Laying out some of the myths and misconceptions about SEO, with a focus on tips for startups planning to do SEO in 2013.

1. Download this slide deck: http://bit.ly/blindedbyseo
By Rand Fishkin
A story about the seductive power of search, and the
truth about marketing channels & why people buy

10. #1: Gets 30% of
traffic and sales
#2: Gets 12% of
traffic and sales
#3: Gets 7% of
traffic and sales
#4: Gets 5% of
traffic and sales
#5: Gets 4% of
traffic and sales

11. Step 1:
Get Here
Step 2:
Profit!!

12. Reality:
Branding, CRO, UI/UX, and
the searcher’s location in the
buying cycle all influence the
effectiveness of SEO.

14. Most users see
these same
results in the
same order.

15. Reality: The
days of standard
SERPs are over

17. #1 and #2;
I’m winning!

18. Reality:
Rel=author + great
branding means
Aaron’s probably
winning

23. If a source doesn’t
send converting
visits, it’s useless.

24. Reality: Visitors
usually have lots
of ways to get to
your site before
they convert.

28. No More 10
Blue Links

29. Snippets are Surprisingly
Sophisticated

31. Visuals Can
Dominate the
SERPs

32. Advertising Occasionally
Overwhelms Organic

33. More and More, Google’s Putting
Themselves in the Results

34. No More
Lengthening of
the Long Tail

36. Searches are
Suggested

37. Or Presumed

38. And Influenceable

39. Still, I’d highly recommend investing
in long tail & chunky middle SEO
Less competition, higher
converting searchers,
and easier to serve
visitor intent.

40. No More
Domination
without a Brand
"Brands are the solution, not the
problem," Mr. Schmidt said. "Brands
are how you sort out the cesspool.“
- Eric Schmidt, October, 2008

42. Many Searches Bias
to Established Brands

43. Others Suggest the
Brands Directly

44. Brands Receive
Preferential Treatment

45. Penalties and Filters
are Designed to Target
Unbranded Sites

46. Searcher Clicks are Biased
by Domain Branding!

47. No More Manipulative
Link Behavior That
Lasts at Scale

49. Big, Famous Link
Networks Get Hit

50. Small, Local
Sites Get Hit

51. Blog
Networks
are Being
Shut Down

52. Directories Get
Devalued

53. Google Will Lift Your
Penalty Faster If You
Tell Them How You
Got Those Links

54. No More Search
without Social

56. Google’s Social
Graph is Far Larger
Than Most Believe

57. Google’s Social Connections page
showed how this process worked (and
they’ve now made it inaccessible)

58. Email is Now a Social
Influence on Search

59. Google Will Go to Great
Lengths to Favor G+

77. There’s a big difference between content as a tactic and content “strategy:”
http://www.slideshare.net/randfish/rand-mozconcontentstrategy2

78. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/great-content-for-seo-simpler-than-you-ever-imagined

79. Building a passionate community is almost a
requirement for great SEO in 2013.

80. “SEO” probably
doesn’t have 825K
searches/month, but it
probably has ~4X as
many as “social media”

81. Moz’s internal tool for
funnel analytics

82. http://moz.com/rand/manufacturing-serendipity/

83. http://www.seomoz.org/article/recommended

84. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lead-from-within-10-strategies-to-become-a-successful-inhouse-seo

86. http://moz.com/rand/the-paradox-of-easy-vs-hard-to-measure-marketing-channels/