Post on 13-May-2015
Gillian Muessig – ICMA April 2012
Inbound MarketingMarketing for Survival in Classified Ads
Gillian Muessig – ICMA April 2012The Web’s Most Popular Search Marketing Software
ICMA1260 days to play
with the Mozzers
Online Classified is Growing
Print Classified is Dying
9% of Internet Users are Using an Online Classified Site Right Now
Gillian Muessig – ICMA April 2012
Where can you find an edge?
Inbound Marketing
Blogs + Blogging
Comment Marketing
News/Media/PRSEO
Social Networks
Word of Mouth
Q+A Sites
Forums
Online Video
Podcasting
Webinars
Research/White Papers
Infographics
Social Bookmarking
INBOUND MARKETING!(AKA all the “free” traffic sources)
Direct/Referring Links
Type-In Traffic
Document Sharing
Gillian Muessig – ICMA April 2012
Interruption vs. Inbound Marketing
Interruption Marketing
Inbound Marketing
Interruption Marketing
Inbound Marketing
Interruption Marketing
Inbound Marketing
Some marketing
Interruption…stops us
from doing what we want to do,
so it can sell us
…stuff we don’t need.
That’s Interruption Marketing
Interruption Marketers Me
Ads
That’sNotHowWeroll.
Gillian Muessig – ICMA April 2012
How we buy in 2012
Realize a Need
Investigate Options
Ask Our Friends
Seek Out Experts
Find Communities
Dig Into Every Detail
Convert
R
You don’t buy those visitors.You earn them.
Gillian Muessig – ICMA April 2012
1999-2002
On-Page Optimization
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization
Slaves to PageRank
http://www.elliance.com/aha/infographics/Google-PageRank-Explained.aspx
PageRank Busted!
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-science-of-ranking-correlations
Gillian Muessig – ICMA April 2012
2003 - 2005
Keyword-Match Domain Names
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/exact-match-domains-are-far-too-powerful-is-their-time-limited
Registration & Historical Information
http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=1121
Topic Modeling
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/content-optimization-revisiting-topic-modeling-lda-our-labs-tool
LDA correlates w/ Google rankings
better than any other on-page feature
Why Engines Need Topic Modeling
Term Frequency & Inverse Document Frequency
A clear demo of the inherent weakness of a metric like keyword density
Co-Occurrence
Topic Modeling
require ability to determine INTENT
Rock, grenade, or baseball?
Are you SURE?
Content related signals
Simplistic Term Vector Model
• Good links may be more likely to point to more "relevant" pages
• Other aspect of Google's algorithm may naturally bias towards these pages
Causation? Not so fast?
•Keyword Spamming might improve your LDA Score, but probably not your rankings
Out of the SERPs!
• Think about negative keywords in a similar fashion to negative keywords for ppc.
• Think about positive keywords in localized terms
How to use topic modeling
•The numbers are RELATIVE•Track numbers over time – shoot for improvement
Perspective: it’s all relative
Gillian Muessig – ICMA April 2012
2006-2009
Domain Authority
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-domain-authority-page-authority-metrics
External Link Source Diversity
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links
Search Quality Raters
http://www.seobook.com/archives/000915.shtml
Gillian Muessig – ICMA April 2012
2009-2012
Twitter Data
http://searchengineland.com/what-social-signals-do-google-bing-really-count-55389
Google: “We use it as a signal in our organic and
news rankings. We enhance our news universal by marking how
many people shared an article.”
Twitter Test
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-do-tweets-influence-search-rankings-an-experiment-for-a-cause
Page A646 links from 36 root domains
2 tweets
Page B1 link from 1 root domain
522 tweets
Twitter: Clearly Influencing Google
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-do-tweets-influence-search-rankings-an-experiment-for-a-cause
Page A646 links from 36 root domains
2 tweets
Page B1 link from 1 root domain
522 tweets
Page B – the tweeted version –
ranks #1!
