9 SEO Questions Answered by Mozcon 2019

9 SEO Questions
Answered by Mozcon
2019 - @WojKwasi
..and maybe some steak knives!

KWASI |
1. What do zero-clicks mean?
2. What does voice mean for search
marketers?
3. What are Fraggles?
4. Why should you stop faking it to Google?
5. Why is it important to run your own SEO tests?
6. How does brand play a vital role in ranking
well in Local search?
7. How do you make your content memorable?
8. How do you rank for questions?
9. How can we stop losing money to Google?
On Today’s Episode
9 SEO QUESTIONS ANSWERED BY MOZCON 2019 @WOJKWASI
2
@WojKwasi
21 years experience:
web development, search
engine website optimisation,
digital marketing & automation
entrepreneur / head honcho
@Kwasi - often found helping
clients

KWASI |
1. Tweet your questions at me - I have to jet at 6:15…
@WojKwasi or email woj@kwasi.com
One Caveat...
3

1.What do zero-
clicks mean?
[Rand Fishkin - Sparktoro]

KWASI |
– Number of Google properties in the SERPs has grown massively
– As well as Google’s ability to provide an answer to the searcher’s query immediately
– This has resulted in more zero clicks than ever (fewer people are clicking on your website).
Zero-clicks
5
Source: Less than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click

KWASI |
– Only 1 in 3 clicks leave the SERPS (62% = zero clicks)!
Mobile Zero-clicks
6

KWASI |
– 2 in 3 clicks leave the SERPS (34% = zero clicks)!
Desktop Zero-clicks
7

KWASI |
– Search Console may show your
impressions go up but clicks
going down!
– Consider voice search as part of
your future strategy because a
lot of these aforementioned
query types work well when you
talk to your Google Home, Alexa,
etc.
– Prioritise the keywords that
actually send traffic to your site
and stop investing in those that
yield zero clicks!
Impact
8

KWASI |
– We are still spending about
the same amount of time on
desktop as we did 10 years
ago, however, our time on
mobile is 12 times as much
(and almost the same as
desktop).
“Mobile didn’t kill desktop, it
just killed our free time” –
Rand Fishkin ...meaning
desktop is still highly
relevant. It shouldn’t be
excluded in conversations.
– We are tending nowadays
to speak about Mobile-First,
but we need to be careful
to distinguish that with
Mobile-Only.
Don’t Ignore Desktop
9
Source: Internet Trends 2019 – BOND

KWASI |
– Google manipulates search results for highly sensitive queries around mass shootings, vaccines, flat earth, fake
news etc, by excluding domains that are not authoritative.
– Make our sites seen as authoritative to Google, looks for authoritative consensure – need to build these signals.
Authoritative Consensure
10

KWASI |
– High correlation: social shares & rankings - continue to connect with your customers via social channels.
– Effect is often tertiary, e.g. something shared will likely correlate with authority as the types of content shared
tend to rank well in Google.
Social’s Impact on Rankings
11

2. What does
voice mean for
search
marketers?
[Christi Olson - BING]

KWASI |
– Read the report - aka.ms/moz19 - covers usage, adoption, trust,
functionality and shopping.
– Search is moving from answers to actions
(task accomplishment)
– e.g. a one year old can’t type but can use voice search to
“accidentally” order stuff on Alexa
– Implement more speakable schema mark-up on our e-
commerce websites to cater for voice search, as 25% of people
are using voice to make a purchase.
Bing’s 2019 Voice Search Report
13

KWASI |
– Optimising for chatbots / digital assistants will help
drive more leads.
– The chatbot is the digital assistant or stepping stone
that allows brands to more easily reach their
customers & vice versa.
– Put question & answer content onto your website.
– So when a user asks a question, the chatbot knows
what content to match to it and therefore what
answer to provide.
Optimise for Chatbots
14

3. What are
Fraggles?
[Cindy Crum - Mobile Moxie]

KWASI |
– Fraggles are the more complex code “fragments” existing on
dynamic websites and web-apps (as opposed to easily
crawlable HTML) that has forced Google to shift to a more
advanced, entity-based system of indexing.
– They are very important to consider in Mobile-First indexing.
– “Fraggles represent individual parts (fragments) of a page for
which Google overlayed a “handle” or “jump-link” (aka
named-anchor, bookmark, etc.) so that a click on the result
takes the users directly to the part of the page where the
relevant fragment of text is located.” – Cindy Crum
The SERP of the Future
16

