1. How TOP RANKING BRANDS
Really Do
SEOBy @ChadPollitt & @BradleyGSmith
Like &
#drSEO

2. Content Promotion For Serious Content Marketers
Chad Pollitt
VP of Marketing
317.575.8852 Extension 256
chad.pollitt@relevance.com
Bradley Smith
Inbound Consultant
317.575.8852 ext. 225
brad@relevance.com
relevance.com | @drelevance

3. Cision’s Content Marketing Suite
brought to you by
• Create & publish content to your customized
social newsroom or blog
• Share your story with your followers, and
pitch it to over 1.6 million media outlets and
contacts
• Amplify your content, wherever it lives, on
over 90k+ top publisher sites including TIME,
FastCompany & CNN
• Analyze what content performs best and
delivers your highest ROI with integration into
Google Analytics

4. A look at the
AGENDA:
1. SEO: A Brief History
2. Google’s View
3. How Moz & HubSpot do SEO
4. How you can do it, too

5. SEO has come a long way since the 90’s . . .

6. Gone
are the days of
SPAMMY
METHODS like:
Keyword Saturation
Forum & Blog
Commenting
Guest blogging
at scale

7. Caffeine Treasure Map
Those who frequently publish good content shall
find the hidden treasure

8. Google Panda & Penguin
ALGORITHM UPDATE

9. Panda/Penguin Treasure Map
Those who only publish rich, high-quality content cited by
authoritative sites will find the hidden treasure

10. Keyword ‘Not Provided’
SSL Encryption

11. Keyword ‘Not Provided’ Treasure Map
Those who write naturally and measure organic traffic &
conversions at the page level will find the hidden treasure.

12. Hummingbird
KNOWLEDGE GRAPH

13. Hummingbird Treasure Map
Those who write naturally using synonyms and normal language,
while catering to mobile users, will find the hidden treasure.
X

14. What does Google want?!

15. What does Google want?!do users

16. “I would concentrate on the stuff that people
write, the utility that people find in it, and the
amount of times that people link to it.“
-Matt Cutts

17. “I would concentrate on the stuff that people
write, the utility that people find in it, and the
amount of times that people link to it.
All of those are ways that implicitly
measure how relevant or important
somebody is to someone else.”
-Matt Cutts

18. “The philosophy that we’ve always had is if you make something that’s
compelling then it would be much easier to get people to write about
it and to link to it.”
-Matt Cutts

19. “The philosophy that we’ve always had is if you make something that’s
compelling then it would be much easier to get people to write about
it and to link to it. And so a lot of people approach it from a direction
that’s backwards.”
-Matt Cutts

20. “The philosophy that we’ve always had is if you make something that’s
compelling then it would be much easier to get people to write about
it and to link to it. And so a lot of people approach it from a direction
that’s backwards. They try to get the links first and then they want
to be grandfathered in or think they will be a successful website as a
result.”
-Matt Cutts

21. In other words . . .
WHAT USERS
WANT IS MOST
IMPORTANT

22. But links to COMPELLING CONTENT
that provide utility are ALSO IMPORTANT

23. But links to COMPELLING CONTENT
that provide utility are ALSO IMPORTANT
Google has improved at identifying and
penalizing links to content it doesn’t find to be
a compelling utility.

24. “Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain
links in 2014, you should probably stop.”
-Matt Cutts

25. “Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain
links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s
become a more and more spammy practice,”
-Matt Cutts

26. “Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain
links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s
become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot
of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company.”
-Matt Cutts

27. Shortly thereafter,
hundreds of brands around
the world were manually
penalized for guest
blogging at scale.

28. “A guest post is something that a fantastic
author has thought deeply about, labored over,
polished, put a lot of work into and then
publishes on a highly reputable domain name.”
-Matt Cutts

29. Dozens of the most correlated attributes for optimized search
engine visibility are mostly off-page and link related, according to
Moz.

30. This means off-page SEO has the biggest impact on a brand’s
search engine visibility today.
Dozens of the most correlated attributes for optimized search
engine visibility are mostly off-page and link related, according to
Moz.

31. According to Moz’s search engine correlation survey, dozens of
the most correlated attributes for optimized search engine visibility
are mostly off-page and link-related.
This means off-page SEO has the biggest impact on a brand’s
search engine visibility today.
However, links to and from content that do not provide utility
(guest blogging at scale) can do more harm than good.

32. Grow SEARCH VISIBILITY by promoting helpful content
See how ElectricFireplacesDirect.com grew their
YOY organic traffic 22% in three months
bit.ly/22percent

33. How Moz and HubSpot Really Do On-Page SEO
(hint: it’s not rocket science)

34. How Moz and HubSpot Really Do On-Page SEO
(hint: it’s not rocket science)
Brands like Moz and HubSpot publish copious
amounts of helpful content.

35. How Moz and HubSpot Really Do On-Page SEO
(hint: it’s not rocket science)
Brands like Moz and HubSpot publish copious
amounts of helpful content.
Their large audiences consume, contribute to, share, comment on
and cite their posts, which further helps drive up SERP relevance.

36. How Moz and HubSpot Really Do On-Page SEO
(some other best practices they do)
ª User-Generated Content
ª Gamification
ª Strategic Internal Linking
ª Authorship
ª Keyword Research & Optimization
ª Site Architecture
ª Metadata Conventions
ª Blogging & more

37. How Moz and HubSpot Really Do On-Page SEO
(hint: it’s not rocket science)
They’ve built up these large audiences by establishing
themselves as some of the first brands in their industries to
regularly publish helpful content online in the last decade.

38. This is great for them, but most brands don’t have
an AUDIENCE OF SIGNIFICANCE to help facilitate
this level of engagement today.

