SEO in 2017/18

Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz | @randfish | rand@moz.com The SEO World in 2018 How SEO is affected by Google’s changes, searcher behavior, new technology, and the marketing world

Bit.ly/seoin2018

MaybeYouSawThis GraphicandThought… “Whoa.Searchis Dying!”

Yeah… It’sverymisleading.

Here’s Real Data on who sends how much traffic on the web.

Google.com Oct2016 May2017 Facebook.com Reddit.com YouTube.com Imgur.com Bing.com Wikipedia.org Gained/Lost 59.2% 6.5% 5.4% 4.5% 2.2% 2.2% 1.4% Yahoo.com 6.0% 62.6% 5.9% 4.1% 4.7% 1.5% 2.1% 1.4% 5.0% +3.4% -0.6% -1.3% +0.2% -0.6% -0.1% +0% -1.0% Amazon.com 1.3% 1.4% +0.1%

Top 10 11-100 101-1K 1K-10K 10K+ Google 22.2% 14.9% 18.0% 18.7% 26.2% Facebook 42.7% 17.7% 15.3% 12.9% 11.3% Yahoo 39.2% 15.8% 15.6% 14.0% 15.4% Reddit 75.2% 11.0% 7.2% 4.4% 2.2% Youtube 80.1% 7.2% 5.4% 4.1% 3.2% NotAllReferrers SendTrafficEqually (databelowfromMay2017)

Top 10 11-100 101-1K 1K-10K 10K+ Google 22.2% 14.9% 18.0% 18.7% 26.2% Facebook 42.7% 17.7% 15.3% 12.9% 11.3% Yahoo 39.2% 15.8% 15.6% 14.0% 15.4% Reddit 75.2% 11.0% 7.2% 4.4% 2.2% Youtube 80.1% 7.2% 5.4% 4.1% 3.2% NotAllReferrers SendTrafficEqually (databelowfromMay2017) Google distributes traffic pretty evenly

Top 10 11-100 101-1K 1K-10K 10K+ Google 22.2% 14.9% 18.0% 18.7% 26.2% Facebook 42.7% 17.7% 15.3% 12.9% 11.3% Yahoo 39.2% 15.8% 15.6% 14.0% 15.4% Reddit 75.2% 11.0% 7.2% 4.4% 2.2% Youtube 80.1% 7.2% 5.4% 4.1% 3.2% NotAllReferrers SendTrafficEqually (databelowfromMay2017) Facebook is strongly biased to the top

Top 10 11-100 101-1K 1K-10K 10K+ Google 22.2% 14.9% 18.0% 18.7% 26.2% Facebook 42.7% 17.7% 15.3% 12.9% 11.3% Yahoo 39.2% 15.8% 15.6% 14.0% 15.4% Reddit 75.2% 11.0% 7.2% 4.4% 2.2% Youtube 80.1% 7.2% 5.4% 4.1% 3.2% NotAllReferrers SendTrafficEqually (databelowfromMay2017) Reddit & YouTube even more so

Mobile CTR 2.0% on Paid 40.9% on Organic 57.1% Don’t Click

2.8% on Paid Desktop CTR 62.2% on Organic 35% Don’t Click

CTRonGoogle Mobile vs.Desktop There may be more traffic opportunity from desktop STILL due to higher CTR Source

Some Remarkable Stats On Searcher Behavior…

WhereDoPeople Search?

BreakdownofSearcheson MajorWebProperties (May2017)

GoogleCore Oct2016 May2017 GoogleImages Yahoo Bing GoogleMaps Amazon Facebook Gained/Lost 58.9% 27.7% 2.6% 2.3% 2.2% 1.9% 0.7% YouTube 3.8% 64.8% 21.8% 2.4% 2.4% 1.2% 2.3% 1.5% 3.6% +5.9 -5.9 -0.2 +0.1 -1.0 +0.4 +0.8 -0.2

GoogleCore Oct2016 May2017 GoogleImages Yahoo Bing GoogleMaps Amazon Facebook Gained/Lost 58.9% 27.7% 2.6% 2.3% 2.2% 1.9% 0.7% YouTube 3.8% 64.8% 21.8% 2.4% 2.4% 1.2% 2.3% 1.5% 3.6% +5.9 -5.9 -0.2 +0.1 -1.0 +0.4 +0.8 -0.2 We think this is Halloween

GoogleCore Oct2016 May2017 GoogleImages Yahoo Bing GoogleMaps Amazon Facebook Gained/Lost 58.9% 27.7% 2.6% 2.3% 2.2% 1.9% 0.7% YouTube 3.8% 64.8% 21.8% 2.4% 2.4% 1.2% 2.3% 1.5% 3.6% +5.9 -5.9 -0.2 +0.1 -1.0 +0.4 +0.8 -0.2This is compensated for by a rise in web search clicks to local results

GoogleCore Oct2016 May2017 GoogleImages Yahoo Bing GoogleMaps Amazon Facebook Gained/Lost 58.9% 27.7% 2.6% 2.3% 2.2% 1.9% 0.7% YouTube 3.8% 64.8% 21.8% 2.4% 2.4% 1.2% 2.3% 1.5% 3.6% +5.9 -5.9 -0.2 +0.1 -1.0 +0.4 +0.8 -0.2 I’m keeping an eye on these two

Google’s Growth So far, 2017 is trending ~10-15% higher than 2016, not including voice or Apple devices

Google CTRBreakdown Relatively flat excluding seasonality = SEO not being cannibalized by Google’s own results

The move from SERP ranking to SERP Features

SERPFeaturesAre Near-Universal

SERPFeatures Massively Impact CTR

ManyFeatures RemoveSEO Opportunity

But, in2017,There’sAlso More Feature Opportunity ThanEver Before You can do SEO to show up here And here

And here

Here And here Here too Also here Yup!

