1. @iPullRank

2. @iPullRank
Download This Deck
http://iacq.co/seoetry

3. Before Marketing I Was an Indie Rapper...

4. Before Marketing I Was an Indie Rapper…
My writing process looked a lot like this due to my intense
usage of imagery and multi-syllabic structure

5. ...I Know the Power of Words

6. A Bicycle Accident Introduced Me to SEO
Rappers don’t have health insurance so I went back to my development roots and the first place to hire me was an SEO agency. From
there I ended up at the prestigious Razorfish and then Publicis Modem.

7. This Crazy Lady Introduced Me to Content Strategy
At my second multinational interactive agency I shared an office with this woman. She was the first actual content strategist I ever
worked with and she had a copy of the first edition of Kristina’s book on her shelf.

8. Devin Impressed Me with this Concept
Our SEO Content Strategist Devin Asaro (@copydev) impressed me with this concept when he first joined the iAcquire team in January
Read his post: http://iacq.co/17bjt6n
@CopyDev

9. Seriously follow @CopyDev
He only has 29 followers. @CopyDev. Do it!

10. The Battle Between Creative and Strategy
In full service agencies Strategy doesn’t really get a seat the table and we often spent more time arguing with the Creative team than
actually informing the work to ensure performance.

11. Me vs. the Copywriter
Writing is the job of a copywriter. In my previous job the copywriters didn’t feel that way. They felt as though metadata was something
users never see and therefore I should be writing it. (Yes, that’s me laughing at David Ogilvy)
Here is some text on a slide.
I’m not writing
page titles and
meta descriptions.
Nobody sees
those.
BLAHAHAH
AHAHAHA!

12. Modern Day Ogilvy
David Ogilvy set the precedent with his famous quote about advertising. I feel similarly about content.
Here is some text on a slide.
If it doesn’t sell,
it’s not creative.
If it’s not
driven by
user
demand, it’s
a waste of
time.

13. A new way to think about SEO’s role in Content Creation
The Poetry of SEO

14. Let’s Talk About Haikus
The haiku is perhaps the most limiting form of poetry in that it requires the writer to stay within the constraint of syllable counts of 5, 7
5 for its three lines. Now let’s examine from translations of Matsuo Basho’s masterpiece about a frog jumping into the water.

15. How Copywriters Would Translate This
This version translated by Curtis Hidden Page is much like how a copywriter would prefer to translate the ideas of the original. This
imposes an experience on the reader leaving them unchallenged and bored and it doesn’t fit the syllable count specification.

16. How Copywriters Would Write for SEO
This version translated by Lafcadio Hearn is sterile, boring and completely lacks any creative flare, but it is within the specification and
conveys the point. Most people who “write for SEO” think this has done the job.

17. How it Should be Done
This version translated by Eli Siegel is both elegant, mysterious and fits the specification. It is a strong piece of art that also fulfills what
is required. The writer has found his voice despite the limitations.

18. The Constraint is no Excuse for Inelegance
Compare these two meta descriptions. Two competing products. Colgate goes an awful job of maintaining the brand voice meanwhile
Old Spice team does a great job of incorporating the macho Old Spice guy voice and tone into their SEO and making a great continued
impression on their customers.
Terrible Meta Description with no brand voice.
Great Meta Description within spec that carries the brand voice and tone.

19. SEO is Not a Constraint, it’s
a Springboard!
SEO is a way to structure content
exactly around what the user wants.
Doing so prepares it for Organic
performance. Without SEO your
content is at the mercy of Paid Media.

20. An Example – Our Own Website
Before I got to iAcquire we had a website where no one could tell what we did and didn’t perform well in Organic Search. We’ll talk
about this redesign throughout this deck.

21. How SEO Makes Content More Powerful
Before my team redesigned and launched the new iAcquire site we averaged a few hundred impressions in Organic Search with 10-50
clickthroughs per day. Post re-launch we get thousands of impressions daily and several hundred clicks.

22. The Real Metrics
More importantly YoY our Organic Search traffic has gone up 743% and our bounce rate has gone down 40%. We’re also crushing our
lead generation goals and therefore continuing to make strong business cases fro the content we want to create.

23. SEO has moved far beyond meta tags and links, here’s a peek...
What SEO Can Do

24. Panda Killed The SEO Page
Ever since Google unleashed the Panda
algorithm update there is no such thing
as writing sections of the site “just for
SEO” anymore.

