The Current State of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

From Technology to Social Cues &Conversations

What is Search Engine Optimization?

search en·gine op·ti·mi·za·tion

noun

the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine (SERP –Search Engine Results Pages)

SEO helps ensure that a site is accessible to a search engine and improves the chances that the site will be found by the search engine

What is Google Saying?

The primary focus in 2015 is to switch from keyword rankings to more important elements that impact your ROI

If a top-ranked web page doesn’t generate conversions and sales, that top ranking doesn’t matter

You need to apply new SEO strategies focused beyond link building and keywords,

account for how your content engages with your audience and convinces them to convert into leads or sales

Google’s latest search engine algorithms focus more and more on content and less focus on keyword saturation

More focus on whether or not the content is actually relevant to the keywords.

Generate high-quality content that uses appropriate, relevant keywords and synonyms for those keywords,

But focus more/most on the content than the words themselves

Changes within the search engine algorithms

Greater importance on the content

Rely more upon social signals to elevate results in search ranking

It is expect that content and social signals will become more and more integrated

Higher quality content getting more social shares will rise higher in search engine results

Major impact on websites that deal with online payments and sensitive customer information

Make sure you are using proper security measures to safeguard that information.

For example, using security certificates and https instead of http will help your website grow in search engine rankings

The mobile internet has surpassed the desktop internet and will continue to grow in 2015 and beyond

Mobile user experience is an increasingly important ranking factor in Google's search engine algorithms

Estimates say that in 2015, there will be as many as 50 billion local searches using mobile devices

You want to be found in those searches

Semantic search became a big deal in 2013, with Google’s Hummingbird update.

Search engines now use context, meaning, and intent of words in search queries instead of just focusing on matching up keywords

This means “conversational,” keyword phrases are key for SEO

Tailor SEO efforts towards engaging in a conversation with search engine users

Proper link building continues to be essential.

What’s changed is how search engines interpret backlinks coming to and from a website

Content gets more focus, so think about relevance and social popularity

Brand mentions, relevant information the source website is discussing about your brand or website, might not require a hyperlink but will still factor into SEO

High quality, original content featuring visual media elements are the highest performing assets for the top-ranked web pages in 2014 and is expected to continue throughout 2015

graphics, images, and video

Rich text content with visual elements get priority in SERPs over web pages with just text

Video marketing on YouTube can generate a huge amount of link and social sharing traffic for your site

What you mean is more important than what you say

Once upon a time, keywords once meant everything to a campaign

Google collected data about a site solely based on the keywords that were present on its pages and in its links

Companies measured success based on how they ranked for their target keywords

It was a one-to-one relationship that made it easy to stuff and rank

As a result, the focus on keyword-based SEO is dying quickly

While keyword rankings still give you some indication, the relationship between keywords and search visibility is far more complex

Most importantly, there are too many other optimization considerations to ignore

Keywords are informational rather than having a quantifiable relationship and impact on rankings

However, Google still needs text to figure out what a company actually does, so placement of keywords matters far more than frequency

Google breaks a site down into key areas meta information and headers taking top priority

body copy taking secondary priority

side bars and footers taking the last priority

It’s important to have descriptors in high-priority areas — the meta data and header

Do not hone in on one specific keyword phrase lest your site grow repetitive, and earn a penalty instead of higher ranking

When Google scans site for information, it no longer pulls out keyword phrases it thinks are relevant and pairs them to user queries

Google interprets the data on a site, and begins to form its own conclusions about what that site and business really deliver

If that seems a little spooky to you, you aren’t alone — Google is becoming exceptionally sophisticated.

According to Google’s research, deriving meaning from the synonyms of keywords accounts for up to 70% of all searches

It doesn’t matter if you say "auto repair shop" or "auto repair shop," "car repair specialists," or "vehicle repair facility" on different pages - Google puts you in the same category

So, it’s far more important to optimize your site for a meaning rather than a phrase, and you can likely forget about keywords altogether in an effort to post relevant content and naturally build yourself as an authority in a given space

Part of Hummingbird update in 2013, Semantic search is indispensable feature for finding answers to specific questions

Rather than focusing on words, Google derives meaning behind words of user query

Semantic Search v. Keyword Search: Imagine a query for "cheap tacos in Omaha."

