Choose Tall Men

(and short women)

Rand Fishkin | @randfish | SLCSEM

http://bit.ly/choosetallmen

Let’s talk about dating…

http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-looks-and-online-dating/

Here’s the problem

As women’s height rises, messages drop (the opposite is true for men): http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-biggest-lies-in-online-dating/

Height Is Holding You Back…

Height Is Holding You Back…

Not only is height a poor, arbitrary limitation, most lie about it: http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-biggest-lies-in-online-dating/

Remove the Irrational Bias

And You Can Get Every Other

Criteria You Want, Fulfilled

Let’s Apply This Principle to

the Marketing World

8 Irrational Biases(and how your inbound marketing can benefit by rejecting them)

Bias #1: Ranking Position is All That Matters

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/mission-imposserpble-establishing-clickthrough-rates

CTR is Influenced By More than Position

CTR is Influenced By More than Position

Star Ratings, Reviews & Price

Author Photo

Date of Publication

Video Snippet

Start w/ Great Titles, Meta Descriptions & URLs

Terrible

Excellent

Snippet Testing Tool: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

Profile Pics = CTR Boost

Rel=Author Guide from AJ Kohn: http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/how-to-implement-rel-author

Video XML Sitemaps = CTR Boost

Video SEO Guide from Wistia: http://wistia.com/doc/video-seo

Rich Snippets: High Value in the Right Niches

Visual Rich Snippet Guide: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/a-visual-guide-to-rich-snippets

Bias #2: SEO is About Ranking for the “Money” Keywords

The Chunky Middle & Long Tail Are Amazing

Google Wants the Head for Themselves

Google Wants the Head for Themselves

The only non-Google link

(barely) visible without scrolling

Regular Content + UGC = Long Tail Success

Tens of thousands of pages of content created by professional marketers (our writers and those who ask Q+A)

Bias #3: AdWords is All The Keyword Research You Need

Search Suggest Is a Great Keyword Research Tool

Search Suggest Is a Great Keyword Research Tool

Great tool for grabbing search suggest data: http://ubersuggest.org

Google News: Research the Undiscovered Keywords

In the next 1-5 days, these will all

have significant search volume

Social Media Leads to Queries

Tools for Tracking Social: PopURLs

http://search.popurls.com/

Tools for Tracking Social: Topsy

http://topsy.com/s?q=dublin

Bias #4: My Site is the Only Place to Do SEO

Controlling Brand SERPs Matters

Earning Rankings on Other Sites May Be Easier

Dominating SERPs is a Powerful Tactic

RUsers: 90mm 900mm 200mm 120mm120mm 10mm

Users: 15mm Millions 14mm 7.5mm 18mm

Consider SEO for Your Profiles &

Content on these Sites, Too.

Bias #5: Social Sharing is Fire & Forget

What You Say and How Matters

Via http://followerwonk.com

Timing Matters

At the highest point, only ~6.5% of my followers are online, which means only 4,514 of my 69,458 followers could possibly see a tweet.

Repetition Matters

The 3.5% online at night are almost certainly not the same as the 6.7% online in the morning.

Via http://followerwonk.com

Link Placement Matters

URL at the end & hash tag next to the URL

URL in the center of text blocks, no usernames or hashes around it

Hashtags & Mentions Matter

Using the event hashtag will get it in front of IFBC attendees

Mentioning me makes sure I see it, which might mean I RT

Snippets Matter in Google+

Not a great image (4:3 style format works best)

Comes from title & meta description

When @jennita (Moz’s community manager)

shares content on Facebook, she’ll often

upload an individual image from the post to make it better stand out in the

Facebook timeline

Snippets Matter on Facebook

Bias #6: There’s No Simple Way to

Increase Traffic

Site Speed Optimization: Simple.

http://www.slideshare.net/jcolman/web-performance-optimization-the-silver-bullet-of-seo-and-ux

Data from @jcolman of REI

404, 500 & 302 Fixes: Simple.

http://google.com/webmasters and/or http://pro.seomoz.org can help ID these

Re-targeting: Simple. Increases Traffic.

Best retargeting providers?http://www.seomoz.org/blog/comparing-the-top-4-retargeting-companies

Sharing New Content on Each Network. Simple.

Bias #7: CRO is about testing variations

of content and design

From my blog: http://moz.com/rand/

I want more people

who visit the site to

subscribe via email

A) More People

Visiting

B) Higher

Conversion Rate

Let’s Improve the Call to Action!

This must be

the problem!

