factors
5. Classification of offpage factors
6. SEO KPIs
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Classification of onpage factors
• Introduction of factors
• Requirements
• Frequency of optimisation
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Classification of SEO disciplines
SEO
Onpage
Offpage
“Strategic”
Content
Links
Social Signals
Keywords
Informationstructures
Technology
Semantics
KPIs / Reporting
Process-oriented
Project-oriented
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SEO Effort and costs over time
Effort / costs
Strategy
Tech.
Content
Offpage
Time
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SEO Workflow and their focus areas
Keyword potentials &
Strategy
Technical & content
optimisation
Creation ofContent &
Landing pages
Link & Content Marketing
KPI – Reporting and Project management
• Keyword strategy• Determination of
potentials• Traffic prognosis
• Foundation of all measures
• Interlocking ofOn and Offpage
• Scaling• Process optimisation• Inhouse or agency
• Other contentsnecessary
• Inhouse oragency
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SEO take place on three different levels – each level has to be optimized within itself as well as in an integrated way
Domain level, e.g. robots.txt
Template level, e.g. all category pages
Single page level, e.g. manual internal in content links
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Requirements
SEO Content Technical SEO Organisational requirements
• Speaking URLs• Snippet Optimisation• Text Upload• Multimedia elements• Internal links• Headlines
• Insertion of SEO tags• Redirects• Canonical• URL Canonisation• Solution for non-existent
sites• Sitemap• Parameter
• Technical Resources• Budget• Time of implementation
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Frequency of factor optimisation
Technical optimisation
Content optimisation
Keyword research
Creation of content
Site structure
Rare optimisationContinuous optimisation
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Agenda
1. Classification of SEO in the online marketing mix
2. Strategic questions in SEO
3. Classification of onpage factors
4. Onpage factors
5. Classification of offpage factors
6. SEO KPIs
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Since the 2011 quality initiative by Google in several significant updates
Panda (Content)
2011
Penguin
(Links)
2012/2013
Hummingbird
(KnowledgeGraph)
2013
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MOZ ranking factors case study 2013
Source: http://moz.com/search-ranking-factors
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Searchmetrics ranking factors case study 2014
Source: http://www.searchmetrics.com/en/knowledge-base/ranking-factors/
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SEO: Main onpage ranking factors
Over 200 different ranking factors influence the ranking of a page:
• 1. Technical aspects: Informational Structure, Internal Linking, Indexing Management, Page Speed
• 2. Keywords: Know your target group and know your keywords
• 3. Content: Provide the best content you can
• 4. Links: Quantity and quality of the backlink profile
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Areas of influence within onpage optimisation
Site structure: Single URL
Information architecture: Relation between different URLs
Crawling and indexmanagement: Control of the entire domain
Site architecture: Structure of thewebsite
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Onpage Factors
1. Crawling
2. Indexing
3. Site architecture
4. Content
5. Snippet optimisation
Technical SEO Workshop
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Requirements for SEO
Requirements for efficient and good SEO rankings
Crawling Indexing Ranking
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Crawling & indexing
Crawling:
• Relevant (attention: not only ranking relevant) pages should be linkedinternally
• A clear emphasis is necessary
Indexing:
• Only pages which are relevant for the user should be indexed
• Make sure that only unique pages are indexed
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The index onion
Longtail pagesmight have to block pages via robots.txt in order to focuscrawling
Noindex! Important for internal links but not for the SERPs
SEO-“valuable” content/ number of pages
Noindex + Canonical: in case the pagetype attractsnatural links
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Pages are relevant either for the visitor of the page, orfor SEO, or for both
Pages importantfor user but not for SEO Noindex User SEO
Pages, additionallygenerated forSEO purposesMust bevaluable for usertoo and shouldbe internallylinked well with„user pages“
Long tail: Can be used for SEO, too. Often as secondstep. Initially perhaps: NOindex
Short head: the easiest optimisation
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Onpage factors – site architecture
• It is easier for Google to crawl cleanly structured pages:
• Definition of site types
• Clear hierarchy of site types
