The Future of SEO

Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOmoz

Download: http://bit.ly/mozfutureofseo

Why SEO? Why Inbound?

#1: Click Distribution

Only 18% of Clicks Go Here

82% Go Here

Less than 1% of Clicks Go Here

99% Go Everywhere Else

Especially Here

The Best Facebook Ads

Get <1% CTR

Wall Posts Often Have 30%+

Banner Ads Are Lucky

to Get 1% CTR

But Web Content

Generates Tons of Views

Blog Sidebar Ads? <5%

Blog Content? Doing Great;

Thank You.

*Via Forrester’s Interactive Marketing 2012 Report

Inbound Marketing: ~90% of traffic

(but only $5 Billion of investment in 2012*)

Paid Marketing: ~10% of traffic

($40 Billion of investment in 2012*)

#2: Cost of Acquisition

Meet Steve

Steve Uses Ads to Buy Traffic

Steve Spends $500 on Average to

Acquire a New Customer

Meet Greg

Greg Leverages Inbound

Channels to Earn Traffic

Greg Spends $100 on Average to

Acquire a New Customer

Greg Can Aqcuire 5X as Many

Customers as Steve

Or Greg Can Spend $400 per

Customer to Improve His Product

Who Would You Rather Be?

10K Foot View on Search

http://searchengineland.com/by-the-numbers-twitter-vs-facebook-vs-google-buzz-36709

Growth of Google Queries 2007-2012Number of Searches/Day on Google

3 Billion Searches/Day (announced Aug. 2012)

Via http://adage.com/article/digital/interactive-marketing-spend-hit-76-6b-2016/229444/

Growth of Spending on Paid Search

http://www.marquettegroup.com/why-advertise-on-a-mobile-device/

Growth of Mobile Search

Via Statcounter: http://gs.statcounter.com/#search_engine-na-monthly-201108-201208

Bing vs. Google Market Share

http://www.bgr.com/2012/09/17/google-plus-stats-2012-400-million-members/

Massive Growth of Google+

There are lots of social networks at scale in 2012, and potentially more

coming.

Fragmentation of Social Networks

Users: 100mm 900mm 200mm 120mm 10mm

Users: 15mm Millions 14mm 7.5mm 18mm

What Hasn’t Changed in SEO

Via Google Webmaster Tools: http://google.com/webmasters

Engines Still Need Accessibility Help

Via the still-amazing http://headrush.typepad.com/

Delighting Users Still Leads to Success

Getting the Basics Right Still Matters

Start with a strong base, then work your way up.

SEO Success Still Happens at this Intersection

Right HERE

What’s Changed in SEO

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/beat-google-panda

Panda & Low Quality Content

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/7-achievable-steps-for-great-seo-after-the-penguin-update

Penguin & Low Quality Links

Avoid this: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/17-types-of-link-spam-to-avoid

Do this:

http://searchengineland.com/link-building-means-earning-hard-links-not-easy-links-123767

Link Building vs. Earning Links

Rich Snippets and Schema Markup

Star Ratings, Reviews & Price

Author Photo

Date of Publication

Video Snippet

Video Search and Video SEO

http://www.cleancutmedia.com/video/youtube-is-it-possible-to-watch-4-billion-views-a-day

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/new-data-the-correlations-between-social-sharing-and-inbound-links

The Merging of SEO & Social Media

http://www.seobythesea.com/2011/07/how-google-might-rank-pages-based-upon-usage-information/

User & Usage Data Signals

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/social-annotations-in-search-now-your-social-network-rankings

and http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/how-to-analyze-google-analytics-not-provided-data

Lost Data: Not Provided & Social Connections

Link: http://bit.ly/mozfutureofseo

Google & Bing Dominating Head Terms

Link: http://bit.ly/mozfutureofseo

Google & Bing Dominating Head Terms

Link: http://bit.ly/mozfutureofseo

Google & Bing Dominating Head Terms

Just one page out of 10 in Annie Cushing’s guide:

http://inbound.org/tools-software/2012/07/annie-cushings-amazing-google-doc-of-seo-tools/

Lots of New Tools & Data Available

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-responsibilities-of-seo-have-been-upgraded

