SEO in 2017 - A New World Where Old Rules Still Matter

#musedata#musedata
Wikimedia Commons
6/16/2017
SEO in 2017
A New World Where Old Rules Still Matter

#musedata#musedata
Today’s Workshop
 SEO today
 Old-school SEO still matters
 Relaunching a site
 New-ish stuff that matters
 Measuring SEO
 Structured data
 Social media
 What’s next
 What do I DO?
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#musedata#musedata
What does “SEO” mean today?
 Search Engines (SE’s) are smarter than ever.
 Almost all traffic is personalized, which affects SE results.
 Google has worked to defeat tactical SEO, but…
 “Old school” stuff, (titles, text content, links, URLs, site
architecture) still matters.
 Depending on who you believe, Google has between 73%* and
90%** of worldwide desktop traffic.
 …Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Yandex “and the rest” still account for
billions of searches every month.
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*source
**source

#musedata#musedata
Importance of Personalization
 Virtually all search results are personalized now.
 This is true whether or not you are logged into Google, but especially
true if you are.
 SO… there is no standard rank for a given keyword.
 Analyzing rankings for specific keywords is a flawed strategy anyway!
 Tip: try Chrome’s ‘Incognito’ mode – Shift-Ctrl-N
4

#musedata#musedata
SEO and Museums
 In our favor:
 We have great content!
 We (sometimes) have ultra-high domain authority!
 SI.edu – 94 out of 100! (moz.com)
 We have some of the strongest brands in the world!
 Brands matter on search engines
 Many sites receive 40-60% of traffic from organic search.
 Social media helps (but maybe not as much as we think).
 Challenges:
 Despite great content, many sites aren’t optimized.
 Some have technical issues such as “duplicate content.”
 Some are too small / unlinked, to break through.
5
Drew Bowie

#musedata#musedata
SO MUCH going on, on a ‘SERP’ these days!
(With a little help from the moz.com Google Glossary)
6
Paid Search
(PPC) ads
Twitter results
Organic search
result with
“mini-sitelinks”
“Google My
Business”
(formerly
Google Places)
“Knowledge Panel”
– MANY things can
show here – team
rosters, “popular
times,” etc.
Social Networks
Recommendations (“People
also search for…”)

#musedata#musedata
Importance of Local
 Over 50% of Google trillions of searches / year are mobile
 Nearly one third of those are location-related. (source)
 “Every month people visit 1.5 billion destinations related to what they
searched for on Google.” (source)
 Searches with local intent are more likely to lead to store visits and
sales within a day. Fifty percent of mobile users are most likely to visit
after conducting a local search. (Google / source)
 “Authoritative OneBox” (right) is the grand prize.
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 Appearing in the three-listing snack-
pack is critical for businesses, but not
always do-able.
 Organic optimization plays a large role.
 Correct/consistent “NAP” (name,
address, phone) is critical.

#musedata#musedata
Moz 2017 Local Search Ranking Factors
 Moz 2017 Local Ranking Survey
 Approx. 20 Local Search experts surveyed;
released 4/11/2017.
 Google My Business (GMB) is the largest slice.
 Links are second: “We’re seeing significant
increases for link-related factors across the
board.”
 Highest ranked factor is Proximity of Address to
the Point of Search.
 Consistency and completeness of Citations
matters.
8

#musedata#musedata
What influences Google’s algorithm?
 Moz 2015 Ranking Survey
 150 expert opinions
 One-to-ten scale
 “Old school” factors still
rank highest, but exact
keyword matches are less
influential
 Social ranks lowest, but
shares are impt.
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“…The data continues to show
some of the highest correlations
between Google rankings and the
number of links to a given page.”

