1. SEO is Dead Again? It Will Never Die!

2. ➡ Run DeCabbit Consultancy doing SEO, PPC, Social Media
and integrated marketing campaigns
➡ Online since 1985, online marketing since 1996
➡ Have worked with Amadeus, Brown-Forman, UPS, Qubit,
GalaCoral, Google, Vapemate, NatWest/RBS, Fidelity, NBC
Universal, Readers Digest, Bayer, AMD, AmEx, TotalJobs,
Virgin.com, Zopa, NSPCC, GE & more
➡ Contact me: decabbit@gmail.com
AM I
Who Obligatory slide !
Judith Lewis
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

3. ANYWAY -
let’s begin…

4. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
What matters, what doesn’t,
what works and what doesn’t

5. What Doesn’t Matter
Neil Patel & Yoast
Keyword Density
Bounce rate
Social media links for pure SEO
Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

6. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Traffic light
systems and
isolating single
(often old) tactics
do not work for
SEO – it must be
holistic

7. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Keyword
density is not a
ranking factor

8. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Bounce Rate is
*NOT* a ranking
metric

9. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Google does not
value social links

10. Why Latent Semantic Indexing Doesn’t
Matter
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

11. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Not Everything Continues
Working Once Implemented

12. Stuff That No Longer Works
Noindex in Robots.txt
Authorship
Pagination
Exact match domain names
Single page, single keyword
Cheap links/link packages
Guest blogging for the link
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

13. Noindex in Robots.txt
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Noindex in
Robots.txt is
dead

14. Authorship
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Authorship is
dead and
buried

15. Pagination
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Pagination was
murdered in secret

16. Exact Match domain names died long ago
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

17. Single page, single keyword
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Single page,
single keyword
targeting is dead

18. Single page, single keyword
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Single page,
single keyword
targeting is dead
In fact, over-
optimisation
is a thing

19. Cheap links/link packages
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Cheap, low
quality link
building is so
dead, it’s stone

20. Guest blogging for the link
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Guest blogging
for the link - dead

21. 15/08/2019DeCabbit Presentation
So what does matter?

22. What Matters
User satisfaction
E-A-T
Quality outreach content
Featured Snippet
Local
Speed
Technical Debt & Crawl
410 over 404
Brand
Links
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

23. Google is always testing new ways of ranking
Incorporating Clicks, Attention and Satisfaction into a
Search Engine Result Page Evaluation Model
a model of user behaviour that combines clicks,
attractiveness and satisfaction in a joint model
the model can be used as a robust predictor of user
satisfaction without sacrificing its ability to predict clicks
decoupling satisfaction from attention and clicks leads to
inferior satisfaction prediction
https://storage.googleapis.com/pub-tools-public-publication-data/pdf/45562.pdf
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

24. Check User Satisfaction Everywhere
Use Google Search Console to identify high impression,
low CTR keywords
Use analytics to identify conversion pages with no
conversions – check paths to and from that page
Identify and map user personas to site pages and identify
dead pages. Delete or repurpose depending on links and
traffic (if they have lots of links and traffic but don’t
match a user map, something is very wrong)
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

25. E-A-T (Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness)
“The quality and amount of main content, website information, and website
reputation all inform the E-A-T of a website.”
Is the author here an Expert* of what he is talking about? (Meaning the topic of
the query)
Is the web page Authoritative*? Have you done or written anything that is cited or
linked to by any other sites?
Can you Trust* it?
“Extensive reputation research is important when giving Highest ratings, and is
evidence of the E-A-T of the page. Very positive reputation is often based on
prestigious awards or recommendations from known experts or professional societies
on the topic of the page.“ - Google
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

26. Expertise
Experts can exist in any field (gossip, humour, fashion, etc.)
Experts can contribute to user-generated content too (Q&A
sites may have expert users participating)
An expert should have an expertise on the topic of the query.
There are no general experts. It’s important that expertise is
relevant.
Experts should not necessarily have recognized / formal
expertise (education). Some people share very in-depth and
detailed reviews: They can be considered experts for sharing
their “everyday expertise”. Sharing personal experience with a
disease is a form of everyday expertise
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

27. Authoritativeness
Very positive reputation is often based on prestigious awards or
recommendations from known experts or professional societies on
the topic of the website. In some industries (recipes, gossip,
humour, etc.) it’s ok to have a less formal reputation.
For topics which need less formal expertise, websites can be
considered to have a positive reputation if they are highly popular
and well-loved for their topic.
Quality raters are encouraged to use reputation research to find out
what real users, as well as experts, think about a website. They will
look for reviews, references, recommendations by experts, news
articles, and other credible information created/written by
individuals about the website.
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

28. Trustworthiness
On-page trust signals may include prominent “About”
page, extensive contact information, well-written privacy
policies.
These signals are more important for financial and
shopping sites but it doesn’t hurt to add these to any site
anyway.
A good signal of trust for informational pages is the
presence of good references (links to sources) supporting
statements in the main content.
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

29. Quality Outreach Content
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Quality
outreach
content

30. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Spy on the
competitions
ideas

31. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Create a reason to
link - not empty
content