• The internal and external link power can be distributed more effectively
• Firstly, all existing page types should be defined/categorised, e.g.:
• Homepage
• Category pages
• Product pages
• Blog Posts
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InternalLink
In SEO three different kinds of links can be distinguished: Focus here Internal links
ExternalinboundLink
Link to(Linktarget)
Link from (Linksource)
Own Website Other Website
OwnWebsite
OtherWebsite
ExternaloutboundLink
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Site architecture – the structure of the site is decisive
The ideal site architecture:
IdealTop-down-linking
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Homepage
A
B
D
C
Homepage
A B DC
Deep vs. plane page architecure
Benefits:• No long click-paths• Crawling• Indexing• Link flow
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Different types of keywords and search queries
Attention Interest Desire ActionBuyingprocess
Goals
Image & Branding
Traffic & Impressions
Conversions
Creating Demand
Covering DemandDemand
Search types
Informational searches Transactional searches
Navigational searches
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Google Hummingbird update – September 2013
• Biggest Update since 2010
• Influenced 90% of all searches
• Google understands questions and tries to answer them directly
• Google can recognize and process synonyms
• Introduction of knowledge graph
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Google answers directly to specific questions
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Google answers directly to specific questions
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Google understands synonyms
Query: Internetseite erstellen Query: Homepage erstellen
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Onpage factors - Content Creation
• The most important pages should be filled with content
• The content length must always depend upon the competition
• No over optimisation – write for the user, not for the search engine
• Keyword variation
• No hidden text or folding text
• Interactive elements such as video, images, lists
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Content Editing
Uniqueness
Relevance
Pure ContentRevaluationof Content
Embedding of Content
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Text Content
Quantity
User friendliness
PureContent
Expression/Variety
Keyword
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Revaluation of Content
HTML-Tags
Images
Revaluation
InternalLinks
Videos
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Use of keywords within the content
• Keywords in the content – Use keywords and keyword combinations in the text – Use keywords in the headlines
• Keywords in pictures – The ALT attribute of images should contain the keyword or
a keyword combination – The images are "keyword.gif" or named "keyword.jpg"
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"The perfect SEO page"
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83Workshop: Introduction of SEO for Rockaway
h1- headline
Keyword optimized content
HTML elements for SEO
• <p> - Paragraph
• <h1> - Headline
• <h2> - Subheadline
• Lists:
– <ul> unordered list
– <ol> ordered list
– <li> - list item
• <b> - bold
• <i> - italic
• <table> - Table
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Multimedia elements for SEO
• Images, Graphics
– File name
– ALT-Tag
– Image Title
• Videos
– Video Markup
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Titles & Descriptions are an important factor in gaininga good CTR within the SERPs
The snippet consists of three elements: • The title, which is shown in blue (title) • The URL that is displayed in green • The description text (meta description)
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Optimizing Titles & Descriptions
• Optimization of Titles:
– The titles must be unique
– The most important optimizing keyword combination / the most important keyword should be placed at the beginning of the title
– The titles should be short and descriptive
• Optimization of Meta Description:
– The meta description must be unique
– Within the description the most important keyword combinations should be used, so that they are highlighted in bold in the SERPs. Therefore the relevance of the keyword is pointed out (CTR optimization)
– The most important keyword combinations should be placed at the beginning
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Summary Rich-Snippets
• Summary:
– Enrich the Snippets and have been introduced in 2009
– Are shown at Google, Yahoo and Bing
– Use of micro formats (also in WMTs) possible
– Penalty for false terms
– Authorship only when logged in
• Google guidlines:
– Google decides
– Varies according to queries
– Deliver as many information as possible
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Schema.org – Structured data markup
Schema.org helps search engines to understand information and content better.
