I’ve, got to do all SEO trends for all different skill levels of SEO in 20 minutes, and I ‘ Ve got 40 minutes worth of content. So put your fast ears on here. We go okay for some of you, you’re.
Actually thinking. I thought we were pretty sure that SEO is dead is an SEO, not a thing anymore. You probably have seen slides like SEO. Seo is dead, social drives way more traffic with some pretty charts you’ve, probably seen like no Bing is actually the new thing.
It’s totally gaining ground on Google. Now Google’s, losing it. Facebook sends so much more check. These charts are real charts. We’ve pulled so that whole SEO is dead. I have sympathy for you. I know why you feel that way, but a lot of this data we can’t trust.
It comes from social plugins, for example. Well yeah. You think social plugins are gonna report that there’s a lot of social traffic, so we use different data. We like to use clickstream data click string, data from a company we partner with called jump, shot actually records user behavior millions of users behavior.
So it’s, much less biased by a particular agencies, customer set which could be highly verticalized and it’s, not bias by particular javascript casino online plugins, and this data allows us to get a much clearer picture of where people are actually searching.
Today and the data shows us, google is king, guys it’s. Not even close. This is 90 percent of search searches happen on google. This includes google images, traditional google, it includes youtube see.
These are all Google properties. Look at that, so there’s. A lot of hysteria around Amazon searches, for example, Amazon Product Search, is real. That’s, a real phenomenon, but of the overall search pie.
Everyone else is teensy-tiny. Some of you are thinking. Well, sir, this data is probably old and it’s, probably way off trend. I’d. Looked at that too, look at this chart shows over time how search volumes are changing and where our users actually searching using clickstream data and, as you can see it’s remarkably steady.
There is no meaningful threat to Google out there. Folks and the number of Google searches continues to increase and we know they’re increasingly mobile. I’m shifting gears a little bit for you. We were just talking about.
Where are people actually searching? Where do you and I search now? We’re shifting gears to where do these platforms send traffic? Where are they sending traffic and how much are they sending? Google is still sending the majority of traffic by far compared to these other platforms.
So if you’re a marketer out there, you should be deeply curious. Who’s gonna, send me the most traffic it’s. Definitely Google guys. Now this slide. I’m gonna pause a moment on, because I want you to get this takeaway and it’s a little bit of a confusing graph.
So imagine if you spread, you cut the web up into top 100 websites, 100 to 500 websites to a thousand, and you get these chunks of the most important websites all the way down to where most of us live in the longtail right and those of you Who have a top 100 or sorry top 10, that’s, that bright? Pink god bless you! This presentation may not be for you, because you’re winning on all platforms already anyway for the rest of us who lives somewhere further down.
Maybe the top one hundred to a thousand hundreds of ten thousand or that ten thousand plus that longtail. What this shows us is that Google is the most democratic distributor of traffic. So if you’re, a top ten top 100 website, yeah Facebook, Yahoo YouTube absolutely go for it and for the rest of us, Google is your best opportunity to get traffic, so SEO is not dead and in fact it still reigned supreme.
While we know from the clickstream data is that without 3ish percent of clicks go to paid advertising and then, conversely, 62 % ish go to SEO and all SEO influencer categories. Thirty, five percent there’s, no clicks at all, no clicks on us on a search.
We’re gonna talk about why that is you’re thinking? Oh Sarah, but I heard it’s. Mobile and Mobile’s, killing it right. So here’s on mobile, two percent of clerks clicks go to AdWords 40 percent of clicks going to search 57; no click, no click! Fine! We’re gonna talk about.
Why so, overall, if you’re using clicks as the measure of value, that’s, traffic to your site, they’re, clicking it or going traffic to your site. Organic drives 20 times more traffic than paid search 20 times.
Holy-Moly and here’s, the agony and the opportunity of SEO, because there is all of this incredible traffic being driven by search. But where does all this spend go? The spend goes to Adwords right. You all have gigantic AdWords budgets.
I bet you’re hooked. You’re hooked on your AdWords, so all of your spend enough spend that they can build [, __ ] self-driving cars on all your paid advertising budget. Ok, just that kind of blows your mind.
It should blow your mind right that’s, what you should be doing right now, so why is it? Why is it I’m gonna use some metaphors here to kind of shift. Your thinking I like to think of paid advertising as a hamster wheel.
It’s, easy to get that thing to go around and it’s fun. To do it. Look at that little hamster go the moment. The hamster stops. The wheel stops, whereas SEO is like a fly, will which is exhausting. It is heavy.