Massive Shift in Roles & Responsibilities

Strategic Tips for SEO

http://about.zappos.com/zappos-story/in-the-beginning-let-there-be-shoes

#1: Get Your Brand’s Story Right

#2: Develop a Content Strategy that Will Attract

A) Customers and/or B) Customer Influencers

Relevantto Current Customers

Relevantto Potential Customers

Relevant to Any Who Interact w/ Potential

Customers

Get Here

#3: Focus on Inbound Channels Where Your Audience Exists

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tracking-the-roi-of-social-media

#4: Set Up the Right KPIs

Metrics are essential at every phase of the funnel to determine

what’s working vs. not

Moz’s Casey Henry (http://www.seomoz.org/team/casey) and Devin Ellis (

http://www.seomoz.org/team/devin)

#5: Devote a Webdev Team to Marketing

#6: Create an Incentive for People to Share

Tactical Tips for SEO (and Inbound)

Link: http://bit.ly/mozfutureofseo

#1: Embrace the Long Tail of Keyword Demand

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

Times when my followers are online via http://followerwonk.com

#2A: Optimize Your Social Timing

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.

For my account, on average, the highest CTRs come when a link is in the middle of a

tweet, surrounded by text on either side with no other @mentions or hashtags

#2B: Optimize Your Social Share Formatting

URL at the end & hash tag next to the URL

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

Taking care to optimize your social shares will mean a higher rate of re-sharing

and more follower/fan growth with every share you make.

#2B: Optimize Your Social Share Formatting

Perfectly formatted image uploaded separate to post link makes for high visibility and CTR in Facebook.

Bad image and non-customized share & a mediocre snippet

means lower CTR on Google+

Tracking of my socially shared links via http://bit.ly

#2C: Optimize & Track What You Share

#3: Create Search Results that Stand Out

#4: Leverage Video Content & Video SEO

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

#5: Don’t Limit Competitive Link Analysis

to Direct Competitors

e.g. If I were doing link building for SEOmoz, I’d look at who links to other web

marketing topics, like email or conversion rate optimization.

#6: Research What Bloggers, Journalists, &

Influencer Portals Cover. Then Do That Stuff.

Alltop and other aggregation sites can be good sources: http://alltop.com

#7: Social Media OAuth Services Can Be

Powerful Customer Acquisition Tools

#8: Keep All Your Content on One Subdomain

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understanding-root-domains-subdomains-vs-subfolders-microsites

Good place to find great designers: http://dribbble.com

#9: Poor Design Negatively Impacts Every Inbound Channel

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

#10: Test & Optimize Your CTA Buttons

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

#11: Make Your Site CRAZY FAST

Data from @jcolman of REI

A Few Last Words of Advice

Link: http://bit.ly/mozfutureofseo

Inbound Marketing is a Long Term Investment

Where Geraldine Started Her Blog

Link: http://bit.ly/mozfutureofseo

Inbound Marketing is a Long Term Investment

Where People Usually Give Up

Link: http://bit.ly/mozfutureofseo

Inbound Marketing is a Long Term Investment

Over 4,000 Visits/Day to a Single Author Blog

Link: http://bit.ly/mozfutureofseo

Channels Where Others Don’t Invest is Where

Real Opportunity Lies

“The force is strong with this one.”

The Temptation to Do Black/Gray Hat is

Strong. You Have to Resist It.

Ruth Burr, SEOmoz’s In-House SEO http://www.seomoz.org/team/ruthburr

(part of a team of 6 inbound focused folks on our marketing team)

You Probably Can’t Do SEO (or Inbound)

Effectively at Scale Without an In-House Resource

Some guesses at algo flux:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-googles-rankings-algorithm-has-changed-over-time-

SEO Today (and for the Future) is Not About a Perfect Formula

Couldn’t resist using this image Via http://xk9.com/bones/branding-is-bullshit/

SEO is About Building a Great Brand(and making that brand’s web presence accessible/optimized for engines)

R

Your Analytics Will Lie to You.(unless you’re using multi-touch attribution)

R

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tracking-the-roi-of-social-media

Multi-Channel Attribution is Critical

Visualizing Visits Through Various Channels

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-the-inbound-marketing-funnel-is-essential-whiteboard-friday

The Future of SEO

Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOmoz

• Download this deck: http://bit.ly/mozfutureofseo

• Email: rand@seomoz.org

• Twitter: @randfish

• Blog: http://moz.com/rand and http://seomoz.org/blog