seo moves to make in 2014 to better your future by mark munroe

SEO MOVES TO MAKE IN 2014 TO BETTER YOUR FUTURE

Mark Munroe SEORadar.com [email protected] @markemunroe #smx #31A

#smx #31A @markemunroe

Background •  Introduction:

•  Recently started SEORadar.com •  SEORadar app – SEO disaster prevention

•  Alert system to warn about site changes with possible SEO consequences •  Monitors robots.txt, noindex, redirects, titles, headings, rel-canonicals, links

and more •  Creates archive of site over time •  Open for friendly beta customers

•  SEO consulting •  In-house SEO perspective for 10+ years from sites with a large

organic footprint. My experience includes: •  Trulia.com – former employee, currently consulting for them •  EverydayHealth (includes EverydayHealth.com, WhatToExpect.com) •  SideStep.com (now integrated into Kayak) •  UsedCars.com •  Wine.com


This is what we want

Many of our techniques and tactics to make this happen have been taken away over the years!


2004 – 2009 or so • Clear path •  Target keywords • Create content – some of it good and relevant, long tail

spewing. Content aggregators did really well! • Get links (swap, begging, buying, directories, article) •  Fairly deterministic – it worked and lots of people got

rich off of this.


And then ---- oh crap!

Where were you on Feb. 23, 2011?

Pandas and penguins and pigeons, oh my!


Long-lasting SEO • Whenever making a decision on an SEO strategy or

tactic, consider Google’s intent. If your strategy matches the intent of Google algorithm, you are moving in the right direction.

• Give Google what Google wants!

•  Focus on the Search User Experience •  Create an earned reputation •  Get the tech stuff right


Traditional UX vs. Search User Experience (SUX)

Your Customer Google Customer


Sudden drop • A CEO told me his site lost 70%

of his traffic/ • Analysis clearly pointed to Panda. “What do you mean we got hit by Panda. Our customers love us. We have a Net Promoter Score (NPC) of 65!”


Who did they survey for their Net Promoter Score? •  They emailed their subscribing customers. •  To put it differently, they asked the 2% of users who liked

the site enough to subscribe. • What about the other 98%?



You can’t always get what you want •  Most UX, Product people and conversions

specialists focus on the the users you want. •  To create a great SUX – you also need to

focus on the users you get (from search)! •  In 2014 – that’s the SEO job!



Personas • Agree or Disagree?

Personas are a great technique for optimizing user experience, right? How about SUX?


The Problem with personas

Michelle , Young Mom,

looing to trade up

for a bigger house.

Susan, Newlywed, looking for

starter-home.

Mark - middle aged

married man

looking to downsize.

•  Personas great to develop content strategies & conversion.

•  A mistake to assume they

broadly represent your users.

•  Personas are typically modeled over the users you want

•  To repeat! SUX must also focus on the users you get!

Potential personas for real estate


Conversion vs. SUX

•  Conversion initiatives often conflict directly with the Search User Experience

•  Over aggressive attempts at pushing

users into the ‘funnel’ may obscure the user from getting the content they were looking for.


Interstitials

•  Interstitials are a strong example of how conversion can destroy the SUX

•  User thought they were a click away from getting their answer … •  But no … •  Google has said they hate interstitials for that very reason.


What does poor SUX look like to Google?

What does this behavior tell Google?

Remember, Google is looking for relevant, quality results in the search results. This user just told Google that they didn’t get the correct, sufficient answer they could trust from www.everyquestion.com. When they clicked on the alternate result, they told Google they were still looking. Mark one point against that domain!

User Search on Google

User searches for Restaurants in San Diego Airport.

User click through to www.everyquestion.

com

Users lands on a Q&A site. There are a couple of contributed short answers on restaurants. No terminal or location information. No menu details. No reviews.

G-‐Bounce!

It takes the user all of 15 seconds to realize he is not getting what he wants. The mouse arrow makes a bee-‐line for the back button. He then tries another result from the search.


What metrics is Google using? •  Google won’t provide specifics but:

•  Quick bounce back •  Next action after bounce back (new search is good, continuing with the old

search is bad. •  Higher than average click-through rate

•  It really doesn’t matter too much what metrics they are using, we just know that if users are dissatisfied they have some way have measuring it.

•  Key point: metrics are driven by the pages that drive traffic. You have to optimize the pages that drive significant traffic to broadly improve your site metrics as a whole.


SUX optimization example •  SEO traffic comes into property pages

driven by address search.

•  Our personas (based on our ideal customer) will be focused on the buyer.

•  Our desire to succeed with our business goals will bring focus to the conversion funnel.

•  But who is really coming to the site and what is the intent?

Real Estate Site


What’s the user intent on address search?

•  Certainly the home buyer? •  What about the home owner? •  Agents, appraisers? •  What about nosey neighbors?

Who is searching?

•  Purchase •  Rent •  Directions •  Pictures

What are they

searching for?

•  Public records •  Estimate •  Sales history •  Neighborhood Info


Don’t guess when you can know! • You have users, why ask them with surveys?

