April 7th. Guest Lecture on SEO and online marketing at Georgetown University's Digital Marketing class, a part of the Masters in Public Relations and Corporate Communications program.

1. MPPR-881-01: DIGITAL MARKETING
April 7, 2015
@kwatier
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
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2. KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR SEO SUCCESS
1. There are “rules” to follow
• Google rule or best practice
• Bing rule or best practice
• A rule based on human online
behavior research
2. All online content is personalized
to the end user
3. Search changes daily and future
focused marketers are most
unaffected by those changes.
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3. SEARCH ENGINES 101
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4. Google and Bing create their listings automatically. They use “spiders” or
“bots” to "crawl" links (or social shares) to web pages and social profiles
and add those web pages & profiles to their index.
When a human visitor puts in a keyword phrase into the search engine, the search
engine is focused on serving relevant, fresh, quality content that the engines think
matches the searcher’s intent & is personalized for the user.
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Keyword Phrases
LET’S COVER THE BASICS

5. FOUR ASPECTS OF SEO
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1. Technical SEO
2. Targeted Quality Content
3. Link Building
4. Online brand building

6. 1: TECHNICAL SEO
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7. TECHNICAL SEO REQUIREMENTS
• This is just an
example, a full
list of SEO
requirements
here:
http://www.seerin
teractive.com/blo
g/craziest-
internet-
marketing-audit-
checklist-on-the-
interwebz

8. TECHNICAL SEO CASE STUDY
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9. 2. TARGETED QUALITY CONTENT
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10. GOOGLE’S PANDA
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11. GOOGLE & BING RULE: KEYWORDS
“Think about the words a searcher might search for to find a piece of your
content, and make sure your site actually includes those words.” - Google
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12. THE ADWORDS KEYWORD TOOL HIDES DATA
• It’s not build for organic search, so it will limit the data you see.
• Some words/phrases will not show initially because the tool is for
paid advertising
THE IMPORTANT LESSON:
• Running discovery-focused searches in AdWords may not show you
all the valuable/high-volume keyword phrases connected to a
word/phrase.
• First, run discovery searches in Google Suggest with wildcards, then
use Adword tool to find volume of exact phrase

13. KEYWORD RESEARCH PROCESS
1. Complete the keyword brainstorming process
2. Look at your analytics to find terms you might be imperfectly targeting
3. Run Google Suggest with wildcards
4. Then use http://keywordtool.io/ and http://ubersuggest.org/ and SEO
Chat’s free Bulk Search Suggest keyword tool.
5. Check Twitter to see how real life people are talking about your topic.
filter real Twitter conversations: [#hashtag -filter:links]
6. Run Adwords keyword tool like usual, save options.
7. Run Adwords keyword tool with those new exact keyword suggestions,
save options.
8. Select target keywords and concepts that make sense based on client’s
business
9. Run Moz’s Keyword Difficulty, eliminate keywords if your content
doesn’t “fit” with what is already ranking
10. Finalize keyword and concepts list

14. USING FINAL KEYWORD LIST FOR WRITING
1. Group target keyword and any supporting keywords together
2. Look at what is ranking for the target keyword to determine type of
content needed.
3. Think about what would be unique and/or no one else has made it
before, and if others would actually share it. Ideally you ask your
target audience here if they would share it before you create the
content…
4. Write the copy to fit the need and double check your writing based
on Google’s content quality questions
5. Optimize meta title and description. Use your target keyword 1-2
times, use supporting keywords to organize your subtopics.

15. GOOGLE’S RULES: CONTENT QUALITY
QUESTIONS
• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it
more shallow in nature?
• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or
similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
• Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site
generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search
engines?
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting,
original research, or original analysis?
• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in
search results?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or
recommend?
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16. GOOGLE BEST PRACTICE: ONLINE READING
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17. 3. LINK BUILDING
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18. GOOGLE PENGUIN
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19. LINK BUILDING AND MAINTENANCE
• Each page that you want to appear in search needs it’s own inbound
links.
• To compete, you need around the same number of links “votes” as
other URLs that are appearing in search for that term.
• Links must appear natural, don’t obsess over “exact” anchor text.
• Unnatural links will result in loss of search rankings/potentially being
dropped from Google
• SEOs must monitor inbound links and work to remove/disavow
those that are built which are detrimental/not semantically related.
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20. GOOGLE & BING RULES: ONLINE PROMOTION
Google:
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Bing:

21. 4. ONLINE BRAND BUILDING
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22. Google Hummingbird
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23. GOOGLE HUMMINGBIRD
• Google’s move from keywords to understanding what real world
things are. They are doing this by building a database of things.
• Ability to start to understand mobile/voice queries and return
relevant results.
• Matching the meanings of phrases with concepts rather than just
text with keywords.
Impact on online copy:
• You need to understand your potential visitors possible intents.
• Address content to specific wants and needs.
• Create in depth content that answers comprehensive questions.
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24. MOBILE SEO
• Google’s Mobile algorithm update
• Deep App linking
• use information from indexed apps as a factor in ranking for
signed-in users who have the app installed. As a result, we may
now surface content from indexed apps more prominently in
search.
• Google’s Mobile SEO Guide
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25. PERSONALIZE SEARCH
(WHY SEARCH RANKINGS ARE
MISLEADING)
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26. THE MOST IMPORTANT TRANSITION
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From keyword based results  Entities and connections based results
Cartoon on left by Peter Steiner © 2012

