The Google EarthquakeHow to Survive the Future of Search and Online Marketing

Cyrus Shepard

@cyrusshepard

As a child, disaster movies scared me

Tornados were the worstTornados were the worst

Disaster?

changing fast

Google is tipping the landscape

Weather in the Old Days

QueriesLedToWebsites

Google CTR Study - http://www.catalystsearchmarketing.com/pubs/google-ctr-study/

Weather in the Old Days

17.6% ClickThroughRatebyPosition

9.94%

7.64%5.31%

Google CTR Study - http://www.catalystsearchmarketing.com/pubs/google-ctr-study/

Weather Today

All YourInfoOn OnePage

Weather TodayWho wantsto be downhere?

?%

2005: When was Albert Einstein born?

2013: When was Albert Einstein born?

Bing: When was Albert Einstein born?

“Blinds” 2005

“Blinds” 2005

Organic Results

“Blinds” 2013

“Blinds” 2013

Organic Results

No matter what you click…

…it’s hard to leave Google…

…ever

Google is eating all the verticals

Informational Queries

Transactional Queries

Media Queries

Books • Videos • Songs

Medical Queries

Dr. Pete’s Mega SERP

http://moz.com/blog/mega-serp

http://moz.com/blog/mega-serp

Not a real result, but demonstrates how Google’s new features often favor Google properties

“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

http://www.google.com/about/company/

“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

http://www.google.com/about/company/

Does not include the words “search engine”

Stomping on SEO

Google is stomping on SEO

Global (not provided) at 75%

https://serps.com/data/not_provided

Penguin killing links

Decreasing Domain Diversity

http://mozcast.com/metrics

“Domain Diversity measures the percentage of unique sub-domains across the URLs in the data set. The less diversity there is, the more domain "crowding" we observed.”

Disaster?

Disaster or opportunity?

Disaster or opportunity?

5 charts that go up and to the

right

Growing Internet Use

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage

92%of These UseSearchEngines

Rising Desktop Search

http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/ & https://plus.google.com/u/0/+AJKohn/posts/52fparZCSrW

Rising Mobile Search

http://www.biakelsey.com/

Rising Desktop Search

http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/ & https://plus.google.com/u/0/+AJKohn/posts/52fparZCSrWhttp://www.statisticbrain.com/google-searches/

Search Remains an Investment that Pays

Organic Search Traffic to Moz 2011-2013

When Combined With Other ChannelsIt Becomes Unstoppable

6 Strategies for Future-Proof Results

1. From Keywords to Conceptsbecause keywords still matter

Keywords by themselves don’t rank

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html

Keywords“pay day loans”irrelevant and out ofcontext

This pageis about exercise

Spam

50-80% of Your Traffic Comes From Keywords You Didn’t Try For

http://moz.com/blog/how-to-rank

Google Sells Keywords by Groups

Keyword groups focus on a single concept

Related Keywords Sorted by Relevance

Hmm….Maybe these

keywords down here

relate to my concept

Keywords need context to rank

http://moz.com/blog/visual-guide-to-keyword-targeting-onpage-optimization

Language and signals focused around concepts

2. From Webpages to Authority

Go Above and Beyond the Keyword

The better answers you provide, the more value you offer.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/thor_the_dark_world/

Answer All the Questions

The more questions you answer, the less likely visitors will search elsewhere

http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00DOQFR96/

Publish Regularly on Your Expert Subjects

A single page does not make you an authority.

http://moz.com/blog/how-to-rank

Use Real People as Subject Experts

3. From Links to Endorsements

Newsflash: Google Doesn’t Care About Your Links

What Counts are Your Endorsements

Links deemed to have low editorial endorsement can be devalued, discounted, or even penalized.

Very weakendorsement

Non-editorial links can hurt

Very weakendorsementReally?

Non-Linking Citations are Endorsements

http://moz.com/blog/2013-local-search-ecosystems

This Looks Like an EndorsementHigh

Authority Figure

NofollowedSocialMention

What About This?High

Authority Figure

FollowedLink

Personalized Results as Endorsements

Jonathon isconnected to

me socially2 hours ago

4. Markup and Meta Data real benefits

Better Social Sharing

http://moz.com/blog/meta-data-templates-123

High Correlation Between Social Sharing and Rankings

http://moz.com/search-ranking-factors

Social Metrics

Keyword Usage

(Correlation is not causation)

Promotion in Search Results

https://www.google.com/#q=SEO

Neil winshere

Authorship

Reviews

Enhanced SERPs

Authorship

Enhanced SERPs

http://research.google.com/pubs/pub41199.html

Does it Work?

Cards Everywhere

Research Real EstateNewsPersonalization + Structured Data

http://www.seznam.sk/

If Seznamused structured data instead of screenshots,we might notsee blanks

When in Doubt, Use Open Graphand Schema.org

http://moz.com/blog/meta-data-templates-123

5. Mobile First

Look Where Google is Going

Desktop

http://moz.com/blog/future-serp-a-glimpse-at-google-2014

Moving Mobile Design to Desktop

Mobile

We’ve Seen This Before

Desktop

http://moz.com/blog/future-serp-a-glimpse-at-google-2014

Cards Everywhere

Mobile

Easier to Expand Design than Contract

DesktopMobile

http://www.samovidic.com/

Desktop Design Becomes an Extension of Mobile

http://www.prometheusreg.com/

http://www.biakelsey.com/

When we get here….…people will ask…

“Do we need a desktop site?”

6. From Pageviews to Satisfaction

Web Analytics 1990

First Touch - Middle - Last Touch

Web Analytics

2013

Do Visitors Like My Site?Instead of Just Visiting

Measure:• Bounce Rate• Time on Site

• Pages per Visit• Share Rate

• Mention Rate

http://moz.com/blog/seo-satisfaction

Obsess Over Speed

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/technology/impatient-web-users-flee-slow-loading-sites.html

Track Offsite MentionsImportant

Mentions of “Marketing

Festival”

http://freshwebexplorer.moz.com/

Together, we got this!

@cyrusshepard