#musedata#musedata
Moz definitions (into the weeds)
 Domain-Level, Link Authority Features: Based on link/citation metrics such as quantity of
links, trust, domain-level PageRank, etc. (8.22)
 Page-Level Link Metrics: PageRank, Trust metrics, quantity of linking root domains, links,
anchor text distribution, quality/spamminess of linking sources, etc. (8.19)
 Page-Level Keyword & Content-Based Metrics: Content relevance scoring, on-page
optimization of keyword usage, topic-modeling algorithm scores on content, content
quantity/quality/relevance, etc. (7.87)
 Page-Level, Keyword-Agnostic Features: Content length, readability, Open Graph markup,
uniqueness, load speed, structured data markup, HTTPS, etc. (6.57)
 User Usage & Traffic/Query: Data SERP engagement metrics, clickstream data, Visitor
traffic/usage signals, quantity/diversity/CTR of queries, both on the domain and page level (6.55)
 Domain-Level Brand Metrics: Offline usage of brand/domain name, mentions of brand/domain
in news/media/press, toolbar/browser data of usage about the site, entity association, etc. (5.88)
 Domain-Level Keyword Usage: Exact-match keyword domains, partial-keyword matches, etc.
(4.97)
 Domain-Level, Keyword-Agnostic Features: Domain name length, TLD extension, SSL
certificate, etc. (4.09)
 Page-Level Social Metrics: Quantity/quality of tweeted links, Facebook shares, Google +1s,
etc. to the page (3.98)
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#musedata#musedata
Old-School Website SEO Still Matters
 Good quality “backlinks” (keywords)
 Body content – keywords, semantically-related words
 Page Title Tags and Meta Description tags
 URLs, site architecture, page structure
 Internal “anchor” links using keywords
 Titles, headlines (H1) and sub-heads (H2)
 Images with ALT and TITLE tags.
 “301 Redirects” still matter, but not as much as before (source).
 Misc. content emphasis attributes (bold, italics, underline, etc.).
 The Beginner’s Guide to SEO (Moz)
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New Orleans Public Library

#musedata#musedata 12
Old-School Website SEO (con’td)
 Navigation and link structure
 Spiders still find pages by crawling the site through navigation and links.
 SE’s like flatter architectures and will index flat sites more thoroughly.
 Infrastructure can impact the crawler's ability to scan and index pages.
• Incorporating links in JavaScript, iFrames, Flash, etc.
 URL / directory / filename structure. Search-friendly URLs:
 Are descriptive, giving some idea what the page is about.
 Are simple, static and short:
• A single dynamic parameter can result in lower ranking and indexing.
• Easier for the spider to understand and put in context
 Use (but do not overuse) keywords.
 Use hyphens to separate words.

#musedata#musedata
You have control of Title and Description tags!
 Page Title tags are important – every page should have its own!
 They tell a search engine what the page is about.
 They are the headline for the search listing.
 Meta Description tag helps improve click-through.
 They need to be short, provide a coherent description.
13
Awesomesauce!
Uninspired, but to the point.
No description tag!
Dept. of Redundancy Dept.
Good description, but it’s not the
one they wrote, AND it’s cut off!

#musedata#musedata
Exercise: write a title tag
 Length is important (if you want the tag the display properly)!
 Short! ~55 characters! (source)
 Best case: individual tags for each page.
 Write a headline in 55 characters or less (including spaces) that:
 Imparts an accurate expectation of what the page is about.
 Will serve as a clear, clickable headline for your search result.
 Steps:
1. Open a browser and a text editor.
2. Make a 55-character ‘character counter’ in a monospaced (Courier) font:
3. Pick a page and choose ‘View Source’
4. Find <TITLE> (or <title>)
5. Copy your current Title Tag, paste it into a text file under the character counter
6. Edit / write a new tag!
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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (55 characters)
V&A · The world's leading museum of art and design
Home | Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
Projects | National Air and Space Museum

#musedata#musedata
Exercise: write a meta-description tag
 Meta Description tag helps improve click-through.
 Needs to be customized and short.
 Describe what the page is about in 120 characters or less.
 If for your homepage, describe the site.
 BTW, 120 characters is very conservative! Moz says between 150 and 160 characters is ok.
 I Can't Drive 155: Meta Descriptions in 2015 - Moz
 Steps:
1. Pick a page and choose ‘View Source’
2. Find meta name="description"
3. Make a 120-character character counter in Courier font
4. Copy your current description tag, paste it into a text file under the character counter
5. Edit / write a new tag!
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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (120 chars.)
Museum of the decorative arts founded in 1852 to support and encourage excellence in art and design. Located in London, England.
(8 extra chars.)

