SEO for Wordpress: It Ain't Yoast.

My Wordcamp Vancouver 2019 presentation. It was a Wordpress conference where I talked about how bigger picture SEO was a lot more crucial than installing some tools.

Transcript

1. SEO for WordPress: It Ain’t Yoast
2. Hi, I’m Josh @joshtastic
3. • I’ve been doing SEO since 2004 • Same year that Anchorman came out • I’m addicted to Wordpress, run 10 sites
4. • Since 2006 • Hundreds of SEO + digital marketing projects • Clients such as Telus and my friend’s mom’s yarn store • statusbureau.com • Tourism digital marketing • Healthcare digital marketing • Banking digital marketing
5. Why SEO?
6. 1. Money 2. 51% of all traffic is organic 3. UX is only good if people use it 4. Not paying per click, marketing at scale! 5. 5% of people clicks on search ads, let’s talk about the other 95%
8. White text on white background
9. They hate money?
10. They love money!
11. Yoast!
12. • SEO Wordpress plugin • 6.7 million installs • It’s great!
14. Allows you to easily change your: • <title> • url • Meta Description WHY IT’S FAMOUS
15. FEEDBACK FOR BEST PRACTICES
16. Let’s use Yoast.
17. 1 2 3 4 https://www.statusbureau.com/clients/digital-marketing-banking-finance/
18. +6
20. 1. What do I want? 2. What do I need? 3. Do people search for that? 4. Do people buy it? 5. What do national competitors do? 6. What do local competitors do? 7. Is it difficult? 8. Can I get links and attention? 9. What content do I need to build?
21. 1. What do I want?
22. • Clients that are cool as hell • Innovators • Artists that are famous for their craft • Should I optimize for Wu-Tang SEO?
23. 2. What do I need?
24. • To find clients I can help the most • To do great work • To pay my staff • To optimize towards business goals
25. 3. Do people search for that?
26. DIGITAL MARKETING FOR FINANCE: US VS. CANADA
27. DIGITAL MARKETING FOR FINANCE: US VS. CANADA
28. DIGITAL MARKETING FOR BANKING
30. 4. Do people buy it?
31. • Googled 246,000 times per month in the US • Has a bunch of advertisers
32. • People don’t buy this • The searcher’s intent is way off
33. 1. Informational (weather) 2. Navigational (facebook) 3. Transactional (order plants online) 4. Commercial investigation (best trail running shoes) SEARCH INTENT
34. 4. What do national competitors do?
36. • h1, h2, page title, paragraph all optimized for “women’s shoes” • 100 products on the page • Intent for “shoes” is women’s shoes
37. BEST BUY
38. BEST BUY
39. • Which pages and which keywords? • There’s a 1 to 1 relationship between a keyword theme and a page BEST BUY wordpress designer vancouver >> /wordpress-designer-vancouver/ wordpress developer vancouver >> /wordpress-developer-vancouver
40. BEST BUY • Why do they rank for “apple canada” ?
41. • Links are usually a #1 or #2 factor • The links to this page suck, though • Links are not the big factor in this page ranking well • What is the factor for ranking? BEST BUY
42. Local rankings for “apple store” BEST BUY • Examine city- level ranking • They don’t rank in Vancouver
43. BEST BUY • They don’t rank in Toronto either Local rankings for “apple store”
44. • They have “apple” 172 times in their code • It’s on-page optimization • Maybe the competition doesn’t do it BEST BUY
45. • Plot twist! • Nope, they actually get no traffic • They are 11th, not 3rd BEST BUY
46. 5. What do local competitors do?
48. • A ton of content on the page about “personal injury lawyers vancouver” • Links from ctvnews.ca and 275 other sites • Good media coverage
49. Preszler Law’s Google ranking for “personal injury law firm” keyword based on user location
50. 7. Is it difficult?
51. KEYWORD: NEWS
52. KEYWORD: NEWS
53. • Chanty, a team chat company • 18 employees on Linkedin • They’re a small player in a market crowded with giants like Slack • They rank for 33,000 keywords! BEATING DIFFICULTY
54. MARKET LEADERS • Slack has major brand recognition • 823,000 monthly searches in the US • Generic categories don’t have that volume
55. They reviewed all of their competition MARKET LEADERS
56. • 2,700 word essay on the differences • Mentions “discord” 241 times in code • Mentions “slack” 351 times in code • Has very strong links this post • It is a very, very helpful post!!!!! MARKET LEADERS
57. 8. Can I get links + attention?
59. • You’re one in a trillion • How are you going to get Google to care? • Hire PR and link building companies? LINKS + ATTENTION
60. GETTING LINKS • What’s your superpower? • What are you good at? • Web design companies get footer links
61. • Who do you know? • Is there something mutually beneficial you can offer people? • Get writing? • Industry survey / study • Make something stupid! • University scholarships • Be prepared to fail • $15 cost per click on Adwords? How about a $15 gift? People love good mail GETTING LINKS
62. Moving companies are boooorriinngggggg.
64. • This guy got crazy media coverage • Traditional PR is online PR
65. Their strategy for links is to develop really great posts for other sites CHANTY LINKS
66. 9. What content do I need to build?
67. • Shoes —> 100 products on the page • Injury lawyer —> Write 500 words • Match the intent of the customer! CONTENT
68. • Let Google tell you what kind of content to make • Make sure your history / location / device are hidden when searching this! (VPN, Tools) TOP RANKING CONTENT FOR “SEO”
69. • Best • 15 • Affordable • 2020
70. Noooowwww we can use Yoast!
71. • Optimize each page (title, url, h1, h2, meta description) • 301 Redirects • Authenticate Search Console • Internal linking suggestions (link the keyword) • Publishes a sitemap • Control pages and post settings site-wide • Social card meta data YOAST
72. Remember! Strong business practices are about strategy, technique, effort and intelligence, not tools
73. Questions! @joshtastic josh@statusbureau.com statusbureau.com