The Need-to-know SEO webinar
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Webinar for GreyCroft portfolio companies The Need-To- Know SEO
Transcript of The Need-to-know SEO webinar
Webinarfor GreyCroft portfolio
companies
The Need-To-
Know SEO
SEO/Tech ExtraordinaireEli Feldblum
@GreycroftVC
CTO & Founder of
RankAbove
@FeldBum
201-815-9467
RankAboveSmart, Automated SEO
@GreycroftVC
RankAboveSmart, Automated SEO
@GreycroftVC
About This Webinar
Learning (or re-learning) SEO
Basics & dispelling SEO Myths
The Human Side of Google.
Big Site Issues
Know the Knowledge Graph
‘Insider’ SEO Tips & Tricks
Questions & Answers
@GreycroftVC
Back to Basics
Remember everything we
started doing, before we got
distracted by fun tactics?
That stuff still works really well.
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The Basics: Keywords
Tools:
Google Instant
Keyword Planner
Trends
RankAbove
SEMRush
Use the one you like best—and use them
all for important stories or pages.
@GreycroftVC
The Basics: Keywords
Tools:
Google Instant
Keyword Planner
Trends
RankAbove
SEMRush
Use the one you like best—and use them
all for important stories or pages.
@GreycroftVC
The Basics: Keywords
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RankAbove Keyword Planner Instant Trends
Tiny Houses
Tiny House
Tiny House Plans
Tiny Houses for Sale
Tumbleweed Tiny House
Small House Plans
Tumbleweed
Tiny Homes
Tiny House Plans
Tiny House Movement
Tiny House Nation
Small House Movement
Tiny House
Tiny House Plans
Tiny House Blog
Tumbleweed Tiny
House
Tiny Houses
Small House Plans
Tiny Homes
Tiny House for
Sale
Tiny House Nation
Small Houses
Tiny House
Tiny House Nation
Tiny House For Sale
Tiny House Plans
Tiny House
Movement
Tiny Houses Prefab
Tiny Houses on
Wheels
Tiny Houses Floor
Plans
Tiny Houses Cost
Small House
Movement
Tumbleweed
Tumbleweed Tiny
House Company
Tumbleweed Tiny
House
Tiny House
Tiny House Plans
Tiny Houses
Small Houses
The Basics: Titles
Make sure your titles
match what your customers
search for.
Is that dress “pistachio?” Nobody
searches for a “pistachio” dress. It’s
green.
Called your TV movie “The TLC
Story?” Great. Everyone is going to
search for “TLC movie.”
Don’t let Google rewrite them.
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The Basics: Content
Content is still king.
Especially now.
Good content = Good SEO.
Use your H1 tags, and always
endeavor to lead with the most
unique and most relevant
content.
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The Basics: Content
Retailers:
If you use manufacturer
descriptions, no one will find
your products.
Fill in the gaps left by manufacturers, and
you may get some internal link
opportunities too.
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The Basics: Internal Links
In fact, many of you don’t even
need more links, just better and
more consistent internal linking.
Create a plan or use technology to
standardize internal links across
your site
Look out for duplicate content
(more on that later).
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The Basics: URLs
Your URLs are virtual and
generally controlled by your
CMS.
It pays to make them friendly and easy-to-
read.
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The Basics: Schema Markup
Help Google understand
the context of your content.
Product schema
Breadcrumb schema
Whatever else applies to your site.
Find out more at schema.org.
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The Basics: Rich Media
Google likewise doesn’t
understand your rich media
content—or even know its there.
Use XML Sitemaps (regular for
images and video for, um, video).
Check out the RankAbove/comScore joint
study on how well rich media performs.
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The Basics: Soup to Nuts
Search Engines read top to bottom:
From titles, to URLs, to H1, to
Content, to Links. Tell a story.
Match the keywords you researched to
your internal links and to the content
on your site.
Be consistent.
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Advanced: Internal Competition
Big sites grow dynamically,
and—unchecked—you can
easily become your own biggest
competitor.
Use the following checklist to prevent
thin, duplicate or competing content
from appearing on your site.
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Advanced: Internal Competition
Do you have any empty category
pages?
Do you use tags? Has any tag has
ever appeared only once on your
site?
Do you allow users to create
content? Are there safeguards to
ensure they don’t duplicate
content?
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Advanced: Internal Competition
Do two pagetypes on your site
serve similar purposes, like author
and bio pages?
How do you handle product
variations, like size, color and
quantity?
Find more issues with tools like
RankAbove or the site: command
in Google.
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The Humans of Google
Site Quality Matters
A mix of algorithms and real
humans are looking at your site,
and they are looking for:
Speed to Load
Ad Coverage
Content Quality
Boilerplate Content
Reading Level
Links & Social Metrics
Design Aesthetic
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But Didn’t SEO Change?
Panda and Penguin
You’ve probably heard that you
should be scared of them.
That’s true.
