Why does SEO matter in 2014? How has it changed since in 20 years? (Hint: It hasn't...) What are the guiding principles of SEO? Inspired by: http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/history-of-seo-glimpse-into-future-tl-ss Additional Sources: - http://searchengineland.com/seotable - http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-social-media-is-changing-the-seo-industry/63060/ - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html

1. Charlotte HUG April 2014
A 2014 Guide to SEO
Amanda Iglesias
@amandalucia

2. 1 An Abridged History of SEO
– Why does SEO matter?
– How has SEO changed?
2 Guiding Principles of SEO
– Who are you creating content for?
– How do they search?
– How to get found.

3. 1 An Abridged History of SEO

4. Why does SEO matter?

5. Because we want
our content
to end up here?

6. Sort of...

7. What we really want is users to end up here.

8. And yet, we keep
fixating on the algorithms...

9. How has SEO changed?

10. It depends on who you ask.

11. n who you ask.
Marketers who try to stay
within Google’s guidelines.
Marketers who try beat
Google’s algorithms.
– or –

12. Marketers who try to stay
within Google’s guidelines.
Marketers who try beat
Google’s algorithms.
– or –

13. 1994
2000
2010
2014
Let’s look back
at what’s happened over
the past two decades.

14. 2000
2010
2014
1994
The first search engine crawls the
web, and indexes websites based
on the content it finds on the web
pages.
As long as there were words on your
webpages...

15. 2000
2010
2014
1998
Google’s launches PageRank, which
in addition to content, looks at
incoming links for a website to
determine where it should rank.
SEO’s start focusing on best sites to
get linked to from...
1994

16. 2000
2010
2014
2005
Having penalizes link bombing,
keyword stuffing, and over-
optimization of anchor text,
Google releases nofollow tags
to combat blog spam.
1994

17. 2000
2010
2014
Google and Bing admit to using data
from Facebook and Twitter to
influence search results.
Google (1) releases Panda (2) encrypts
organic search data, to reward sites
with high-quality content.
1994
2011

18. 2000
2010
2014
Google releases Penguin to
punish websites that are
building low-quality links like
blog networks and directories.
1994
2012

19. 2000
2010
2014
Google releases Hummingbird
which recognizes full question
searches.
1994
2013

20. Every time SEOs try to game
the system...

21. ...Google reacted by
changing their algorithms.

22. "We encourage you to...focus on
developing high-quality content
rather than trying to optimize for
any particular Google algorithm.”
- Amit Singhal, Google Ranking team

23. So, how has SEO changed?

24. Marketers who try to stay
within Google’s guidelines.
Marketers who try beat
Google’s algorithms.
– or –
If you ask
these folks...

25. SEO hasn’t changed at all.

26. “Google wants to reward
companies who develop
brands and put their
customers first.”
- The History of SEO, and a Glimpse Into Its Future

27. 2Guiding Principles of SEO

28. Who are you creating
content for?

29. A human being.

30. A human being
with questions, concerns and needs.

31. A human being
with questions, concerns and needs.
Which gives you fellow human
beings a huge advantage!

32. " Who is this human being?
" What are the problems you help them solve?
" What information matters to them?
" What influences their success?

33. Where do users search?

34. How to install a three-prong electrical outlet
Outlet electrician cambridge mass
“Should I hire an electrician to change my outlets?”

35. How do users search?

37. Visitors
How do I solve this problem
I’m struggling with?

38. Visitors
How do I solve this problem
I’m struggling with?
Search language:
Questions
Long-tail keywords

39. Leads
What do I need and
why do I need it?

40. Leads
What do I need and
why do I need it?
Search language:
Questions
Long-tail keywords
Branded keywords

41. Opportunities
How do I make the right
investment?

42. Opportunities
How do I make the right
investment?
Search language:
Long-tail keywords
Branded keywords
Jargon

43. How to get found.

44. f(n) =
Relevance + Authority
Ranking Algorithm

45. SEO
The process of improving
the relevance and authority of your site
in order to increase its organic rank
in Search Engines .

46. "The fundamental way to increase
your rank is to increase your
relevance,”
- Eric Schmidt, Google CEO

47. f(n) =
Relevance + Authority
You have the power to control your on-page SEO.
" Are pages well-written & have substantial quality content?
" Have you researched the keywords people may use to find
your content?
" Do pages use words & phrases that humans use?
" Are they written by real people? Real businesses?

48. f(n) =
Relevance + Authority
You have the power to control your on-page SEO.
Focus on:
1. Content that reflects the way humans speak
2. HTML elements that describe what the page is about
3. Site Architecture that is well-organized

49. " Are links from quality, respected sites?
" Do humans trust your content? Link to it?
" Do humans on social media share your content?
f(n) =
Relevance + Authority
You have influence, but cannot control off-page SEO.
*
*

50. f(n) =
Relevance + Authority
You have influence, but cannot control off-page SEO.
*
*
Focus on:
1. Where your links are coming from
2. How long your site has been around and whether real people
contribute content to it
3. Whether your content is shared
4. The people searching for your site

51. "Google doesn't want you to
optimize for search engines, they
want you to optimize for the
people that use search engines.”
- Mark Kilens, HubSpot Academy

52. i Helpful Resources

53. " The History of SEO, and a Glimpse Into Its Future (HubSpot)
" Being No. 1 on Google is Not Your Most Important Marketing Goal
(Puma Creative)
" More guidance on building high quality sites (Google)
" 9 Questions You Need to Ask When Developing Buyer Personas
(HubSpot
" The Periodic Table Of SEO Success Factors (Search Engine Land)