Vertical Integration…

No SERP is Safe

Rand Fishkin, CEO + Co-founder, SEOmoz May 2011; Boston

Remember Back…

When Men Were Men and Search

Results Looked Like…

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html

There’s all our old friends! eHow and Wikipedia and

multi-hyphenated domains; sigh…

But it‟s not like that anymore.

Sitelinks, images, news and “timeline results”

Places + maps results, annotated phone numbers

images, and shopping

Videos with image snippets, Twitter

profiles featuring an avatar, similar pages and related searches

If You Can‟t Beat „Em; Join „Em!

Question 1:

Where are Vertical Opportunities?

CTRs supposedly vary widely as Places results are often showing for irrelevant queries (and users are learning that Google’s results often aren’t as good as Yelp, Urbanspoon, etc.)

Local / Maps / Places

The highest CTR in news is when they’re above the rest of the results AND feature an image.

News Results

Don’t be a Honey Badger – care about video results; they’re an awesome opportunity.

Video in the SERPs

These are far less common nowadays (just as I predicted; boo-yah! http://www.seomoz.org/blog/7-predictions-for-seo-in-2011)

Realtime Results

When shopping results appear, they can draw substantial traffic away from the normal listings on high-ROI queries and clicks (hence, appearing in them can be big)

Shopping

These are most useful when images are relevant to your business (e.g. “kitchen remodeling photos”) or when they appear by default in the regular SERPs

Images

These get so much vertical space in the SERPs, it’s almost like having sitelinks.

Discussion Results

Click-through-rates and searcher trust in the domain/result are probably going way up with these

Rich Snippets

Earning these can give your result an extra line of content and likely an increased CTR (plus the ability to highlight more pages)

Sitelinks + Mini-Embed-Link-Thingies

Technical SEO Jargon: “Mini-Embed-Link-Thingies”

In my opinion, these are often the most relevant, useful results on the page. It’s like searching your friends’ http://trunk.ly links (which, BTW, is awesome)

Results from My Social Circle

Click-through-rate on results that a trusted friend/source has shared is probably quite a bit higher than the position’s average.

Sharing Annotations from Social Connections

Getting brands listed here is hard, but sometimes very worthwhile, as it has a (potential) subtle psychological impact on searchers who see it.

Brands and Stores in Related Searches

The visibility of these suggestions is a chance to get your brand in front of users who wouldn’t otherwise see it!

“Similar Pages,” “Search Related to” & “Something Different”

A branding opportunity and a chance to influence the queries users enter

Suggest / Instant

Question 2:

How Can We Earn Top Rankings in Them?

Caveat:

I‟m not going to give you the same advice (consistent address for local, alt tags for images, etc.)

you can find anywhere on the web

Local / Maps / Places Results

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Above: The 4 basic types of local/maps blending most popular in Google’s results recently

First, Establish Type/CTR/Intent

Depending on the local intent & Google’s layout, the value of a listing may shift

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Data on correlation of places listings with high rankings: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-places-seo-lessons-learned-from-rank-correlation-data

Optimize GLBC Listing

Make sure all the data is obvious and matches (blah blah, you’ve heard this before). You DO, however, need to claim and fill out everything possible.

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Two posts that can help with this: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-places-citations-5-tactics-to-earn-links-for-your-local-business and http://www.seomoz.org/blog/one-dead-simple-tactic-for-better-rankings-in-google-local

Citations = Rankings in Places

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Yelp, Citysearch, Zagat, Gayot and virtually all major newspapers are on these lists very consistently. Use your own analysis, however, as it changes by region.

Some Citations Matter More than Others

(and some don’t seem to do anything)

If the source is listed here, it probably counts

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Related places also aren’t particularly “related” as of now, so they’re low competition risk.

Related Places Seem to Help

Weirdly, it seems that more “related places” is a good thing (perhaps something

to do with co-citation?). So get these mentions alongside other restaurants

where possible.

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html For co-citation of local results, think geographically and of press – any source that mentions multiple businesses in your neighborhood or has a similar theme to you can work.

Co-Citations = Good Citations

If they mention two similar businesses,

they’re a likely source for a mention.

Google News: Inclusion + Ranking

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Most blogs can get included, so long as they have unique, quality content, substantive metrics (feed subscribers, links, etc.) and a professional, high quality UI.