It is hard to get started. You’re grunting, you think about giving up, and you’re almost gonna give up, and then you go around and you do it again until you start to get your own momentum and it becomes more self-perpetuating.
You could also think about paid advertising as day trading and perhaps SEO as the harder, but miracle of compound interest, 401 K ray. You can think about paid ads as hiring an army to protect your village from the oncoming hordes versus SEO as building a fortress right.
The Army’s. Gon na help you out this summer and you’re fine, but you got to pay them again next summer, when the hordes come back. Building your fortress is gonna take a really long time, but it’s. Gon na create multi-generational value for your village.
Ok, I was being a little cheeky on purpose there, because I’m trying to admit it sound like you should all stop spending money on AdWords, which I don’t believe, of course, not right. The real answer is: why not both and every good campaign every good marketer is going to think about when you ‘
Ll use one versus the other, but I did really want to try to hit it home for you how different these approaches are and how valued SEO is by all of us, and these numbers clearly show it okay. So why don’t? We invest more in organic search.
Well, because Google changes all the time. In fact, I think we’re in a golden age of search, a golden age of change and innovation. We’re gonna talk about this. I’ve, summarized it down to two trends, even though it’s actually like a bazillion trends, but we’re gonna look at these two together.
The first one is this idea of mobile first: what does it really mean to be mobile first? The second one is how Google is changing from a gateway to a destination. So to do this, I am going to be your art teacher right.
I’m, going to try to help you look at the SERP in a different way than perhaps you have looked at before, because, like a lot of us, we see we see a great piece of Modern Art and we’re, like I don’t, really get it, and then you spend ninety minutes with a passionate art instructor and you’re.
Like I totally get it. I’m, moved by it. Okay, I’m gonna try to do that, for you with a search engine result, page yeah, no pressure in the olden times it was super simple, ten blue links on a page. Look at that all text.
You could easily count them, and so you get this notion of rankings right there’s, the first one, the second one, the third one that was olden times now, that’s compared to a typical search. This is a search for the word organic, which you could have lots of meaning notice, the colors notice, the boxiness notice, the pictures notice, the maps and the pins right.
It looks completely different. It’s radically changed and you ‘ Ve also noticed probably how much more interactive it is. It’s, no longer oh, just go to this click on this one link and then go to a website about it.
There’s. Whole interactive experiences in this case one about cardiac arrest that has multi tabs in it on a beautiful colorful box to the right hand, side right far out and it should look very familiar.
This is a similar version, but on a mobile phone. So this is an example of what mobile first design looks like on a search engine result page, and you should notice lots of boxes. Lots of colors lots of interactivity.
That interactivity itself is an example of Google, not sending you to a different web property, but keeping you there becoming the destination, and that’s. A part of that. Why Sarah do so many of those searches not and clicks, because we’re, getting what we need right there on the page, another phenomenon that you’re, seeing that’s related to that no clicks comment is that search Has become ambient, it’s all around us.
It’s, always on it has many different formats. It’s, no longer tenbu links on a page. It’s, voice that’s, not just voice initiated its voice, responded it’s happening in our cars is happening on our wrist is happening everywhere, so the format of what it means to even do SEO totally should they Should be blowing your mind, SEO has a little left off the desktop page.
It is everywhere. Speaking of that a lot of people say voice is killing SEO. Guess what voice in SEO? What do you think drives voice? It’s SEO so here’s, an example of what you might do. If you’re searching for cardiac arrest and then, if you were to ask Google, ok, Google, what causes a heart attack and it’s, gonna have those exact same responses.
It’s going to list the same thing. There so whatever is ranking on position zero position, one is going to show up in your voice results. This is going to be critical for the future. I want you to make a connection between organic SEO and voice for all of your future optimizations.
I also want to talk briefly because we got we ‘ Ve still got a lot of work to do here about how interactive the search is becoming. This is an example of a hotel that allows you to book and then also does comparative price shopping right there so think about that as a brand affiliation that it’s happening subconsciously, whether you mean it or not.
Right Google thinks, if you search for this one, you may be interested in this one notice: the prominence of rankings and sorry reviews and stars that’s, organically influenced as well. That’s. Also, obviously, experience influenced you can see.
Different photos highlighted so this speaks to how quality imagery is so important in today’s search results. There are new formats like this is post if anyone tried post. Yet this is incredible right there, good good, good, good! So right there in your knowledge panel about your business, you can have these ephemeral sort of short-lived 7-days posts that’s right there in the search result.
