targeting humans by michael king

TARGETING HUMANS.

Michael KingSEO Manager

Publicis Modem@ipullrank

WE’RE DOING IT WRONGTHERE’S TOO MUCH DATA OUT THERE FOR SEO TO SUCK

Search Currently Orbits Social Media

Social

Media

Search

Search

Search

Search

Search Marketers treat Search and Social as two separate beasts only leveraging social as a way to push out messages.

Search Should Integrate with Social

Social Media

Search

Sweet spot where the

magic happens

Search Marketers would be better served using Social Media to inform strategies that target people. Think beyond Search to be better at Search.

STOP CHASING THE ALGORITHM

Search is about fulfilling a need for a person. Search Quality is about better fulfilling the needs of people.

SEO needs to be less about the manipulating the algorithm and more about fulfilling needs.

Search needs to be less about WHAT and more about WHO and WHY? Here are my data-driven approaches.

In other words…

Use Social Media to Your Advantage

Hundreds of Millions of people are telling you their every mundane thought everyday; use it!

Invest in Social Listening

Scout Labs

For my shoestring budget hustlers

Social Mention

Alterian SM2

Scout Labs & Alterian SM2 are extensive and expensive social listening tools but you can grab a decent data set for free using Social Mention.

Invest in Quantitative Analysis Tools

Invest in sites like ComScore, Compete or Quantcast to identify a demographic by industry and to get a preview of their search behavior.

Develop Personas

See Vanessa Fox’s presentation on Personas for an in-depth how-to: http://www.slideshare.net/optify/using-personas-to-boost-online-marketing-and-seo

Develop Personas to understand your users and to inform Search and UX.

Target Humans – Not Search Engines

Build for Humans and the Search Engines will follow. They must in order to stay relevant.

Great SEO is the Price of Admission

None of this is to say that you can ignore SEO. Combining these practices with great SEO amplifies your message.

I predict that Google will use rel-me and rel-author as ways to connect people to content and apply a sliding scale of value to links based on algorithmically determined authority of the writer to help solve search quality issues.

Read: Google’s Heading for Life after Link Trust – Here’s How to Prepare by @simonpenson - http://seogadget.co.uk/life-after-link-trust/

BUILD YOUR NETWORKS NOW.

Social and Search Will Continue to Integrate

SATISFYAPPETITESCREATING THE CONTENT THAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT

Before you do anything you need to identify who you are trying to talk to.

Who is Your Target Audience?

Building personas is a process of guess and check. Use social listening and educated guesses to identify 4 core groups of your audience. Test all assumptions.

Building Personas

Music MomsTypically uninformed gift givers looking for information on the right guitar for their happy hobbyist or raging rockstar. These people enter the conversation when they are looking to make a purchase.

Happy HobbyistsTypically students or amateur musicians looking for the latest tips and tricks for playing their guitar. These tend to be the most active content creators in the acoustic guitar conversation.

Raging Rock starsTypically professional musicians at various stages of their careers that tend to spend more time creating content with their guitars only consuming content as new guitar technology is released. These are the influencers of the happy hobbyist group.

Involved InstructorsTypically professional musicians and thought leaders/content creators who talk about new techniques and have strong opinions about instruments and brands. These tend to be quite active in the acoustic guitar conversation.

It is now also possible to find out data on every person that comes to your site.

Find Out Exactly Who They Are

Keyword-Level Demographics

FB:Admin Search Referrers

Keyword-LevelDemographics

Read and get code to do this at: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/keyword-level-demographics

Use the keyword-level demographics data to test your hypotheses and potentially identify new personas

If you are concerned with privacy you can encrypt user IDs using md5 hashes or model the persona in the code and only push the persona name to analytics.

Privacy?

123456 e10adc3949ba59abbe56e057f20f883e

An md5 hash is a 128-bit encryption of a string. You can compare users

without saving their user IDs

Pzyche allows you to get demographics data on visitors in real-time requiring no opt-in.* http://www.pzyche.com *I asked Pzyche where their data comes from they said their sources are “proprietary”

Pzyche

LinkedIn and Google+ are both options for data mining the people that come to your site but keep in mind that with signed in G+ users you will not get Search Referrers.

Other Data Sources

Read: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/making-search-more-secure.html

Dynamic TargetingUsing the demographic data user experiences can be tailored dynamically to reflect properties of the persona when they visit.

Curious George

• 18-32• Male• Loves indie rock• Wishes he had a

beard

What Normal Users See

What Curious George Sees

(Dramatization)

Does your content fulfill the need associated with the search intent?

Does it give the person the compelling experience they are searching for?

Give People What they are Looking For

There’s no Reason UX has to SuckDo Less of this Do More of this

Filter Keywords through Social ListeningInformational, Navigational, Transactional classification is not enough to truly understand intent.

