SEOloger #52: Michal Suski, SEO SURFER: DATA-DRIVEN ON-PAGE OPTIMIZATION

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Data Driven Optimization That scales! MICHAŁ SUSKI

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Michał Suski Co-Founder of Surfer [email protected] Master of science at Forestry Quality Assurance since 2014 SEO since 2016 Surfer 2017

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Agenda ● Taking Keyword Research to the next level ● Writing copy that adds relevance with Content Planner ● Creation at scale with data driven guidelines ● Audits on regular cadence

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Keyword Research Process of ﬁnding attractive keywords for the website to target.

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Keywords ● DFS has 600M keywords for the US market ● Pages rank for dozens keywords ● All we need is to understand which we can rank together

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Clusters ● discrete items that are close to each other ● individuals collected in one place; a crowd ● galaxies or stars that appear near each other

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Why do we need them? ● To feed the algorithm ● To build proper structure ● To satisfy the user intent

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User intent X Topic clusters ● People want what they need ● Good cluster address essential information

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Cluster level ● Domain ● URL

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What can go wrong?

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Off the topical cluster - irrelevant pages ● SEO agency writes about TV ads ● Rankings drop on SEO related keywords

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Off the topical cluster - irrelevant keywords ● Article is too wide ● Diluted expertise and negative behavioral signals ● Hard times with ranking and maintaining positions

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Off the topical cluster - lacking information ● Article is too narrow ● Missing answers ● Requires a strong push from backlinks to rank

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I won’t show you how to generate 1000’s keywords... … clustering starts when you already have them.

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● Manual ● Semantic ● Keyword level - SERP Similarity ● Page level - URLs’ visibility Clustering in 4 ways

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Manual clustering: process ● Open your researched list of keywords ● Assign each keyword to a bucket based on your expertise ● Simple but powerful if you know the niche

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Semantic clustering: process ● Various methods on comparing two words ● Set your rules and let the algorithm work ● Check the results and adjust it ● Keywords are grouped based on semantic commonness

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Similar SERPs: process ● Check search results for researched keywords ● Compare results ● Group keywords which have overlapping results

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Don’t get me wrong, I like these... … but let’s add a bit of science!

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Clustering Algorithms, what do they do exactly?

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Clustering algorithms: the method ● Compares sets of ranked keywords ● Finds look alike pages ● Creates clusters based on keywords groups similarity

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Output ● List of keywords that are commonly ranked by competitors ● Grouped into clusters using Python or R ● Based on the Google Algorithm

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How to plan content at scale?

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Content Planner showdown!

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● Find the topic ● Analyze competitors ● Create guidelines ● Review the text ● Optimize it further before it lands on the page Content Creation Process

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● Find the topic - manual process ● Analyze competitors - manual process ● Create guidelines - manual process ● Review the text - manual process ● Optimize it further before it lands on the page - manual process Not detailed or not quick enough :(

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● Find the topic in Content Planner ● Analyze competitors automatically ● Create guidelines - done for you ● Review the text in a single glance ● Optimize it further before it lands on the page nothing to do here! Connecting the dots...

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The Process of content creation at scale!

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WHY YOU SHOW ME THE TOOL?

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● Keywords: organic gardening niche ● Market: US ● Action: Optimized Content Creation within topical cluster Building topical relevance

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The Job ● 30 articles written and optimized based on data ● No backlinks acquisition ● 0.1 DA domain

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● Constant trafﬁc growth ● Building expertise and relevancy The Impact

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● You can rank without backlinks for niche keywords ● Content creation that covers topical cluster makes snowball effect ● Low budget does not mean you can’t make it The Test Results

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Progressive Content Optimization

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● SERPs volatility ● Algorithm changes ● Competitors’ actions Audits on regular cadence

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● List your landing pages ● Prioritize them ● Divide into buckets ● Allocate your time for the project ● Assign hours of your time to each URL Start with an outline

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● Getting aligned with current demand ● Finding new topics and expanding ranked keywords ● Ranking higher Impact of the content audit

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● Keyword: пинтерест (Pinterest) ● Market: Russia ● Action: Single article optimization Existing content optimization

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The Job

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● 90% keywords improved ● 150 of new keywords ● Ranked longtails without using them in the content The Impact

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BONUS - 2 more pages

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● Google creates clusters by themselves ● Google ranks better content that match the whole cluster ● Benchmarking competitors multiply their efforts ● Single keyword/variations optimization is less effective The Test Results

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● Go through your list or Google Search Console ● Plug main focus keyword into SERP ANALYZER ● Review competitors and generate report Preparing the content audit

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● TRUE DENSITY report ● Length and structure ● Page’s performance Performing the content audit

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Live Content Audit

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● Find your topical cluster ● Build topical relevancy to create snowball effect ● Optimize for the topical coverage than single keywords ● Audit pages on regular cadence Wrap Up

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Data Driven Optimization that scales! MICHAŁ SUSKI, SURFER THANK YOU