If you take advantage of it, you can do scheduling there’s, also a new phenomenon where Google is blending, notion of paid and organic experiences. I’m curious. What the FTC will say about this in the future.
I bought a hundred-year-old house that has lots of plumbing issues, so I have to search for Seattle plumbers, unfortunately – and it guides me through this very specific experience for plumbers, who can meet my needs and then shows me various reviews about them and images about them.
So it’s, a whole merging of paid and organic experiences. We’re gonna see more of this in the future. Shopping carousels have gotten much more interactive with multi tabs and they have filtering this.
Is you can filter for under $ 500 15 inch laptop? That is all data that is driven by content on your site and reviews that will allow Google to do this. Interactive filtering right list. Ohmygosh places it’s a whole new, complete experience.
Google doesn’t just send you to every individual travel site anymore. They built their own sort of, I want to go to Chicago, and they ‘ Ve already picked out what they think. The most popular Chicago experiences is added reviews taken.
Some of the taken, some of the best photography, put it right there for you, jobs, another total disruption. So you can see. Google has designed everything in this boxy multi-format design and they’re, trying to keep you on their site.
It’s, not just pass off anymore. So what does this mean? First, it means that your technical SEO really still matters being mobile-friendly is a huge part of being mobile. First, they’re, not exactly identical, but if your site, isn’t already responsive.
If you have a different mobile version of your site or your site, isn’t mobile, ready at all. You got to get that taken care of right away. There’s, ongoing mobile first index rollouts coming right now, where Google says, because they know most of their searches are mobile.
They’re, going to give priority to the mobile version of your site. It’s, no longer that the desktop version of your site is considered the primary one that they’re gonna crawl and serve its your mobile version.
So do a little check. Think internally is my mobile site, a true reflection of all of my best content: that’s, important to get straightened out right away. You ‘ Ve got to be really really fast.
If you have a mobile version of your site, it better be fast use your schema markup. All of this structured data that go into making these interactive lists and your knowledge panels and understanding the fad graph.
That is all coming from your structured data. Your schema, markup meta descriptions still important. They’re all, but true right. It’s about how are you what what is the right thing to get someone to click right there? On your link, your title tags similar you’ve, got to think about this as conversion rate optimisation on the search page, just like you think about conversion rate optimisation on your website right there on search, make sure your business data is right.
So map search is huge. There’s, so much searching going on right there in maps and if your business data is wrong, if it has the wrong hours, it has. The wrong address. Has the wrong phone number, that’s, a heartbreak that’s? A heartbreak and Google will start to over time.
If that information is inaccurate, they will not surface you in the map results progressive web apps. I’m, a huge believer in progressive web apps. I think it gives you the interactive experience that you want from an application, but it allows you to run them in a way that as much more search, friendly and secure has higher conversion and retention rates.
That’s, a little more advanced for those of you who haven’t done it yet make sure your website is secure, has to be secure. Okay. The second thing I want to talk about in order to dominate in these new trends, unique relevant content, e8e expertise, Authority, Trust.
These are Google’s, quality rater guidelines and there is a ton of updates related to these rolling out in the Google search algorithm right now, we’ve, seen a lot of volatility in rankings that first sites that really need high ei T and those sites typically fall into the back of the ym bucket of Y, my L, your money or your life sites.
So if you run a website or a business that is involved in financial advice, absolutely health advice, legal advice, things where, if you’re, giving bad advice, you could really screw up someone’s. Life Google recognizes that that needs a higher scrutiny of standard to even surface in the web rankings, and so they’ve, been tweaking the algorithm heavily in these last several months to make sure that you are authoritative, that you have real expertise and you Have trust so you have to hire experts who have education, that field they have to be authoritative and that they have to have citations from all the right places.
They have to have trust from users right. So there’s, a lot of volatility here and we’re, going to talk more about that as we go here, answer questions. This is a big phenomenon, so what are we doing and all of our voice initiated searches? We’re, asking questions these long tail conversational questions.
Google is surfacing answers, they love to answer your question and we are addicted to asking them. We call that position zero. So when you’re thinking about what content should I write think about phrasing? It in the form of what question am i answering, featured snippets, dominate mobile? Look if you –, if you have a position, zero answer and it’s on mobile, it takes up the whole screen place screen space.
So you definitely want to make sure you’re owning those featured snippets. If you can and featured snippets are it is SEO. How do you get position zero? You do it through great SEO that doesn’t mean you need to be ranking number one.