27. GOOGLE – POWERED BY YOUR
GOOGLE DATA

28. PERSONALIZED SEARCH
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29. PERSONALIZED SEARCH
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30. ENTITY POWER

31. GOOGLE+ IS THE NEXT GOOGLE (GOOGLE 2.0)
Google+ is the official profile with the world’s largest search engine. You
are giving Google data:
• About you as a company
• About who your company is connected to
• Identifying your customers (if they follow your page)
• Highlighting what other social media networks you have
Google is using that information to ensure that they are showing your
online content to the people who are looking for you. They are also
using it to discover who is an authority based on the content they write
and who interacts with it.

32. WHAT IS THE SEMANTIC WEB?
Teach a machine to think like a human

33. STRUCTURED DATA - SCHEMA.ORG
http://schema.org/

34. GOOGLE’S FUTURE:
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“With your permission, you give us more information about
you, about your friends, and we can improve the quality of our
searches….we don’t need you to type at all.
We know who you are
We know where you’ve been
We can more or less know what you’re
thinking.”
- Eric Schmidt, Google

36. USING GOOGLE WITHOUT SEARCHING
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http://backslidden.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Dyson86237596.jpg
Google asks: “What did you want to know recently?”
“ It will know at a semantically deep level
what you’re interested in, not just the
topic... [ but] the specifi c questions and
concerns you have.
I envision some years from now that
the majority of search queries will be
answered without you actually speaking. ”
– Ray Kurzweil

37. 37
FIGHT BACK BY PLAYING THE GAME

38. TARGET YOUR CUSTOMER
1. Use personas
2. Target content to your audience
3. Build social relationships
4. Know the signals and use them
5. Measure it to see if it’s working
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39. STEP 1: CREATE PERSONAS
• Demographics (male/female, marital status, age range, income)
• Job level/Title (if B2B)
• Pain points
• Objections to attitude change
• Routine for a typical day
• Level of sophistication with technology
• Online information sources/social networks
• Keyword terms
• Mobile use
* http://www.makemypersona.com
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40. STEP 2: TARGET CONTENT TO YOUR AUDIENCE
Create content that is focused on
their:
• Personas
• Needs
• Desires
• Emotional Motivators
• Burning Questions
• Formatted in a way that drives
sharing
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41. STEP 3: BUILD SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS
• Be engaged in social. Find them by doing
social media listening for your key terms, the
solution your product fills, and your brand
name. Build out a presence and engage
where they are.
• Storing the data around those relationships.
• Determine who is your largest influencer by
content focus and engage them.
• Measure to see if your message is “breaking
through” and reaching your end consumer.
• Track social back to web goals (traffic, links,
conversions) and measure trends across
social.
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42. STEP 4: KNOW THE SIGNALS & USE THEM
• Stay up to date on the changing personalization tactics via search &
social blog updates.
• Follow the published “rules” each social media platform/engine
publishes related to their personalization process.
• Use schema, Google+, and social media optimization (Open Graph),
to send additional signals.
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43. STEP 5: MEASURE TO SEE IF IT’S WORKING
1. Google searches/mo. compared to
your overall organic traffic.
2. Social media monitoring to view an
increase in volume around your brand
name and products.
3. Increase in social media & target
referral traffic per month.
4. Website conversions from organic
search.
5. Search focus group studies.
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44. PARTING THOUGHTS….
Know Your Customer
• Use their language
• Have them test your message
• Create search personas and measure against assumptions
• Provide online content that is quality and shareable
• Build social communities around your brand – especially utilizing
Google+
• Store and leverage influencer data
• Coordinate all messaging including paid to create a “surround sound”
• Leverage social and web data to refine personas and outreach

45. ADDITIONAL LEARNING RESOURCES
Google: How Search Works:
http://www.google.com/insidesearch/howsearchworks/thestory/
Moz’s Beginner guide:
http://guides.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-search-engine-optimization
Full list of SEO technical requirements:
http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/craziest-internet-marketing-audit-checklist-on-the-interwebz
Staying up to date with online marketing:
www.SearchEngineLand.com and www.MarketingLand.com
Google’s SEO Guide:
http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/
Bing’s SEO Guide:
http://www.bing.com/webmaster/help/webmaster-guidelines-30fba23a
http://blogs.bing.com/webmaster/2009/09/03/search-engine-optimization-for-bing/
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46. KATHERINE WATIER ONG
VP ONLINE MARKETING AND MARKET INSIGHTS
KETCHUM
202-729-8355
@KWATIER
WWW.LINKEDIN.COM/IN/KATHERINEWATIER
GPLUS.TO/KATHERINEWATIER
WWW.WATIER.ORG/KATHERINE
CHECK OUT MY THOUGHTS ABOUT KNOWLEGE GRAPH
IN A NEW EBOOK!
HTTP://PROPECTA.COM/THE-KNOWLEDGE-GRAPH-
AND-THE-FUTURE-OF-SEO
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