What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been…

What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been…

SEO started as a technical (development

& design) channel; now commonly includes:

• Link building, PR

• Content Marketing

• Social Media Marketing

• UX

• Analytics

• Other Inbound Marketing (aka, “free” traffic sources) like online video,

forums, email, infographics, webinars, document sharing, etc.

Some Old School Tactics Have Little Value…

• Directory Submissions

• Article Marketing

• Press Releases

• Guest Blogging

What Does A Modern SEO Really Care About?

A guarantee? This can’t be real SEO.

What Does A Modern SEO Really Care About? “Converting, qualified traffic (incurred by any SEO activity) is the primary metric.”

Google’s Making Changes

• 400+ general updates a year

• Penguin, Pandas, Hummingbirds, and Pigeons

- http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

• Hand editors

If you’ve done spammy work, you may will probably get caught.

Google’s Making Changes

It’s a hell of a climb, but the winnings should offset the losses

Let’s Drop Some Knowledge…

But First, A PSA…

X

Let’s Drop Some Knowledge…

An algorithm is like rope…

Let’s Drop Some Knowledge…Blended Search (or Universal Search) occasionally pulls in other algorithms.

• Authoritative • Technical• Contextual

Let’s Drop Some Knowledge…

Authoritative

If a site links to another site, and Googlefavors the linking site, then Google should consider the editorial link as a vote.

This is considered popularity.

Each vote is weighted by the qualityof linking sites. Passable PageRank isdiminished the more it is passed.

So, the more links you have, the better the chances of getting lots of PageRank in aggregate, right?

Let’s Drop Some Knowledge…

No, some things have changed.

Google favors quality over quantity because:

• Better technology to improve algorithm for recognizing a valuable link.

• Spammers and scattershot links

• Google has gotten better at measuring relevancy through links

Let’s Drop Some Knowledge…

Let’s Drop Some Knowledge…

• Quotes or No-Quotes

• site:example.com• site:example.com -inurl:cart• intitle:”text goes here”• intext:”text goes here”• site:example.com filetype:pdf• inanchor:

Example: “Add your website” home improvement directory site:*.com OR site:*.net OR site:*.org

BONUS: http://webmeup.com/##top-form

Technical

Let’s Drop Some Knowledge…Technical SEO - The oldest SEO pillar.

• Crawlability

• Findability

• Indexability

Let’s Drop Some Knowledge…Google gave us Webmaster Tools. Here’s what we love:

• Parameter Controls

• Error Reporting

• Crawl Stats

• Some Light SEO Data

• Sitelink Control

• Fetch as Google

• URL remover

• 404 Repair Tool

Contextual

Let’s Drop Some Knowledge…

“High quality, relevant content ranks better on average, and is identifiable by

properties such as comprehensive wording in regard to the co-occurrence of

related terms in the context, a higher word-count and media enrichment.”

http://www.searchmetrics.com/en/knowledge-base/ranking-factors/

Let’s Drop Some Knowledge…

http://www.ubersuggest.org

Let’s Drop Some Knowledge…

http://www.ubersuggest.org

CRO: Making The Traffic More Valuable

Conversion Rate OptimizationWhat is CRO?

CRO is figuring out why users aren’t doing something you want them to on your website, then fixing it.

Who should be practicing CRO?

Every business that relies on customers taking action that on their website.

Why focus on CRO?

CRO is often one the least expensive ways of generating additional conversions.

CRO – Test types definedTypes of tests:

A/B Test – Split URL: A test that splits traffic between a control and variation. Within most of the tools, A/B testing uses overlays (also known as cloaking to implement a test). Split URL tests use two separate pages with traffic split between them.

When to use: A/B Test: When making a relatively small change such as color or text. Split URL: When making a large change such as a complete page redesign.

CRO – Test types definedTypes of tests:

Multivariate: A test that splits traffic between multiple variations of a page. Tools typically only do this using the overlay method.

When to use: For very high traffic sites this is viable method of testing multiple variations.

CRO – Definitions

Call To Action (CTA)

The primary element on a page that asks the user to take action. It could be a button, link, or some other element.

Examples: “Buy Now” and “Add to Cart” buttons in ecomm. Email sign up, form fills, and engagement with interactive tools are types of CTA’s.

CRO – DefinitionsConversion funnel

The primary pathway that users experience when completing a conversion

Examples: home page > about us > contact page

How to Start Your CRO Program

Select a testing tool

There are multiple factors that will drive the selection of a tool. Some Factors to consider:• In-house resources• Budget• Tool capabilities• Compatibility with other analytics tools

How to Start Your CRO ProgramAnalyze conversion funnels

• Find breaking points in need of optimization.• Find pages with enough traffic for a test.

How to Start Your CRO ProgramDevelop a list of hypotheses

Common points tested:

• Button Color• Button Text• Adding a video• Headline change• Offers• Form Color• Form Length• Images

How to Start Your CRO ProgramImplement the change if the variation wins!

Common SEO Tools

WEB DEVELOPER

USER AGENT SWITCHER

CHECK MY LINKS

Common CRO Tools

Questions?Greenlane Search Marketing, LLCinfo@greenlaneseo.com http://www.greenlaneseo.com

Keith Urban – keith@greenlaneseo.comBill Sebald – bill@greenlaneseo.com