Identify need states and use vocabulary in a way that people expect.

Case Study Research Decision-

making Booking Pre-flight Travel Post-travelMotivation to travel

Need States

Examples of W

hat’s happening

Occasion:-Season/Holiday-NY’ eve -Valentine’s D-Honeymoon-Birthday gift-Anniversary-Stag do-Reunion-Accomplishment-Time off

Experience: -Broaden horizon-Hobby/skill-Well-being/R&R-Adventure-Landscape (sea, mountain, plant)-Weather (sun, snow, wind)

Get Ideas:From friends, family,colleagues, extended social media network, bloggers, TV personalities, movies, activity groups & forums

Search for:Occasion or experience sought on google, publications, forums, social media groups,etc

Search for:Activity and experience options at different destinations

Compare:Destination options based on timings, costs, and ease of getting there

Search for:-Cheapest flight options based on timings - Cheapest flight options based on destination (look for promos and time suggestions)

Compare:Time options vs. budget across key providers

Commit:To a scenario

Locate:Key trip info: -Luggage rules-Check in time-Terminal to go to-Currency exchange -Ways to and from airport-Travel tips

Book: -Car hire-Accommodation-Airport bus

Manage:Info updates, efficient and easy task completion

Connect:-With local info -With resources (guides, gurus)-Activity ideas

Record:-Experiences-Memories-New ideas, contacts, knowledge

Organize:-Memories/events -Evidence you’ve been there/ Memorabilia-New ideas

Package:Trip takeouts so as to extend the benefits gained from the trip

Share: To build on and showcase who you are

I want to collect new experience,

add to my personal story,

and create special memories

What is out there that would be fun and interesting to do alone and/or

with the people I care about?

Of the options available, what is

feasible given time & budget constraints?

Who’s going to help me fine tune

and make the plan possible?

What do I need to do to activate my trip so that it’s as easy as possible?

Who can I rely on to help me make the most of my

trip?

How do I crystallize my travels so that

they are easy to share, and

provide inspiration to me

and others evermore?

Inspiration Research Commitment Experience

Case Study – Semantic Grouping

Occasion Activity Destination Offering Simplify Connect Remember

Flights

Logistics

City/Airport

Cheap Flights

Timing

Country/Region

Core Semantic Groups We identified the need state matched the client’s business goals and mapped them to semantic groups to dictate the information architecture.

Research Decision-making Booking Pre-flight Travel Post-travelMotivation

to travel

Case Study – Keyword Research

Identify what people want and present it in a way that matches their expectations using the language they expect in order to provide the best user experience to your target audience and improve conversion.

UX that Reflects NeedsNavigation and sub-navigation

reflect need states

UX and content developed with the concerns of our personas

We built a user experience indicative of these considerations

Case Study

Bookings

Organic TrafficWe improved rankings and conversions dramatically by marrying these concepts.

Co-relevance, intertextuality and juxtaposition generally leads to unique and compelling content that people want to share and link to.

Creating Compelling Content

Combine 2 or more concepts that typically don’t go together to create memorable content.

Co-Relevance

An interactive timeline of modern music that looks like a game of Guitar Herohttp://www.guardian.co.uk/music/interactive/2011/jun/11/history-modern-music-timeline

Co-Relevance Example

The periodic table meets SEO Ranking Factors and Typefaces.http://searchengineland.com/introducing-the-periodic-table-of-seo-ranking-factors-77181http://www.behance.net/Gallery/Periodic-Table-of-Typefaces/193759

Co-Relevance Example 2

Co-Relevance Example 3

Link from the Legend of Zelda’s Link Building Strategy Guidehttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/throw-away-your-form-letters-or-5-principles-to-better-outreach-link-building

The evolution of airline consolidation as a genealogy charthttp://www.historyshots.com/airlines/index.cfm?s=cirk

Co-Relevance Example 4

Co-Relevance Example 5

The Organic Path of Music presented as flight paths http://www.thomson.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/infographic/interactive-music-map/index.html

The History of Oprah meets CandyLandhttp://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1105/oprahland/flat.html

Co-Relevance Example 6

Cheech & Chong + Fiber One = Magic Brownie Adventurehttp://www.fiberone.com/magicbrownie/

Co-Relevance Example 7

Conversion Rate Optimization Explained by Mr. Men charactershttp://unbounce.com/funny/mr-men-guide-to-landing-pages-and-conversion/

Co-Relevance Example 8

The Twitters said you guys wanted Hammer at SearchLove. Who am I to deny you?

Co-Relevance Example 9Proper.

People Tweet the Same Things they Search

There is a direct correlation between Twitter activity and Search Demand. Exploit it for co-relevant content creation ideas.

