Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Optimizing for Humans: Value-Added SEO
Cyrus Shepard | @cyrusshepard
@cyrusshepard
What SEO sorcery is this?
600% Growth in 5 years
The myth of
advanced SEO
What’s an amazing restaurant in Edinburgh?
Challenge: Rank #1 for “Amazing Restaurant in Edinburgh”
Easy!
(right?)
I’m an SEO EXPERT!
I write smarty-pants blog
posts!
I read Google patents for
fun!
Let’s apply Advanced
SEO
Optimized Title Tag <title>Best Restaurant – The Elephant House in Edinburgh Scotland</title>
Optimized Title Tag <title>Best Restaurant – The Elephant House in Edinburgh Scotland</title>
Optimize TF-IDF
Optimized Title Tag <title>Best Restaurant – The Elephant House in Edinburgh Scotland</title>
Optimize TF-IDF
Synonyms & Variants
Optimized Title Tag <title>Best Restaurant – The Elephant House in Edinburgh Scotland</title>
Optimize TF-IDF
Synonyms & Variants
Page Segmentation
Optimized Title Tag <title>Best Restaurant – The Elephant House in Edinburgh Scotland</title>
Optimize TF-IDF
Synonyms & Variants
Page Segmentation
Semantic Distance
Optimized Title Tag <title>Best Restaurant – The Elephant House in Edinburgh Scotland</title>
Optimize TF-IDF
Synonyms & Variants
Page Segmentation
Semantic Distance
Co-occurrence Optimization
Optimized Title Tag <title>Best Restaurant – The Elephant House in Edinburgh Scotland</title>
Optimize TF-IDF
Synonyms & Variants
Page Segmentation
Semantic Distance
Co-occurrence Optimization
Entity Salience
This just might work…
Advanced SEO got us to
page 1
But failed to get us to #1
We forgot user inputs
Content for Engines L
Credit to: Ma:hew J Brown
Two Optimization Strategies
Engines Users
One Unified Algorithm
New Paradigm: The Rise of User Inputs
h:ps://moz.com/search-‐ranking-‐factors/survey
The Future of SEO
The Future of SEO
h:ps://moz.com/search-‐ranking-‐factors/survey
User-based features
Traditional SEO features
h:ps://moz.com/search-‐ranking-‐factors/survey
Human-Optimized SEO: 5 Strategies
1 2 3 4 5
1. The User Chooses You
Modifying search result ranking based on user feedback
h:p://www.seobythesea.com/2015/07/google-‐click-‐through-‐feedback-‐search-‐results/
Rand’s Experiment
h:ps://seomoz.box.com/shared/staNc/8fg6ete8oemwcw8im6ljeczt55axr5kl.pdf
Moved to #1 after ~500 interactions (before falling back)
h:ps://seomoz.box.com/shared/staNc/8fg6ete8oemwcw8im6ljeczt55axr5kl.pdf
Art of click nudging
Title
Keywords DescripNon
Brand
Rich Snippets
URL
Hacking with Google Search Console
The user chooses you again and again
2. Task Completion
This looks cool, but what about other restaurants?
Getting the click may not be enough, if the
user doesn’t complete the task
Ah, I can complete my task right here!
• All restaurants ranked • Reviews • Maps • Menus • Prices • ReservaNons
≠ Pogo Sticking
h:p://moz.com/blog/seo-‐saNsfacNon
No need to go anywhere
else!
I love your website – it’s so
fast and a:racNve!
Engagement!
Aaron & Holly, Engaged
Assisting elements of task completion
• Design • UX
• Navigation • Site Speed
• Searchability • Information
Architecture
3. Answer questions users haven’t asked yet
Lots of questions. Many searches.
Questions the robots told us about
Questions our humans haven’t asked yet!
One page Many answers
Long tail is very hard to predict in advance
Feature of Successful Sites
h:p://mozcast.com/metrics
Supplemental Content
h:p://www.scribd.com/doc/217994742/General-‐Guidelines-‐1
From Google’s Leaked Quality
RaNng Guidelines
Supplemental Content
YouTube is 90% Supplemental
Content
• Related ArNcles • Links • NavigaNon Aids • Tools • Resources
h:p://www.slideshare.net/hustwj/cikm-‐keynotenov2014
Deep learning algorithms aim to measure+predict related
concepts, and rank accordingly.
Ranking Advantages
4. Human Formatting
We still publish content like this
…and 80% never read all of it.
h:p://dejanseo.com.au/web-‐content/
Reasons why people leave content
Whiteboard Fridays Circa 2010
Video Only: Good for Humans Poor for Robots
We added transcripts
Search engines love me!
What human wants to read this?!?!
Nope!
Added rich formatting • Headers • Images • Scanable
Holy Engagement Batman!
5. Buy Links
5. Buy Links
5. Buy Eyeballs
The “free” channels
Moz’s most reproduced graphic
Awe$ome People
We spend far more on Community + Social Media
than Content/SEO
Paid $ocial
Hire Awe$ome PR People
Fabulous!
Event$
Content Di$covery Networks
h:p://moz.com/blog/maximize-‐roi-‐via-‐content-‐distribuNon-‐networks
• Taboola • Outbrain • Gravity • Zemanta • ZergNet • Adblade • More here
@cyrusshepard