But they aren’t really game
changers—they are game
enforcers.
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Knowledge Graph
Use Wikipedia, Freebase and
Google+ to get more visitors
and incredible exposure.
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What is the Knowledge Graph?
It’s actually kinda what it
sounds like:
A graph of all the knowledge
Google has.
It’s a collection of data that
Google has gathered, and of
the connections between
those bits of data.
The collation of that data is
what is displayed.
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What is the Knowledge Graph?
It shows up in many forms. The one we see most often is this side
box or panel.
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What is the Knowledge Graph?
It also powers the “collections” we see on searches that return
specific lists of results, like casts of shows or movies.
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What is the Knowledge Graph?
And it answers questions.
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What is the Knowledge Graph?
It even compares things.
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How Does it Affect Sites?
Usually, it hurts them.
Especially informational sites or
sites that show up for
informational queries, like:
Publishers
Wikis
Q&A Sites
Single-Purpose Data Sites
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How Does it Affect Sites?
STUDY:
8 sites
20MM impressions
2MM clicks
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When the Knowledge Graph displayed, average CTR for sites in
the Top 5 Positions of Google dropped from 13% to 8%.
How Does it Affect Sites?
In first position, average
CTR dropped from 22% to
12%.
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How Does it Affect Sites?
Even sites
referenced in the
Knowledge Graph
lost traffic.
Once it was
introduced,
Wikipedia lost
more than 20%
of its US traffic.
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But!
When used correctlythe Knowledge Graph showed
an overall increase in traffic for
sites, even when those sites lost
traffic on individual searches.
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Answers and panels (collations) hurt sites
The carousel and related links (collections and
connections) can help sites.
Fighting Back
How do you use
the Knowledge Graph to
your advantage?
Wikipedia
Freebase
Collating and Organizing your
own information
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Wikipedia
The Knowledge Graph’s
primary source of textual,
descriptive data
Luckily, you can—and
should—edit Wikipedia (I have
~5000 edits).
No need to promote your site
Don’t violate Wikipedia
guidelines
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Wikipedia
Make sure that:
Wikipedia’s information,
especially the top intro
paragraph, are correct.
Related information in
Wikipedia is correct:
– Cast lists
– Car models
– Categories
– Etc…
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Freebase
An incredible database of
nearly all the world’s info:
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It does exactly what the Knowledge Graph needs: it shows
the connections between different pieces of data.
Unsurprisingly purchased by
That you can also edit
Freebase
Make sure those
connections are correct
and that they include what you
want.
Connect data to a site!
A great way to subtly convince
Google to use your site as a
source for the Knowledge
Graph, or get the info you
want in the Knowledge Graph.
Only until April 2015!
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Make Your Own Freebase/Wikipedia
If you do connect your site you’ll do best in the Knowledge
Graph if Google likes the site.
Keep it organized
Show connections and
collections
Make it highly structured
Bonus: If you can maintain it,
make it editable.
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The Results
VH1 used the Knowledge
Graph
to their advantage, updating
Wikipedia and Freebase to
ensure all show and product info
was correct.
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Avg. CTR when the Knowledge Graph showed up (in all positions)
jumped to 15%!
The Results
In fact, by tracking
IPs and visitor sessions
We saw that users actually
browsed more pages when the Knowledge Graph showed up!
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The Results
For searches that returned
collection results, especially with visual collections,
CTR jumped to 20% in all
positions!
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One Last Thing!
The Knowledge Graph
also grabs data from one more
very important source: your
favorite social network,
Google+!
Connect you Google+ page, and Google
will feature your latest G+ post for free!
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SEO Tips & Tricks Free Traffic for eCommerce sites
The secret Macy’s doesn’t want
you to know about
How HappyPlace tricked you
One weird trick your agency
doesn’t want to know
But wait! There’s more!
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The Coupon Page
For almost every retailerthe most popular branded searches
(and often the most popular
searches) are for coupons and
discounts.
Why give that away to RetailMeNot?
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The Coupon Page
YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO OFFER COUPONS!
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Macys.com Secret NavigationThe Macys.com you never see—unless you come from search.
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THE PERFECT COMBO OF SEO AND USABILITY
Macys.com Secret NavigationThe Macys.com you never see—unless you come from search.
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THE PERFECT COMBO OF SEO AND USABILITY
Macys.com Secret Navigation
But it doesn’t sell quite as well as
Macys.com’s regular category pages.
Vs.
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Macys.com Secret Navigation
They link to it contextually, but not overtly
They use it primarily where they don’t have
categories or subcategories (like cocktail
dresses)
Once the bot gets to /SLP/, it stays there. And
it likes it.
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The Never-Ending Page
We all wants links, shares and other social
metrics for our articles.
How can your smaller site get as many likes, tweets
and links as the big guys?
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The Never-Ending Page
Just run the same article forever. Or at least, on the same URL.
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But Wait, There’s More!
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Questions?
