Siteimprove - SEO the bigger picture Siteimprove Customer Workshop October 2013

1. SEO:
The Bigger
Picture
Search Engines &
content marketing
With Bryn Anderson Siteimprove Training and
Support Specialist
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2. Why search referrers matter…
Approximately 54% of
Commercial web traffic
comes from search
referrers. - Tim Anderson:
The Guardian, 2013
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3. The modern day search engine
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4. Search engine market share 2013
- Vanessa Copland techWyse
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5. How do
search
engines
Work?
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6. Algorithms!
A process or set of rules to
be followed in calculations
or other problem-solving
operations, esp. by a
computer - Google
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7. A bit of history…
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8. Pre 2009 - 10 blue links no matter who and where…
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9. Post 2009 – It’s all about me!
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10. What Site Level Signals are they looking for?
• Authority/Trust
• Internal link
ratios
• Localisation
• Domain history
• Thin content
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11. What Page-Level Signals?
• Meta data
• Classifications
(and Localisation)
• Authority/trust
(external links)
• Temporal signals
(history)
• Semantic signals
• Linguistic
indicators
(language and
nuances)
• Prominence
factors (bold,
headings, italics,
etc.)
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12. Off-Site Signals?
• Backlinks
• Temporal signals
• Entity/Authority; citations,
co-citation, etc. (other sites)
• Social graph signals (re tweet)
• Spam signals (that might
incur dampening)
• Semantic relevance (of the
other signals)
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13. How does that translate into search results?
Scoring: The major search engines use hundreds of factors
nestled into many algorithms. Think about it like an onion
and it's layers. All too often, people say things like "the
Google algorithm" when in fact, there are many. The scoring
over all of them makes up the initial rankings.
Boosting: This is another element or signal that might raise a
page's position in the rankings. One example is a statement
Google made that fast mobile sites are given a boost in
mobile search. Various forms of personalization also use a
boosting element to re-rank results.
Dampening: Not to be confused with penalties, a dampening
factor is an element that would lower the rankings of a web
page after the initial scoring process. One example is the now
infamous Google Penguin or Panda algorithms. While it
may seem like a penalty, it is in fact a dampening element.
- David Harry Search Engine Watch
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14. •
•
•
•
Low Quality Content
Unique Content
Advertising Ratios
Authority
• Link Farms
• Keyword stuffing
• Black hat SEO
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15. Re-ranking results based on the end user…
Behavioural: Based on search history, query
reformations, last query, etc.
Social: The rise of the social graph has lead to logged
in personalisation.
Geographic: Rankings can change based on the
location of the user.
Demographic: Somewhat linked to the social, but
categorizes users.
Temporal: Results based on user activities (daily,
weekly, annual, etc.).
- David Harry Search Engine Watch
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16. SEO and Content Marketing
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17. Modern day SEO
“Essentially (conventional) SEO helps Google to
understand what your content is about, and
everything else demonstrates how relevant your
content is.” - Felice Ayling Target Internet
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18. Conventional SEO
• Conventional SEO must be integrated
into website infrastructure and
frameworks as standard.
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19. What is Content Marketing?
• Content marketing is any marketing format that involves the
creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order
to acquire customers. This information can be presented in a
variety of formats, including news, video, white papers, ebooks, info graphics, case studies, how-to guides, question and
answer articles, photos, etc. - Wikipedia
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20. Inspire business through
quality content…
• Content marketing is focused not on selling, but on
simply communicating with customers and prospects.
The idea is to inspire business and loyalty from buyers
by delivering "consistent, ongoing valuable
information“- Wikipedia
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21. Create content
and share it!
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22. Why social media?
• To be competitive and up to date.
• Reach larger audiences.
• Build backlinks / referral links from
‘trusted’ sources.
• Increase your author authority.
Because of…
• Google’s Page Rank algorithm.
• ORM - Online Reputation Management
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23. Online Reputation Management
• Google suggests publishing positive content as a
method for reputation management. Thanks to
Google's brand bias, using a parasite hosting strategy
still works for getting user profiles ranked.
• Parasite hosting refers to websites with high trust and
authority that allow the self-publishing of content.
The benefit lies in the ability to leverage the host
domain's authority and trust to get your content
ranked.
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24. 24

25. Black Hat SEO techniques…
• Cloaking and/or sneaky redirects
• Hidden text and/or keyword
stuffing
• Parked domains
• Pure spam
• Thin content with little or no
added value
• Unnatural links from a site
• Unnatural links to a site
• User-generated spam
- Google
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26. Ask you self the following…
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27. Do we have conventional SEO
methods integrated into our CMS?
• Clean URLs
• Meta tags
• Easy internal link building
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28. Do we have quality content on our
website?
• Objective
• In depth
• Relevant
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29. What are we doing to optimise and
market our content?
•
•
•
•
•
Social media channels
Profile authority
Backlinks
Guest bloggers
Online Reputation Management
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30. Are we playing by the rules?
•
•
•
•
•
Hidden text and/or keyword stuffing
Cloaking and/or sneaky redirects
Duplicate content
Thin content with little or no added value
Unnatural links
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31. SEO as we know it has moved towards
SMO (social media optimisation) and
online reputation management ORM…
“Recommendations from friends count for more
than a search engine algorithm will ever
achieve.” Tim Anderson: The Guardian, 2013
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