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Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz | @randfish | [email protected]
What Startup Execs Need to
Know About SEO in 2017
Slides online atbit.ly/execseo2017
Google Dominates Online
Traffic Referrals#1
Where Do People Search?
Breakdown of Searches
on Major Web Properties
(October 2016)
Breakdown of Searches
on Major Web Properties
(May 2017)
Google Core
Oct 2016 May 2017
Google Images
Yahoo
Bing
Google Maps
Amazon
Gained/Lost
58.9%
27.7%
2.6%
2.3%
2.2%
1.9%
0.7%
YouTube 3.8%
64.8%
21.8%
2.4%
2.4%
1.2%
2.3%
1.5%
3.6%
+5.9
-5.9
-0.2
+0.1
-1.0
+0.4
+0.8
-0.2
Google Core
Oct 2016 May 2017
Google Images
Yahoo
Bing
Google Maps
Amazon
Gained/Lost
58.9%
27.7%
2.6%
2.3%
2.2%
1.9%
0.7%
YouTube 3.8%
64.8%
21.8%
2.4%
2.4%
1.2%
2.3%
1.5%
3.6%
+5.9
-5.9
-0.2
+0.1
-1.0
+0.4
+0.8
-0.2
We think this is
Halloween
Google Core
Oct 2016 May 2017
Google Images
Yahoo
Bing
Google Maps
Amazon
Gained/Lost
58.9%
27.7%
2.6%
2.3%
2.2%
1.9%
0.7%
YouTube 3.8%
64.8%
21.8%
2.4%
2.4%
1.2%
2.3%
1.5%
3.6%
+5.9
-5.9
-0.2
+0.1
-1.0
+0.4
+0.8
-0.2This is compensated for by a rise in web
search clicks to local results
Google Core
Oct 2016 May 2017
Google Images
Yahoo
Bing
Google Maps
Amazon
Gained/Lost
58.9%
27.7%
2.6%
2.3%
2.2%
1.9%
0.7%
YouTube 3.8%
64.8%
21.8%
2.4%
2.4%
1.2%
2.3%
1.5%
3.6%
+5.9
-5.9
-0.2
+0.1
-1.0
+0.4
+0.8
-0.2
I’m keeping an eye on these two
Google’s Growth
So far, 2017 is trending ~10-15% higher than
2016, not including voice or Apple devices
Total Searchers vs. Active Searchers
United States
Canada
United Kingdom
Average
Searches/Month
% of Searchers w/ 10+
Searches/Month
103-119
120-139
120-135
~39%
~40%
~41%
Google CTR Breakdown
Relatively flat excluding seasonality = SEO not
being cannibalized by Google’s own results
What are the Web’s Top
Traffic Referrers?
Google.com
Oct 2016 May 2017
Facebook.com
Reddit.com
YouTube.com
Imgur.com
Bing.com
Wikipedia.org
Gained/Lost
59.2%
6.5%
5.4%
4.5%
2.2%
2.2%
1.4%
Yahoo.com 6.0%
62.6%
5.9%
4.1%
4.7%
1.5%
2.1%
1.4%
5.0%
+3.4%
-0.6%
-1.3%
+0.2%
-0.6%
-0.1%
+0%
-1.0%
Amazon.com 1.3% 1.4% +0.1%
Google.com
Oct 2016 May 2017
Facebook.com
Reddit.com
YouTube.com
Imgur.com
Bing.com
Wikipedia.org
Gained/Lost
59.2%
6.5%
5.4%
4.5%
2.2%
2.2%
1.4%
Yahoo.com 6.0%
62.6%
5.9%
4.1%
4.7%
1.5%
2.1%
1.4%
5.0%
+3.4%
-0.6%
-1.3%
+0.2%
-0.6%
-0.1%
+0%
-1.0%
Amazon.com 1.3% 1.4% +0.1%
This is when Reddit stopped using
Imgur for all its image hosting
Google.com
Oct 2016 May 2017
Facebook.com
Reddit.com
YouTube.com
Imgur.com
Bing.com
Wikipedia.org
Gained/Lost
59.2%
6.5%
5.4%
4.5%
2.2%
2.2%
1.4%
Yahoo.com 6.0%
62.6%
5.9%
4.1%
4.7%
1.5%
2.1%
1.4%
5.0%
+3.4%
-0.6%
-1.3%
+0.2%
-0.6%
-0.1%
+0%
-1.0%
Amazon.com 1.3% 1.4% +0.1%
In 7 months, Google gained
more share than all but the
top 5 even have
Top 10 11-100 101-1K 1K-10K 10K+
Google 22.2% 14.9% 18.0% 18.7% 26.2%