#musedata#musedata
“Keyword research” was HUGE!
 BUT – Google has gotten very (VERY) good at:
 Understanding what pages are about.
 How words relate to each other (“semantic keywords”).
 If you have great content, you are probably using a rich variety of the right keywords.
 I.e., the ones people actually search for!
 MAYBE. You should know.
 BUT… concentrated keyword research is an intense process:
 STEP 1: Use Multiple Sources to Get Keyword Suggestions.
 STEP 2: Selects Keywords that Match Multiple Types of Searcher Intent Based on Your Content Strategy.
 STEP 3: Collect Keyword Metrics and Sort/Filter/Prioritize Based on Goals.
 STEP 4: Determine Keyword Targeting & New Content Creation Needs/Priority.
 These tips are easy-to-do however:
 Google auto-suggest (search entry box pull-down).
 Google “Searches related-to _______” (similar searches).
 Moz’s Keyword Explorer can help identify keyword suggestions.
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Keyword research (into the weeds)
 Process:
 Discovering and Prioritizing the Best Keywords (Moz)
 Keyword Research in 2016: Going Beyond Guesswork (Moz)
 How to Do Keyword Research for SEO (Hubspot)
 A Visual Guide to Keyword Targeting and On-Page SEO (Moz)
 Tools
 Google AdWords Keyword Planner (free, but limited usefulness)
 Google Trends (free)
 Moz Pro Keyword Explorer (paid / limited free usage)
 11 Best free keyword research tools for SEO in 2016 (SEOstack blog)
 SEMrush (paid)

#musedata#musedata
You’re relaunching your site!
 Launching a new site hurts in the short run…
 If you change your URLs, your site disappears from engine DBs and must be
reindexed / reassessed.
 You’re starting from scratch!
 Don’t worry – your traffic will come back, but it can take months.
 Re-launching is an opportunity to improve your rankings by:
 Migrating to https.
 Using unique Title and Description tags.
 Incorporating logical directory structure and navigational elements.
 Having search-friendly URLs. (No numerical parameters!)
 Providing lots of indexable text.
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#musedata#musedata
You’re relaunching your site! (cont’d)
 Minimize the loss of traffic and rankings by
employing 301-type (permanent) redirects from
your old pages.
 They tell the engines that a page has permanently moved.
 “One-to-one” redirects are optimal, but not always possible
(practically speaking).
 Google is working on lessening the importance
of using 301s, but it is still the best practice.
 301 Redirects Rules Change: What You Need to Know
for SEO (Moz)
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301-type redirects are the way
you tell the engines your old
site hasn’t died. (It’s also an
old highway in Maryland.)

#musedata#musedata
New-ish stuff that matters
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Tyler (10-weeks)
 Mobile-friendly / responsive design is boosted in Google.
 Page speed matters, but what matters more is having relevance
reduced for having a slow site.
 People expect a page to load in about two secs.
 Security - https is better than http.
 There are new ways to improve the way your search results
appear.
 Structured data - “Rich snippets.”
 User reviews matter!
 Improved CTR if your Google listing shows high-star reviews.
 Social media content is more integrated into search results.
 Localized results – Geo-targeting is pretty accurate.

#musedata#musedata
New stuff that matters – AMP!
 Google-backed, open-source initiative.
 Accelerated Mobile Pages provide a MUCH faster mobile
experience!
 Speed up the load time of mobile webpages using existing
technologies.
 AMP for mobile search results gives the appearance of these
pages being prioritized…
 Google says they are not boosted in search results. BUT...
 Load time and page speed ARE ranking factors!
 AMP Testing Tool in Google Search Console.
 Testing tool blog post (Google)
 Another blog post (SEO Roundtable)
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Look for the symbol.

Google’s ‘divided we stand’ strategy
 Currently, Google has a single search index.
 By 2018 (est.) Google will divide its index,
giving mobile users better, fresher content
(SMX Advanced – 6/13/17).
 The separate mobile search index will
become the primary, more frequently
updated one.
 Google’s Gary Illyes says they will
“communicate a lot” before rolling out the
mobile-first index.
 “Don’t freak out.”
mobile searchers
everyone else!
A mobile-optimized site is no longer a luxury!

