How to Master SEO in 2017

Update When Did It Happen? What Happened?
Google priori/ses it’s mobile index over it’s desktop version.
Mobile First Index October Conduc/ng more frequent index updates & rewarding quick
loading, ‘mobile friendly’ sites with improved organic visibility.
The Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) by Google & TwiQer,
Accelerated Mobile Pages February
allows developers to create rapidly loading web pages for
mobile search users, dras/cally impac/ng mobile search
space.
Google improved it’s search algorithm by learning the intent
Google RankBrain June behind a users search. Through machine-learning AI, a
enhanced learning system called ‘RankBrain’ was born.
The latest itera/on of the Penguin update becomes real /me
Google Penguin 4.0 September
and a core element of Google’s search algorithm. (NB
Targe/ng websites with poor quality links and penalising
accordingly)
Google removed its SEM adds from the right hand side of
Removal AdWords Right Ads February search results and expanding top/boQom placements. This
pushed organic lis/ngs further down the search results page.

Title length
•  Desktop = ~ 70 characters with spaces
•  Mobile = ~ 55 characters with spaces

Panda update
•  Addresses duplicate content
and thin content
•  Very important to remove
duplicate content from a site
•  Now “regularly” runs
•  According to Gary Illyes at
Google, every few weeks

Penguin updates
•  Penguin focused on linkspam
•  “Any links intended to
manipulate PageRank or a site's
ranking in Google search results
may be considered part of a link
scheme and a viola/on of
Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
This includes any behavior that
manipulates links to your site.”
•  LAST UPDATED 9/23/2016!
-  Previous update was 10/17/14

Google Possum update?
•  Released in early September
•  Seems to focus on local
results

What you need to do
•  If you have mul/ple offices/loca/ons, be sure
to enter each address for that loca/on
-  Don’t just default to using one main address or a
corporate address/phone

Social is not a ranking factor

What to audit?
•  Technical issues
•  Links
•  Content
•  Analy/cs

Capitalize on your hard work in seo!
•  Retarge/ng
-  Put code on your site today!
-  You can’t build these audiences
retroac/vely
•  Plamorms
-  Google AdWords
-  Google Analy/cs
-  Bing Ads
›  Facebook
› Twitter
›  Pinterest
•  Many cookies last at least 180 days

THE GOALS OF SEARCH
ENGINES STILL REMAINS THE
SAME.

IT’S HARDER TO MANIPULATE
RESULTS

AND THE FOCUS NOW IS ON
BEING THE QUALITY RESULT.

SO, SEOS HAVE HAD TO
COME A LONG WAY

A big majority of SEOs were BUYING
links
Some SEOs were still doing directories
A few were doing article marketing, but
badly..

So Creating Good Quality articles
WORKED

Most SEOs were knee deep trying to
resolve penalties
The black hats were now charging for
removing the links that they sold you
the year before ;)
By now everyone was desperately
jumping on the content marketing
bandwagon…..

Yes you could:
1.Write an article
2. Spin it (several versions of same
article)
3. Buy placements on shitty blogs that no
one reads
Well done.That is very difficult.

….unless you
want
to be “eaten”
by a
penguin

SEO BASICS
There are 4goals to all Search MarkeDng
GeFng Found - Search Engine OpDmizaDon
Keeping People Interested - Content & Features
Lead Gen - ConverDng Visitors to Take AcDon
Intelligence - Monitoring AcDvity

•  MiscommunicaDon about SEO
•  Goggle Panda & Penguin Changes
•  Hidden issues with CMS Systems
•  Trendy layouts that hurt SEO
•  Boiler Plate & Duplicate Content
•  You mean my web developer
doesn’t know this?
•  Responsive Design

SEO BASICS
Everything about search engine opDmizaDon
is about Relevancy, Relevancy, Relevancy!
Content Codes
F
Link
Popularity
Technical

Think.Mobile.First.
•  91% of adults own a mobile phone of some sort
•  56% of adults own a smartphone
•  83% of US smartphone owners use their phone in stores
•  hQps://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/mobile-seo/?
hl=en

IF YOUR PHONE DOESN’T DISPLAY
FLASH, GOOGLE WILL NOT SHOW
FLASH SITES IN YOUR RESULTS.
MaQ CuQs of Google at Pubcon in October 2013

IF YOUR WEBSITE ROUTES ALL
MOBILE TRAFFIC TO THE HOMEPAGE
RATHER THAN THE INTERNAL PAGE
THE USER WAS ATTEMPTING TO
VISIT, IT WILL BE RANKED LOWER.

