The Best SEO Advice You Will Never Hear

The Best SEO Advice That You Will Never Hear

REDUCING SEO TO 2 BUCKETS
Getting the most out of
the site you already have.
Building new content and
features to drive new traffic.
Imma talk aboot this.

EVERYBODY’S GOT AN AGENDA
1. Platforms
2. Content
3. Ecommerce
4. Onsite Search
5. Quick Break
6. Quick Hits
7. Not Provided
8. Reporting
9. Speed Round

1. THE TRUTH ABOUT PLATFORMS & CMS

POPULAR PLATFORMS & CMS
• Demandware
• eBay GSI Commerce
• IBM Websphere
• Hybris
• Oracle ATG
• RedPrairie
• Wordpress
• Drupal
• Joomla
• Magento
and many more…

THE TRUTH
Because the organic search channel
drives such a large percentage of
overall site traffic and revenue,
companies that build platforms cannot
afford to have crappy and/or non-existent
SEO features.
TL;DR If the platform isn’t SEO friendly,
nobody will buy it.

They send in their best sales people.

And then this guy asks: “What about SEO?”

“What my
associate is trying
to say is that, uh,
our new platform is
really cool.”

But don’t look under the hood…

TIPS ON WHAT TO EXPECT
• Today’s platforms are so much
better for SEO compared to 5-10
years ago.
• Every platform has limitations.
• Figure out what they are early on.
• People love when you can take Dev
work off their list. (Hint: It’s because
their Dev calendar is already full.)

PRO TIP:
Allocate a developer to create
workarounds and solutions
to speed up platform processes
related to SEO.

QUESTIONS TO ASK
• Ask specific questions about the
platform’s SEO features:
o How do I bulk update all meta tags?
o How do I edit robots.txt files?
o How do I edit on-page copy (product names & desc)?
o How do I bulk edit H tags and Alt tags?
o Where can I create redirects (single & bulk)?
o Where can I add rel-alternate tags?
o Where can I add HREFLANG tags?
o How do I generate XML sitemaps?
o How do I do all of that stuff for the mobile site?
o How do I add schema.org tags to the source code on
specific templates?

PRO TIP:
“Yes, our platform can do that.”
Make them show you how to do
everything you are asking them
about.
SHOW ME

NEXT STEP: FIND THE GOOD STUFF
• Find out what makes your
platform good for SEO.
• Does your platform offer you any
competitive advantages?
• What features does it have that
the other platforms don’t have?

2. UNDERAPPRECIATED CONTENT OPPORTUNITIES

HERE’S A GREAT EXAMPLE
Source: http://searchengineland.com/twitter-seo-more-visitors-208160

UPDATE THE ROBOTS.TXT
https://twitter.com/robots.txt
FEB. 25, 2014 FEB. 26, 2014
Note: Twitter updated the exclusions for all other search engines as well.

JUST SO WE’RE CLEAR
Before Feb-25th, hashtag URLs were not being
crawled and/or indexed.
As of Feb-26th, Twitter allows crawling and
indexing of URLs in the /hashtag/ sub-directory.
Example URLs include:
• https://twitter.com/hashtag/worldcup
• https://twitter.com/hashtag/mikebrown
• https://twitter.com/hashtag/fb
• https://twitter.com/hashtag/ukraine

URL SPECIFICALLY FOR #WORLDCUP

The Takeaway here is:
In terms of its value to searchers,
Google likes the ‘hashtag’ page
more than any single Tweet
and/or any single Twitter account
related to the World Cup.

We have seen this before…but where?

TUMBLR.COM RANKS FOR STUFF
POSITIONS 5 & 6!!!

IT’S SO RELEVANT. DUH!
“Just look at all that value!” - Google

ONCE AGAIN…
The Takeaway here is:
In terms of its value to
searchers, Google likes the
‘tagged’ page more than any
single Tumblr post and/or any
single Tumblr account related
to ‘Chuck Norris gifs’.

‘TAG’ PAGES RANK FOR STUFF.

RELEVANT FOR ‘STAR WARS DAY’

FROM ONE OF MY SITES
Time Frame: June 1st – August 31st
Data:
• Roughly 5,000 pages indexed
• 810 /tag/ pages driving traffic
Total Organic Visits: 78,767
Organic Visits to /tag/ pages: 7,803
Results: /tag/ pages generated 10% of organic visits

What about a big site on Wordpress?

WAIT. HOW MANY /TAG/ PAGES?!
36% of their indexed pages are /tag/ URLs.

prezi
wattpad
retailmenot
modcloth
survey monkey
stumbleupon
polyvore
one kings lane
vudu
warby parker
yahoo japan
vkontakte
songza
jibjab
ustream
practice fusion
jackthreads
hipmunk
groupme
kindle paperwhite
rebtel
answers.com
tinychat
retail me not
odesk
diapers.com
slideshare
amazon fresh
urban spoon
statcounter
popcorn time
thumbtack
ticketfly
hotel tonight

OKAY. I GET IT ALREADY.