25. Modern SEO is Much Bigger than Meta Tags
Modern SEO is at least a research channel to inform content strategy and at most a cross-discipline set of actions to ensure visibility of
content in Organic channels. I wrote a post about this: http://iacq.co/19FEBko

26. Organic Search and Social
Media as research channels
is a look into collective human
consciousness.
Leverage the Twitter, Google,
Facebook crystal ball and you’ll know
the who, what and why of how to
create content that people actually
want.
(Users and Search Engines don’t separate the two
channels, only marketers do.)

27. Keyword-Level Demographics
Placing your site on Facebook’s Open Graph you can get any data that user allows you to have. Marry that data with search referrers
and you have demographic and psychographic data on the keyword level. That is intent + audience. http://iacq.co/11EED4u

28. Personas and Keyword Ownership
Leveraging the keyword data in context of the social media data allows you to measure against the personas visiting your site and
determine who your capturing and how to target moving forward.
Curious George Film Purist Tech Geek
• 18-32
• Male
• Loves indie rock
• Wishes he had a beard
• 18-32
• Male
• Loves all music
• Wishes he could move
out his mom’s basement
• 22-40
• Male
• Loves film soundtracks
• Wishes he could live in
the movie Avatar
• 22-40
• Male
• Loves Techno
• Wishes you would stop
invading his online
privacy
• 5000 Searches Monthly
• Conversion Rate 5%
• 600 Searches Monthly
• Conversion Rate 2%
• 1000 Searches Monthly
• Conversion Rate 0.5%
• 100 Searches Monthly
• Conversion Rate 0.2%
Gamer

29. Persona Interests as Defined by Facebook
Doing research in the Facebook Ad Creator yields quantifiable criteria to match against the site visitor and granularly identify them as a
specific audience segment. These are attributes which align with the personas from the previous slide.
3D TV
Audience: 27,4440
Suggested Likes and Interests
Reflects the interest of Curious George
3D TV
Audience: 30,400
Suggested Likes and Interests
Reflects the interest of Gamer
#HDMI
Audience: 1,600,000
#Video on demand
Audience: 4,400,000
#LCD television
Audience: 179,000
#Set-top box
Audience: 327,000
#TiVo
Audience: 242,000
#Satellite television
Audience: 1,200,000
#Digital television
Audience: 2,900,000
#Analog television
Audience: 296,000
#Pay-per-view
Audience: 540,000
#Depth perception
Audience: 120,000
#HDMI
Audience: 1,600,000
#Video on demand
Audience: 4,400,000
#Television set
Audience: 890,000
#Satellite television
Audience: 1,200,000
#Digital television
Audience: 2,900,000
#IPTV
Audience: 268,000
#Analog television
Audience: 296,000
#Pay-per-view
Audience: 540,000
#Depth perception
Audience: 120,000
#Large-screen television technology
Audience: 36,000
#Stereoscopy
Audience: 362,000
#35 mm film
Audience: 296,000
#Digital 3D
Audience: 89,000
#Polarized 3D system
Audience: 2,000
#Stereo display
Audience: 29,000
#Active shutter 3D system
Audience: 8,000
#Disney Digital 3-D
Audience: 10,000
#Dolby 3D
Audience: 36,000
#VistaVision
Audience: less than 1000
#Autostereoscopy
Audience: 24,000
3D TV
Audience: 130,980
Suggested Likes and Interests
Reflects the interest of Film Purist
#Random-access memory
Audience: 8,000,000
#Computer monitor
Audience: 1,700,000
#OLED
Audience: 442,000
#Ethernet
Audience: 219,000
#Electronic paper
Audience: 147,000
#Stereo display
Audience: 29,000
#IPS panel
Audience: 24,000
#Active matrix
Audience: 4,000
#Seven-segment display
Audience: 1,000
#Autostereoscopy
Audience: 24,000
3D TV
Audience: 35,240
Suggested Likes and Interests
Reflects the interest of Tech Geek

30. Dynamic Targeting Based on Persona
Since you have the data about the user in real-time you can make the experience dynamic based on who they are what they want. You
can also cookie this user and use this data cross-channel.
(Dramatization)
What Normal Users See What Curious George Sees
Curious George
• 18-32
• Male
• Loves indie rock
• Wishes he had a beard

31. Subsequent Conversion Prediction
After collecting conversion information for a long period of time it is easy to predict what a given audience segment will do next and
therefore know where and how to intelligently target that user.
We develop personas
based on social data
Users come from
search, we collect
data
Curious George
buys a pair of
sneakers
We aggressively target
in other channels for
the next buy
Curious George
comes back and
buys a windbreaker
Curious George

32. What Position Converts Best?
User need states can change in the same Search Engine Results Page depending on how well they’ve been educated as they traverse
those results. You can account for this by tracking your rankings in analytics.

