Recent Developments in SEO and Paid Search

Andrew Delamarter

Inbound Strategies GroupInboundStrategiesGroup.com

@ADNYCE

What’s Changed and What Hasn’t in SEO and SEM

OMS San Diego 2013 | Room 29D

Agenda:1. What’s new in SEO.2. What’s new in SEM.3. What to do about it.

What changed in 2012 – SEO.

1. The decline of link schemes.2. The increase in complexity.3. The reframing of SEO into ‘Inbound Marketing’.

The decline of link schemes.

SEO in 2012

What do I mean by ‘link schemes’?

Buying links in an obvious way ‘Private blog networks’ (i.e. BuildMyRank.com)

Paid link schemes

B2B or B2C, hyperlinks are SEO fuel. Links with optimized

(keyword) anchor text are super effective in core web search.

So what happened?

Link Schemes

Google

• By attacking webmasters directly – penalizing brands.

• With the threat in place, Google can rely on self-reporting

and web spam reports.• Step 1: Send warning letter. ‘Tell us who you work

with’.• Step 2: Flag reported domains and review site

footprints.• Step 3: Send out more letters to linked domains.• Step 4: Profit.

So how did Google do it?

Remember:Google is built on the Link Graph.

It’s not ready to tear it out and start over.

Which is why…Link building still works.

Increasing complexity.

SEO in 2012:

Core web search is becoming a ‘winner take all’ situation

Search engines are incorporating new ranking signals.

• Social signals – author, domain, page authority.

• Citations - not just links.

• User experience – high bounce rates hurt rankings.

• Viral nature of content.

• Device-specific mobile site performance:• Technical – Responsive design, mobile sites.• Content – local content.

• User intent:• Search engines getting better at discerning ‘local

intent’ & including local search info in products.

• Local search - map, review sites, G+ local, etc.

• Mobile search (50% of which is also local)

• Social search

• Image search / infographics

• App-driven traffic (Foursquare, Field Trip)

• ‘Dark’ traffic make things tough to track:• ‘Dark social pools’ – URL shorteners strip out referrer data.

• Much of your viral content traffic may show up in analytics as direct referrer. Content Marketers take note.

• No keyword shown for logged-in organic referrals.• IO/S traffic shows as direct traffic in analytics

• Data feed / API-driven traffic.

Organic traffic sources are more complex - and harder to track.

The transition from ‘SEO’ to Inbound Marketing.

SEO in 2012:

‘SEO’ does not even accurately describe what good ‘SEOs’

do anymore:

• Our SEO Recommendations memos address:• Social media / social profiles• APIs / Open data sets • Semantic markup • Local search / review sites• Conversion / landing page optimization• Keyword strategy & Content marketing• Communications

SEO is inherently holistic.

Current Online Marketing paradigm:

Best of breed tools and processes run by experts.

UX / Design Analytics Social SEO /

agency Paid

mediaContent / Editorial

“We call ‘em ‘Bankruptcy Tubes’” – Joel Salatin

Director of MarketingManaging Lieutenants in silos

But SEO does not work well in a silo.

Mix it in.

“Search, Social & Content Has Merged into a Single Process”

-Kevin Gibson

Inbound Marketing Paradigm:Managing SEO, High-intent Media,

Local, Social, Content, and Analytics, holistically.

Be these guys.

Social / Local / Mobile

What changed in 2012 – SEM.

1. Mobile / Local grew up.2. Complexity increased.3. Lines got blurred.

Mobile. Local.SEO in 2012

Tectonic plates shift:Mobile search to eclipse desktop

search by 2015.

Mobile search means lower CPCs and fewer clicks for

Google

• Tablet search converts better, smartphone search worse,

for most (but not all) keywords.

• Google’s ‘Enhanced Campaigns’ make it harder to run

platform-specific SEM.• Requires advertisers to set multipliers that impact all

keywords in campaigns.

• Find ways to make your business local – optimize local

landing pages, reach out to reseller networks, service or

support pages – anything to make your business locally

relevant and good for local SEM.

Brands need mobile / local SEM strategies.

Increased complexity.

SEO in 2012

• Advertising networks and exchanges now have a real

winner with remarketing.

• DSPs (Demand-Side Platforms) and agencies have

exploded to help advertisers and agencies deal with

complexity and exploit inefficiencies between ad networks,

publishers, and brands.• Real-time bidding across networks and goal setting.• Creative development and optimization.• Targeting (including mobile) and audience settings.

• Social networks are jumping on the bandwagon.

The remarketing boom.

• To really get the most out of these new tactics

deep SEM / media expertise may be required for

mid-to-large sized brands at this point.

• In-house SEM may need enterprise tools to get it

done ($$$) globally & to manage multiple

engines.

• SEM / Media agencies can afford to distribute the

cost of tools and training over many clients.

Agencies love complexity.

• Are you maxing out inventory on Google adWords?• Remarketing / Retargeting & Affiliate ‘display’ media

opens a world of ROI-positive tactics.

• Do you have budget to expand marketing if the ROI is

positive?

• Do you have better things to do with your people?• Like creating, publishing, and optimizing content,

maybe?• Or making sure everything is working together?

How to decide if you need an SEM or media agency.

The blurring of lines in SEM.

SEM in 2012

• Ad networks have become search-like and search

engines have acquired media firms and ad networks.

