cyrus shepard: optimizing for humans — the magic of value-added seo — #fullstack15

Optimizing for Humans: Value-Added SEO

Cyrus Shepard | @cyrusshepard

@cyrusshepard  

What SEO sorcery is this?

600%  Growth  in  5  years  

The myth of

advanced SEO

What’s an amazing restaurant in Edinburgh?

Challenge: Rank #1 for “Amazing Restaurant in Edinburgh”

Easy!

(right?)

I’m an SEO EXPERT!

I write smarty-pants blog

posts!

I read Google patents for

fun!

Let’s apply Advanced

SEO

Optimized Title Tag <title>Best Restaurant – The Elephant House in Edinburgh Scotland</title>

Optimized Title Tag <title>Best Restaurant – The Elephant House in Edinburgh Scotland</title>

Optimize TF-IDF

Optimized Title Tag <title>Best Restaurant – The Elephant House in Edinburgh Scotland</title>

Optimize TF-IDF

Synonyms & Variants

Optimized Title Tag <title>Best Restaurant – The Elephant House in Edinburgh Scotland</title>

Optimize TF-IDF

Synonyms & Variants

Page Segmentation

Optimized Title Tag <title>Best Restaurant – The Elephant House in Edinburgh Scotland</title>

Optimize TF-IDF

Synonyms & Variants

Page Segmentation

Semantic Distance

Optimized Title Tag <title>Best Restaurant – The Elephant House in Edinburgh Scotland</title>

Optimize TF-IDF

Synonyms & Variants

Page Segmentation

Semantic Distance

Co-occurrence Optimization

Optimized Title Tag <title>Best Restaurant – The Elephant House in Edinburgh Scotland</title>

Optimize TF-IDF

Synonyms & Variants

Page Segmentation

Semantic Distance

Co-occurrence Optimization

Entity Salience

This just might work…

Advanced SEO got us to

page 1

But failed to get us to #1

We forgot user inputs

Content for Engines L

Credit  to:  Ma:hew  J  Brown  

Two Optimization Strategies

Engines Users

One Unified Algorithm

New Paradigm: The Rise of User Inputs

h:ps://moz.com/search-­‐ranking-­‐factors/survey  

The Future of SEO

The Future of SEO

h:ps://moz.com/search-­‐ranking-­‐factors/survey  

User-based features

Traditional SEO features

h:ps://moz.com/search-­‐ranking-­‐factors/survey  

Human-Optimized SEO: 5 Strategies

1   2 3 4 5

1. The User Chooses You

Modifying search result ranking based on user feedback

h:p://www.seobythesea.com/2015/07/google-­‐click-­‐through-­‐feedback-­‐search-­‐results/  

Rand’s Experiment

h:ps://seomoz.box.com/shared/staNc/8fg6ete8oemwcw8im6ljeczt55axr5kl.pdf  

Moved to #1 after ~500 interactions (before falling back)

h:ps://seomoz.box.com/shared/staNc/8fg6ete8oemwcw8im6ljeczt55axr5kl.pdf  

Art of click nudging

Title  

Keywords   DescripNon  

Brand  

Rich  Snippets  

URL  

Hacking with Google Search Console

The user chooses you again and again

2. Task Completion

This  looks  cool,  but  what  about  other  restaurants?  

Getting the click may not be enough, if the

user doesn’t complete the task

Ah,  I  can  complete  my  task  right  here!  

•  All  restaurants  ranked  •  Reviews  •  Maps  •  Menus  •  Prices  •  ReservaNons  

≠ Pogo Sticking

h:p://moz.com/blog/seo-­‐saNsfacNon  

No need to go anywhere

else!  

I  love    your  website  –  it’s  so  

fast  and  a:racNve!  

Engagement!  

Aaron  &  Holly,  Engaged  

Assisting elements of task completion

•  Design •  UX

•  Navigation •  Site Speed

•  Searchability •  Information

Architecture

3. Answer questions users haven’t asked yet

Lots of questions. Many searches.

Questions the robots told us about

Questions our humans haven’t asked yet!

One page Many answers

Long  tail  is  very  hard  to  predict  in  advance  

Feature of Successful Sites

h:p://mozcast.com/metrics  

Supplemental Content

h:p://www.scribd.com/doc/217994742/General-­‐Guidelines-­‐1  

From  Google’s  Leaked  Quality  

RaNng  Guidelines  

Supplemental Content

YouTube  is  90%  Supplemental  

Content  

•  Related  ArNcles  •  Links  •  NavigaNon  Aids  •  Tools    •  Resources  

h:p://www.slideshare.net/hustwj/cikm-­‐keynotenov2014  

Deep  learning  algorithms  aim  to  measure+predict  related  

concepts,  and  rank  accordingly.    

Ranking Advantages

4. Human Formatting

We still publish content like this

…and 80% never read all of it.

h:p://dejanseo.com.au/web-­‐content/  

Reasons  why  people  leave  content  

Whiteboard  Fridays    Circa  2010  

Video  Only:    Good  for  Humans  Poor  for  Robots  

We added transcripts

Search  engines  love  me!  

What human wants to read this?!?!

Nope!  

Added rich formatting • Headers • Images • Scanable

Holy Engagement Batman!

5. Buy Links

5. Buy Links

5. Buy Eyeballs

The “free” channels

Moz’s  most  reproduced  graphic  

Awe$ome People

We  spend  far  more  on  Community  +  Social  Media  

than  Content/SEO  

Paid $ocial

Hire Awe$ome PR People

Fabulous!  

Event$

Content Di$covery Networks

h:p://moz.com/blog/maximize-­‐roi-­‐via-­‐content-­‐distribuNon-­‐networks  

•  Taboola  •  Outbrain  •  Gravity  •  Zemanta  •  ZergNet  •  Adblade  •  More  here  

@cyrusshepard