#TCE because
now we’re
talking about
money.
“Reasonably.”

EVERY SEARCH
IS A BATTLE FOR
THE TOP SPOT.

“If it don’t make
dollars, it don’t
make sense.”
- Deion Sanders
#PrimeTime

“You don't solve
money problems
with money.”
- Dr. Phil
#DayTime
“You solve money
problems with lifestyle,
values and priorities.”

SO, KERRY, WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?
Techcrunch.com has a /tag/ page that is ranking
on Page 1 of Google for a *product* keyword:
This tells us something about the power of
creating pages that group several pieces of
specific content related to one keyword or
phrase. In retail, this is a Category page.

JESSE PINKMAN IS EXCITED ABOUT THIS.

How do we use that information? I’m glad I asked.

EXAMPLE OF A CATEGORY PAGE continued…

WHAT ABOUT SMALL SUBSETS OF CATEGORIES?
These websites are building
pages specifically for
‘womens green sweaters’!

ALSO, THE URLS ARE PRETTY.
Google Results:
1. http://www.amazon.com/s?rh=n%3A1044456%2Cp_n_size_browse-vebin%
3A2343355011
2. http://www.landsend.com/shop/womens-sweaters-cardigans-green/-/N-fy2Zt2
3. http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/womens-sweaters/green
4. http://www1.macys.com/cms/slp/2/Green-Sweater
…
8. http://www.target.com/th/womens+green+cardigan+sweater

THE PAGE IS OPTIMIZED.
Key Takeaway:
These pages are
optimized for
longtail searches
AND they deliver on
the intent and
expectation of the
searcher.

How do I create pages like this?

GETTING STARTED
1.Determine your platforms capabilities.
2.Be sure you can do it in a way that doesn’t
violate Google Webmaster Guidelines.
(i.e. Know your platform!)
3.Take a look at your product inventory.
4.Take a look at the filters for categories and
products.
5.Mix & match the filters with the categories and
products.
6.Build the pages that need to be built.

EXAMPLE: womens small blue cardigan sweaters

NICE, INDEXABLE URLS FOR FILTERS. OR NOT.
Sweaters URL:
http://www.target.com/c/sweaters-women-s-clothing/-/N-
5xtbx#?lnk=ct_menu_01_9&intc=1865087|null
Canonical: http://www.target.com/c/sweaters-women-s-clothing/-/N-5xtbx
Womens small blue cardigan
http://www.target.com/c/sweaters-women-s-clothing/-/N-
5xtbx#navigation=true&category=5xtbx&searchTerm=&view_type=large&sort_by=Featured
&faceted_value=55zkqZ5y70hZ5y34v&offset=0&response_group=Items&isLeaf=true&pare
nt_category_id=5xtcm&custom_price=false&min_price=from&max_price=to
Canonical: http://www.target.com/c/sweaters-women-s-clothing/-/N-5xtbx

IT’S LIKE A GIGANTIC DATABASE OF MASHUPS

IT’S LIKE A GIGANTIC DATABASE OF MASHUPS
Think about your categories and
products like SyFy thinks about its
movie line-up. What combinations
your customers want to see?

SOME PEOPLE AUTOMATE IT…
…by creating
systems that build a
database of URLs
based on product
feeds data and
analytics data.

If you’re not
looking at your
website’s
onsite search
data, this owl
disapproves of
your entire SEO
campaign.

If this is your first
time to look at
your website’s
onsite search data,
brace yourselves.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
1. Look at your site’s onsite search data.
2. Use that data to determine what your
customers are looking for.
3. Take all of that and build some pages
that target your customers’ needs.

LET’S SEND A MESSAGE TO MATT CUTTS

HI, MATT! WE
MISS YOU, BUT
PLEASE TAKE AS
MUCH TIME AS
YOU NEED!

SITE STABILITY & ITS EFFECTS ON RANKINGS
Site 1:
Server errors for 3-4 days.
Lesson: Google is fast to drop you out of the SERPs.

SITE STABILITY & ITS EFFECTS ON RANKINGS
Site 2:
Site down for 8 weeks.
Lesson: Google is fast to drop you out of the SERPs.

YOU SEE…WEBSITES ARE KINDA LIKE FAMILIES.

LOVELY PARENTS, BEAUTIFUL KIDS, NICE HOUSE…

BUT DON’T FORGET ABOUT YOUR COUSIN.
“SH!TTER
WAS FULL!”

“IT’S TIME TO CLEAN UP YOUR SH!T.” - @kerrydean
Site B
Lesson: Fix your 4xx & 5xx status codes.

REMEMBER THESE THINGS?
Everyone takes it for granted that their sitemaps
are complete, accurate, and up-to-date.