•  Usually around 100-150 responses you start to get statistically significant results.

• Surveys are cheap (sometimes) and fairly easy to implement with:

•  SurveyMonkey •  Qualtrics •  Qualaroo •  Many more


Survey to measure user intent

Survey only users from search and soon quickly after landing.

•  You want to catch the users who would normally bounce

Create surveys specific to landing page types.

•  Different pages type will get different types of users and need to be addressed distinctly.

•  Turn off survey as soon as you hit statistical significance (100-150 results).

Your surveys should represent a significant percentage of SEO traffic.

•  You want to make sure that your surveys cover the users getting to your site that are driving the user metrics.


Survey to measure user satisfaction Survey only users from Search

•  You don’t want to mix in direct users and other sources. •  You want to understand users from search.

Give users time to get a feel for your site. •  Longer delay than a user intent survey but still relatively quick, ~45

seconds.

Could the find what they were looking for?

•  Did the find the things that they were looking for? •  Frustration, obstacles, specifically with with goals/objectives identified in

the user intent survey.


Website metrics to watch • Bounce rate – on visitors from Google •  Time on site • Short clicks – enhance Google Analytics to capture short

clicks http://goo.gl/ZLp57L • Your own custom defined success metrics (besides your

standard conversion metrics) •  Example, if 10% of users say they came for driving directions and

only 4% click, you know you have a problem.


Semantic search increase importance of reputation •  The old days, when Google simply matched

on keywords, content spam was rampant.

•  Authoritative content should rise and articles that target exact-match long-tail queries will suffer.

•  The site reputation and article reputation become even more important.

•  Less volume, more quality!


Reputation • Reputation - the beliefs or opinions that are generally held

about someone or something • With Google/Bing, links are citations that build a

reputation. • Social, at a minimum help build reputations by generating

links.


•  Content Marketing

•  PR

2014

•  Guest Blogging

•  Article directories

•  Infographics •  Social •  Widgets

•  Link Swapping

•  Directories •  Link buying •  Press

release

2004

Link building over the years

As SEOs, we’ve scrambled for ways to build those reputations Essentially, Google has taken away many of those methods from us. Why?


Faux reputation

I highly recommend

Mark Munroe for any SEO

help you might need.

•  If I financially incented Matt Cutts to recommend me to build my reputation, that’s a false reputation.

•  Just like personal and professional reputations, Google wants those reputations to be earned!


Earned reputation vs. a ‘faux’ • An earned reputation:

•  Based on realized value proposition •  Arises naturally •  Is not manipulative •  Makes the recommender look good

• A ‘faux’ reputation: •  Is an unnatural recommendation •  Is manipulative •  May not deliver on the promise

•  Instead of trying to make a reputation look authentic, earn it!


Increased skittishness with link building techniques • Even brands have not been immune

and are subject to scrutiny. Possible penalties include: •  Expedia •  Halifax bank •  Rap Genius •  Overstock •  J.C. Penney •  eBay

• With so many things crossed off the list, what can I do?

• Create an authentic, earned reputation.


What can you do in 2014? Swapping/Buying No

Outreach For sure! Do not focus on anchor text

Directories Respected industry directories is OK

Infographics Would not do a SEO specific infographics campaign. If its part of large campaign, ok but lose the anchor.

Widgets Wary, Google soften their take on Widgets earlier this year. If you use them, drop the anchor.

PR Yes, lots! When written about ask for links.

Press Releases Maybe one brand link, avoid anchor.

Content Marketing

Yes, be wary of anchor text optimization.

Partnerships Only relevant, limited number of links (no sitewide, no reciprocal).

Social Sharing builds reputation, creates links.


Technical SEO – More important than ever. • Murphy’s law “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong” • Smith’s law “Murphy was an optimist!” • Munroe’s law of SEO - “Anything that can break, will

break. And things that cannot possibly break, will also break!!!”

• Many SEO disasters are completely avoidable, by testing, communication, tools.


Technical issues to watch Meta noindex and/or nofollow

Noindex or nofollow on important content

Rel- canonicals Pointing to the wrong place, syntax, improper use

Disappearing 301s Losing the value of historic links Disappearing on-site links Content drops from the index

Titles, H1 content changes Removing important keywords

Spammers Spam content, spam links Crawl issues Crawler spending time in the wrong paces

(faceted search) Nofollow links Nofollows to important content 302s 301s magically turning into 302s Robots.txt Blocking our content Unintentional cloaking Engineers trying to be too smart


Catch issues and preventing damage •  Internal testing and education

•  Product •  QA •  You!

• Audit tools •  Screaming Frog •  Raven •  Moz

• SEO specific diff checking •  Custom scripts •  SEORadar


Summary •  In summary, the key to long-lasting SEO is giving Google

what they want: •  Create a great Search User Experience •  Create a reputation that’s earned •  Make sure all your strategies match Google’s intent.

seo moves to make in 2014 to better your future by mark munroe

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