IF YOUR SITE IS SLOW ON MOBILES,
GOOGLE IS LESS LIKELY TO RANK IT.

HAVING A MOBILE SITE IS JUST THE
START.

hQp://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights

MOBILE READY MEANS:
•  Loading quickly on mobile

MOBILE READY MEANS:
•  Enabling users to navigate around on a small screen

MOBILE READY MEANS:
•  Taking mobile users to the content they expect
to see

MOBILE READY MEANS:
•  Taking mobile users to the content they expect
to see
•  Enabling users to read without pinching and zooming!

SITE SPEED
•  Page speed maQers (now). So benchmark yourself against leaders. In a
way, that’s fun, you can create “Page speed contests” now.
•  To do so, install Google Page Speed and Yahoo’s Yslow.
•  Run them on your home page and at least a few random internal pages
•  Follow every recommenda/ons for: image op/miza/on, gzip
compression, javascript “minifica/on”, CSS “minifica/on”.
•  Once this is done, look at subtler speed improvements they recommend.
•  Moving to a stable Cloud environment isn’t a bad idea either.

What’s Going On With Featured Snippets & Google’s
Rich Answers?

Start With a List of Common QuesDons
How To Implement a NoFollow?
How To Implement a NoIndex Tag?
How To Implement a Rel Alternate Tag?
How To Implement a Rel Canonical?
How To Implement a Vary:User Agent Header?

Included Transcripts With a
Clear Outline of Steps

The Content Should Provided a
Lot More Info Than Just the “How
To”

Submit the URLs in
Search Console

1
2
IdenDfy a Simple QuesDon
Provide a Direct Answer
3 Offer Valued Added Info
4 Make it Easy for Users (and Google) to Find

Hreflang
What Are These About?

(Almost) Same
Language For
Different Countries

MulDple Languages
for the Same
Country

Key Points About Hreflang
Specify Language Only or Language and Country
Specify language in ISO 639-1 format
Specify country in ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 format
Specify in Header, Sitemap, or HTTP Header
Specify in Only One of the Three Places
Must be Mutual

NO DIRECT IMPACT ON SEARCH
RANKINGS
(YET)
hQps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udqtSM-6QbQ

BUT…
hQp://socialmarke/ngwri/ng.com/how-to-perform-seo-on-your-
website-with-social-media-infographic/

Build Rela/onships With Social Networks
•  Claim brand on appropriate networks
•  Build conversa/ons on the ones you can manage
•  Encourage people to create content for you; you curate it against keyword
research
•  UGC content doesn’t have to be on-site
•  Pinterest boards
•  LinkedIn Groups
•  Instagram

YOUR SOCIAL AUDIENCE WILL
ENHANCE YOUR SEO

BRAND SEARCH VOLUME MATTERS
MORE

Build Your Brand Beyond Your Website
•  Gain cita/ons and links for your business:
•  Guest post
•  Get quoted
•  Hold an event
•  Use a variety of sources for cita/ons &
links:
•  OTAs: Yelp, TripAdvisor
•  News Sources: N&R, WS Journal
•  Local ‘Zines: Yes!, Rhino Times
•  Tools:
•  Google Search Console
•  Moz ($)
•  Majes/c ($)

Build Your Brand Beyond Your Website
•  Gain cita/ons and links for your business:
•  Guest post
•  Get quoted
•  Hold an event
•  Use a variety of sources for cita/ons &
links:
•  Yelp, TripAdvisor
•  N&R, WS Journal
•  Yes!, Rhino Times
•  Tools:
•  Moz ($)
•  Majes/c ($)

POSITIVE SENTIMENT
•  Posi/ve reviews

POSITIVE SENTIMENT
•  Google’s own systems

POSITIVE SENTIMENT
•  Trusted 3rd par/es

POSITIVE SENTIMENT
•  Posi/ve cita/ons on Google Plus

POSITIVE SENTIMENT
•  Posi/ve cita/ons and interac/ons on Google
Plus
•  Posi/ve cita/ons across the web

It’s not bragging if it’s true

Attract rather than Sell
Create content that DESERVES
links and MARKET that content.