DUANE’S ADVICE
“Right, because if you start showing
me 301s in here, rel=canonicals, 404
errors, all of that, I'm going to start
distrusting your sitemap and I'm just
not going to bother with it anymore.”
- @DuaneForrester (Mar. 3, 2011)
Source: http://moz.com/blog/bings-duane-forrester-on-webmaster-tools-metrics-
and-sitemap-quality-thresholds

KERRY’S XML SITEMAPS TO-DO LIST
1. Go find all of your XML sitemap file(s)
2. Make sure they are listed in your robots.txt
3. Crawl all of your sitemaps
4. Look for any URLs that are no returning a 200
status code; fix them or remove them from
the sitemap.
5. If possible, break your sitemaps into groups
by products and/or categories.
6. If you can, break them into smaller batches.
It makes it easier to diagnose problems.

Rel=Alternate Tags for Your International Sites

CAN YOU SPOT THE ALGO UPDATES?

WAS MY SITE AFFECTED BY AN UPDATE?

FULL VIEW!
Using your organic visits data (from Google)
will give you some ideas about the effects of
any particular algorithm update.

DO THE SAME THING WITH RANKINGS DATA.

“I can’t be worried about that
shit. Life goes on, man.”

BEST QUOTE OF 2014
“I’m so over ‘Not Provided’.”
- @Rhea

QUOTING MYSELF
“If you haven’t figured out
how to move forward after
Not Provided, grab a watch -
because you’re late!”
- @KerryDean

ME, TOO.
“Yeah, well, that’s just,
like, your opinion, man.”

Okay…so what can you do about ‘Not Provided’?

THE EASIEST THING TO DO
ORGANIC CHANNEL  LANDING PAGE

COUNT THE NUMBER OF LANDING PAGES
THAT NUMBER RIGHT THERE

TREND IT & LOOK FOR NOTEABLE SHIFTS

SO MANY REPORTS, SO MUCH TIME…RIGHT?
30+ KPI’S
x 3 DEVICE TYPES
x 3 OPERATING SYSTEMS
x 3 BROWSERS
x SOME OTHER DIMENSIONS
= A LOT OF REPORTS!
“Napoleon, like anyone
can even know that.”

TODAY, WE HAVE TO DRILL DEEPER.

BUT SOMETIMES LOOKING FOR INSIGHTS CAN SEEM LIKE THIS.

WE HAVE TO PUT ON OUR THINKING CAPS.

SEO REPORTS ARE LIKE CATS – YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY.

WELL…UNTIL YOU BECOME THE CRAZY CAT LADY OF SEO.

“Information is powerful.
But it is how we use it that
will define us.” - @Avinash

MY FAVORITE HASHTAG
#SMALLDATA

THE GOALS OF REPORTING
1. DETERMINE WHICH KPI’s MATTER TO YOUR CLIENT.
2. DETERMINE WHICH KPI’s ACCURATELY MEASURE THE
SUCCESS/FAILURE OF YOUR SEO CAMPAIGN.
3. DETERMINE WHICH KPI’s ARE ACTIONABLE.

+13 more: CH,DK,FI,HK,IE,IL,MX,NL,NO,PL,SE,SG,TR

SEMRush  Organic Research  Positions

You can download this data by month
going all the way back to Jan-2012.
DO IT!

Once you have the data, there is only one thing
left to do…
PIVOT
TABLES!

What can you do with this data?

1. Ranking Trends for Keywords (Position Groups)

2. # of Keywords Ranking for a Set of Keywords

3. # of Keywords Ranking for All URLs

3. (CONT…) # of Keywords Ranking for All URLs

4. Keyword Tiers (Y/Y Comparisons)

6. Plot URL Ranking Data Over Actual Visits Data

The SEMRush Data Allows You To:
1. Segment groups of URLs by:
o Product
o Category
o Sub-Cats
o Sub-Domains
2. Filter each group by:
o Brand vs Non-Brand
o Search Volume Tiers

THE BEST SEO ADVICE EVER
STOP READING ABOUT SEO.
START DOING SEO.

STOP READING SEO BLOGS.
START WRITING FOR SEO BLOGS.

STOP ENGAGING WITH OTHER
PEOPLE’S CONTENT.
START CREATING YOUR OWN
CONTENT.

REGARDING CONTENT:
You should look at
your content the
same way Uncle
Jesse looked at Aunt
Becky. You should
love it until death.

You should love your content as much as
Macho Man loved Miss Elizabeth.

HULK HOGAN SHOULD BE POINTING AT YOU!

REGARDING GOOGLE:
THIS IS WHAT THEY DO. GET USED TO IT.
FIND OPPORTUNITIES IN THE CHANGES.

REGARDING YOUR CLIENTS:
I suggest you gentlemen
invent a way to put a square
peg in a round hole.

“We've got to
find a way to
make this...
fit into the hole
for this...
using nothing but
that.”

The good news is that SEO’s love a challenge.

Meet every challenge with this statement:

THANKS!
ONE LAST PIECE OF ADVICE:
End every presentation with a cat gif.

The Best SEO Advice You Will Never Hear

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