Facebook 42.7% 17.7% 15.3% 12.9% 11.3%
Yahoo 39.2% 15.8% 15.6% 14.0% 15.4%
Reddit 75.2% 11.0% 7.2% 4.4% 2.2%
Youtube 80.1% 7.2% 5.4% 4.1% 3.2%
Not All Referrers Send Traffic Equally(data below from May 2017)
Top 10 11-100 101-1K 1K-10K 10K+
Google 22.2% 14.9% 18.0% 18.7% 26.2%
Facebook 42.7% 17.7% 15.3% 12.9% 11.3%
Yahoo 39.2% 15.8% 15.6% 14.0% 15.4%
Reddit 75.2% 11.0% 7.2% 4.4% 2.2%
Youtube 80.1% 7.2% 5.4% 4.1% 3.2%
Not All Referrers Send Traffic Equally(data below from May 2017)
Google distributes traffic pretty evenly
Top 10 11-100 101-1K 1K-10K 10K+
Google 22.2% 14.9% 18.0% 18.7% 26.2%
Facebook 42.7% 17.7% 15.3% 12.9% 11.3%
Yahoo 39.2% 15.8% 15.6% 14.0% 15.4%
Reddit 75.2% 11.0% 7.2% 4.4% 2.2%
Youtube 80.1% 7.2% 5.4% 4.1% 3.2%
Not All Referrers Send Traffic Equally(data below from May 2017)
Facebook is strongly biased to the top
Top 10 11-100 101-1K 1K-10K 10K+
Google 22.2% 14.9% 18.0% 18.7% 26.2%
Facebook 42.7% 17.7% 15.3% 12.9% 11.3%
Yahoo 39.2% 15.8% 15.6% 14.0% 15.4%
Reddit 75.2% 11.0% 7.2% 4.4% 2.2%
Youtube 80.1% 7.2% 5.4% 4.1% 3.2%
Not All Referrers Send Traffic Equally(data below from May 2017)
Reddit & YouTube even more so
Google Search Activity
The average searcher does ~3.4 queries per
day on their desktop and mobile (each).
Mobile CTR
2.0% on Paid
40.9% on Organic
57.1% Don’t Click
2.8% on Paid
Desktop CTR
62.2% on Organic
35% Don’t Click
CTR on Google Mobile vs. Desktop
There may be more traffic opportunity from
desktop STILL due to higher CTRSource
Rankings Are Determined
By a Few, Broad Areas of
Input#2
The 8 Broad Areas of Google’s Ranking Algorithm
(for classic, ten-blue-links style results):
Links
Quality of Host
Domain
Query
Satisfaction
User
ExperiencePersonalization
Technical &
Crawl
KeywordsContent
Does the text match what Google’s ML systems
calculate to be relevant, high-quality, & a match for
the searcher’s intent?
Content
Editorially-given, anchor-text-rich, followed links
from high quality sources still matter to Google
(esp. in competitive results)
Links
If Google sees high rates of pogo-sticking or other
signals that your page/site isn’t solving search
queries, they’ll likely rank you lower
Query
Satisfaction
Via WB Friday
Using the searcher’s keywords intelligently on
your page still matters for rankings (and for CTR in
the results)
Keywords
Domains accrue signals of quality & value.
Powerful domains may give the pages they host a
boost in ranking ability.
Quality of Host
Domain
Via OSE
Google wants to see sites provide an easy-to-use,
intuitive experience on every device, at every
speed, without impediment.
User
Experience
Speed & accessibility to crawlers still matters, and
Google still doesn’t handle non-text, or non-HTML-
link accessible pages well.
Technical &
Crawl
The geography, device, search history, and timing
of a searcher’s query can all change Google’s
results significantly.