Twitter Data for QDF
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tweets-effect-rankings-unexpected-case-study
Author AuthorityDo Search Engines Use Author Authority to Rank Pages in the SERPs?
http://searchengineland.com/what-social-signals-do-google-bing-really-count-55389
Google: Yes we compute
and use author quality.
We don’t know who
anyone is in real life.
Bing: Yes. We calculate the
authority of someone who tweets.
For known public figures or
publishers, we do associate them
with who they are.
Facebook Likes & Shares
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/facebook-marketing-ultimate-guide
Brand Signals
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-next-generation-of-ranking-signals
What are Brand Signals?
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-next-generation-of-ranking-signals
Brands
Generics
Have real people working at a physical address
Often exist only online
Brand Signals
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-next-generation-of-ranking-signals
Brands
Generics
Have authentic, followed social accounts
Rarely have significant social accounts
Brand Signals
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-next-generation-of-ranking-signals
Brands
Generics
Display obvious, robust contact information
Frequently use email forms only
Brand Signals
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-next-generation-of-ranking-signals
Brands
Generics
Register with government/civic
organizations
Stay “under the radar”
Brand Signals
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-next-generation-of-ranking-signals
Brands
Generics
Receive traffic from diverse sources
Search is often 90%+ of traffic
Brand Signals
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-next-generation-of-ranking-signals
Brands
Generics
Generate branded search query volume
Have little-no branded search demand
Brand Signals
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-next-generation-of-ranking-signals
Brands
Generics
Run offline marketing/advertising
campaigns
Ignore the offline world
Entity Association
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-next-generation-of-ranking-signals
Gillian Muessig – ICMA April 2012
Changing ranking factors
http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors
Search Engine Ranking Factors 2009
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/early-ranking-factors-data-an-april-linkscape-update
Search Engine Ranking Factors 2011
Preliminary Data
Big Changes from 2009 to 2011
The next update of the ranking factors will be online in April, 2013
• Link-Based Factors are waning
• Social Data is increasing
• Page-Level Link Metrics Fell the Most (43% - 22%)
• Keyword-Level Domain Metrics, Brand Data + Social Rising
Gillian Muessig – ICMA April 2012
Pandas and Farmers
From the Mouths of Googlers
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/the-panda-that-hates-farms/all/1
Wired.com: How do you recognize a shallow-content site?
From the Mouths of Googlers
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/the-panda-that-hates-farms/all/1
Singhal: we ask… “Would you be comfortable giving this site your credit card? Would you be comfortable giving medicine prescribed by this site to your kids?”
From the Mouths of Googlers
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/the-panda-that-hates-farms/all/1
Matt Cutts responds: we ask…1. “Do you consider this site to be
authoritative? 2. Would it be okay if this were in a
magazine? 3. Does this site have excessive ads?”
From the Mouths of Googlers
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/the-panda-that-hates-farms/all/1
Wired.com: How do you implement that algorithmically?
From the Mouths of Googlers
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/the-panda-that-hates-farms/all/1
Cutts: …look for signals that recreate that same intuition
From the Mouths of Googlers
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/the-panda-that-hates-farms/all/1
Singhal: • Imagine in a hyperspace a bunch of points, some
points are red and some points are green and in others there’s some mixture.
Your job is to find a plane which says,Most things on this side of the plane are red
and most of the things on that side of the plane are the opposite of red.
Googlers want to know…
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html
Are you trustworthy?
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html
Are you an expert? Author?
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html
Are your facts checked?
Are you genuinely interesting?
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html
Original? Insightful?
Are you printworthy?
Or not?
Is this worthy of bookmarking?
Sharing?
http://www.brandwatch.com/2012/01/product-update-dashboard-sharing/
Would I recommend it?
Is it a safe place to put my credit card?
Do excessive ads interfere?
Is this site better than the competition?
Gillian Muessig – ICMA April 2012
Where we’re headed
Google SERPs circa 1999
Google SERPs 2011
Google SERPs Tomorrow
Context
Gillian Muessig – ICMA April 2012
Some signals are shrinking in importance
Low Quality Links
Link Farms
Keyword Stuffing
Gillian Muessig – ICMA April 2012
What’s out?