Examples:
– standalone Restaurant with a menu
– store with holiday opening hours
– pharmacy with opening hours and a contact phone number
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Schema.org – Structured data markup
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Snippets: Good Examples
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Snippets: Bad Example
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Google Panda algorithm updates
• First Iteration: 11.04.2011 (DE)
• Last update iteration: Friday, 26.09. –Panda 4.1
• Focus:
– Duplicate content
– Poor/Thin content
– Bad user metrics:
• Bounce rate
• Average time on site
• Page impressions
– Too much advertising on page
• Panda victims:
– address directories, price comparisons, content farms, thin affiliates
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It’s about Authority rather than Absolute Accuracy
• When Google started: Not enough content Finding Phase
• Later: Highly accurate content is better Better basis for thin afilliates and content farms
• Post-Panda: Authority more important than precise “technically crafted” / target group specific content
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Core Point: Do User Metrics Better
Important:
• CTR in SERPs
• Bounce Rates
• Average time spent on page
Focus on user & design
• Metrics are always relative to competitors in the SERPs. Not absolute.
• Google’s logic must be based on metrics that are accessible to any web page – thus they become valid parameters
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Correlation vs. Causality
• It’s not about “likes”, “+1s” and “Tweets”
• It’s not about the discrimination of webmasters who make extensive use of AdSense or other ads It degrades the above mentioned user metrics
• “Trust-ability” of a website is not measurable affects the above mentioned metrics
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It Needs User oriented Standards
• Improve readability
• Content on the upper two thirds of a website should be user oriented
• Navigation and internal links should be “appealing to click”
• Framed advertising is not readable content
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It Takes Technical Standards
Variations within the HTML!
• Not always 200 words from a cheap copywriter + H1 + H2
• A major investment in
• a) Better designations +
• b) Stronger multimedia content Trends!
• “longtail” pages: Content on multiple domains / Subdomains
• Unclear: De-indexing of pages without organic traffic
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Agenda
1. Classification of SEO in the online marketing mix
2. Strategic questions in SEO
3. Classification of onpage factors
4. Onpage factors
5. Classification of offpage factors
6. SEO-KPIs
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InternalLink
In SEO three different kinds of links can be distinguished: Focus here External inbound links
ExternalinboundLink
Link to(Linktarget)
Link from (Linksource)
Own Website Other Website
OwnWebsite
OtherWebsite
ExternaloutboundLink
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Links can be evaluated from several perspectives regarding lot of different characteristics
Elements of link evaluation
Characteristics of the domain
Characteristics of the link
Characteristics of the URL including
the link
• Domain popularity
• Trust• Content volume• Content
development
Example• Number of other
external links• Internal linking of
the URL within the domain
• Traffic of the URL
• Anchor text• Linktarget• Positioning, e.g.
footer vs. above the fold
• Title-attribute
Perspective
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Integration of multimedia content
Integration of expert comments
Interviews with management
Etc.
Google Update „Penguin“
Linkbuildingbefore 2012
Penguin 1.0
April 2012
Penguin 2.0
Mai 2013
Penguin 3.0
Q4 2014
InContent LinksArticle directoriesSocial BookmarksForumsCommentsBlogrollFooterlinksLinks in iFramesQ&A SitesPress directoriesGuest articlesAdvertorials
Incontent LinksForumsQ&A Sites
Online PR – Link integration
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Misbehavior in link marketing can lead to penalties
Offpage-Penalty
Manual Action Algorithmic Penalty /Penguin
• „blue“ letters in the WMTs• Temporary penalties• Recon possible
• Irregular iteration• Identification often difficult
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Content Marketing: SEO, PR and Marketing are becoming one
SEO
Onpage
Offpage
Strategy /technology
Content
Links
Social Signals
Content Marketing
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Content marketing is an integral part of SEO
Domain quality
Text quality
Link integration
Offpage-SEO
Brand SEO-Factor
PR
User expectations
Branding
Content optimization
Content quality
User experience
Onpage-SEO
Social Signals
Viral campaigns
Branding /Seeding
Social
Convergence of channels
Content Marketing as a link between the disciplines
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A high-quality content marketing campaign extends over several phases
• Collect and evaluate ideas
• Ideas transferable to other countries
• The production may happen via an external service provider or with the help of an in-house team
Production
• An essential part of the content marketing campaign
• The phase with the largest expense & investment
Seeding
• Includes all the objectives defined
• Traffic, Social signal backlinks
ReportingIdea Generation
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Agenda
1. Classification of SEO in the online marketing mix
2. Strategic questions in SEO
3. Classification of onpage factors
4. Onpage factors
5. Classification of offpage factors
6. SEO-KPIs
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KPIs
• Integration
• Business KPIs
• Onpage KPIs
• Offpage KPIs
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What to consider before using KPI-Models?