• The result is search-like advertising tactics abound

outside adWords and Bing.• Start thinking beyond adWords – there is a big world

out there.

• Endless forms of targeting (site, URL, search, IP, geo) are

adding real value to display advertising.

• Remember: The real ROI is always on the bleeding edge,

before the big, slow brands with big budgets pile in.

Search engine marketing evolves.

All that work you put in to building a Facebook presence now

needs paid media to get seen by your fans.

• 16% of brand posts now make it into the newsfeeds of

fans

• SEMs need to be heavily engaged in both Facebook

advertising (‘Premium’ ads) and working with Social media

content teams (news feed ads).

• Social media content needs to be very compelling to be

seen or else it needs to be promoted.

Social media is looking more like paid media.

What to do about it.

Shift to an Inbound Marketing perspective.

SEM / SEO is a big part of inbound marketing, but just a part.

It also includes:Content marketing

Social media Conversion optimization

Media alignment

The inbound marketer thinks about keywords, content, and context, and facilitates cross-

group communication, strategy, execution, and optimization.

Inbound Marketer

SEM / media Web analytics

CM / SEO Social

WordPressConductor

HootSuiteMarketing Cloud

DoubleclickMarin

Kenshoo

OmnitureGoogle

Analytics

PaidOwned

Earned

Inbound marketers look for emerging sources of traffic that

defy silos.

Just because you can’t staff an inbound

position doesn’t mean you can’t think along

these lines.

Inbound marketing in action.

Keywords and Destination URLs

Editorial plan SEM / Paid / Social

Local teams Communications

Start with a master keyword list.

Build out a keyword-driven editorial plan. Create content, promote with media.

Inbound content marketing – infographics.

• This Infographic optimized for ‘UX careers’ keywords dominated the entire search results page:

• Align media spend - adjust bids on PPC

ads based on organic rankings.

• Use paid search data to drive content

marketing

• Create evergreen SEO content based on

organic landing pages use SEM data.

• Expand beyond Google, beyond search

entirely to new ‘high intent’ tactics.

Inbound marketing – SEM.

SEO & SEM: Competitive brand query.

SEO & SEM – Non-competitive brand query.

• This is a bit redundant since Inbound Marketing is

replacing SEO.

• Nevertheless, SEO in the Inbound Marketing era

still remains, just in a more subtle form.

• Assuming your have decent content and no major

technical problems, the big thing in core web

search is still links, which boils down to link

building.

Inbound Marketing - SEO

Understand the difference between link building and buying links. Buying links in an obvious

way is no longer wise.

Link building is a Grey area.

Optimize your backlinks via partnerships, value exchange,

whatever. But the second you see results, pull back and vary anchor text and URLs. Strive for a ‘natural

backlink profile’

• Take ownership of G+ local, other business listings.

Encourage channel partners to do the same.

• Populate local pages with keyword-driven content

from content marketing program.

• Make sure NAP (name, address, phone) matches

exactly to web site & add semantic markup to be

sure.

• Cross-link your Google + Local page, Yahoo local

listings to on-site content.

Inbound marketing tactics – local.

• Drive traffic with deep links and keyword anchor text.

• Monitor link sharing trends (Bit.ly+) and feed into

content calendar.

• Seed keyword-driven content to social sites and

cross-link using keywords.

• Promote good social content with SEM / media.

Inbound tactics – social.

Merging local + social.

Boost author digital social authority via profiles.

Klout score(Bing) or Google’s

AgentRank are among the

emerging ranking signals for

issues-related content.

Anyone who creates content for

needs to have a G+ profile

linked to their content:

• Speeches

• Press releases

• Core site content

• News

Add author attribution to syndicated content.

• Enterprise SEO tools: Consider

Conductor, Brightedge ($$$), Raven

($), Searchmetrics ($$)

• Web analytics – Create cross-group

dashboards and reports (Domo).

Consider integrated platforms like

Adobe and soon the DoubleClick

search platform.

• Ad Managers: Kenshoo has PPC,

SEO rankings, social and local ad

management. Marin software has

search, social, display, mobile

Tools to get it done.

It’s up to you to make the connections to show integration

and cross-group success.

One last point…

Search is long in the tooth.

But… a lot has not changed.

A personal example.

Running a homeschool collective (radschool.org) is hard...

Like any business we needed to ‘acquire customers’.

We developed a marketing and keyword strategy• Changed target to ‘alternative schoolers’ from

homeschoolers.

• We mapped our keywords to digital content

• We optimized on-page content for each keyword using a

search-friendly CMS platform like WordPress.

• We had each parent link to the home page using the

keyword ‘alternative school’ or a variant.

Start with the basics.

2001 - era tactics still work.

I am continually amazed at how many brands small or large that

have not even gone this far.

• LA smog image by Robert S. Donovan: CC-licensed at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/booleansplit/1297903757/sizes/o/in/photostream

• Ice tea image by Harsha KR: CC-licensed at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mynameisharsha/4901750728/

• Google CPCs chart: BusinesInsider.com on Google public data:

http://www.businessinsider.com/fury-at-google-advertisers-say-new-search-

rules-are-stealing-from-them-2013-2

• Thor action figure image: By JD Hancock. CC-licensed at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdhancock/8402660230/

• Homeschool photos by Andrew Delamarter (author).

Image credits.