SO WHY THE
DI SCONN ECT ?
• SEO firms tried to game the system
• Google ain’t stupid
• “Can you get us on the first page
of teh Googles?”
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But like my wife always says to me…
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IT JUST D OES N’T
WORK T HAT WAY
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IT JUST D OES N’T
WORK T HAT WAY
• It’d be the longest “first page” in the world
• If it were really that easy, everyone would
do it
• By definition there’s only one “best”
• Misunderstanding SEO
= unrealistic expectations
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LET’S JUST
CALL IT
“ GOOGLE”
is Google, and the others
follow anyway
86%
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WHY DOES GOOGL E
MAKE BANK?
• People type something, Google finds
what they want
• It’s not just relevant pages
• Google knows people want
a fast page
• Google knows people want
a mobile-friendly page
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GREY AR EAS
• Google is a black box
• We can only go by what they tell us
• Allows for some “reading of the
tea leaves”
• SEO is constantly changing
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DI ET PI LL S
• Like diet pills, SEO promises shortcuts
• What works is putting in the effort
• Many SEO firms are
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SEO I S ABOUT
POTE NTIA L
• The best SEO in the world doesn’t
guarantee anything
• SEO works in conjunction with
promotion, not in place of it
• Your job is to set things up for success
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10 THINGS
YOU CAN DO!
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CORR ECTN ESS
• Check your pages with W3C Validator
• Don’t make it hard for GoogleBot
to understand
• Invalid HTML can cause more than
rendering errors
• “Fetch as Google” in Search Console
1
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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CORR ECTN ESS
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10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
• “Fetch as Google” in Search Console
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PERFORM ANCE
• Google PageSpeed Insights score is a SERP signal
• GoogleBot has a crawl budget
• It will only spend so much time before it gives up
• Faster site = more pages GoogleBot consumes
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YOU CAN DO!
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CONTENT!
• Use the marketing technique; attract the bees
• The website needs good, unique content
• The more content the better, if it’s unique
• Content strategy can be part of your proposal
• “Inbound marketing” = have good content
3
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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SITEMAP
• Tells Google what to crawl
• Set a low priority for pages that rarely change
(crawl budget)
• Google parses more than HTML
(over 20 file types)
• Use an image/video sitemap;
images = 26.79% of searches
• “Sitemaps” in Search Console
4
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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SITEMAP
4
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
• “Sitemaps” in Search Console
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META TAGS
• 10-70 characters
• 70-160
characters
• Make them unique, and make them reflect
the content
•
is completely ignored
• These tags are only a suggestion!
5
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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LINKS
• to avoid
duplicate content
• for multiple languages
•
for discoverability/clickthrough
• for Google
SERP branding
6
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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LINKS
• (yay, Google+)
6
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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FAC EBOOK
• OpenGraph lets you choose how your
branding appears
• Like meta tags, you can define a title,
and a description
• Image is critical; 1200 x 630 min,
1.9:1 aspect ratio, 8mb max size
• Validate using the OpenGraph Debugger
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10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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FAC EBOOK
• OpenGraph Debugger
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10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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TWI T TER
• Twitter tags let you add branding to any Tweet
with your URL
• Like meta tags, you can define a title,
and a description
• Image is critical; depends on the type of Twitter
card, 1mb max for both
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10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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TWI T TER
• Summary Card = 120 x 120 pixels min
• Summary Card with Large Images
= 280 x 150 pixels min
8
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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TWI T TER
• Use Twitter Card Validator to preview your cards
8
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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TWI T TER
Other Social Media
• Facebook and Twitter are the big two in terms of
tags
• Other sites like Pinterest, Slack, etc. also read the
Facebook and Twitter tags
• So get the big two right, and you’re halfway home
8
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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DETAILS
• Use https, it is a SERP ranking signal
• Mobile friendly, Google now ranks based on its
mobile index
• Consistency between your content, tags,
tags, and URLs
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10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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DETAILS
• ALT tags for images (26.79% remember),
and for accessibility
• Use semantic HTML5 tags like ,
, etc.
• Use a proper tag hierarchy, one
tag
9
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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DETAILS
• tag hierarchy
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10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
• Humans are good at context; computers are not
• What does “Avatar” mean as a headline?
• Structured Data lets you tell Google what
something is
• Google can integrate this data into its
“Knowledge Graph”
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10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
What is Structured Data?
• schema.org defines the vocabulary
for Structured Data
• So everyone knows what we’re talking about
• Structured Data can be represented
in several ways
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10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
Microdata
• Old, deprecated, and ugly
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10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
JSON-LD
• The new hotness
10
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
Advantages of JSON-LD
• Browsers completely ignore it, bots digest it
• It isn’t intermingled with HTML code
and is easily generated
• Google adopted it in 2015 and is using it
exclusively for new features
• Apple and other titans have adopted it
10
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
So does it help with SEO?
Not really.
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10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
So does it help with SEO?
Maybe.
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10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
So does it help with SEO?
It’s classified.
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10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
What it does
• Helps Google understand your page,
rather than guessing
• Not a ranking signal yet
• Gives you “Rich Cards”/“Rich Snippets”
on SERP
• Used to specify gated/subscription content
to Google
• Is used in iOS 10 and 11 for maps and more
10
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
Recipe “Rich Card”
10
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
More Recipe “Rich Cards”
(I like pie)
10
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
Reviews “Rich Card”
10
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
Corporate Contacts “Rich Card”
10
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
SiteLinks Searchbox
10
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
Articles “Rich Card”
10
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
Article “Rich Pin”
10
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
Product “Rich Pin”
10
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
Recipe “Rich Pin”
10
10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
iOS Directions
(from a visited website)
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10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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STRUCTURE D DATA
Doesn’t matter if it helps SEO!
• Structured Data is being adopted in a big way
• It’s powering a whole lot of content
• It’s driving SERP click-throughs with more
appealing results
• Many businesses are at a severe disadvantage if
they don’t use it
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10 TH ING S
YOU CAN DO!
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PHE W!
(we covered a lot)
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MAKE I T HA PPEN
• Build it in to client proposals
• You are providing extra value
• Use tools like SEOmatic or Sprout SEO
• Take business away from “SEO” companies
• Remember, SEO is potential for marketing
to tap into
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TAKEAWAY
• Make it correct
• Make it fast
• Have a content strategy
• Implement technical SEO
• Use JSON-LD Structured Data
• Take business away from SEO firms