1.
DBRFF 2014
2014 SEO Basics

2.
2014 SEO Basics - Overview
About Me
• Senior SEO Strategist, Globe Runner
• Brand Ambassador, Majestic SEO
• Personal Blog: www.BillHartzer.com
• Practicing Organic/Natural SEO since 1996

3.
2014 SEO Basics - Overview
Overview
• Current Ranking Factors
• On Page SEO Factors
• Off Page SEO Factors
• Social Media and SEO Factors
• Latest Google Algorithm Changes
• Future SEO Ranking Factors

4.
2014 SEO Basics – Current SEO Ranking Factors
Current Ranking Factors
• Over 200 search engine ranking factor today, maybe more.
• Latest list of ranking factors: http://moz.com/blog/ranking-factors-2013
• Important ranking factors:
- Page Authority, Domain Authority
• - Social Signals
- Anchor Text of Links
- Schema.org, Structured Data
- External Links, Keywords, Exact Match Domains

5.
Page Authority
Social Signals
Anchor Text of Links
Schema.org, Structured Data
External Links, Keywords, Exact Match Domains
2014 SEO Basics – SEO Ranking Factors
Google Algorithm Break-Down
• The important factors according to the Moz survey.

6.
2014 SEO Basics – On Page Factors
On Page Factors
Several basic page elements are important:
• Proper Title Tags (keyword usage towards beginning of tag)
• Meta Description Tag (keyword usage in tag)
• Headings (One H1 tag per page, multiple H2, H3 okay)
• Image Alt Attributes (keywords describe each image)
• Local Biz? Schema.org markup

7.
2014 SEO Basics – On Site Factors
On Site Factors
Several on site factors are very important in 2014:
• Good site structure
• Internal linking (text within sentences as well as navigation)
• Minimal amount of footer links to other pages
• Content Readability / Usability / Site Design
• Google Panda Algorithm Issues
• Google Page Layout Algorithm Issues

8.
2014 SEO Basics – Social Media and SEO Factors
Social Media and SEO Factors
• Social Posts and Shares count
• Google Authorship (AuthorRank), and Publishership
Think of social pages, shares, and profiles as web pages.
• Get links from those pages.
• How to get good links? Network socially with influencers.
• PageRank is passed from social profile to social profile to site.

9.
2014 SEO Basics – Latest Google Algorithm Changes
Latest Google Algorithm Changes
• Recent Major Google Updates
- Panda, Penguin, EMD, Page Layout, Authorship
• Google Knowledge Graph
• Manual Actions
• Sample Manual Actions - Revoked
• Future Google Algo Updates.

10.
2014 SEO Basics – Google Panda
What is Google Panda?
• Ranking factor added to the Google algorithm
• Filter designed to identify ‘low quality pages’.
• Provides better rankings for high-quality sites
• Panda is integrated into algorithm, after two years
• Named after Google engineer Navneet Panda

11.
2014 SEO Basics – Google Panda
Google Panda History
• Rolled Out to US sites on February 24, 2011
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/finding-more-high-quality-sites-in.html
• Rolled out Globally to English language users on April 11, 2011
• Also began to roll out data from sites that users block
• Latest update Panda #25 — March 14, 2013
- Panda updates now on rolling update schedule
• Panda Dance, Panda Recovery, June and July 2013
• Panda 4.0 — May 19, 2014

12.
2014 SEO Basics – Google Panda
Google Panda Update History
• Panda/Farmer — February 23, 2011
• Panda 2.0 — April 11, 2011
• Panda 2.1 — May 9, 2011
• Panda 2.2 — June 21, 2011
• Panda 2.3 — July 23, 2011
• Panda Goes Global (2.4) — August 12, 2011
• Panda 2.5 — September 28, 2011
• Panda "Flux" — October 5, 2011
• Panda 3.1 — November 18, 2011
• Panda 3.2 — January 18, 2012
• Panda 3.3 — February 27, 2012
• Panda 3.4 — March 23, 2012
• Panda 3.5 — April 19, 2012
• Panda 3.6 — April 27, 2012
• Panda 3.7 — June 8, 2012
• Panda 3.8 — June 25, 2012
• Panda 3.9 — July 24, 2012
• Panda 3.9.1 — August 20, 2012
• Panda 3.9.2 — September 18, 2012
• Panda #20 — September 27, 2012
• Panda #21 — November 5, 2012
• Panda #22 — November 21, 2012
• Panda #23 — December 21, 2012
• Panda #24 — January 23, 2013
• Panda #24 — March 14, 2013
• Panda Dance — June 11, 2013
• Panda Recovery — July 18, 2013
• Panda 4.0 — May 19, 2014
See the Google Algorithm Change History:
http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