KWASI |
– Crawling web pages was Google’s initial method of discovering the web back in ‘98.
– Google’s mission statement, which in part talks about organising information (making it universally
accessible and useful)
– Web pages are an inefficient way to organise answers (this information they speak of).
New Crawl
17

KWASI |
– Google is, and has been for a while,
organising the world’s information in its
knowledge graph through a series of entity
relationships that are language (or query)
agnostic.
– e.g. the relationship between mother &
daughter is universal across all languages.
– The relationship and context between
words on your web pages are important so
Google can “jump” to the right fraggle
(fragment of information) and return the
answer to the user.
– I like to think about it a bit like how a
database would be organised with a series
of parent to child relationships.
– Consider content planning in such a way.
Entity-First Indexing
18

KWASI |
– PWAs (Progressive Web Apps) - Google crawls the API to the service worker, which supports the idea
I’ve had for a while that we need to feed Google content directly.
– The most primitive example is RSS: how blogs and podcasts are consumed.
– Schema.org markup: describe specific details about the web page, e.g. a product, a review, an
organisation, a person etc.
– The Google Indexing API is quite new and allows you to add job posting and livestream structured
information direct into the search results.
– “Indexing via API makes Google faster and less reliant on links.” - Cindy Krum
Indexing via APIs
19

KWASI |
– Be aware of the different SERP features that appear for each query
– Structure your content not just by keyword or keyword theme, but consider the relationship and
hierarchy between other keywords.
Keyword Relationships
20

4. Why should you
stop faking it to
Google?
[Russ Jones - Moz]

KWASI |
– To reiterate, the era of faking it with Google is for
the most part over.
– We’re talking about a machine-learning monolithic
entity that returns results in 1/8 of a second.
– Focus on being the best!
– “Once you are the best – link building efforts are
super easy.” - Russ Jones
– I agree and am totally against frustrating internet
users, hence our purpose at Kwasi is to get brands
found and bought by people who want them – so
everyone is happier!
– Let’s not create lousy experiences; we need to
make the client’s website the best it can be and
not make the internet a shitty place.
Machine Learning
22

KWASI |
– Duplicate your domain as a .ORG with
canonicals back to regular site and build links to
the .ORG (much more trustworthy)
– You can use tenon.io to check your competitors’
accessibility performance to help build links.
– Also, test mobile friendliness of competitors and
use poor performance as “human-relatable”
reasons for outreach, instead of the really bad
approach of, “Hey I like content x, link to me”.
– Even the SSL security status of the competitor can
be a good reason.
– When you do outreach, you don’t need to take
the competitor down, you can just add your
faster / better resource to the page.
Ways to Keep it Real
23

5. Why is it
important to run
your own SEO
tests?
[Rob Ousbey - Distilled]

KWASI |
– Avoid Cookie-cutter strategies. What
worked for one client won’t
necessarily work for another.
– Like businesses, each website (or
online ecosystem) has a different
legacy, pulse and constitution so it’s
important to run your own SEO
experiments
– Set a hypothesis based on previous
results and then test against it.
– If it underperforms, do something
different.
– “Testing enables us to avoid doing all
tasks but to focus on the ones that get
results.” - Rob Ousbey
Test What You Heard
25

KWASI |
– Do controlled testing: only change one thing at a time so you can monitor what happens at directly
attribute it to your change.
One Change at a Time
26

KWASI |
– Here’s a simple 4 step process to stick to:
How to test?
27

KWASI |
– One ranking factor notion is “query deserves freshness” – a simple experiment showed that by
updating the “dateModified” field in the source code to today’s date saw an 8% increase in traffic
for a campaign.
– Note: this information was to illustrate the power of testing & is not an advisable tactic as Google
won’t be happy.
Freshness Hack
28

6. How does
brand play a vital
role in ranking
well for Local
search?
[Mary Bowling - Ignitor Digital]

KWASI |
– Building your brand is super
important in order to rank well in
Google Maps and local search
results.
– Local SEO is harder than regular
SEO and we need to set
different key performance
indicators.
– Some good local KPIs include:
– Contact form submissions
– Facebook Messenger usage
– Click to calls
– Driving direction requests
Local SEO
30

KWASI |
– Make sure our result is showing as accurate, appealing & correct.
– Key local ranking factors are relevance, prominence & proximity, with proximity (how close the
business is to the searcher) being the biggest.
– Consider that different search modifiers like “best”, “cheapest” , “near me” , “open now” and “in
Adelaide” will all yield different results.
Fine-tuning Local SERPs
31