• Cycles of data collection
• Point in time vs. Course of time -observation
• Abstraction forms in relation tohierarchy
• Consideration of extraordinaryevents, e.g. Relaunch
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Reporting und Monitoring from SEO-KPIs enables fast response and control
Monitoring Functions:
• Status
• Control
• Development
• Comparison
• Management
SEO KPI Types
• Performance KPIs
• Onpage KPIs
• Offpage KPIs
• Ranking KPIs
• Link reporting & monitoring
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Fast response to changes
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• Distinction between brand and non-brand searches
• Brand-terms: consideration of spillover effects through marketing activities
• Number of impressions (= range) measurable by GWT
• Basis: Number of visitors won by SEO measures
• Examples: Conversion rate, sales per visitor, aggregated sales per page type
Business KPIs
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Visibility & Rankings
• Use of tools necessary
• Recommendation for ranking monitoring: SaaS instead of desktop tools due to many requests to Google
• track rankings at least for those keywords which are defined by the kw strategy
• Calculation of aggregated average rankings or ranking changes e.g. Top 100
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Visibility indicies are solid proxy for overall SEO success: „the modern SEO uber KPI“
The visibility index is higher when:
• You are ranking for more keywords
• You are ranking for keywords with higher search volume
• You are ranking on top positions for keywords
• (You are ranking for generic terms (instead of navigational) -> CTR distribution in SERPs)
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Example of a ranking dashboard
Month 1 2 3 4 5 6
Top 1 1 3 4
Top 3 1 2 4 6
Top 5 1 3 4 7 10
Top 10 2 5 8 10 15
Top 20 1 5 10 15 20 30
Top 50 5 15 20 30 40 50
Top 100 20 30 40 60 80 90
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• Useful for noticing general changes – even on rankings that are not specifically tracked
• Influenced by the optimised search volume keywords
• Influenced by the number of keywords found
• Caution: No cross-industry visibility comparison – direct competition comparison useful
SEO Visibility KPIs
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• Input Analysis e.g.
• Number of completed tasks per month
• Number of texts per month
• Programming capacities
• Diagnostic KPIs, e.g.
• Number of indexed pages (through the use of sitemaps at page level)
• Code quality assurance, e.g. testomato.com or codespy.com
• Content Diagnostic, e.g.
• Changes in the CTR by adapting Titles and Descriptions
• Changes time on site and bounce rate by optimising the content
Onpage KPIs
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• Monitoring of good valuable links on their continuance
• Definition of objectives in the link acquisition
• Check whether objectives have been achieved for individual campaigns
• Target/Actual comparison
• Analysis of passively obtained through tools such as Ahrefs or MajesticSEO
Offpage KPIs
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Competitor KPIs
• Benchmarking through
• Visibility
• Number of indexed pages/content
• Ranking overlaps in their own keyword set
• Domain popularity
• Qualitative comparison of contents of relevant pages (types)
• Terms e.g. from Alexa and/or Similarweb
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Thank you very much for your attention!Let‘s keep in touch!
www.akm3.de
www.akm3.com
Paul-Lincke-Ufer 39/40
10999 Berlin
Germany
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