“Off-Page” stuff that matters
 More important:
 LINKS (a.k.a. “backlinks”)!
• HIGH QUALITY external links back to your site, using keywords.
• Poor quality links can really hurt you!
• Moz free Open Site Explorer can help identify existing links and
linking opportunities.
 Social shares.
 Less important (but not irrelevant):
 Blog appearances for domain.
 Links in directories.
 News releases.
 Social presence (FB, Twitter, YouTube).
 The Ultimate Guide to Off-Page SEO
Bernard Landgraf

#musedata#musedata
Discredited Practices
 On-page:
 Keyword stuffing
 Meta keyword tag
 Spammy comments
 Off-page:
 Paid links
 Poor-quality links
 Content farms
 Guest blogging
 Exact match domains:
 “cheap-airline-tickets.com”
 SEO “gateway” pages
 Flash (doesn’t get indexed)
 Google Penalties are usually applied by algorithm
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Behaving badly means real penalties!

#musedata#musedata
How are SE’s getting better and better?
 Machine-learning / artificial intelligence.
 Microsoft Bing’s RankNet was first (2005).
 Google’s RankBrain algorithm (2015).
 RankBrain:
 Used to process search results and rank web pages.
 The third most important part of Google’s so-called Hummingbird
ranking algorithm!
 Google: RankBrain (Search Engine Land)
 FAQ: All About The New Google RankBrain Algorithm (Search
Engine Land)
 How Machine Learning Works (Martech)
 Machine Learning: Making Sense of a Messy World (Google)
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HAL 9000

#musedata#musedata
Hummingbirds, Pandas, Penguins – what?!
 Hummingbird – Google’s algorithm changes OFTEN -
weekly.
 Panda (2011/2015) – Boosted high-quality sites and
demoted lower quality (spammy) sites.
 Penguin (2012/2016) – Penalized sites that use
“unnatural” backlinks.
 Moz blogs to help you plunder the Google-Algo depths:
 Google Algorithm Change History
 Penguin 4.0: Was It Worth the Wait?
 Google Algorithm Cheat Sheet
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Measuring SEO
 Percent of visits referred from
search engines.
 Manually tracked (or via API
tool).
 Shows your progress with
engines in a context-neutral
way, independent of ancillary
traffic spikes. Paid-search (orange) is boosting traffic, but
as the year progresses, organic share
(blue) is on the increase as well.

Measuring SEO (cont’d)
 Number of keywords referring traffic.
 Manually teased out of the GA interface.
 Navigate:
 Acquisition 
 All Traffic 
 Channels 
 Organic Search
 Primary dimension = Keyword
 Then… look to the bottom-right of chart,
for “Show rows:”
 1-10 of X,XXX
 X,XXX (8,319) is your metric.

Measuring SEO (cont’d)
 Number of pages receiving at least one visit
from a search engine.
 Manually teased out of the GA interface.
 Navigate:
 Acquisition 
 All Traffic 
 Channels 
 Organic Search
 Primary dimension = Landing page
 Then… look to the bottom-right of chart, for
“Show rows:”
 1-10 of X,XXX
 X,XXX (3,324) is your metric.

‘Organic Search’ metrics under ‘Acquisition’
 Shown in GA’s “Acquisition /
Behavior / Conversions” parlance.
 Navigate:
 Acquisition 
 All Traffic 
 Channels 
 Organic Search
Acquisition
• Sessions
• % New Sessions
• New Users
Behavior
• Bounce Rate
• Pages / Session
• Avg. Session Duration
Conversions
• Goal Conversion Rate
• Goal Completions
• Goal Value

#musedata#musedata
Search Console metrics Google Analytics metrics
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Google Analytics Search Console
 Linking with Google Search
Console is required.
 Clicks / Impressions / CTR from
search engines
 Number of landing pages referred
from search engines
 Navigate:
 Acquisition 
 Search Console 
 Landing Pages
Acquisition
• Impressions
• Clicks
• CTR
• Average position
• Sessions
Behavior
• Bounce Rate
• Pages / Session
Conversions
• Goal Completions
• Goal Value
• Goal Conversion Rate