If search relies on keyword, it would look for the words "cheap," "taco," and "Omaha"

SERP range from taco restaurants, to stores, to gatherings that feature tacos

Instead, semantic search interprets meaning behind query

User is looking for inexpensive taco restaurant near Omaha

Search looks for companies that fit description, ignoring keywords in favor of meaning behind words

If site content creates impression of inexpensive taco restaurant near Omaha, it shows up in SERP without exact phrase or keywords

Two ways to structure a site and both greatly impact page authority

Big-picture structure refers to structure and navigation of overall site Users find information more easily on easily navigable sites and that is rewarded in ranking

Title pages appropriately

Use header bar to make site easy to navigate

Include a crawl-able sitemap that lays out your site as a whole

Interlink internal content by connecting internal pages to one another

The shorter the path from one page to another, the more authority gained, regardless of keywords

Small-picture structure refers to the how each page is laid out Adhere to Google’s structure of a header, body, sidebars, and footer

place appropriate content for each section

Google will more easily scan page and derive meaning without specific keyword phrases

Sites that load quickly rank far higher than sites that lag — so:

clean up your cache

vet your plugins

make changes to improve your site speed wherever possible

Having SSL encryption also provides a ranking boost

Currently slight, but likely to increase in the future

User experience matters as much to Google as keyword relevance ever did.

Make users happy, and Google will reward you

Keywords are almost obsolete as an element of SEO

Onsite optimization is far more important than keyword optimization

Even keyword interpretation relies more on Google’s understanding of language than specific word choices

Google provides specific markup formats for various categorical entries on your site, such as events or places

They help Google easily process and understand specific types of information

It then use those entries (1) to display accurate information, (2) giving a site more visibility (3) without a basis in keyword relevance and (4) giving users more direct answers to their questions

IN SHORT: Give users a great experience, publish accurate and relevant content, and you should climb the rankings quickly

In the last year, Google made big changes; all part of a longer term strategy that has many components.

Google is pushing people away from tactical SEO toward a more strategic approach

Tactical SEO is mostly dead, but not completely dead

So, let's take a quick look at the Google initiatives driving change, and the impact these changes are having on SEO

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No PageRank Update Since February, 2013

Hummingbird

Google+

Authorship

In-Depth Articles

Google made the move to make all organic searches secure starting September 23, 1013. This means we've lost the ability to get keyword data for users arriving to our websites from Google search.

Losing Google keyword data means losing a valuable tool for understanding what the intent of customers that come to their site, for conversion optimization, and much more.

For tactical SEO efforts, it just means that keywords data is harder to come by amd is far less significant to organic search.

Historically, Google updates the PageRank numbers shown in the Google Toolbar every 3 months or so

Google has not updated PageRank numbers since December, 2013 leading to speculation that PageRank is going away.

Some still use it as a crude measurement of a site's prominence Sites with PageRank 7 or higher – may in fact have some chops

Sites with PageRank 3 or lower – either new or probably a low quality experience.

Stuff in the middle – you just don't know

As Google shuts off this data flow, they will have to rely on other real world (and better) measurements instead

This is actually be better than PageRank because Google does not use it that way themselves -- why should we?

Google's Hummingbird algorithm is a major platform change; a much improved capability to understand conversational search queries

Hummingbird changes the keyword paradigm entirely to where exact keyword matches are no longer significant

The impact of this algorithm quite substantially changed the SEO landscape over the year

With the introduction of Hummingbird, access to the raw data was drastically reduced and changes the way it all works at the same time

Because you are logged in to a Google account, Google personalizes search results in order “to deliver the most useful and relevant content for your search”

Google takes into account the number of shares of the content, the authority of people sharing the content, and the location of the individual interacting with the content

Example: if a number of individuals in your Google+ circles have +1’d a certain shoe store and you’re signed in to your Google account, this store will appear higher in your search results than it otherwise may have

With the advent of Google+ and +1, content is becoming more and more personalized, connected with individual authors or businesses complete with their own Google+ profile and/or company page

These personalized search results are diminishing the influence of traditional/tactical SEO while personalized factors are increasingly determinant in which sites feature for certain search queries

Google Authorship, was launched on June 7, 2011, is a part of a bigger picture

Google uses Authorship to associate new content with the person who wrote it

Over time, Google measure which authors write content that draws strong responses (i.e. links, social shares, +1s, comments, etc.) resulting in a higher "Author Rank“

Google can then use this as a ranking signal for queries where more comprehensive articles are likely to be a good response.

