SEMA 2012 - SEO: Not Even Remotely Dead

Apogee Results

Apogee Results

SEO: Not Even Remotely DeadOctober 2012

Over the past couple of years, SEO has changed more than it has over the previous ten. Or has it? Others tell us that the core principles of SEO are timeless and have been unchanging since the birth of Google in the late 1990s. What's the truth? We constantly hear about new Google updates and how Google Panda this or Google Penguin that has completely changed the rankings landscape. What's really going on? SEO is actually more important than ever, and we're going to dispel myths and dispense useful tactics that when implemented, WILL increase your visibility and traffic online. This session will get down and dirty with actionable strategies and tactics for now, for 2013, and beyond. Don't miss this hands-on, no holds barred clinic that will help you successfully grapple with one of the very highest ROI marketing endeavors out there.


• Once you have something figured out, it is probably about to change on you

• There are many roads to Rome

• Hubris (pride) is the beginning of humiliation

• What works for someone else, might not work for you

• Follow me @marketing_bill or email me [email protected]


= Revenue?


• Forrester JUST released a new report

• “The Purchase Path of Online Buyers in 2012

• Analyzed conversion paths on 77,000 orders

• Fewer than 1 percent of transactions could be traced to social links

• Top performing sources

• direct visits (20%)

• Organic search (16%)

• Paid Search (11%)



• Search matters most for NEW customers

• Email matters most for REPEAT customers

• Social tactics are not meaningful sales drivers


VS


Slide CopySlide Copy


MOST LIKELY…. Not Forms or Likes

• Sales?• Bottom Line Earnings?• Top Line Revenue?• Margin?• ROI?• Brand (building, maintenance and/or defense)


Shades of a Large Shift…

• Social Media• Partners• Channels• Press• Portals• Divisional efforts• Universal / Blended Search• Mobile• Plus / Places / Maps


• Online PR

• Search - Paid (PPC)

• Search - Natural (SEO)

• Email

• Social Networks

• Display (incl. retargeting & rich media)


• ABT (Always Be Testing)

• Titles, Descriptions, Tagging

• Keywords

• Landing pages / conversion

• ABM (Always Be Measuring)

• What matters?

• How are you measuring it?

• ABA (Always Be Asking)

• What else can I learn from this?

• ex/ PPC drives SEO keyword selection

• Get it right at the beginning

• Sales and marketing alignment critical to this exercise

• Strategic planning worth the investment

• What is victory?


“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get

you there”

- Lewis Carroll


“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you

there”

- Lewis Carroll

• How are you going to measure this?

• Are your analytics tools working?

• Where are you today?

• How does today compare with where you need to be?

• Heuristic (aka rules of thumb)• Top ten lists• Checklists• Best practices

• Persona-based

• A/B & Analytics• Multivariate

• Google• Adobe / Omniture Test & Target


= QUALITATIVE

= QUANTITATIVE



MethodicalMethodicalCompetitiveCompetitive

SpontaneousSpontaneous

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Emot

iona

l

Quick Decisions Slow Decisions


Traditional

• SEO is the study of search rankings factors and the practice of implementing those findings to increase a client's ranking or otherwise favorably position a client in the results pages.


Competitive

Reputation Management

Publicity

Local


Traditional Social




• Objectives• Target audience• Rankings, traffic, actions

(per keyword/page/section/site/overall)

• Keywords• Popularity & competition• Keyword intent (navigational/informational/transactional)• Rich content appearing in SERPs


• Keyword generation• Google Insights• Google Trends• Google Suggest/Instant

• Keyword popularity• Google Adwords Keyword Tool• Wordtracker

• Keyword competition• Adwords Keyword Tool• SERPs, AllinAnchor, AllinTitle• Viewing SERPs• Spyfu (paid)


• Think like the Customer

• Must have Search Volume

• Don’t Forget the Long Tail


• Structural Issues

• On-Page Factors

• Off-Page Factors (links)


• Indexability• Google Webmaster Central (www.google.com/webmasters/)

• Sitemaps• Page on Site• XML Sitemaps

• Internal Linking Structure• Keyword Usage• “No Follow” to Focus PageRank Flow


http://www.google.com/webmasters/

• Title tags• URL structure• On-page copy (a/b test!)• Meta description (just test!)• Alt tags• Fresh content

• Blog• UGC

• Unimportant• H1 tags• Meta keyword tag


• Traditional link building• Directories, business profiles, local listings• Blog commenting• Article syndication• Press releases• Partnerships• Sponsorships• Rented links• Link excavation or linking optimization


• Social link building• Social Bookmarking and Social News

• Social Bookmarking = less community (Delicious, Diigo, Mister Wong)• Social News = more community

(Digg, Reddit, Slashdot)• Promotion on social networks – followers on Twitter, people who ‘like’ you on

Facebook• User generated content• Make something interesting



• Content link building

• Write something that your average customer would share

• Build an interactive tool that can be extremely useful or interesting

• Provide such an interactive tool to be used on other’s websites (widget)

• Share and share appropriately

• Track what works (mentions, new links, traffic, conversions?)


• Video search• Image search• Product search• Maps/local search• Blog search• News search• Other sites where search is key

• eBay• Amazon• App store



• Different set of rankings factors• Popularity counts


• Trust• Citations > links

• Indexing

• Google Webmaster Tools

• Analytics (# of pages with search traffic)

• Ranking

• Free: hand-checking (only applicable for very short tail)

• Paid: Authority Labs, SEOMoz, most reporting suites

• Traffic

• Actions



Don’t Forget BING!

Over the past couple of years, SEO has changed more than it has over the previous ten. Or has it? Others tell us that the core principles of SEO are timeless and unchanging since the birth of Google in the late 1990s. What's the truth? We constantly hear about new Google updates and how Google Panda this or Google Penguin that has completely changed the rankings landscape.What's really going on? SEO is actually more important than ever, and we're going to dispel myths and dispense useful tactics that when implemented, WILL increase your visibility and traffic online. This session will get down and dirty with actionable strategies and tactics for now, for 2013, and beyond. Don't miss this hands-on, no holds barred clinic that will help you successfully grapple with one of the very highest ROI marketing endeavors out there.


Apogee Results

@Marketing_Bill

[email protected]

Business

SEMA 2012 - SEO: Not Even Remotely Dead