13.
2014 SEO Basics – Google Panda
Were You Hit by Panda?
• Look at your web analytics
• Sites affected had traffic loss starting in February, 2011.
• Google Analytics for your site (Web Trends, Omniture, etc.)
• SEM Rush for most sites (SEMRush.com)
• How many sites recover?
http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/google-panda/

14.
2014 SEO Basics – Google Panda
Recovering from Google Panda
• Make sure all content on site is “high quality”
• Review Google’s List:
23 Questions to assess quality
http://bit.ly/1gHZzQb
• Identify and remove least-visited pages
• Take out the trash, so to speak.
• Prevent Pogosticking from SERPs.
• Wait until next Panda update to see recovery (about a month)

15.
2014 SEO Basics – Google Panda vs. Google Penguin
Panda vs. Penguin
• Panda focuses on sites providing a bad user experience
- Sites with low quality content
• Penguin focuses on spamdexing and link bombing.

16.
2014 SEO Basics – Google Penguin
What is Google Penguin?
Google: “algorithm change targeted at webspam.”
http://insidesearch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html
Goal is to “decrease rankings for sites that violate Google’s
Quality Guidelines”.
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769#3
Examples:
• Keyword Stuffing, Over Optimization
• Unusual linking patterns (outgoing links)

17.
2014 SEO Basics – Google Penguin
Google Penguin Update History
• First reported April 24, 2012
• Penguin #2 — May 25, 2012
• Penguin #3 — October 5, 2012 (0.3 percent of queries)
• Penguin 2.0 (#4) — May 22, 2013
• Penguin 2.1 (#5) — October 4, 2013

18.
2014 SEO Basics – Google Penguin
Were You Hit by Google Penguin?
• Look at Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, review dates
of Google Updates.

19.
2014 SEO Basics – Google Penguin
Recovering from Google Penguin
• Perform a full SEO Audit of web site
- Identify and fix problem areas on site that violate Google
guidelines (keyword stuffing, over optimization, etc.)
• Review Google Webmaster Tools for messages, suggestions
• Perform full link analysis of site
- Download links from Majestic SEO, Moz Open Site Explorer, a
hrefs, etc.
- Review anchor text, clean up links to site
- LinkResearchTools.com for further cleanup
• Disavow Links to Site, Ping, force crawls of disavowed links
• Link Research Tools’ Link Detox Boost claims quick recovery
• Work on Authority, trust of site
• Wait until next Penguin update to see recovery

20.
2014 SEO Basics – Exact Match Domain Update
EMD Update
• Exact-Match Domain (EMD) Update — September 27, 2012
Should be called the “Commercial Phrase” Update. But for PR purposes, I realize why
Google calls it the “EMD” update.
• Google targeted “commercial phrases” with this update.
• AdWords CPC Cost + # Searches Per Month = Commercial Phrase
Example:
$5.00 CPC + 20,000 Searches Per Month = Commercial Phrase
• Valuable Domain Names include Keywords (commercial phrases)
• Not all keyword rich domains affected
• Sites without keyword rich domains were affected
• Recover by cleaning up your link profile, especially anchor text
• Link Profiles should have 70 percent or more “brand” anchor text,
company name, URL as anchor text.

21.
2014 SEO Basics – Page Layout Update
Google Page Layout Update
• Page Layout #2 — October 9, 2012
• Targets pages with too many ads “above the fold”
• Algo proof: content above fold, minimal ads above fold.
• Page Layout #3 — February 6, 2014
http://selnd.com/1qNV6DE

22.
2014 SEO Basics – Knowledge Graph Update
Knowledge Graph Update
• Knowledge Graph Expansion — December 4, 2012
• Added KG functionality to non-English queries
• Get your site, business into the Knowledge Graph.
• TIP: get listed in Freebase.com, part of KG.