There is also Publisher Rank; the concept of building a site's authority -- arguably more important.

Getting this payoff depends on a holistic approach to building your Content and Site authority.

In August, 2013 Google announced a new feature where searchers are presented with a block of results tagged under the title "In-depth articles“

Content appearing as “in-depth articles” is featured prominently in search results as true, non-commercial content, not remotely marketing or sales related

According to Google, "up to 10% of users' daily information needs involve learning about a broad topic;” a fairly significant number

This increases the payoff from Author Rank and Publisher Rank, there is a lot to be gained by developing both of these

Effectively, this is an entirely new method to improve rank in the SERPs

Over time, this feature will become much more significant, assuming Google makes it a ranking factor at some point

These six major changes combined discourage tactical behavior and encourage strategic behavior

Google designed these initiatives specifically to stop people from being tactical and make them strategic.

The obsession with tactical items like PageRank and keywords is fading fast

The focus now is on understanding your target users, producing great content, establishing your authority and visibility, and providing a great experience for the users of your site.

Google favors authority, semantic relevance, and the user experience and rewards outstanding sites, pages, and authors that offer exceptional answers to user's search queries

As Google tweaks the way their service operates, and look for ways to capture new signals, they do things that naturally push you in that direction.

It isn't going to stop… Expect more of the same going forward!

Changes over the past two years already have shifted our perception of search-engine optimization

No longer just links, keywords and PageRank.

Instead, branding and content strategy

But building a brand and publishing high-quality content are not new concepts, they’ve always been key parts of inbound marketing

So why the sudden shift in buzz within the SEO industry?

Google has become the leader in consumer-facing, data-oriented projects.

Google’s Knowledge Graph figures out what searcher wants, quickly supplies information and anticipates next questions

Majority of searches are location-based; Vegan restaurants in Brooklyn; Spa in Chicago, Shoes in San Francisco…

Queries return results with added information; reviews, prices, maps, etc

Paid ads dominate the top spots in the rankings

Top-ranking organic SERPs appear a few hundred pixels down the page

Top ranking has lost a significant amount of value and visibility

Currently, it’s widely thought that the quantity and quality of inbound links to your domain and individual pages on your site are the primary factors in the ranking algorithm.

Because of the resulting market for link buying and selling (which Google hates), Google might be tweaking its algorithms to give lower algorithmic weight to inbound links. However, even if links become irrelevant for SEO purposes, that doesn’t mean they won’t still be vital for your online-marketing campaign.

Before anyone knew what SEO was, they tried to get other websites to link to theirs for a different reason: referral traffic. How does John Doe discover your website if not via Google? Maybe he sees it mentioned on a blog. Maybe he found you on Twitter or Facebook. Or maybe he saw a sign you put up in the offline world. In every case, he arrived at your website through a “link.”

Ask yourself: If Google were not in the picture, would marketers still need to build links? If you’re in it for the long term, the answer is yes

Google Now is more than a mobile voice search challenging Apple’s Siri. It’s an entirely different mindset that pulls answers from geolocation, search history and preferences, as well as recent activity on Google products and other places.

It can search your calendar for birthday reminders. It can find your travel itinerary in your Gmail and spit out a weather report for where you’re headed. The emphasis is on serving answers, not webpage results. The challenge is making yourself relevant enough in people’s lives so that you show up in search results.

Because most of this takes place on mobile devices, SEO also means optimizing websites to be mobile-friendly.

If you have a bad product, you can sell a few units through excellent marketing. But this strategy not only won’t last long -- it’ll kill your brand as the word spreads. This is why you should treat every aspect of your inbound marketing campaign as a product.

Consider content as your chief product. Content can be a blog post, an ebook, a video, an email newsletter, an infographic or just about anything that's going to be consumed by an audience.

As marketers and advertisers, we tend to value campaigns (the process) over the product. But the opposite philosophy is your ticket to long-lasting success. Apple has created great marketing campaigns, but their focus is always on creating the best products.

Algorithms are computer programs that look for clues to give you back exactly what you want

For a typical query, there are thousands, if not millions, of webpages with helpful information.

Algorithms are the computer processes and formulas that take your questions and turn them into answers.

Today Google’s algorithms rely on more than 200 unique signals or “clues” that make it possible to guess what you might really be looking for.