33. Dynamic Messaging by Search Position
You can dynamically change your messaging based on that to influence conversions. Post with Code: http://iacq.co/15MYtD2
Position #1 messaging
The Time Constraint The Challenge Normal Messaging
Position #2 messaging Historically converting position
SPECIAL
DEAL FOR
THE NEXT 30
SECONDS
LOWER PRICE
THAN [NEXT
COMPETITOR
IN
THE SERP]

34. Content Planning Becomes MultiDimensional
Modern SEO when done with a bent toward market intelligence is more about content planning based on intent vs. audience vs. their
need states than it just about inserting keywords. SEO at Content Strategy are joined at the hip.
Consideration Version
Loyalty Version
Awareness Version

35. The Marketing Power of Modern SEO
The team at Duetsch LA used Organic Search to prove to HTC that people wanted HTC phones in colors aside from black, white and gray

36. Action Items!
Here are the things you should actually DO.

37. Listening
Understanding the people
behind the search

38. Understand the Person behind the Search with Personas
At iAcquire we are incredibly intent on understanding the user behind the search. We leverage market research data in context with
social PPC inventories to build out our personas at scale.

39. Experian Simmons Mosaic
Experian Simmons has a free interactive guide with a lot of their data in it here: http://bit.ly/Qeh0uw

40. Nielsen PRIZM
Nielsen’s MyBestSegments has a free demo with PRIZM data http://bit.ly/Qeh0uw

41. Connect Personas to their Keywords
At iAcquire we are incredibly intent on understanding the user behind the search so after we’ve done our persona research we perform
keyword research and run surveys on SurveyMonkey Audience targeting that specific demographic to get an understanding of their need
states. The output of that is the keyword portfolio.

42. UberSuggest
Identify long tail search queries with Uber Suggest. http://www.ubersuggest.org Protip: Use wildcards(*) for searches.

43. Google Adwords Keyword Tool
An oldie and still goodie: https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool

44. BottleNose
Real-time keyword research based on Twitter http://bottlenose.com/

45. Topsy
Social Listening with Topsy: http://www.topsy.com

46. SocialMention
Social Listening with Social Mention: http://www.socialmention.com

47. FollowerWonk
Use FollowerWonk to quickly get a sense of ideas that the audience is interested in. Don’t have enough followers? Look at competitors:
http://www.followerwonk.com

48. Planning
Content Strategy is a key part
of modern SEO

49. Content Strategy & SEO Orbit the Same Thing
I would go as far as to say that Content Strategy and SEO are intertwined or at least they are to related disciplines in orbit around the
user. To build content that people are searching for ideas should be informed by Search.

50. The deliverable that glues content to SEO strategy
The SEO Copy Brief

51. Objectives
Business
Goals

52. Target Audience
Personas

53. Voice and Tone
Brand Voice

54. Content Specifications
Content
Creation
Strategy

55. Measurement Plan
Key
Performance
Indicators

56. Content Map
Develop information architecture and site taxonomies based on Organic Search keywords.
Keyword-
driven
Taxonomy

57. Keyword Bucketing
Keyword
Bucketing

58. Best Practices
Text here

59. Immersion
Building empathy through
Structured brainstorming

60. Content Creators Don’t Care About Research
If you just hand off all this research to a content creator, they aren’t going to read it. Your content strategists and creators need to be
immersed in the conversation to truly understand the users they are creating content for.

61. Participate in the Conversation
At iAcquire we don’t just “research” and hand off a report across teams. Our team immerses themselves in the online conversation in
some cases even contributing to it in order to understand the user and speak their language. This also allows you to vet the popularity o
an idea.