23.
2014 SEO Basics – Google Manual Actions
Manual Actions in Webmaster Tools
• Partial Match – affects certain pages
• Full Match – affects whole site
• Unnatural links – both require link cleanup, review

24.
Algo Chaos – Manual Actions
Manual Actions – Unrelated to
Penguin
• Unnatural link warnings are not related to Google Penguin
• Sites affected by Penguin should clean up links
• Manual actions more severe, require reconsideration request

25.
Algo Chaos – Manual Actions
Getting Manual Actions Revoked
Unnatural Links? Clean up links, document everything.
• Identify all links to site
• Combine GWT, Majestic SEO, Ahrefs, OSE links
• Manually review links (Link Research Tools can help)
• Identify links to remove
• Contact site owners, document emails, contact dates, etc.
• 3 attempts to contact site owners
• Disavow links not removed
Request Review: include letter, spreadsheet with data proof

26.
Algo Chaos – Manual Actions
Sample Manual Action Revoked
• 52,252 Total Links to Site
• 217 referring root domains
• 693 Healthy Links
• 709 Inorganic Links
• 569 “live” inorganic links to get removed (including nofollow links).
After three attempts over 3 weeks to contact site owners via email:
• 296 site owners responded
• 12 sites refused to remove the links
• 257 links were successfully removed based on our email requests
• 27 links – site owners requested payment to remove the links
• 2 links – we were unable to contact site owners
• 274 links – site owners were completely unresponsive after 3 contacts
• 256 links were removed as a result of our link removal efforts

27.
Algo Chaos – Manual Actions
Sample Manual Action Revoked
• Kept track of all URLs, Status of URL, Dates, and emails
• Added all data into spreadsheet
• Uploaded spreadsheet to Google Docs
• Wrote letter explaining process, linked to Google Docs spreadsheet

28.
2014 SEO Basics – Google Authorship Update
Google Authorship Shakeup
• Technically, not a Google algorithm update, but verified by G.
• Authorship Shake-up — December 19, 2013
• Authorship results in search are being intentionally reduced
• Authorship Photos Removed from SERPS – June 25, 2014
Authorshippocalypse
http://bit.ly/1fUQ2Jk
Authorship Photos in SERPs Reduced
http://bit.ly/1d8TfGe
Google Authorship Photos Removed from SERPS
http://selnd.com/1qhyHQD

29.
2014 SEO Basics – Google Future Updates
Google Future Updates
• Google Panda Updates are monthly
• Penguin Updates are 6 months between roll-outs
• Manual Actions - Severity of infraction can affect length of time
a site will be penalized
• Manual Actions – Average site is looking at 6-12 months to
recover from a penalty even after cleaning it up
• If you get hit by Panda or Penguin you HAVE to wait to for data
refresh of that filter

30.
Tomorrow’s SEO Today – Social Search and Beyond - Overview
Overview
• History of Social Signals
• Google Being Vocal about Social
• Setting Up Social Media Profiles
• Sharing content properly
• Social Signals’ SEO research, studies
• Social Signals’ Future

31.
Social Search and Beyond – History of Social Signals and SEO
History of Social Signals and SEO
• Real-Time Search Launched December 2009
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-launches-latest-results-realtime-search/15290/
• Google goal: to strive to bring us “the freshest, most
comprehensive and relevant search results over an ever
expanding universe of content on the multitude of devices” we
“use to access it.”
• Google, Circa 2009
• July 2011, Twitter
Firehose ended.

32.
Social Search and Beyond – Google Has Been Vocal on Social
Signals
Google Has Been Vocal on Social
Signals
Matt Cutts at SES San Fran 2012 Keynote:
“Google has a 10 year plan for relying on social factors as a part of
the algorithm… In the short term, Google is still relying on links as
an important ranking factor.”
Question: Are social signals a ranking factor?
“They have to have access to the data. Some sites are blocked,
Facebook, etc.. If they can’t crawl, then they won’t have the data.”

33.
Social Search and Beyond – Google Has Been Vocal on Social
Signals
Google Has Been Vocal on Social
Signals
Matt Cutts at SES San Fran 2012 Keynote:
Regarding real time search:
“Twitter is like a private nightclub. Fundamentally they can
suspend anyone if they want. Anyone can compete with Google if
they can crawl better.
Google announced last week (in 2012) that they crawl 20 billion
pages a day. When the Twitter firehose deal ended, they were
blocked from crawling. When Twitter went away, Google was
leery about relying on that data.”
(Was this when they started to change their tune about signals?)

34.
Social Search and Beyond – What Can You Do Now?
What Can You Do Now?
• Set up social profiles
• Contribute, update regularly
• Share content
• Add friends/followers
• Be active! Every single day...

35.
Social Search and Beyond – Setting Up Social Profiles
Setting Up Facebook Profile
• Set up Business Page (Facebook.com/globerunnerseo)
• Google crawls biz pages, not personal accounts
• Promote Facebook post, even for $5
• Bing has FB personal account data
• Does anyone care about Bing rankings?
• Sorry, Duane Forrester!

