SEO 2015

SEO in 2015 Navneet'Kaushal'CEO'

PageTraffic'

What'all'happened'in'2014'

WHAT’S CHANGED??? •  Authorship Photo Drop — June 28, 2014

•  John Mueller made a surprise announcement (on June 25th) that Google would be dropping all authorship photos from SERPs (after heavily promoting authorship as a connection to Google+). The drop was complete around June 28th.

•  Payday Loan 3.0 — June 12, 2014

•  Less than a month after the Payday Loan 2.0 anti-spam update, Google launched another major iteration. Official statements suggested that 2.0 targeted specific sites, while 3.0 targeted spammy queries.

•  Panda 4.0 (#26) — May 19, 2014

•  Google confirmed a major Panda update that likely included both an algorithm update and a data refresh. Officially, about 7.5% of English-language queries were affected. While Matt Cutts said it began rolling out on 5/20, our data strongly suggests it started earlier.

•  Payday Loan 2.0 — May 16, 2014

•  Just prior to Panda 4.0, Google updated it's "payday loan" algorithm, which targets especially spammy queries. The exact date of the roll-out was unclear (Google said "this past weekend" on 5/20), and the back-to-back updates made the details difficult to sort out.

•  Unnamed Update — March 24, 2014

•  Major algorithm flux trackers and webmaster chatter spiked around 3/24-3/25, and some speculated that the new, "softer" Panda update had arrived. Many sites reported ranking changes, but this update was never confirmed by Google.

•  Page Layout #3 — February 6, 2014

•  Google "refreshed" their page layout algorithm, also known as "top heavy". Originally launched in January 2012, the page layout algorithm penalizes sites with too many ads above the fold.

WHAT’S CHANGED???

•  Pirate 2.0 — October 21, 2014

•  More than two years after the original DMCA/"Pirate" update, Google launched another update to combat software and digital media piracy. This update was highly targeted, causing dramatic drops in ranking to a relatively small group of sites.

•  Penguin 3.0 — October 17, 2014

•  More than a year after the previous Penguin update (2.1), Google launched a Penguin refresh. This update appeared to be smaller than expected (<1% of US/English queries affected) and was probably data-only (not a new Penguin algorithm). The timing of the update was unclear, especially internationally, and Google claimed it was spread out over "weeks".

•  "In The News" Box — October 1, 2014

•  Google made what looked like a display change to News-box results, but later announced that they had expanded news links to a much larger set of potential sites. The presence of news results in SERPs also spiked, and major news sites reported substantial traffic changes.

•  Panda 4.1 (#27) — September 23, 2014

•  Google announced a significant Panda update, which included an algorithmic component. They estimated the impact at 3-5% of queries affected. Given the "slow rollout," the exact timing was unclear.

•  Authorship Removed — August 28, 2014

•  Following up on the June 28th drop of authorship photos, Google announced that they would be completely removing authorship markup (and would no longer process it). By the next morning, authorship bylines had disappeared from all SERPs.

•  HTTPS/SSL Update — August 6, 2014

•  After months of speculation, Google announced that they would be giving preference to secure sites, and that adding encryption would provide a "lightweight" rankings boost. They stressed that this boost would start out small, but implied it might increase if the changed proved to be positive.

•  Pigeon — July 24, 2014

•  Google shook the local SEO world with an update that dramatically altered some local results and modified how they handle and interpret location cues. Google claimed that Pigeon created closer ties between the local algorithm and core algorithm(s).

2015 IS GOING TO BE AMAZING.

What SEO is NOT in 2015

No More Keyword Stuffing

No More Article Spinning

No More Directory Submissions

No Press Releases Without Actual News

What SEO Strategies Work in 2015

1. Real, Helpful Content

aka Inbound Marketing

No Longer Just Looking for Words

Semantic Indexing

The Machines are Learning

2. Consistent Content

Fresh Wins

Good Links Boost Visitor Value

Good Content Brings Links

Bad Links Don�t Help

You Need to Remove Bad Links

4. Make Your Site Function Well

Fast Site = Better Rankings

developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/

Designing for the User Thinking objectively about your site layout

!  Reinforce branding !  Consistency

•  Color scheme, fonts, buttons, etc. !  Categorize products intuitively !  3-click rule !  Company information at the bottom !  A balanced diet of images and text

•  Images for the user, text for the search engines

An Image-Heavy Site As seen by customers

An Image-Heavy Site As seen by Google

A Balanced Site As seen by customers

A Balanced Site As seen by Google

5. Mobile Friendly

IF YOUR PHONE DOESN’T DISPLAY FLASH, GOOGLE WILL NOT SHOW FLASH SITES IN YOUR RESULTS.