KWASI |
– “Your website should be the Knowledge Graph
of your brand” - Mary Bowling
– To help boost your local brand, build
awareness so Google knows about you and
build reputation as being one of the good
guys.
– Remember that the internet is a cesspool of
bad pages and brands are how you sort out
the cesspool.
– So build your brand!
KG of your Brand
32

KWASI |
– Take care of your Google My Business (GMB) cover photo as it’s
the most critical image since it’s the user’s first touch point.
– Ask yourself, “what do searchers want to see?” when assessing the
other set of photos.
– For listings with stars, make sure you respond to reviews, add photos
& details.
– For Listings without stars, encourage more reviews, add photos &
details.
– Use Google Posts as they work better than blogging.
– Answer all Google Q&A questions. Get in first or someone else will!
– Set up Ask & Answer for your brand and add your frequently asked
questions.
– Monitor Q&A, as unsuitable stuff can be flagged/reported and
potentially be turned into sales opportunities.
Other Local SEO Tips
33

7. How do you
make your content
memorable?
[Casie Gillette - KoMarketing]

KWASI |
– BuzzSumo is useful for content research. They also
have an influencer tool to see who is engaging
with what / sharing what content.
Content Research
35

KWASI |
– Stock images suck, so create your own photos!
Take Photos
36

KWASI |
– Include the location of photos in your content and in the actual photos.
Location, Location, Location!
37

8. How do you
rank for questions?
[Dr Pete Meyers - Moz]

KWASI |
– PAA snippets in the SERPs now appear across all verticals & intents, in 90% of searches worldwide.
People Also Ask...
39

KWASI |
– Don’t limit our keyword focus by search
volume metrics alone.
– e.g. we should still consider keywords with low
searches as there are several closely
matching variants that Google will consider
as relevant to the content.
– This also includes synonyms so you can stop
making pages for each variant (if you
haven’t already) and focus on creating
content around question themes.
– Think of it as “questions by topic” and it will
help you rank for the topic.
Low Volume Keywords
40

KWASI |
– To appear in a Q&A answer box in the SERPs, start with a short answer paragraph then go into
detail because the short answer is what appears in the knowledge graph.
Short Answer Paragraph
41

9. How do we stop
losing money to
Google?
[Wil Reynolds - Seer Interactive]

KWASI |
– It’s important it is to look deeper into your Google
Ads data to ensure you’re not leaving any
opportunities on the table and not wasting spend.
– “Google’s wasted click revenue approximately
amounts to Starbucks’ total worldwide revenue
(~$17bilion)! Approximately,15% of all Google Ads
account for wasted clicks.” - Wil Reynolds
– Look for outliers in keywords: look through “search
terms” data in Google Ads (interface).
– e.g. for a Uni, he found that when they used the
word “become” in the Ad copy for a particular
campaign, it increased conversions by 174%.
– e.g. e-commerce businesses, keywords containing
“with” are dangerous and expensive so it’s good
to exclude (but of course test).
Check Your Google Ads Data
43

KWASI |
– Data is too small - not statistically
significant.
– Data is seasonal - e.g. “deck plans”
would generally show “how to make a
deck” but during cruise season it could
show cruise ships.
– Data is too slow - by the time we get it it’s
too late to react - e.g. “student loans” -
Bernie Sanders announces a bailout,
don’t show Ads for that query!
Data Problems
44

KWASI |
– Google Ads have a lot of great automation options for automatic bidding based on machine learning.
– Be smart when deploying these…
– “Don’t let the machines learn on your dime.” - Wil Reynolds
– Who pays for customer curiosity?
We do. e.g. ”rolex store” & you
can see that they are showing
the wrong shopping Ads!
It’s essentially clickbait &
happens in Google Images as
well.
Don’t Pay for Window Shoppers
45

KWASI |
– Google’s machine
learning won’t help
you out, e.g.
“embroidered baby
blanket” Google
images shows all the
correct organic
results.
But if your shopping
feed sucks you will
show incorrect
products!
Google Images Ads
46

KWASI |
In Summary
47

KWASI |
kwasi.co/15SEOQs
BONUS: 15 SEO Questions
Answered by Mozcon 2019
48

KWASI |
BONUS: Subscribe to my Podcast
49

KWASI |
BONUS: Steak Knives
50

KWASI |
Thank You!
51

9 SEO Questions Answered by Mozcon 2019

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