Learn Your Audience: Segmenta/on
•  Content should be created for
your users
•  FAQs
•  Help/Tutorial Videos
•  Infographics
•  Tools:
•  Google Keyword Planner
•  Wolfram Alpha
•  SEMRush ($)
•  Moz ($)

Learn Your Audience: Conversion Funnel
•  Educate to purchase
•  Detail the products or
services
•  Use internal linking
•  Describe the non-brand
•  Tools:
•  Analy/cs
•  Majes/c ($)
•  Moz ($)
Website
navigation
should include
links to pages
targeting the
highest search
volume phrases

Learn Your Audience: Conversion Funnel
•  Educate to purchase
•  Detail products + services
•  Provide business history
•  Use internal linking
•  Tools:
•  Analy/cs
•  Majes/c ($)
•  Moz ($)

Reference Guide: Google Analy/cs
Use Advanced Segments for
custom audience groups
Understand
which
channels &
sites are most
valuable
Find which
social
networks
provide most
engagement
How many
pages
viewed?
What URLs
bring people
to my site?
Does my site
load fast
enough?
After they arrive, what
pages do they click on
next?
What pages cause
people to leave?
What do they type
in the search box?
Use these menus to view
how users arrive and how
they interact with site
content

Beef Up Site Content•  Iden/fy and fill in gaps in content based upon keyword research
•  Incorporate target search terms throughout Informa/on Architecture
•  Use hubs of content to organize relevant pages together
Home Page
For
Advice
Co Positive
Teenager Product News +
s Reviews Articles
Hub2
News +
Contact About
NAV 1 / All
NAV 2/
Parents
Parentin
g
Tips
Parentin Books
g
Technique
s
Articles
Photos Videos
Photo Video
Pages Pages
PR
Request
s
News
Detail3
Ask a
Q
Our
Writers
Filtering
Content Hubs
NAV 3
Single Content
Pages
Suggested
Page

U/lize Microformats within HTML
•  Schema.org
•  Invented in 2011 by
Google, Bing, Yahoo,
& Yandex
•  Open Graph
•  Used by Facebook
to extract addi/onal
meaning
•  developers.facebook.com/tools/
debug/
•  JSON
•  JavaScript markup
•  RDFa
•  Markup extension of HTML5

GSC to Find Current Opportuni/es
•  Formerly, Google Webmaster Tools; s/ll trends the last 90 days of data
•  Major Changes:
•  Search Analy/cs
•  Mobile Friendly Tool
•  Interna/onal Targe/ng

The New SEO “Rule Book”
•  Google’s Search Patents
•  Rule #1: Learn Your Audience
•  Rule #2: Make Content
•  Rule #3: Be Mobile Friendly
•  Rule #4: Get In On the Conversation
•  Rule #5: Earn Citations
129

The New SEO “Rule Book”
130

3 CORE PRINCIPLES OF SEO
INDEXATION
• Technical Solu/on that respects SEO Best Prac/ces
• Site Architecture Mapped to Seman/c Ver/cals
• Archiving that preserves content integra/on & interlinking forever
RELEVANCE
• Op/mizing Keywords into Silos
• Internal linking strategy that distributes SEO & PageRank value
POPULARITY
• Quan/ty / Quality / Age / Frequency of links obtained
• Seman/cs aspect of backlinks (anchor text)
• Diversifica/on of backlink entry points (hub pages)

2017 SEO
“Search demand for
content will be at it’s
highest with the adop/on
of home & virtual
assistants”
“Website user
engagement metrics (CTR)
will contribute to a
website’s organic
visibility”
“Quick website page load
speed on mobile and
desktop will be a
fundamental issue”
“Fresh, frequently
updated content amplified
via social channels is a key
element of content
strategy”
“The adop/on of the
HTTPs protocol will be
fundamental for improved
mobile organic visibility”
“Content will be more
conversa/onal focused as
Google learns more about
a user’s search intent”
“Maximising the visibility
of content assets in
mobile apps will play a
large part in content
awareness”

How to Master SEO in 2017

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to How to Master SEO in 2017

Similar to How to Master SEO in 2017 (20)

More from Digital Vidya

More from Digital Vidya (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

How to Master SEO in 2017