This is a graph that shows you. Yes, if you were ranking number one organically, you’re, most likely to also get that featured snippet position. Zero, but look. It is possible to be ranking position four and still own, that position zero, and why is that? It’s because Google, when it’s, trying to design these featured snippets like this one.
This is the featured snippet on what is the inverted pyramid style? They’re answering your question. They chose this one because the person who wrote it was using the inverted pyramid style, which is answering the most basic and informative pieces of the question.
First, it’s, a style that reporters use. So your writing style will impact whether or not you own that featured snippet compared to perhaps more poetic and lingering and longer long-form content. Another thing Google loves less.
I love lists. Google loves a list write your answer in the form of a list: how to write a good title tag as a search that Moz is ranking in this position: zero four and we got it from writing an article in the form of a list so use your List, if you are curious about I don’t know what kind of questions to ask.
Sarah here’s, a free tool. We have there’s, also a paid version of it keyword Explorer it’ll help. You understand what topics are out there, how they’re related, whether their hearts ring for or not. It will also make suggestions specifically display suggestions that are in the form of a question like this is one for cheese plates and a suggestion is how to arrange a cheese platter that’s, a question.
A lot of us have and it’s. A great search here, someone wrote an article in this case. It was Food Network, wrote an article and they did it in lists for him and they got that position zero. Another great free tool is called answer the public.
It will help you think of related questions to ask that you can answer to help. You win those coveted position, zero spots, another trend that’s coming together is what I’m. Calling Frank and snippets I made that up and it’s.
When google sees some content from here and some content from here, and it actually blends it all together, save a completely unique content answer right there on the top build your authority. I told mentioned before there’s, a lot of fluctuation, make sure that your content is in the hands of other experts that they’re linking towards you get help with our link Explorer to understand who’s linking to Your competitors and what links you have that could be hurting you or helping you don’t forget that links can hurt you as well.
If you’ve got some toxic links. The final thing I want to shift your brain on is that SEO is no longer just about clicks. I talked about it’s, 20 X, clicks and paid that’s. True but remember that’s, a floor of value.
That is not the ceiling of the value you are getting from SEO anymore. All of these no clicks and interactions and photos. What is that closer to good old fashioned, brand building, good old-fashioned brand building and enterprise value, so think of Google, as your first impression, for example, just glance the art teacher moment glancing at this page right, Wow, the beautiful photos you’ve got the Stars you’re affiliated with other brands that are listed there, so you got to get those reviews manage them experiment with QA again you can ask and answer questions right there in the search result.
That is a huge branding opportunity. Customer experience opportunity do not waste it use eye catching videos and images. I’m fairly bullish on the future of visual search. I don’t think that we all need to start optimizing for google lens next year.
Maybe that’ll, be on my Google Trends 22, but I wouldn’t worry about it this year, but right now it is part of that experience and the impression you are creating. Okay, I ‘ Ve dropped, tons of knowledge, and some of you are like this is boring.
I’m an expert SEO and some of you are like. Oh, my god, we’ve got so much work to do were screwed, so I want to leave you with an SEO maturity model that you can find on the Moz blog. That takes you through how advanced are we on several different aspects? Technical aspects of SEO, I encourage you to work on it with your teams individually.
Have everyone fill it out? How do you think we’re doing on technical SEO? Which stage are we in the chaos stage? Are we in the tactical stage, the strategic stage and then come together and discuss it, make sure you invite your web developers your UX people? This is a very detailed spreadsheet.
We can stop here a minute and read it. No, I don’t. Have time to, but this is that this is the spreadsheet you can download on the Moz blog, that I encourage you to go to so search for SEO maturity, model Moz, and you will come to this blog post.
I didn’t, create it Heather. Physio created it from vml, she’s outstanding. She relied on a lot of industry experts to do it. This will be a tool to help you get from where you are to where you want to be don ‘
T forget SEO is a competitive sport. Google has changed a lot. You got to keep up with it and your competitors are also changing right now, so it does not set it and forget it keep on top of it. Today we talked about Google Trends to watch mobile.
First, Google moving from a gateway to a destination. We talked about building your moats, hiring your army, doing both building your foundation, creating unique content. Remember Google’s; your first impression it’s. At this moment how to monitor work from home is so simple.
Almost like a brand play now and evaluating your SEO maturity that’s, 40 minutes of content and like what 22 minutes all right. Thank you guys.