32. The research in to the kind of content Google seems to reward with a featured snippet was performed by
A.J. Ghergich and SEMRush looking at 80 million keywords. Each type of search that resulted in a
featured snippet was then analysed to see what kind of content was served, how Google was selecting
the winner (did they always have to be in position 1? The answer was no), and what would it take to be
included. SEMRush’s recent research has shed some light in to what in 2019 it takes to own the featured
snippet result. The following types of queries map to certain featured snippets results:
https://www.semrush.com/blog/large-scale-study-how-to-rank-for-featured-snippets-in-2018/
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

33. In order to understand what kinds of tables, lists and paragraphs were being used in the
featured snippets, AJ Ghergich further analysed the size/type of each featured snippet
they analysed.
The most important kind of featured snippet for optimisation is the paragraph format as
this is also used in People Also Ask. This should be structured as much as possible to
indicate the question being answered in or near the paragraph which is desired to be
featured.
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

34. For results where lists are the more appropriate result, having bullet points is important but
not always necessary.
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

35. Desktop Moves to Mobile First Index Instead
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

36. Google’s 1 Second Load Time Target
(Mobile)
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

37. Test Your Speed
GTMetrix.com
Chrome Audit Tool
Google PageSpeed Tool -
developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

38. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit

39. Consider making 404 pages 410
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

40. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Be a
brand

41. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Old Stuff That Works

42. Old Stuff That Works Again
HTML Sitemaps
Hyper specificity in landing pages
Local SEO
Optimised title tags
Links
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

43. HTML Sitemaps
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit
HTML Sitemaps –
help the people,
help the crawler

44. Hyper Specificity in Landing Pages
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

45. Local Optimisation Matters
Use “&near=cityname” after search to restrict your
results
Utilise original local content for your locations
Update your Google My Business pages
For link building, perform research and outreach
based on a local focus
Focus on link acquisition from local papers, chambers
of commerce, and local sites
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

46. Optimised title tags
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

47. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Content Hacks

48. Content Hacks
Don’t delete old content – repurpose
Unless it’s 11k of useless content that adds nothing but just eats up crawl
budget… then delete away
Check what a page ranks for and tweak
Don’t delete old content that ranks (but badly) – identify what the best
thing for that page to rank for is and optimise
Be the answer to begin with
It’s not just position 0 but also “People Also Ask”, sharable content and E-A-T
Make sure to use Copyscape
Check for content theft and duplicate content
Use copywriters strategically
Don’t create content for content’s sake
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

49. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Repurpose
good!
Delete bad!

50. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Make ranking
content work
through targeted
optimisation

51. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Be the
answer

52. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Use Copyscape
to find duplicate
content

53. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Use
copywriters
strategically

54. 10 Tips for Content Success
Understand your audience
Think big (data)
Map your sales cycle (or use an editorial calendar)
Write powerful/engaging titles
Evergreen content rewards in constant traffic
Focus on emotional, controversial, or useful original content
Simplicity and clarity in articles wins readers
Socially promote all content (don’t expect it to work alone)
Measure results
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

55. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Link Building

56. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Don’t build links without reading
the patents and understanding
how they work

57. “One embodiment of the present invention provides a system
that ranks pages on the web based on distances between the
pages, wherein the pages are interconnected with links to
form a link-graph. More specifically, a set of high-quality seed
pages are chosen as references for ranking the pages in the
link-graph, and shortest distances from the set of seed pages
to each given page in the link-graph are computed. Each of
the shortest distances is obtained by summing lengths of a
set of links which follows the shortest path from a seed page
to a given page, wherein the length of a given link is assigned
to the link based on properties of the link and properties of the
page attached to the link. The computed shortest distances
are then used to determine the ranking scores of the
associated pages.”
https://patents.google.com/patent/US9165040B1/en
How Links Work
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

58. It’s thought that according to
Google’s Reasonable Surfer patent
that links higher up in the document
may transfer more ‘PageRank’ than
those lower down. Same goes for
links in the sidebar vs. links in the
main content. This means the
position and likelihood of the link
getting a click now play more of a
role in link valuation.
https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-pagerank/
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

59. SeoByTheSea.com
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

60. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
Ideas for links
need to be
innovative

61. Link Building Tips
Reclaim dead links
Check 4xx and 3xx links
Do unique research and combine paid outreach with
organic
Exposure is worth as much as links – journos first but the pitch
has to be worthy
Find sites that have already covered something similar
Piggyback on other events
Use DaysoftheYear.com and plan ahead
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

62. SEMRush/Majestic & Screaming Frog
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

63. Content Designed to Attract Links
White papers
Expert research papers
Newsjacking
Lists
Interviews/Egobait
Surveys
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

64. Find Sites that Covered Infographics
Through “Search Google For Image”
@JudithLewis & @Decabbit

65. @JudithLewis & @Decabbit
DaysOfTheYear.com

66. Ask Me More Online
Twitter: @JudithLewis
Email decabbit@gmail.com
LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/judithlewis
Web: http://www.decabbit.com
Blog: http://www.ThisFoodieTravels.com
SEO Blog: http://www.SEO-Chicks.com
HuffPost: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/judith-lewis