targeting humans by michael king
TRANSCRIPT
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!
