We hear so much about how SEO has changed, but has it really? It's really the algorithms that have changed, but good marketing has remained the same for quite some time. The channels have changed, the core concept of attracting people with great content and differentiated offerings is the same. Let's take a look back at the facts and see how to optimize for Google in 2017.

1. PERFORMANCE MARKETING SUMMIT AUSTIN 2017
Surprising Facts about Google and
2017 SEO
By Scott True

3. In that same 5 seconds…
11.5 million searches were performed in Google
25% (2.88 million) of those searches returned a knowledge graph answer or box
Over half (over 5.75 million) of those searches were on mobile
20% (1.15 million) of the mobile search were voice searches
2 reconsideration requests have been sent to Google
Source: http://searchengineland.com/google-now-handles-2-999-trillion-searches-per-year-250247

4. Welcome to
Surprising Facts about Google and 2017 SEO
By Scott True – Quick about me
• Ran my own firm for several years focusing on small business SEO
• Now I’m an SEO Consultant and Director of Business Development
at Apogee Results
Over the course of 8 years, I’ve seen what
works for both small and big business

5. So what works…
1996
TODAY IN 2017
Total indexable HTML
urls: 75.2306 Million
Indexed Pages: 130 Trillion!
…now that we have trillions
of pages to stand out from?

6. Good Marketing!
• Strong Purpose
• Differentiated Value
• Compelling Messaging
• Reaching the right audience
• Etc
It’s kind of that simple!

7. “I believe people who own their ideas Inspire the world” – Scott True

8. What’s this have to do
with SEO???
“I believe people who own their ideas Inspire the world” – Scott True

9. What’s this have to do
with SEO???
Everything!!
“I believe people who own their ideas Inspire the world” – Scott True

10. “I believe people who own their ideas Inspire the world” – Scott True
Own Ideas Inspire
Take
responsibility
Drive the
initiative instead
of outsourcing
Differentiation
Why
Purpose
When people like
it, they link to it!
This is what
Search Engines
want to show!

11. The reason why most people don’t create
and drive great ideas is because they’re too
busy creating excuses!

12. The reason why most people don’t create
and drive great ideas is because they’re too
busy creating excuses!

13. So let’s start from the beginning

14. The progression of Search

15. In the beginning, there
was Keyword Density
Early 90s – Pre Google

16. And then there
was PageRank
by Google
1996

17. Google started in
1996
namedafterGoogol
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0
00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0
00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0
00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0
00,000

18. This is when manipulation, as we know it
today, started.

19. This is when manipulation, as we know it
today, started.
By the way, the rules have not
changed! Google never wanted
you to do these things!

20. What was important in the late 90s
Create Content that people will like and share
Outreach
Find keywords your audience is using
Use them in the
Title tag
Meta description
H1
Alt text
URL
Meta keywords
For sustainable growth

21. continuing on…

22. 1997 – Development of structured data begins
Early 2000s – Keyword stuffing, Google removes sites from index
2003
Boston – more frequent crawling
Cassandra – Google goes after hidden and disguised keyword links
Domonic – Analyzed quality of backlinks
2004
Fritz – Daily crawling and indexing
Supplemental Index – weeded out redundant, spam, and low quality content
Florida – Importance on synonyms and supporting vocabulary throughout the page
Austin – Targeted free for all pages
Brandy - Latent Semantic Indexing and link relevancy (“neighborhoods”)
RDFa
2005 – Microformats
2009 – Microdata
2011 – Google, Bing, and Yahoo develop schema.org
Some Important Dates in the progression of Search

23. 1997 – Development of structured data begins
Early 2000s – Keyword stuffing, Google removes sites from index
2003
Boston – more frequent crawling
Cassandra – Google goes after hidden and disguised keyword links
Domonic – Analyzed quality of backlinks
2004
Fritz – Daily crawling and indexing
Supplemental Index – weeded out redundant, spam, and low quality content
Florida – Importance on synonyms and supporting vocabulary throughout the page
Austin – Targeted free for all pages
Brandy - Latent Semantic Indexing and link relevancy (“neighborhoods”)
RDFa
2005 – Microformats
2009 – Microdata
2011 – Google, Bing, and Yahoo develop schema.org
Some Important Dates
This is right about when I started paying attention

24. What I was predicting in 2009
The Time Machine (2002) - IMDb

25. Elements from:
http://searchengineland.com/guide/seo/personalization-search-engine-rankings
2005

26. 2007

27. Knowledge Graph
Introduced in 2012
Things, not strings
As of 2012, its semantic
network contained over
570 million objects and
more than 18 billion facts

28. This had to do with quality
Thin content
Content farms
ad heavy sites
Picture from http://searchengineland.com/library/google/google-panda-update
2011

29. This had to so with spam
Over-optimization
keyword stuffing
Bought links
Picture from http://searchengineland.com/library/google/google-penguin-update
2012

30. 2013

32. Image src: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-d-atkinson-phd/5-myths-about-the-future-_b_10819602.html &
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-rankbrain-new-ranking-signals-21797.html 2015

33. My prediction about tomorrow
The Time Machine (2002) - IMDb

34. Will SEO die?

35. No

36. Google’s missionis to organizethe world’s information
andmakeit universallyaccessibleanduseful.

37. As long as Search Engines are trying to give the best result for your queries…
there will always be the art of trying to be the best result for your queries…
That’s SEO
and aligning technicalities to assist the Search Engines in “seeing” the best…
That’s technical SEO

38. On to some more recent news…

39. Penguin is friendlier!
Image src: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-penguin-4-live-22737.html

41. Google Market Share
64 to 75% of total Mark Share depending on what data you look at
Desktop Market Share – 63.8%
Mobile Market Share – 89%

42. Universal Search
and Extended
Search Data
Source: http://pages.searchmetrics.com/Universal-Search-Thanks.html?aliId=15446888
Some Research Suggests: 56 Percent Of “On The Go” Searches Have Local Intent

43. Ok, so now that we’ve seen where the
progression of Search
What do we do now?

44. Create something
worth sharing and
align your technical
SEO with it

45. Some take-aways
Google is getting extremely sophisticated, but we
are still a long ways away from them being able
to understand things like we do.
In other words, being technical is still
very important.