36.
Social Search and Beyond – Facebook Sponsored Post
Pubcon SFIMA 2014 Post April 2014
• Wrote a post about Pubcon SFIMA right before conference.
• Posted on blog, promoted
• Search result with
Google Authorship snippet,
on page 1 for
“Pubcon SFIMA 2014”
within hours
• Facebook sponsored post
• Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn

37.
Social Search and Beyond – Setting Up Social Profiles
Setting Up Twitter Account
• Don’t follow more than following you
• Post on your blog? Share the full URL, not a short URL.
• Tweet of URL helps get URL crawled quickly.

38.
Social Search and Beyond – Setting Up Social Profiles
LinkedIn
• Full personal profile with good photo/avatar is good.
• Share your blog posts, articles, updates.
• “Like” contacts’ updates, they get emailed that you liked it.

39.
Social Search and Beyond – Setting Up Social Profiles
Setting Up Google+
• Google+ Local biz (page), verify listing, used for Publishership
• Google+ Personal Account, used for Authorship
• Google Publishership: Important for home page, content pages
• Google Authorship:
Important for blogs, sites with multiple authors
• If employee leaves company, leave authorship in tact.

40.
Social Search and Beyond – Dominate Your Personal Brand on
Google+
Optimize Your Profile on Google+
• Fill Out Entire Profile, Every Field
• Summary with Interesting Facts About Yourself
• Add relevant keywords
• Get local – add location

41.
Social Search and Beyond – Dominate Your Personal Brand on
Google+
Optimize Your Profile on Google+
• Write Great Content, share Great Content
• Manage Your Contacts, Put in Circles
• Join Niche Specific Communities
• Pay Attention to Your Ripples
• Create a Visually-Rich Experience
• Use Google+ Hangouts
• Display Your Google Plus Badge on Your Site

42.
Social Search and Beyond – Dominate Your Personal Brand on
Google+
Watch, Use Google Ripples
• Watch hot posts, network with influencers based on Ripples

43.
Social Search and Beyond – Dominate Your Personal Brand on
Google+
Adding Followers on Google+
• Search for Circles “Keyword Circle” or “SEO Circle”.
• Find others who shared their circles
• Add those people all at once, move later to other circle

44.
Social Search and Beyond – Social Promotion for SEO
Promoting Social Media on Your Site
• Include Social Icons in Key Places
• Show actual number of +1s, Tweets, etc.
• +1 buttons, Tweet, LinkedIn, Facebook Like Button
• WordPress? Social Media Counters Plugin

45.
Social Search and Beyond – Promoting Blog Posts for SEO
Promoting Posts on Social Media
Sites
• Post on site, get ready to promote immediately
• Write alternate titles, headlines, summaries
• Each social share gets unique title, headline, summary
• Network with others to help promote:
- bloggers write alternative post, summary post, links to you
- promote both summary posts and main post
• Promoting posts need to happen quickly: within 2 hours
• Building momentum with social shares is key

46.
Social Search and Beyond – The future of social and SEO?
So, What Now?
Matt Cutts says “Facebook and Twitter Pages Are Treated Like Any
Other Web Page On the Internet”.
http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-facebook-twitter-pages-are-treated-like-any-
other-web-page-on-the-internet-182370
Think of social pages, shares, and profiles as pages.
• Get links from those pages.
• How to get good links? Network socially with influencers.
• When you interact with influencers:
Their profile links to your profile, could pass PageRank.

47.
Social Search and Beyond – Future Social Signals for SEO
Future Social Signals for SEO?
• Building up a following counts more
• Authority counts, build “Author Rank”
• History of sharing good content
• History of writing, authoring good content
• History of authoring content that gets shared.

48.
Social Search and Beyond – So What Now?
We Know +1s, Tweets, Likes Don’t
Count
• Technically, we know they don’t count.
• Does it matter, really? No. Keep sharing!
Studies and research:
Does Facebook activity impact SEO?
http://www.stonetemple.com/does-facebook-activity-impact-seo/
Measuring Google Plus Impact on Search Rankings
http://www.stonetemple.com/measuring-google-plus-impact-on-search-rankings/
Google SEO: How Google Impacts Search Results
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2307518/Google-SEO-How-Google-Impacts-
Search-Results

49.
Social Search and Beyond – Thank You
THANK YOU
Contact Me
Bill Hartzer
Senior SEO Strategist
Globe Runner SEO
Email: Bill@GlobeRunnerSEO.com
Mobile: (214) 236-4378
Office: (972) 538-0260 Ext. 7076
Direct: (469) 645-1231
Web: http://www.globerunner.com
Blog: http://www.billhartzer.com
Twitter: @bhartzer