Ma#$Cu#s$of$Google$at$Pubcon$in$October$2013$

IF YOUR WEBSITE ROUTES ALL MOBILE TRAFFIC TO THE HOMEPAGE RATHER THAN THE INTERNAL PAGE THE USER WAS ATTEMPTING TO VISIT, IT WILL BE RANKED LOWER.

Ma#$Cu#s$of$Google$at$Pubcon$in$October$2013$

IF YOUR SITE IS SLOW ON MOBILES, GOOGLE IS LESS LIKELY TO RANK IT.

Ma#$Cu#s$of$Google$at$Pubcon$in$October$2013$

HAVING A MOBILE SITE IS JUST THE START.

h#p://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights$$

MOBILE READY MEANS: •  Loading'quickly'on'mobile'

•  Enabling'users'to'navigate'around'on'a'small'screen'

•  Taking'mobile'users'to'the'content'they'expect'to'see'

•  Enabling'users'to'read'without'pinching'and'zooming!'

'

'

UX From a Technical Standpoint Bells and whistles behind the curtain

!  Responsive design •  May factor into future algorithms

!  Page speeds •  Consistent image sizes •  Limit products displayed per page •  Use HTML whenever possible, Javascript sparingly

!  Broken links, 301s, 404s •  Address these in Webmaster Tools •  Redirect dead or migrated pages to related, active ones

Good Reviews Across Multiple Sites

100% Secure HTTPS

ConfidenCal$and$Proprietary$InformaCon$$

Goodbye, Google Authorship What to do now that Google Authorship is dead

Google Authorship Examples As they appeared in search engine results pages

Google Authorship is Dead What are authors to do?

!  Don’t stop creating great content •  Quality, thought-provoking content is king •  Make it engaging and sharable

!  Promote content where your customers congregate !  Repurpose your pieces across all channels

!  Don’t put all your eggs in one basket

ConfidenCal$and$Proprietary$InformaCon$$

Ever Evolving Google’s Algorithm

The never-ending story

Pandas Eat Up Good Content Creating original web copy

!  Unique, original content is king •  Thought-leading •  Data-driven •  Penalties for duplicate content

! Consider videos & infographics !  Keep on-page content!

•  Should be unique to each page

Pigeons Fly Local Catering to your neighborhood customer base

!  Hyper-localized search results ! Develop consistent citations ! Create Google Places account ! Use neighborhood- and city-

specific language on-site

Penguins Pay Attention to Links Earning links builds an interconnected reputation

!  Paid links = no good! !  Consider link removal !  Network with industry bloggers !  SEO is like PR when earning

links •  Create content that contributes

Hummingbirds are Conversational Answering a customer’s query-based search

!  Content should be conversational

•  Written for human beings •  Ignore keyword density •  Answer questions your

customers are asking

!  As search evolves, Hummingbird will become more important •  Voice activated search

ORGANIC SEARCH VISIBILITY IN 2015

CONTENT.

CONTENT. BRANDING.

CONTENT. BRANDING. MOBILE.

CONTENT. BRANDING. MOBILE. SOCIAL.

CONTENT. BRANDING. MOBILE. SOCIAL. USER EXPERIENCE.

SOME THINGS WON’T BE MUCH DIFFERENT

GOOGLE WILL STILL DOMINATE THE MARKET.

THE GOALS OF SEARCH ENGINES WILL STILL BE THE SAME.

LINK BUILDING IS NOT DEAD.

GOOGLE NEEDS LINK METRICS.

h#ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCY30WhI2og$$

“We’ve'played'around'with'the'

idea'of'turning'off'back'link'

relevance'and,'at'least'for'now,'

back'link'relevance'sNll'really'helps'

in'terms'of'making'sure'that'we'

return'the'best,'most'relevant,'

most'topical'set'of'search'results.”''

OFF PAGE IS (AND WILL BE INCREASINGLY) MORE THAN JUST LINKS THOUGH

BRAND SIGNALS

BRAND SEARCH VOLUME WILL MATTER MORE

CITATIONS WILL MATTER MORE

SENTIMENT WILL MATTER MORE

Ma#$Cu#s$of$Google$

SXSW$2013$

POSITIVE SENTIMENT •  PosiCve$reviews$

•  Google’s$own$systems$

•  Trusted$3rd$parCes$•  PosiCve$citaCons$and$interacCons$on$Google$

Plus$

•  PosiCve$citaCons$across$the$web$

$

AROUND 15% OF QUERIES ARE NEW

Forget keywords as anchor texts

Build Links WITH Your

Content to Win.

Pick Content Type

Build Content With High Search Link Intent

KEYWORD$“FACTS”$

KEYWORD$“INFORMATION”$

KEYWORD$“DATA”$

Learn the art of storytelling

Promote

Website: www.pagetraffic.com Email: [email protected] Twitter: @navneetkaushal Blog: www.pagetrafficbuzz.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/pagetraffic.in

THANK YOU!