These signals include things like the terms on websites, the freshness of content, your region and PageRank

Google has a long history of famous algorithm updates, search index changes and refreshes.

These are the most important Google resources for search marketers:

Google Hummingbird

Google Panda Update

Google Penguin Update

Google Pigeon Update

Google Payday Update

Google Pirate Update

Google EMD (Exact Match Domain) Update

Google Top Heavy Update

Google Hummingbird “Hummingbird” is the name of the new search platform that Google is using as of

September 2013, the name comes from being “precise and fast” and is designed to better focus on the meaning behind the words. Read our Google Hummingbird FAQ here.

Hummingbird is paying more attention to each word in a query, ensuring that the whole query — the whole sentence or conversation or meaning — is taken into account, rather than particular words. The goal is that pages matching the meaning do better, rather than pages matching just a few words.

Google Hummingbird is designed to apply the meaning technology to billions of pages from across the web, in addition to Knowledge Graph facts, which may bring back better results.

Google Panda Update Google’s Panda Update is a search filter introduced in February 2011 meant to stop

sites with poor quality content from working their way into Google’s top search results. Panda is updated from time-to-time. When this happens, sites previously hit may escape, if they’ve made the right changes. Panda may also catch sites that escaped before. A refresh also means “false positives” might get released.

Google Penguin Update Google launched the Penguin Update in April 2012 to better catch sites deemed to be

spamming its search results, in particular those doing so by buying links or obtaining them through link networks designed primarily to boost Google rankings. When a new Penguin Update is released, sites that have taken action to remove bad links (such as through the Google disavow links tool or to remove spam may regain rankings. New sites not previously caught might get trapped by Penguin. “False positives,” sites that were caught by mistake, may escape.

Google Pigeon Update Launched on July 24, 2014 for U.S. English results, the “Pigeon Update” is a new

algorithm to provide more useful, relevant and accurate local search results that are tied more closely to traditional web search ranking signals. Google stated that this new algorithm improves their distance and location ranking parameters.

Google Payday Update Launched on June 11, 2013 – the “Payday Update” was a new algorithm targeted at

cleaning up search results for traditionally “spammy queries” such as [payday loan], pornographic and other heavily spammed queries.

Google Pirate Update Google’s Pirate Update is a filter introduced in August 2012 designed to prevent sites

with many copyright infringement reports, as filed through Google’s DMCA system, from ranking well in Google’s listings. The filter is periodically updated. When this happens, sites previously impacted may escape, if they’ve made the right improvements. The filter may also catch new sites that escaped being caught before, plus it may release “false positives” that were caught.

Google EMD (Exact Match Domain)

Update The EMD Update — for “Exact Match Domain” — is a filter Google launched in

September 2012 to prevent poor quality sites from ranking well simply because they had words that match search terms in their domain names. When a fresh EMD Update happens, sites that have improved their content may regain good rankings. New sites with poor content — or those previously missed by EMD — may get caught. In addition, “false positives” may get released. Our latest news about the EMD Update is below.

Google Top Heavy Update Top Heavy was launched in January 2012 by Google as a means to prevent sites that

were “top heavy” with ads from ranking well in its listings. Top Heavy is periodically updated. When a fresh Top Heavy Update happens, sites that have removed excessive ads may regain lost rankings. New sites deemed too “top heavy” may get caught.

The targets of Google’s more recent updates (ie, websites that cheat their way to the top of the rankings or provide no value to visitors), I anticipate seeing these carried forward throughout 2014.

Continue to expect micro adjustments to Google’s Panda and Penguin algorithms that continue to target link and content quality

Smart marketers will benefit from keeping a close eye on their link profiles, and performing periodic audits to identify and remove inbound links built unnaturally.

High quality content investments remain critical

Solid performance is built on a foundation of understanding what happened in 2013 and 2014, and what these changes mean strategically and tactically for SEO

SEO really has changed in critical ways

The irony is that many folks who try hard to get that number-one ranking in the search results often fail, while brands and marketers who patiently and systematically follow these steps not only reach their goals, but stay there over the long haul.

Google has carefully crafted its strategy to encourage strong, quality content publication so its users don’t have to see the spammy content that used to litter its search results. Google’s future moves will be to further encourage this trend of quality and branding instead of manipulation and trickery.

Brian Griffin, Vice President

[email protected]

513-608-0033

www.kpgcreative.com