Structured Data
 Schema.org metadata provides info SE’s
need to understand content, provide
better results.
 Tells the engines what your data means,
not just what it says.
 Moz rates schema.org tags as a low-
influence ranking factor, but…
 Meta tags improve CTR in search results
by displaying enhanced content.
 Authorship
 "In-depth articles" feature (Article markup)
 Other “Rich Snippets”

Structured Data (cont’d)
 Structured data can be used to mark up:
 Creative work
 Event
 Organization
 Person
 Place
 Product
 Recipes
 Structured data may help:
 Enhance CTR from search engine results.
 Search engines understand your content.
 Your content to appear in specialized search
results like “in-depth Articles.”
 Google Structured Data Testing Tool
Museum content can be relevant to “in-depth articles”

Social Media’s Role
 Google stated there is no causation of high social
metrics and Google rank (2013).
 I.e., authoritative “social signals" (Facebook likes, Twitter
followers) do not affect rank.
 Do you believe that? Not sure I do.
 Social media matters:
 It encourages links to your content.
 These links may influence rank by helping engines understand a
site’s credibility.
 Bing: “We take into consideration how often a link has been
tweeted or retweeted, as well as the authority of the Twitter users
that shared the link.”
 Social media profiles rank in search engines.
 Google+ does influence search results, but its influence
is believed to be shrinking.
5 Things You Need to Know About
Social Media & SEO (kissmetrics)

Open Graph meta tags are essential
 Open Graph (OG) tags (2010) promote
integration between social sites and
your website.
 Allows you to control how site content
appears in social media posts.
 OG tags can significantly affect click-
through rates and conversions from
social sites.
 The Open Graph Protocol
What You Need to Know About Open Graph Meta Tags
for Total Facebook and Twitter Mastery (kissmetrics)
og:title
og:description

The next chapter: app indexing
 Google and Apple are now “deep-indexing” content
within apps:
 Perform a search on a mobile device.
 Results will include web pages and relevant content from within an app.
 Google: indexed app links influence rank for associated Web pages.
 SEO is suddenly an important part of the app
development process.
 App Indexing: Why It Matters For The Future Of Search
 Searchengineland: App Indexing (topic page)
 Google’s Firebase app indexing
 Apple’s Deep Linking in iOS

#musedata#musedata
OK, so what do I DO?!
 Use your time for things you can control!
 Improve your “old” site’s “on-page” findability:
 Add unique Title and Meta-Description tags.
 Delete the old “meta keywords” tag!
 Improve your text content.
 Add internal links using keywords.
 Switch to https.
 Reduce your site’s load time.
 Off-page: try and get backlinks!
 When someone is going to link to you, use keywords for the link – unless
your institutional name NEEDS the exposure.
 Off-page: social content that stimulates shares, user reviews.
 Register with “Google My Business”
 Make sure your existing info is correct
37
Vampyre Fangs

#musedata#musedata
OK, so then what do I do?!
 If redesigning your site, go to the mat for:
 Mobile-friendly (responsive) design.
 Quick load-time and AMP compatibility.
 Unique Title and Meta-description tags.
 Open graph (OG) tags for social.
 Search-friendly nav structure and URLs.
 Text content! Sometimes sites are surprisingly devoid
of this, esp. if the design mantra was a “clean look.”
 Work the analytics process, benchmark and
measure!
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Vampyre Fangs

#musedata#musedata
Search Engine Marketing References
 Search Engine Land
 Search Engine Watch
 Danny Sullivan (twitter)
 Matt Cutts (twitter)
 Moz (free/paid)
 Woorank (free/paid SEO checker)
 SEMrush (paid)
 Bruce Clay
 SEO Smarty - Ann Smarty
 SEOBook - Aaron Wall (paid)
39

Questions?

Thanks!
@balpert

SEO in 2017 - A New World Where Old Rules Still Matter

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