62. Quora
Quora is great for asking questions and participate in online conversations to understand what topics are popular with specific
demographics. http://www.quora.com

63. Discussion Search
Find the right keyword-relevant conversations quickly to understand the vocabulary of the user and how they communicate to drive the
content strategy.

64. Projecting
Knowing whether your content is
worth doing

65. Projecting Content Value
Using Search Volume as a proxy to prove demand allows you to make a strong business case for your content efforts. Develop a
collection of keywords for each piece of content in the strategy and then use the following equations…

66. Share Of Voice Calculation
Calculate Share of Voice using keyword volume. If the keyword has a SoV of over 100% that just means they are getting a higher CTR
than the industry standard.

67. Keyword ROI Potential

68. The Consumer Decision Journey
Be mindful of where your content fits in the consumer decision journey. Some content types make more sense at different phases and al
should be judged accordingly when preparing KPIs.

69. Metadata
The art of making a great first
impression

70. I Wrote a Post About This
I wrote a comprehensive post about the 18 meta tags you should be preparing for in all content http://iacq.co/17O7iND MetaData isn’
about ranking, it’s about making the right first impression on your user.

71. Standard Metadata
If you don’t prepare proper metadata within the proper specification you’re missing the opportunities to convert searchers into users.
Page Title
Still should be
keyword-relevant
and up to 70
characters.
Meta
Description
Should still be
up to 155
characters,
keyword-
relevant and
include a call
to action.

72. Rel-author
Having a picture in the SERPs often will draw the user to click your result even if it’s not in the first position, but more importantly…

73. Eric Schmidt Says
Basically with Author Rank Google will eventually say “Get Down or Lay Down”

74. Google Wants Authoritative Authors
Google is trying to determine the person behind the content to apply an author rank to the content and help with surfacing authoritativ
content in Search Results. Claim your content! How to Implement: http://iacq.co/11Vh11p

75. Rel-publisher
You can surface your brand’s content using rel-publisher. http://iacq.co/14ssu4u

76. The Knowledge Graph
Google is looking to understand the connections between entities and not just words. http://iacq.co/15xXP8p

77. Google+ and the Knowledge Graph are fueled by Schema.org
The way to make it easier for Google to understand the entities on your site is by marking it up with metadata using Schema.org
http://www.schema.org

78. Facebook Open Graph
Social signals are growing in significance to site rankings so it’s imperative that content has the best opportunity to be shared and
therefore the metadata should speak directly to your users in that channel.

79. Twitter Cards
Twitter’s version is called the Twitter Card: https://dev.twitter.com/cards

80. What About Meta Keywords?
Google hasn’t used meta keywords for some time. Here’s a post where they officially announced it in 2009: http://iacq.co/14mU577 If
your CMS requires you to specify meta keywords to make the site searchable, choose a new CMS or use Google’s free search appliance
http://iacq.co/11g5NQa

81. Otherwise…
People like me use tools like Screaming Frog to quickly identify the keywords your site is targeting. ProTip: Screaming Frog makes a
great tool for starting your content audits http://iacq.co/16CFRpR

82. Journey
Plan for content that’s engaging and
keyword-relevant

83. Plan for Content that is both Engaging and Keyword-relevant
Be mindful of the consumer decision journey and the user’s vocabulary, but first and foremost make an engaging experience.

84. Lexical Co-Occurrence or Topical Pagerank
The SEO word game has gotten a little more intense. SEO’s have figured out that Google rewards pages that have the right “co-ocurring
keywords with the target keyword. http://iacq.co/12r5Qio

85. nTopic
nTopic is a tool to facilitate topical pagerank content creation. It tells you want co-occuring keywords you should be using in your
content and scores your copy for those keywords. Note: This is not the new “keyword density.” http://www.ntopic.org

86. Multi-Dimensional
Behavioral targeting makes content
planning more complex

87. Behavioral Targeting Makes Content Planning More Complex
Content needs to be developed to speak to each persona in each need state.

88. Why SEO matters to you
Wrapping Up

89. User Intent Is the Superpower of Search

90. It Makes Your Content Perform
The Content World Tour

91. You Can Use it to Make Content Happen

92. Go Forth and Write Poetry.

93. Michael King
Director of Inbound Marketing
@iPullRank
mike@iacquire.com
Download This Deck:
http://iacq.co/seoetry
Thank you!

94. SEARCH IS OUR CRAFT