1. What the * is SEO
... and how to use it
Guest Lecture at
The Hague University of Applied Sciences
International Communication Management (ICM)

2. Agenda
• Introduction
• The web search landscape
• What is SEO?
• Ranking Factors
• Personalization of results
• How to measure SEO success
• Roundup / Questions

3. Name:
Arne van Elk
Current position:
Specialist SEO & Information Architecture
@ RNW Media.
Experience:
• 18 years in online research, information
retrieval & management, journalism,
web search
• 5 years in Search Engine Optimization.
• 10 years training editors in web search,
online research & SEO

4. • NGO using media for social change
• Connecting communities and change-makers
• Target groups 15 – 35 year
• Training Centre
RNW Media: Informed people shape a better future

5. • Democracy and good governance
• Sexual health & rights
• International justice
Themes

6. We work globally

7. Powered by

8. The Web Search Landscape
flickr.com/photos/72486075@N00/383577651
When did you last perform an online search?
What kind of search?

9. Content quality: E.A.T.
In the beginning ... we could browse the web

10. We used many search engines

11. Content quality: E.A.T.
And ‘SERPs’ looked something like this

12. Content quality: E.A.T.
Today’s SERPs look different

13. And only a few search engines remain

14. In large parts of the world there’s one
dominant player

15. Why was Google succesful where others failed?
Major innovations in
search technology,
like Pagerank
They developed an efficient
system of auctioning ads that
appear alongside search
results in a relevant way
See: www.seobythesea.com

16. You need deep pockets to keep track of
‘everything’ that’s being produced online

17. Social can be ‘search’ too

18. We used to search on desktop only

19. Today we’re constantly mobile

20. From search to personal assistent

21. Integration of web results and in-app results

22. There are many ways for visitors to reach your website
Search is just one of them, these days often trumped by social

23. DIGITAL MARKETING:
Many ways to reach potential audiences / customers

24. Search Engine Marketing
How important ‘search’ is to
your overall marketing strategy
depends on your business
(what you have to offer).

25. Search Engine Marketing:

26. What is

27. Source: http://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-seo

28. SEO:
Free traffic to your
website
SEA:
Paid traffic to your
website
What is organic search traffic?

29. Free vs Paid results

30. Free vs Paid results on mobile
PLAs (product listing ads)
Regular mobile ads
Organic
results
below
the fold

31. SEO starts with ...
understanding the needs of your
audience, target groups, customers.
flickr.com/photos/batmoo/3734837951/

32. What kind of needs? - 3 Types of Search Queries
Do (Transactional)
Know (Informational)
Go (Navigational)
Searchers want to go directly to a website or a specific page.
Searchers want to know or learn more about a topic.
Searchers want to do or perform some web-mediated activity.

33. How can you help your audience or customers?
What do they want to know, read, watch or buy?
flickr.com/photos/chriscwy/16166218964/

34. SEO = optimizing for PEOPLE who use search engines

35. How to rank in
organic search
results?
What do YOU
think is most
important

36. You don’t
search the web,
you search in
Google’s index
Ranking
Factors
youtube.com/watch?v=BNHR6IQJGZs

37. Ranking
Factors
searchengineland.com/seotable

38. 1. Content
Semantics, structure, layout, media rich
3. Backlinks
quantity and quality of other websites linking to you
2. Technology
Site structure, internal linking,
load times, meta tags, mobile friendly
4. User/Usage signals
bounce rates, high time-on-site
But what are the main ranking factors?
Ranking
Factors

39. User signals: does it matter where users click?
And how soon they return to the SERP? (long/short clicks)

40. User signals: clicks
https://youtu.be/n7ZKvq4I4ww?t=15m45s
Danny Sullivan (Search Engine Land) interviews Google
Webmaster Trends Analyst Gary Illyes. Go to 15m 45s.
Ranking
Factors

41. “The main things that we use clicks for,
are evaluation and experimentation”
Ranking
Factors

42. There are other tools too that can be used to harvest user signals
Ranking
Factors

43. Machine learning is now part of Google’s algorithm
http://searchengineland.com/faq-all-about-the-new-google-rankbrain-algorithm-234440
It becomes difficult to tell how usage signals are taken
into account to improve results (even to Googlers)
Ranking
Factors

44. Ranking
Factors

45. A keyword is the main link
between the query typed in
by the searcher, and your
content
It is how you ‘catch’
the searcher.
Ranking
Factors

46. Google for a
fishing icon
and you’ll find this
page.
It has the right
words in the right
locations.
1. Page title
2. On-page headline (H1)
3. Image alt text
2
3
1 Ranking
Factors

47. In addition: Google understands that the
whole website is specialized in icons.
Ranking
Factors

48. Ranking
Factors
Keywords are important, but
Google will try to match searcher intent
with the best result.

49. Content quality: E.A.T.
Ranking
Factors

50. Expertise
Is the content on the page relevant to area of
expertise of site and author
Trust
Domain history, link graph, spam analysis
Authority
Who is linking to you?
Content quality: E.A.T.
Ranking
Factors
thesempost.com/google-quality-raters-guide-mobile

51. Which website has performed better in search engines?
Ranking
Factors
Website 1
• Targets India
• Exists 4 years
• Provides lots of
information on private,
sensitive issues
Website 2
• Targets Zimbabwe
• Exists 4 months
• Mostly publishes opinion

52. Ranking
Factors
Website 1 Website 2
Which website has performed better in search engines?

53. Number of social shares a ranking factor?
Ranking
Factors

54. Important element of ranking:
Google’s battle against spam
Ranking
Factors

55. Important element of ranking:
Google’s battle against spam
Ranking
Factors
Examples of negative ranking factors:
• Keyword stuffing
• Hidden content
• Scraped content
• Too many ads
• Shallow content

56. Apart from true ranking factors,
what you see in search results is influenced by:
search history

57. Logged in? Check
https://history.google.com/history/

58. Apart from true ranking factors,
what you see in search results is influenced by:
Location

59. Apart from true ranking factors,
what you see in search results is influenced by:
Language settings

60. Apart from true ranking factors,
what you see in search results is influenced by:
Device
(Desktop or
mobile)

61. Let’s do a ‘personalization’ test
Take your mobile, tablet or laptop and perform these searches:
1. international communication
2. SEO
3. Dutch lessons
4. Apple
5. The Hague
Take a screenshot of the results and
share them on Twitter with hashtag #HUSEOtest

62. My desktop ‘The Hague’ results, searching from Hilversum

63. How does your website perform in search?
(When you do test-searches for your site,
don’t forget to open a private session)

64. How does your website perform in search?
1. Search on your brand’s name. Which results are shown?
2. Do a site: search. How many results? Is the number of pages equal
to what you have on your site?
3. Search on keywords you want to target. Is your site visible for
those queries?
4. Check traffic from organic search, spot the trend
5. Verify Google Search Console for your site and check all kinds of
info there
6. If your pages are shown in results, what do they look like? Do the
search snippets look good, are any sitelinks shown?
7. Check results on mobile. Do they look alright? Do you have mobile
friendly pages?

65. Rank monitoring, no exact science

66. More metrics to track
https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/measuring-and-tracking-success

67. flickr.com/photos/hotcherry/1358179930/
You probably
don’t have any
questions, do you
...

68. Remember: optimize for people, focus on your users
(but facilitate easy crawling and indexing by search engines)

69. Thanks for listening!
Contact me on
twitter.com/avanelk
linkedin.com/in/avanelk
plus.google.com/+ArnevanElk
or
arne.vanelk@rnw.org