Oracles, Semantics and SEOUsing research and analytics to influence

the future of your search rankings

Presentation Goal

To provide a better understanding of how search works to help generate search engine friendly content.

Quiz: Name this place

HINT: One hundred miles northwest of Athens, above the Gulf of Corinth, on the holy mountain of Parnassus

SEO… It’s all greek to me.

γνῶθι σεαυτόν

μηδὲν ἄγαν

Priestess of Delphi (1891) by John Collier; the Pythia was inspired by pneuma rising from belowhttp://sacredsites.com/europe/greece/delphi.html

Before you do anything...

Know Thyself

γνῶθι σεαυτόν

"There are three Things extremely hard, Steel, a Diamond, and to know one's self." -Benjamin Franklin, in his Poor Richard's Almanack

(also know your business objectives)

How do Prospects see you?

Always start by searching...

Start with how you think people are searching or see how they are searching and look at the results?

Both…

You need to understand both how you want to be found as well as how you are currently being found...

How Search Works...

http://www.google.com/insidesearch/howsearchworks/thestory/

Components of an optimized page

How Rankings are Generated (for now…)

Google Search Algorithm: When, Where and How Often...

Each year, Google changes its search algorithm around 500–600

times. While most of these changes are minor, Google

occasionally rolls out a "major" algorithmic update (such as

Google Panda and Google Penguin) that affects search results in

significant ways.

http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change#2013

A Brief History of Google Search...

Search Projects at Google

Welcome to the Semantic Web

“The word semantic itself implies meaning or understanding. ...the fundamental difference between Semantic Web technologies and other technologies related to data (such as relational databases or the World Wide Web itself) is that the Semantic Web is concerned with the meaning and not the structure of data.”

http://www.cambridgesemantics.com/semantic-university/introduction-to-the-semantic-web

The Knowledge Graph

Semantic SEO

http://www.seoskeptic.com/semantic-seo-making-shift-strings-things/

Nothing In Excessμηδὲν ἄγαν

Anything you can do in excess for the wrong reasons is exciting to me.

Carrie Fisher

SEO is Dead… Long live SEO

• SEO is a big industry• Keyword reporting is almost completely gone…• The rate of change google algorithms incur are almost

impossible to keep up with• Google is on to those trying to game the system

The industry is dead. Not the discipline.

Google Pets: Hummingbirds, Penguins and Pandas

Link Building: Watch your backlinks

Typically done through traditional PR, with very thorough vetting of the sites

http://moz.com/researchtools/ose/anchors?site=www.psu.edu

Keyword Stuffing

• "Keyword stuffing" refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site's ranking in Google search results

• Often these keywords appear in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose)

• Filling pages with keywords or numbers results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site's ranking

• Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context

https://www.rankwise.net/gradschool.psu.edu

Tools You Can Use:

Τυχη μη πιστευε

Do Not Trust Fortune

Google Analytics: Landing Pages

Google Analytics: Query Impressions

Google Analytics: Internal Search

Google Trends

Google Autofill

SEO Page Comparison Toolhttp://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/seo-tools/seo-compare/

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) discovers semantically related words and phrases.

The whole idea of using LSI allows the search engines to find highly relevant content for any given search term.

When writing content for the Internet, it is important to use Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) or Keyword Theming as it is often called.

Latent Semantic Keyword Generator

http://lsikeywords.com/

Foresee the FutureΟρα το μελλον

Prepare for what’s ahead...

Any Questions?