Personalization
Ranking in Classic
Results May No Longer
Be Enough to Win#3
18 Unique Types of SERPs that
Show Up in 0.5%+ of Google’s
Results
One of my favorites: the “disaster type” answer
In our data, only ~3% of
results are the “classic ten
blue links” kind
SERPs like
these are far
more
common
These types of
results can
dramatically reduce
organic CTR (in
this case, Moz
estimates only
~24% organic
CTR)
Infuriatingly, Google’s
restricted who can appear in
certain types of listings (e.g.
video is now YouTube or
Vimeo only)
And on mobile, even more
kinds of searches are limited
to particular networks
(Google Play & iPhone App
Store).
Analyze Which Types of SERPs Appear Most in the
Keywords You Care About
These show me how many of
each SERP type appears in
the results for this keyword
list (via KWE)
Then Determine What Verticals & SERP Types You
Need to Optimize For
It might pay to
generate some
visual charts in
addition to a text-
only version…
We expected answers
like these would
siphon away traffic
from our site… In
reality, we got more!
Featured Snippets are one of the most powerful
forms of this:
But some answers really do
remove traffic (estimates of
50%+ traffic loss to web
results after SERP changes
like these)
Consider Click-Through-Rate When
Choosing Keywords
The organic results on this
page probably get only
~60% of the clicks from
searchers
Consider Click-Through-Rate When
Choosing Keywords
But, the organic results here
are likely getting 100% of
the clicks
You can make these estimates yourself when evaluating
keywords for SEO effort:
Or you can use a tool like Keyword Explorer to get the
CTR Opportunity scores
100% CTR
Opportunity
60% CTR
Opportunity
It’s Possible to Use SEO to Get Into Featured Snippets
(and earn big CTR boosts)
They beat out Wikipedia by
phrasing the content to match
the *answer* Google wanted for
this search query
More on How to Become the Answer:
Via Dr. Pete (and more Dr. Pete)
SEO Doesn’t Work For
Every Organization#4
Some products don’t have enough explicit search volume:
Some find the SEO results too competitive to be worthwhile:
Some have chosen not to build the strength required in content
creation/marketing (for a variety of reasons):
Should Your Company Invest in Making
SEO a Core Competency?
Opportunity (search volume)
Opportunity Cost (other channels)
Passion & Interest
Cost of Acquisition vs. Lifetime Value
My Best Advice for
Building SEO Into Your
Company’s Marketing#5
Contract First, Then Hire
Via Moz’s
Recommended List
Expect 6+ Months of Investment
w/ Little to No ROI
Your first few months will
probably look like this.
Focus on Your Marketing Flywheel,
Not on Finding an Elusive Growth Hack
Moz’s
Flywheel
KW Research +
Industry Intuition
Publish
Content
Promote via
Social Channels
Push to email +
RSS subscribers
Earn Links +
AmplificationGrow social, email,
RSS, & WoM channels
Grow Domain
Authority
Earn Search &
Referral Traffic
Rank for More
Competitive KWs
KW Research +
Industry Intuition
Publish
Content
Promote via
Social Channels
Push to email +
RSS subscribers
Earn Links +
AmplificationGrow social, email,
RSS, & WoM channels
Grow Domain
Authority
Earn Search &
Referral Traffic
Rank for More
Competitive KWs
In 2006, I was lucky if
new content led to any
links or rankings at all
KW Research +
Industry Intuition
Publish
Content
Promote via
Social Channels
Push to email +
RSS subscribers
Earn Links +
AmplificationGrow social, email,
RSS, & WoM channels
Grow Domain
Authority
Earn Search &
Referral Traffic
Rank for More
Competitive KWs
But, by 2017, nearly every
post earns a handful of
links, & some earn a lot!
Moz is a Business Built on Content
Dollar Shave Club
was Built on a Press
& Media Flywheel
Via NYTimes
Dribbble was Built on a UGC/Community
Flywheel
But… Almost Every Flywheel Finds
a Point (or Points) of Friction
Publish
Content
Promote via
Social Channels
Push to email +
RSS subscribers
Crap… We’re not reaching anyone
who will link/amplify us
This is a Good Time for a
GROWTH HACK!
Hacks aren’t necessarily evil, spammy,
or without value.
They can be useful when applied to a
sound marketing strategy.
Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz | @randfish | [email protected]
Bit.ly/execseo2017