Inclusion is Fairly Lenient

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html This only works for Google News included URLs (currently), and it’s still in a test phase: http://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=191283

New in Google News: Source Attribution Meta Tags

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Breaking the news, even by just a few minutes, can have a dramatically positive impact on your ability to draw in visits during that initial visit spike.

Timing Matters

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Note: Many re-publishers and licensers of content can outrank original publishers in News. The duplicate content algo appears to be less sophisticated than web results.

On-Page is Big, Too

Old article with title tag match outranks more recent, on-topic news

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Standing out from the crowd by taking a different focus on a popular story/issue can yield great ranking benefits and separate you from the “all XXXX articles.”

Note the collapsing of these 2,129 sources

Ranking #4-100 has little benefit, but having a

“different angle” can work

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Being 1st in the news w/ the right headline, even by just a few minutes, can have a dramatically positive impact on your ability to rank during that initial visit spike.

Optimizing “After the Fact” Rarely Works; Train Your Writers

Originally called “miracle on the hudson,” the NYTimes piece got virtually no traffic for one of the biggest local stories of the year.

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Getting listed often has editorial hurdles, but breaking the story, or providing the “best” article fastest gives you the best chance for inclusion.

Google News Homepage = Big Traffic Win

These can drive 100K+ visits in an hour, like the old “Digg-effect”

Image Search SEO

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html It’s true… Image search is the search world’s “wretched hive of spam and villainy.”

Welcome to Mos Eisley…

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Often, the image search results show pages that are nowhere in the top 100+ for the keyword/query terms. Why? I have no idea – it seems insane.

Weirdly, ranking well for a term does not

give you any advantage in Image SEO

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html It’s an on-page spammer’s paradise, and content quality, accuracy or originality appears to have no bearing on ranking or inclusion.

Go Ahead & Go Crazy with On-Page

Title

Headline

20+ Repetitions in Content

KW next to image in HTML

Image filename

Image alt attribute

Subheadline

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Generally, images in a consistent folder and domain/subdomain location seem to perform best. However, subdomains do seem to work OK sometimes, too.

Image Folder Location Matters

http://www.site.com/images/keyword/keyword-file-name.gif

http://www.site.com/keyword-file-name.gif

http://www.site.com/random-folder/keyword-file-name.gif

http://cdn1.site.com/keyword-file-name.gif

http://sitecdnimages.com/keyword-file-name.gif

Good

OK

Bad

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html

Weirdly, providing link attribution seems useless

for rankings (maybe even counter-productive)

Pages/images at the top of the rankings almost never credit the original source

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html None of these logos are from SEOmoz’s site, because we use CSS layers. In previous versions of the site, we were usually in the top 1-3 results in image search for this query.

Embed Images Directly; Don‟t Use CSS

“Related Searches,” “Similar to” &

“Something Different”

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Influencing these appears to require large scale brand building (not just on the web)

Brands in Related Searches

• Best selling / best known brands

• Likely using a data source like Freebase.com (but not public)

• Not necessarily most common words/phrases or most searched-for

• Appears to have some connection to offline/real world popularity

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html

Links/Sites in “Similar to”

It appears these don’t come from “also visited” data. Co-citation is a strong possibility.

Queries in “Something Different”

I strongly suspect lexical analysis based on the web corpus is

happening here. Thus co-citation (+ more sophisticated word connections)

are probable targets for influencing these

results.

Results from “My Social Circle” and

Annotations from Social Connections

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Use this URL while logged in to see yours: https://profiles.google.com/connectedaccounts

Currently, Google supports these 7 social networks

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Screenshots from top results for http://www.google.com/search?q=seo-friendly+directories

Facebook

“Shared this” language suggests that a “like” alone

may not be enough to appear in these results

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Good piece on earning more likes to company pages: http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/10/01/13-simple-ways-of-increasing-your-facebook-likes/

More Friends + More Shares

Personal Pages can use the “Find Friends” feature

Company pages convert “likes” into “friends”

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Sitewide Facebook “Like” buttons are neither banned nor blackhat, but they’re a great way to earn connections

More Likes on Company Pages

I like Ian’s self-effacing CTA, and the fact that a like on any post is actually a like for the whole blog!

See http://www.seomoz.org/blog/facebook-twitters-influence-google-search-rankings for info on the correlation between Facebook shares + Google rankings

Employ + Promote the “Share” Button

“Share” is a more intensive, lower conversion activity, but that’s probably exactly why

Google thinks it’s worthwhile.