39. Even if a brand chooses to publish content this often, it’s
unlikely to drive the kind of search visibility those brands
experience for many years, if at all.

40. How Moz and HubSpot Really Do
Off-Page SEO

41. How Moz and HubSpot Really Do
Off-Page SEO
Their on-page content ends up driving lots of
organic off-page signals today. However, that hasn’t
always been the case.

42. How Moz and HubSpot Really Do
Off-Page SEO
They publish guides, studies and other forms of
advanced content that are newsworthy to the audience
that consumes them.

43. Moz published its Beginners Guide to SEO and regularly
surveys and publishes the results of its bi-annual Search Engine
Ranking Factors questionnaire.

44. Moz published its Beginners Guide to SEO and regularly
surveys and publishes the results of its bi-annual Search Engine
Ranking Factors questionnaire.
As a result, they are newsworthy utilities and get cited thousands of
times by journalists, marketers and SEOs.

45. “. . . the Beginner’s Guide to SEO and the Search Engine Ranking
Factors were seminal works.”
-Rand Fishkin, Co-Founder of Moz

46. “. . . the Beginner’s Guide to SEO and the Search Engine Ranking
Factors were seminal works. They helped establish our brand, build
an audience, and create credibility in the market.”
-Rand Fishkin, Co-Founder of Moz

47. “. . . the Beginner’s Guide to SEO and the Search Engine Ranking
Factors were seminal works. They helped establish our brand, build
an audience, and create credibility in the market. Without them, it’s
tough to imagine that Moz could be where it is today.”
-Rand Fishkin, Co-Founder of Moz

48. HubSpot’s groundbreaking
grader.com tool and annual State of
Inbound Marketing report are inherently
useful and represents a true contribution
to the marketing industry – they’re
newsworthy.

49. HubSpot also publishes hundreds of
guides, templates, tools and videos that
have provided help, guidance and utility to
millions of marketers around the world.

50. “. . . grader.com has been our best performing piece of content, ever.
This is based on the number of leads it generates on an ongoing
basis. ”
-Dharmesh Shah, Co-Founder and CTO of HubSpot

51. “. . . grader.com has been our best performing piece of content, ever.
This is based on the number of leads it generates on an ongoing
basis. Of course, like other high-impact content, building a tool does
require an investment -- but when it works, it can work really well.”
-Dharmesh Shah, Co-Founder and CTO of HubSpot

52. “. . . grader.com has been our best performing piece of content, ever.
This is based on the number of leads it generates on an ongoing
basis. Of course, like other high-impact content, building a tool does
require an investment -- but when it works, it can work really well. We
can trace millions of dollars of revenue over the years to grader.com.”
-Dharmesh Shah, Co-Founder and CTO of HubSpot

53. Most brands don’t have this
type of inherently useful advanced
content.

54. Most brands don’t have this
type of inherently useful advanced
content. And if they do, their lack
of audience prevents it from being
seen as well as it should.

55. Marketers and PR pros need to be proactive and
pitch their advanced content to media outlets and
niche industry sites to earn the coverage they deserve.

56. Understand the power of
CONTENT
PROMOTION
through their success story
OVER 2.8 MILLION
MEDIA IMPRESSIONS
bit.ly/content-promo

57. Here’s how you can do it, too!
Since most brands don’t have large audiences like HubSpot or
Moz,

58. Here’s how you can do it, too!
Since most brands don’t have large audiences like HubSpot or
Moz, it’s important to focus resources on building and growing
an audience.

59. Here’s how you can do it, too!
Since most brands don’t have large audiences like HubSpot or
Moz, it’s important to focus resources on building and growing
an audience. This helps drive the signals Google uses to
determine SERP relevance.

60. Here’s how you can do it, too!
This is done by tapping into other websites’ audiences and being
inherently useful to them.

61. Here’s how you can do it, too!
This is done by tapping into other websites’ audiences and being
inherently useful to them.
This is also known as EARNED MEDIA.

62. This activity is very similar to the work of traditional PR.

63. This activity is very similar to the work of traditional PR.
Instead of pitching the media a brand or product story, pitch inherently
useful advanced content.

64. The multiple media citations can drive SIGNIFICANT
brand awareness, website traffic and conversions.

65. These links represent some of the most powerful off-page
search signals a website can EARN.

66. These links represent some of the most powerful off-page
search signals a website can EARN.
Search benefits resulting from this audience growth strategy is
the tertiary benefit after referral traffic and conversions.

67. These links represent some of the most powerful off-page
search signals a website can EARN.
Search benefits resulting from this audience growth strategy is
the tertiary benefit after referral traffic and conversions.
Notice the word used is “earn,” and not “build.”

68. To have the best shot at getting content coverage and driving real
marketing returns, you must follow four proven steps.

69. ResearchThis is the most important
step for earning media coverage
and should start before the
content is created.

70. ResearchThis is the most important
step for earning media coverage
and should start before the
content is created.
This helps determine what advanced content to produce, who
wants to consume it, and where and who to pitch it to.

71. Creative
Create the inherently useful content and utility to pitch.
It could be an ebook, guide, study, survey results, widget
or even a mobile app.

72. Promotion Based on the research from step one,
marketers and PR pros should have a
valuable list of media outlets, journalists
and bloggers to pitch.

73. Promotion Based on the research from step one,
marketers and PR pros should have a
valuable list of media outlets, journalists
and bloggers to pitch.
Native and advertorial paid media
placement can help accelerate
distribution.

74. Conversion
Having a clear understanding of
the GOALS OF THE CAMPAIGN
and making sure its ALIGNED
WITH THE BUYER JOURNEY is
very important.

75.