46. Tactical take-aways

47. The importance of the basics

48. What was important in the late 90s
Create Content that people will like and share
Outreach
Find keywords your audience is using
Use them in the
Title tag
Meta description
H1
Alt text
URL
Meta keywords
For sustainable growth

49. What’s important in 2017
Create Content that people will like and share
Outreach
Find keywords your audience is using
Use them in the
Title tag
Meta description
H1
Alt text
URL
Meta keywords
For sustainable growth
New!
Mobile Friendly
Fast web experience
Develop for speed
Consider AMP
Structured data

50. Some tactical things
Great content – There is more competition, therefore the bar for quality is up!
Choose a Focused Keyword for each page (A keyword can be a phrase)
Title tag – About 65 characters. Use the keyword. Make it compelling
Meta description – About 155 characters. Use the keyword. Make it a compelling.
Headings and Subheadings (H1s and H2s) – Be creative. Use keywords when you can.
Alt text – Use keywords when it makes sense.
Good URLs – Keep them short and descriptive of what’s on the page.

51. More tactical things
Block less in robots.txt, not more
Create an XML sitemap
Verify on Google Search Console
Set a preferred domain
Submit sitemap and check indexation
Get Google Analytics set up
Make sure the site is mobile friendly
Use Google’s Mobile Friendly Test
Add structured data – at least to the business info
Get listed in major directories
Get on Google plus
Use rel=“publisher”
Use open graph
Make sure there are a few good share buttons
Design commenting to remove barriers
Test for crawlability and indexability
Reduce redundant taxonomies and content

52. Tools to help you out
Structured Data Testing Tool https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/u/0/
Speed and Mobile Frindliness https://testmysite.thinkwithgoogle.com/
Crawlabillity http://www.browseo.net/
Google Fetch and Render https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/googlebot-fetch?pli=1
Moz Chrome Extention (to check on page)
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mozbar/eakacpaijcpapndcfffdgphdiccmpknp?hl=
en
To crawl your site: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/
Link Research http://www.linkresearchtools.com/
AMP Validator https://validator.ampproject.org/

53. Strategic take-aways

54. Some strategic take-aways
15
20
65
Category 1 Category 2 Category 3
Series1
Technical Foundation On-Page SEO What the rest of the
web says about you
How Google Ranks your content

55. Some strategic take-aways
Just because you have good content, doesn’t mean people will automagically find it
right away.
Content Creation - 85%
Content Promotion - 15%
Content Creation - 15%
Content Promotion - 85%
Do this!
Don’t do this!

56. Some strategic take-aways
Content Quality vs Content Quantity
Content Quality Content Quantity
Don’t do this!
Do this!

58. Optimize for Mobile and Speed
Google Recommendations:
Markup your content using structured data from
schema.org Via JSON-LD:
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides
/intro-structured-data
Optimize via responsive design:
https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile
-sites/

59. Optimize by creating great content!
1. Provides a uniquely positive user experience through the user interface, visuals, layout,
fonts, patterns, etc.
2. Delivers content that is some substantive combination of high-quality, trustworthy, useful,
interesting, and remarkable
3. Is considerably different in scope and detail from other works on similar topics
4. Loads quickly and is usable on any device or browser
5. Creates an emotional response of awe, surprise, joy, anticipation, and/or admiration
6. Has achieved an impressive quantity of amplification (through shares on social networks
and/or links)
7. Solves a problem or answers a question by providing comprehensive, accurate,
exceptional information or resources.
Source: Rand Fishkin’s 10X Content

60. Examples of Great Content
https://www.theatlantic.com/projects/inside-jobs/
http://mapinseconds.com/
http://www.city-data.com/city-compare/
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/travel/places-to-visit.html
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150709-the-curious-truth-about-belly-button-fluff
https://betterexplained.com/articles/an-interactive-guide-to-the-fourier-transform/
https://visualhunt.com/
http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/05/food-lab-how-to-grill-steak-cuts-of-steak-marbling-salting-charcoal-technique-resting-tips.html
http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/11/the-truth-about-cast-iron.html
http://ny.eater.com/maps/best-new-york-restaurants-38
http://www.patagonia.com/footprint.html
https://imgur.com/gallery/mpUge
https://www.typeform.com/blog/human-experience/cui/
Source: Rand Fishkin’s 10X Content

61. The bar for quality
content is up, but…
…it’s actually not that
difficult to createThe Idea
– That’s
You!!
Tons of
great
content
writers
Tons of
great
graphic
designers
Tons of
great
developers
Start with the
idea – Start with
purpose

62. Own your idea
Inspire the World

63. PERFORMANCE MARKETING SUMMIT AUSTIN 2017
Surprising Facts about Google and 2017 SEO
By Scott True
Twitter - @scott_true
LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/scotttrue/
scott@scotttrue.com
Own your Idea – Inspire the World