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Umm… Yeah, sorry. I got nothing. I probably wouldn’t spend much time here either, as it’s largely a dying community (from a social standpoint).

Yahoo! Pulse…

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Flickr’s social interactions are primarily around comments + favorites on photos.

Flickr

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Earning “contacts” are what get your shares to show up in Google results.

Flickr

You can see who’s connected to you via this link

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html LinkedIn is, perhaps, the easiest place to build a network. Virtually any invite message you send that includes a personalized, well written connection request has a good chance to be accepted.

LinkedIn

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html I tried dozens of queries through many LinkedIn connections with no results in Google. I’ve never actually found a “shared by” annotation from LinkedIn either…

LinkedIn Updates Don‟t Seem to Hit Google

???

If you haven’t yet started contributing on http://www.quora.com, the Google social integration is a great excuse

Quora

Find topics where you’re an expert; click on the “open questions” link + answer. http://www.quora.com/browse is a reasonable (though not great) place to start.

Answering Popular Questions w/ Great

Answers is the Best Way to Earn Follows

Hovering on a topic will show you follower-counts.

Tackling older questions where other answers haven’t been robust can often yield better results than answering something where a phenomenal response already exists.

Use Graphics/Photos in Answers; it Works

50 Upvotes on an answer containing an image…

Probably not a coincidence.

If you haven’t yet read it, http://blog.socialflow.com/post/5246404319/breaking-bin-laden-visualizing-the-power-of-a-single is really quite remarkable.

Twitter

Social results and local/places results don’t yet overlap, but I suspect it can’t be long.

Yelp

Yelp’s data influences local, but not yet in a

directly social way

Unfortunately, Yelp, like LinkedIn + Yahoo, doesn’t appear to create sharing connections in the same way Facebook, Twitter, Quora and Flickr do.

Yelp

Talk + Events are the best ways to make

connections currently

Google Suggest + Instant

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html If you have a large number of branded searches (or want to influence a generic search term to include your brand) Suggest tactics are a must-have.

Turn Google Suggest to Your Advantage

Products

Promotions

Events

Branding Association

SERPs You Dominate

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html The appearance of “seomoz” in the “seo” suggest query started about 2 years ago (2009), and has continued to move up in suggest with the popularity of our branded search volume.

Turn Google Suggest to Your Advantage

A threshold to appear here likely exists here

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html If you get creative, you’ll likely come up with even more.

White Hat Ways to Influence

1. Branding + Advertising that “Begs the Query”

2. Social Links to the Search Results

3. Events + Promotions

4. Email Campaigns

5. Content Production + Distribution

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html The Chromebook ads are a great example of “begging the query” to make the user find out more: http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/google-keeps-humming-along-chromebook-spot-131554

Branding + Advertising to “Beg the Query”

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html You can use LinkedIn Updates, Facebook Updates, blog comments, links to SERPs in your profile on social sites, Tweets, answers in Q+A sites , etc. Best part – it doesn’t have the negative spam associations of a direct link.

Social Links to the Search Results

Drives 50-200 searches for “MozCon”

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html I gave a presentation here: http://www.geekwire.com/2011/seomoz-ceo-rand-fishkin-googles-panda-update where the call to action was a search query (that we rank for!)

Events + Promotions

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html BTW – If you haven’t yet signed up for http://www.seomoz.org/moztop10 you’re missing out. It’s super awesome and useful (though, to be fair, I’m probably biased).

Email Campaigns

Can drive 1000s of

clicks

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html If SEOmoz wanted to get “PageRank” searches to suggest “MozRank” we could try a campaign of content around the two words together to help influence the suggestions.

Content Production + Distribution

Since web content matters for suggest, content production is a

good way to influence what appears.

The content needs to be non-duplicate, come from different

sources & use words that aren’t already common together.

Syndication may not work, but guest blogging, social status

updates, keyword use in bios/descriptions, etc. can be good.

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Not only are these very dangerous/negative for your brand’s trustworthiness, they can get you into serious trouble with Google, Amazon, etc.

Black Hat Ways to Influence

(DO NOT ATTEMPT, But Be Wary)

1. Mechanical Turk, oDesk, eLance (and others)

2. Malware + Embedded Pop-Ups

3. Comment/Forum/Guestbook Spam

Q+A

Rand Fishkin, CEO & Co-Founder, SEOmoz

• Twitter: @randfish

• Blog: www.seomoz.org/blog

• Email: rand@seomoz.org

You can now try SEOmoz PRO Free!

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