16Features Every SEO ShouldConsider: Videounits SERPFeatureType HowtoGetIn “PeopleAlsoAsk” FeaturedSnippet MapsBox KnowledgePanel TopStories(News) Images Apps Create&optimizeonYouTube(or,rarely,Vimeo) Branding–getsearchedforwith/afterthequery Phrasing&positionofshortanswerincontent ClaimGMB,getlinks,earncitations,benearby Earnbrandassociation,usestructuredmarkup GetinGoogleNews,earnlinks,titlew/KWs Relevantimages,altattributes,&directembeds KWsintitle/description,getpopularinappstores

Books RelatedSearches Tweets SearchSuggest Sitelinks SectionSitelinks In-DepthArticles Carousels/ListResults Writeabook,useKWsinthetitle,haveanISBN Besearched+foundcommonlyw/theKWs Verifiedaccountshelp,useKWsintweets Asw/relatedsearches,alsogeo-sensitive Getlinks&visitstoseveralpoppgs;usemarkup Growpopularsubsectionsw/popularsubpages Authorlongerpiecesthatreceiveattention/links Belistedalongsidecommonsetsontheweb 16Features Every SEO ShouldConsider: SERPFeatureType HowtoGetIn

The move from results to answers.

ManyQueriesGet NoClicksatAll According to our clickstream data, <25% of searchers will click from a result like this.

Thisissocommon that, accordingtoourdata, 49%of searches results in0clicks!

WhySacrificeAd $$for Answers? These are high CPC ads, with high ROI Why is Google hurting ad CTR w/ these answers?!

Google’s willing to lose a lot of short-term revenue in exchange for addictive search behavior

Answers MoreSearches The addiction of search is powerful, i.e. “Google always knows just what I mean!”

AdsCanBeAnswersToo…

InOrganic, FeaturedSnippetsAre Google’sPrimary “Bethe Answer” Bet.

TheseSnippetsAlsoPower VoiceSearch

Extracted, Card-StyleAnswers areAlso ontheRise

More on How to Become theAnswer: Via Dr. Pete (and more Dr. Pete)

The move from expressed to implied intent.

Past: QueryTerms Determined Results

Today:GoogleKnowsWhatYou WantBetterThan(&Before) You Do

Elements WeBelieveGoogleUsesinPredictive Intent: Location&PriorBehaviorofUsersinThatLocation DeviceAttributes:Type,O/S,Speed,InstalledApps,etc Search,App,&BrowserHistory GmailBehavior(&possiblyallkeyboardbehavior) TemporalElements&Time-BasedPatterns

DifferentDevices/People;DifferentResults Seattle,WA Northampton,MA

It’s NotJustSearch Suggestions; It’s RankingsToo

InSanDiego, comicsrule:

I stumbled across an article mentioning this resort in Japan early in my trip-planning research

By searching for & clicking the site in Google, I biased the engine to show me more results from that domain in the future.

By the time I reached evaluation stage, it was too late to convince me to stay anywhere else…

If GoogleBecomesaSuggestion Engine,Marketers WillBe Left WithTwoChoices: Capture attention here Or compete, unaided, here

But Rand, How Do I Rank My Site in Google?

8BroadAreasofGoogle’sRankingAlgorithm (forclassic,ten-blue-linksstyleresults): Links Quality of Host Domain Query Satisfaction User Experience Personalization Technical & Crawl KeywordsContent

DoesthetextmatchwhatGoogle’sMLsystemscalculatetobe relevant,high-quality,&amatchforthesearcher’sintent?Content

Editorially-given,anchor-text-rich,followedlinksfromhigh qualitysourcesstillmattertoGoogle(esp.incompetitiveresults)Links

IfGoogleseeshighratesofpogo-stickingorothersignalsthat yourpage/siteisn’tsolvingsearchqueries,they’lllikelyrankyou lower Query Satisfaction Via WB Friday

Usingthesearcher’skeywordsintelligentlyonyourpagestill mattersforrankings(andforCTRintheresults)Keywords Ring failed to rank until they changed their page title to include “video doorbell”

Domainsaccruesignalsofquality&value.Powerfuldomains maygivethepagestheyhostaboostinrankingability.Quality of Host Domain Via OSE

Googlewantstoseesitesprovideaneasy-to-use,intuitive experienceoneverydevice,ateveryspeed,without impediment. User Experience

Speed&accessibilitytocrawlersstillmatters,andGooglestill doesn’thandlenon-text,ornon-HTML-linkaccessiblepages well. Technical & Crawl

Thegeography,device,searchhistory,andtimingofa searcher’squerycanallchangeGoogle’sresultssignificantly.Personalization

Ranking inGooglein2018: Solvethesearcher’staskbetterthananyoneelseonpage1 Technicalaccessibility(don’thamperthebots!) Intelligentkeyword&relevanttopicuseincontent Loadfastandresponsiveoneverydeviceateveryspeed Earnmore+bettereditoriallinksthanyourcompetition Keywordresearch(talktosearchersthewaytheysearch) TargettherightSERPfeaturesintherightqueries

Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz | @randfish | rand@moz.com Thank You!