What Happened in SEO in 2015?

2 Major Sections in This Session

1. On-Page SEO

2. Off-Page SEO

On-Page SEO

3 On-Page SEO Topics

1. Mobile Search

2. Twitter Indexation and SEO

3. Build Out An SEO Test Platform

4. Rich Answers in Search

What Happened With Mobilegeddon?

We Analyzed 15,235 Queries Week of April 17, and Again on May

18

Mobile DOES Matter as a Ranking Factor

ISPYour WebServer

UserRequestsPage

RequestMade

RequestMade

PageSent

PageSent

Copy StoredIn ISP Cache

Vary: User-Agent Header

1 2 3

4

5

6

ISP

UserRequestsPage

RequestMade

PageSent

Vary: User-Agent Header

1 2

5

PageRetrievedFrom Cache

ISP ChecksIf Page isIn Cache

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Your WebServer

Source: Cindy Krum, via Search Engine Land

Don’t Forget App Indexing1. Support HTTP deep links

2. Add the App Indexing SDK to your project

3. Check your implementation

4. Enhance your search performance

Perform A/B Split Testing

Assemble Large Lists of SEO Related ItemsTake Half of Them

Change That Half and Use the Other Half as a

Control

Did the New Version Increase Rank or

SERP CTR?

Hreflang

What Are These About?

(Almost) Same Language For

Different Countries

Multiple Languages for the Same

Country

Key Points About Hreflang

Specify Language Only or Language and Country

Specify language in ISO 639-1 format

Specify country in ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 format

Specify in Header, Sitemap, or HTTP Header

Specify in Only One of the Three Places

Must be Mutual

Does Google Index More Tweets?

We Ran a Study in February 2015 of 138,000 Tweets

Here are the Raw Results From February

But on May 19th Google Went Live with an

Integration Leveraging the Twitter API

Comparison of Indexation in June vs February

Emphasis on Authority Only Increased

Don’t Have an Influential Account?

Pay an Influencer to Tweet For You

What’s Going On With Google’s Rich Answers?

We Did a Second Study of 1.4M Queries

How Has This Grown Over Time?

Increase in Rich Answers (No Sidebar) of 38%!

We Compared The Results With Our February Test

Domain Authority of 47

Jumped Over Wikipedia!

Simple Clear Answer to the Question

Got the Rich Answer

Lost the Rich Answer

Title Tag Entices Click Through

Domain Authority of 38

More Items Will Drive More Clicks

Ranks Number 5 Normally

Simple Direct Answer to the

Question

Got the Rich Answer

How Can I Get Me Some?

How To Implement a NoFollow?

How To Implement a NoIndex Tag?

How To Implement a Rel Alternate Tag?

How To Implement a Rel Canonical?

How To Implement a Vary:User Agent Header?

We Started With a List of Common Questions

We Published 5 Videos on May 20th

We Included Transcripts With a Clear Outline of Steps

The Content Provided a Lot More Info Than Just the “How To”

We Shared One of The URLs on Google+

We Submitted the URLs in Search Console

Bingo!Saw This Within 3 Days of

Publishing the Content

Identify a Simple Question

Provide a Direct Answer

Make it Easy for Users (and Google) to Find

1

2

4

Offer Valued Added Info3

Off-Page SEO

3 Off-Page SEO Topics

1. Social Media and SEO

2. What Types of Content Work?

3. The Content Marketing Ecosystem

Social Platform Links are Still NoFollow

Source: Chartbeat

Social Media Sharing Can Drive Links

But, That’s Not Guaranteed

Source: Moz and BuzzSumo

Paid Social Adds High Value Targeting

Build a List of Your Media Contacts

Facebook Find Customers Tool

Upload Their Email Addresses Into a Campaign

Random Sample of >500,000 ArticlesUsed in a Moz/BuzzSumo Research Project

Impact of Length on Shares and Links

Source: Moz and BuzzSumo

Sweet Spot Content That Does it All

Opinion-Forming Journalism

Research-Backed Content

Long-Form Content

Today’s Environment is an Ecosystem

Social Media Sharing Can Build Your Audience

1 2

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Larger Audiences Increase Visibility

Influencers Have Large Audiences

Influencer

Influencers Are an Accelerant

Building Relationships With Influencers

Read Everything They Write

Follow Them on Social Media

Start Interacting

Don’t Pitch Them, Be Patient

Wait to They Start to Notice You

Then, Suggest Ways to Collaborate

Eric Engeeenge@stonetemple.com

@stonetemple+Eric Enge

(508) 962-8474www.stonetemple.com

Thank You!