Use Trendistic to get keyword trends on Twitterhttp://trendistic.indextank.com/

GoFish

GoFish is a real-time keyword research tool that leverages Twitter to find out what people are talking about related to your keyword right now.

http://ipullrank.com/tools/gofish

GoFish Methodology

n-grams

Top 10 Keyphrases related to Keyword

Input Keyword

Pull latest 200 Tweets containing your keyword

Identify top highest occurring n-grams sans stop words

Validate users using Klout Scores

Validate search volume using Adwords

Using Social Media to Get Ahead of Search Demandhttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/using-social-media-to-get-ahead-of-search-demand

Wait… What’s an N-Gram?

N-gram \’en’gram\ nounA collection of N consecutive words. For example a bi-gram or 2-gram is a keyphrase comprised of 2 words. This is the basis for a search engine’sdetermination of semantic value and relationship

Michael King SEO

Downtown Brooklyn

Apartment Rentals

SearchLove NYC MC Hammer

Dance

3-Gram

4-Gram

5-Gram

GoFish only looks for 2 through 5-grams.

Application of GoFishCombine concepts that people are talking about now to create a unique piece of compelling content with a built-in audience.Michael

Jackson

Jackson Trial

South Park

?

Michael Jackson Trial South Park Edition

Seed the content you create to influential Twitter users identified by GoFish.

SEOGadget Method

Read: http://seogadget.co.uk/using-google-docs-to-generate-hot-content-strategies/ (@dbseo)

The guys over at SEOGadget have a very similar tool that runs on ImportXML for Google Docs. This method pulls data faster and from various social sources.

TALK TO THE RIGHT PEOPLEINTRODUCE YOUR CONTENT TO THE PEOPLE WHO CARE

THROW AWAY YOUR FORM LETTERS!

Do Not be a Jordan Hogenson; tailor your outreach link building to your audience

The guy sent a form letter to Avinash

Kaushik for a link.

Link Building Golden Rule

Twitter Before Email

Twitter is made for inane and unsolicited conversation. Start your outreach link building there.

Use the SEER Method for Link Prospeting

I absolutely love the SEER Interactive method of using Twitter and Open Site Explorer together to identify link prospects!http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/using-twitter-and-backlinks-to-build-links/2011/07/28/

BUT![I LOVE ADULT SWIM]

Issues with the SEER Method

The Simply Measured tool gives you URLs with shorteners and Open Site Explorer exports only give you up to 10k links.

So I made a tool…

Upload your Simply Measured Export and get an SEOmoz Site Intelligence API and it will exhaustively prepare a link prospect report as an Excel workbook. I don’t have a name or UI for this tool.

How Does it Work?

All shortened URLs are expanded

All Root Domains are pulled from Open Site Explorer

Data is exported to an Excel

Workbook. One sheet of

prospects, one sheet of people already linking

to you.

Output

How Does it Work?

Have a Persona for Link Building

People will most likely check out your timeline so fill it with cool relevant content and conversation. Build an authentic separate persona and use it for your link building.

Personas are the Key to Scalability

Personas help you identify how to find your link prospects and how to start a conversation with them once you do.

Curious GeorgeThis group represents people considering buying a 3D TV

GamerGamers talk about their 3D gaming experience and the components and games they use.

Film PuristThis conversation revolves around use of 3D in film. They talk about 3D in a broad way, and occasionally touch on 3DTV specifically.

Tech GeekThis group talks about the technical details of their AV setup. They treat their TV’s like a racecar driver treats their car.

INFLUENCERSTARGET

Read: http://outspokenmedia.com/seo/content-based-outreach-for-link-building (@justinrbriggs)

Do Your Research

ProTip: A lot of people use the same username for many different social networks. Put it in Knowem and find out what they are about.

Create mental models of your link prospects by spending 5 minutes to view their Social Media profiles

Use Followerwonk with Scraper

Read: http://justinbriggs.org/quick-link-prospecting-with-scraper-extension (@justinrbriggs)

FollowerWonk doesn’t have an export feature so install Scraper for Chrome

kloutSkout

kloutSkout is tool I made for grabbing the Twitter and Klout data quickly. It will pull up to 100 user’s klout and twitter info. Use with Followerwonk to get a good sense of who your prospects are.

Use it: I will tweet the link to this later on today. Follow me @ipullrank.

Link Prospecting by Persona

Personas help define the type of people to reach out to for link prospecting.

SiteSkout

SiteSkout allows you to quickly identify popular content and topics of sites by pulling the social metrics of all the URLs on the site and the main idea using natural language processing.

Read: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/speedy-site-prospecting-using-social-metrics-natural-language-processing Use it: http://ipullrank.com/tools/siteskout/ Note; Requires an API from http://www.textwise.com

ProTip: Use with

Screaming Frog

Talk to People Like People

Outreach Link Building should be fun. If you approach it with a genuine interest in people you will increase your hit rate and not think of it as such an fruitless task by having actual conversations.