A/B Testing

We’ll show half our visitors one and

half the other, and get a winner

Multivariate Testing

We’ll show each version to a

percentage of visitors and find a winner

We Can Test Everything!Location on Page

Display Width

Box Color

Address Verification

Loading After the Page

Different Versions

Based on User Behavior

Call-to-Action Copy

Social Proof Inclusion

Changing Messaging on

Different Types of Pages/Posts

That’s Not CRO

What if this isn’t the

problem?

What if this is?

What if this guy is?

Trust

Word of Mouth

LikabilityDesign

Associations

Word of Mouth

Amount of Pain

CTAs

UX

Effort Required

Process

Historical Experiences

Social Proof

Copywriting

CONVERSION DECISION(it’s a complex process)

TimingDiscovery Path

Branding

Price

Trust

Word of Mouth

LikabilityDesign

Associations

Word of Mouth

Amount of Pain

CTAs

UX

Effort Required

Process

Historical Experiences

Social Proof

Copywriting

WHICH OF THESE IS THEREAL ISSUE?

TimingDiscovery Path

Branding

Price

Ask Smart Questions to the Right People

Never Taken a

Free Trial

Took the Free Trial

But Left

Took the Free

Trial and Stayed

What are you seeking

from SEOmoz? What’s

brought you back?

What are you seeking

from SEOmoz? What’s

brought you back?

What made you take

the free trial?

What made you take

the free trial?

What initially made

you want SEOmoz?

What initially made

you want SEOmoz?

What would make you

more likely to sign up?

What would make you

more likely to sign up?

What are your biggest

objections to signup?

What are your biggest

objections to signup?

What objections did

you have and how did

you overcome them?

What objections did

you have and how did

you overcome them?

What caused you to

cancel subscription?

What caused you to

cancel subscription?

What would have made

you stay a subscriber?

What would have made

you stay a subscriber?

What objections did

you have and how did

you overcome them?

What objections did

you have and how did

you overcome them?

What’s been most

valuable to you?

What’s been most

valuable to you?

Had success w/ Moz?

Can we share?

Had success w/ Moz?

Can we share?

This is How the Pros Do It:

From Conversion Rate Experts’ case study (which is definitely worth a read):

http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/crazy-egg-case-study/

Boom.

This is How the Pros Do It:

From Conversion Rate Experts’ case study (which is definitely worth a read):

http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/crazy-egg-case-study/

Boom.

And Shakalaka.

This process made SEOmoz $1mm in additional

revenue in 2009, when we desperately needed it.

CRE detailed their results with us here: http://www.conversion-rate-

experts.com/seomoz-case-study/

Bias #8: Ranking in Google Means

Creating an Optimized Website

Scale of ROI from SEO Activities Over Time

Create content people

want to consume & share

Create content people

want to consume & share

Make the website’s pages

accessible to engines

Make the website’s pages

accessible to engines

Build links to individual

URLs for higher rankings

Build links to individual

URLs for higher rankings

Optimize on-page

keyword usage/targeting

Optimize on-page

keyword usage/targeting

Optimize metadata,

schema, rich snippets, etc

Optimize metadata,

schema, rich snippets, etc

Highest Value

Lowest Value

2004-20092004-2009 2010-present2010-present

Create content people

want to consume & share

Create content people

want to consume & share

Make the website’s pages

accessible to engines

Make the website’s pages

accessible to engines

Build links to individual

URLs for higher rankings

Build links to individual

URLs for higher rankings

Optimize on-page

keyword usage/targeting

Optimize on-page

keyword usage/targeting

Optimize metadata,

schema, rich snippets, etc

Optimize metadata,

schema, rich snippets, etc

Scale of ROI from SEO Activities Over Time

Highest Value

Lowest Value

2010-present2010-present

Create content people

want to consume & share

Create content people

want to consume & share

Make the website’s pages

accessible to engines

Make the website’s pages

accessible to engines

Build links to individual

URLs for higher rankings

Build links to individual

URLs for higher rankings

Optimize on-page

keyword usage/targeting

Optimize on-page

keyword usage/targeting

Optimize metadata,

schema, rich snippets, etc

Optimize metadata,

schema, rich snippets, etc

Google’s DreamGoogle’s Dream

Create content people

want to consume & share

Create content people

want to consume & share

Make the website’s pages

accessible to engines

Make the website’s pages

accessible to engines

Optimize on-page

keyword usage/targeting

Optimize on-page

keyword usage/targeting

Optimize metadata,

schema, rich snippets, etc

Optimize metadata,

schema, rich snippets, etc

Build a brand that searchers will

positively associate w/ the niche

Google Doesn’t Want

to Rank “Websites”

Google Wants to

Rank “Brands”

Remove Irrational Biases.

Win at Marketing.

Choose Tall Men (and short women)

• Email: rand@seomoz.org

• Tweet: @randfish

• Blog: moz.com/rand

http://bit.ly/choosetallmen