Social Spamming: OUT!
Plaguerism: OUT!
Over SEO’ing: OUT!
seo seo seo seoseo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seo seoseo seo seo seo seo seo seoseo seo seo seo seo seo seoseo seo seo seo seo seo seoseo seo seo seo seo seo seo
Numbers of Followers: OUT!
Ignoring Online Reputation: OUT!
Just a Blog: OUT!
Gillian Muessig – ICMA April 2012
What’s In?
Blogging With Social Promotion: IN!
Engines are mining multiple social platforms to connect keywords to data: IN!
Domain Authority: IN!
Depth of Engagement & Social Reputation: IN!
Engagement ring… get it?
Well Written Content & LDA Scoring: IN!
Well Managed & Tagged Content: IN!
Reputation Management& Monitoring: IN!
Build Your Personal Brand
Q&A Sites: IN!
More Social Platforms: Coming!
First Touch may not be search engines: Coming!
Mobile search will continue to rise: Coming!
Mobile coupons moving paper to apps: Coming!
Gillian Muessig – ICMA April 2012
Darwinian Tips
SEO = ~15% of spendPPC = ~85% of spend
1 Billion searches per day1 Billion searchers per week
SEO is still under-invested
Long tail remains dominant
Don’t “Look” Like a Content Farm
http://hubpages.com/hub/WomensFashionsofthe1920-FlappersandtheJazz-Age
Avoid “Classic” SEO Tactics
It’s great to do good SEO, just don’t look like the only reason the site exists is to draw Google traffic
Directory Link Building
Sitewide, Footer Links
Low Cost/Quality, Outsourced Content
Keyword Stuffed Titles + Pages
Anchor-Text Rich Internal Links
Navigation for Engines, Not Humans
Generic Design and Layout
Anonymous Contact Forms
Ad Blocks Dominating the Page
Reciprocal Link Pages Paid Links w/ Manipulative Anchor Text
Keyword-Variant Abuse
Gillian Muessig – ICMA April 2012
New and evolving opportunities
Become a “Brand”
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-next-generation-of-ranking-signals
Brands Generics
• Have real people working at a physical address
• Have authentic, followed social accounts
• Display obvious, robust contact information
• Register with government/civic organizations
• Receive traffic from diverse sources
• Generate branded search query volume
• Run offline marketing/advertising campaigns
• Often exist only online
• Rarely have significant social accounts
• Frequently use email forms only
• Stay “under the radar”
• Search is often 90%+ of traffic
• Have little-no branded search demand
• Ignore the offline world
Do Competitive Research
http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.htmlhttp://www.opensiteexplorer.org
Where do these brands earn their links?
Facebook page
Blippr?
Crunchbase profile
App profile on Blackberry
Twitter account
BusinessWeek Profile
Chrome Extension
Mashable Article
Research Brand “Mention” Sources
Focus on the User Don’t Forget Engines
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/business/media/11search.html
Leverage rich snippets
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/05/introducing-rich-snippets.html
Be a personal brand: Q & A Sites
http://outspokenmedia.com/social-media/quora-hipsters/
Infographics: Hire guys like this!
http://outspokenmedia.com/social-media/quora-hipsters/
Check out OKCupid.com
When in Rome…
http://outspokenmedia.com/social-media/quora-hipsters/
Find Your Corporate Voice
I’m excited to be able to share my life’s passion with you.
Phenomenal analysis of statements by Googlers + how they translate to content/marketing actions: http://bit.ly/iGd7Pe
Get your social on
http://outspokenmedia.com/social-media/quora-hipsters/
• Stumble (upon)• Thumb up• Re-tweet• Like it• Share it• Digg it• Redd It
Get your social on
http://outspokenmedia.com/social-media/quora-hipsters/
And now… Pinterest
Gillian Muessig – ICMA April 2012
Gillian MuessigFounding President, SEOmoz
• Twitter: @SEOmom
• Blog: www.seomoz.org/blog
• Email: gillian@seomoz.org
Try SEOmoz Free for 60 DaysICMA12