Make Your Message Stand Out

Use Short Subjects

Use Natural Subjects

Do NOT Use “Link Request”

Send Emails as an Actual Person not a Company or Team

Include a Natural Salutation

Converse with Context

Do NOT Just Tweet a Link at a Prospect

Escalate Quickly (“Follow So I can

DM”)

Participate in the Subject’s

Conversation

Ride a Relevant Hashtag

Offer Value

Value does not mean always mean incentives. Show the person that it interacting with you is valuable by being entertaining or a resource by sharing other relevant content or information.

Dangle the Carrot

If you have nothing more to offer or can’t spend the time use incentives. Couple incentives with campaigns to draw links in a one-to-many fashion.

Maintain the Rapport

After you close a link continue to engage with your link prospects over time on Twitter or G+. Add them to private Twitter lists and Google Plus Circles.

Real Life Examples

@ipullrank

If at least 100 people in this room follow me on Twitter right now I will share examples of my outreach on my blog (http://ipullrank.com) over the next month.

MEASURING PEOPLESHOW WHO IS DOING WHAT AND WHY

Measuring People

Using personas allows you step away from abstracts and identify insights in terms of people and their needs.

Almost didn’t look like a watermark,

right?

Rankings

Push your rankings to your Analytics for viewing in context with personas, localization and conversion goals Read and get the code for this: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/gettings-rankings-into-ga-using-custom-variables (@dohertyjf)

Keyword Ownership

Curious George

Gamer Film Purist Tech Geek

• 18-32• Male• Loves indie rock• Wishes he had a

beard

• 18-32• Male• Loves all music• Wishes he could

move out his mom’s basement

• 22-40• Male• Loves film

soundtracks• Wishes he could live

in the movie Avatar

• 22-40• Male• Loves Techno• Wishes you would

stop invading his online privacy

OWNER

• 5000 Searches Monthly

• Conversion Rate 5%

• 600 Searches Monthly

• Conversion Rate 2%

• 1000 Searches Monthly

• Conversion Rate 0.5%

• 100 Searches Monthly

• Conversion Rate 0.2%

Once a statistically significant dataset is compiled it can be determined which demographic and/or persona is more likely to convert for a given keyword and develop messaging that focuses on that group to further improve conversion.

Keyword Arbitrage

Tracking keyword demographics also allows the attribution of future purchases to the original keyword and will give way to keyword matrices that will inform you where to put your money initially to get more future sales.

Initial Keyword

Conversion Rate

Persona Keyword Revenue

Subsequent Keyword

Conversion Rate

Keyword Revenue

Sneakers 5% Curious George $50 Sneakers 40% $50

Sneakers 5% Curious George $50 Windbreakers 60% $100

Sneakers 5% Curious George $50 T-Shirts 20% $20

Windbreakers 3% Curious George $100 Sneakers 32% $50

Windbreakers 3% Curious George $100 Windbreakers 5% $100

Windbreakers 3% Curious George $100 T-shirts 80% $20

T-shirts 2% Curious George $20 Sneakers 50% $50

T-shirts 2% Curious George $20 Windbreakers 40% $100

T-shirts 2% Curious George $20 T-shirts 75% $20

Subsequent Conversion Prediction

These keyword matrices will allow the prediction of what the persona is likely to buy next so you know which people to aggressively pursue through retargeting and other channels such as email.

Curious George

60% of these users that buy sneakers from the keyword “sneakers” come back and purchase windbreakers

Annual Keyword ValueBased on how often an initial keyword leads to future conversions of subsequent keywords businesses will be able to measure the annual value of a keyword and react accordingly.

Keyword Earnings Ratio

Price per KeywordAnnual Earnings per initial click

Keyword Earnings Yield Price per

Keyword

Annual Earnings per initial click

?

People Tell You What They Need Everyday. Give It To Them.

?

One More Thing…

The Jig is Up!

GoogleBot is Chrome.

Why Does it Matter?

You’re not hiding anything with JavaScript. Google can access anything as it is actually rendered for an end user.

Proof – Instant Previews

There is absolutely no way Google is doing this with a Text-based crawler.

Google Makes POST Requests via Ajax

You can’t do this with a text-based crawler.

Read: http://www.thumbtack.com/engineering/googlebot-makes-post-requests-via-ajax/

Proof of Concept

Read Josh’s Post

http://ipullrank.com/googlebot-is-chrome

Don’t forget. Search is about people! Go Get ‘em!

Thank You / Q&A

Michael KingSEO Manager

@iPullRank

michael.king@publicismodem.com

www.ipullrank.com