My presentation for Digimarcon Sydney on 29 Aug 2019. For many, SEO is a black box that doesn't open up easily to share with stakeholders to prioritise and understand the value to the business. This presentation shares tactics on how to equate both overall SEO strategy and individual SEO tactics to business value.

1. Data Driven Website
Decisions
DigiMarCon
28 Aug 2019

2. What’s on
The context1
2
What Google
looks for
2
How we can
measure it
3
How we can
improve it
4
Testing &
frameworks
5
Who am I?6
Q&A7

3. 75% of users never scroll past
the first page [of Google
results].
3 Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/insiders/inbound-marketing-stats

4. 40.9% of Google searches done on mobile
devices result in an organic click, 2% in a
paid click, and 57.1% in no click at all.
4
Source: https://moz.com/blog/state-of-searcher-behavior-revealed

5. Australians spent $27.5
billion online in 2018.
5
Source: https://auspost.com.au/content/dam/auspost_corp/media/documents/inside-australian-online-shopping-ecommerce-report.pdf

6. So let’s use all the tools
at our disposal…
6

7. …and get relevant data from the
start to be on that first page.
7

8. About 50% of all website traffic
comes from organic search.
8
Source: https://www.brightedge.com/resources/research-reports/organic-search-still-largest-channel-2017

9. What Google looks for in
websites for organic
search rankings isn’t
“just” links, or “just”
content. It’s also about…
More than just SEO
9

10. Site speed,
10
Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2019/04/user-experience-improvements-with-page.html
•“For the slowest one-
third of traffic, we saw
user-centric
performance metrics
improve by 15% to
20% in 2018. As a
comparison, no
improvement was
seen in 2017.”

11. User experience,
11
•“When ranking results,
Google Search also
evaluates whether
webpages are easy to use.
When we identify persistent
user pain points, we develop
algorithms to promote more
usable pages over less
usable ones, all other things
being equal.”
Source: https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/algorithms/; https://careerfoundry.com/en/blog/ux-design/10-classic-ux-design-fails/

12. and trust.
12
•“In particular, raters are trained to understand if content has what we call strong
E-A-T. That stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.
Reading the guidelines may help you assess how your content is doing from an
E-A-T perspective and improvements to consider.”
Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2019/08/core-updates.html

13. It’s really about 6 core concepts
13
•And these are all
things that impact
the user’s website
experience overall,
rather than “just”
SEO.
Mobile First Speed
Structured
Data
Content Authority
Integrated
Search
Source: https://www.slideshare.net/ipullrank

14. 6 core concepts
•Mobile first: Check Google Search Console for any mobile-friendly warnings
•Page speed: Use Google Analytics to check average page speed; spot check using
Google Page Speed Insights. Use webpagetest.org to validate speeds in Australia
• Structured data: Confirm implementation using Structured Data tester and Google
Search Console
14

15. 6 core metrics - ctd
•Content: Organic traffic, lead generation and purchases
•Authority: Organic traffic, lead generation and purchases
• Integrated search: Making sure different parts of the search listings go together
(having image, video, etc).
15

16. Most of these core concepts Google has
made easy to measure, confirm or
implement,
16

17. but it’s about determining how and
where to improve first.
17

18. So what kind of data should we have to understand what to prioritise?
•User surveys
•Heatmapping
•Customer service feedback
•NPS scores
•Personas
Qualitative
18

19. Some tools are…
19

20. Hotjar
20
•Starts free
•Offers
heatmapping,
surveys and visitor
recordings
Source: https://www.hotjar.com/tour

21. Fullstory
21
•Free 14 day trial
•Offers similar suite
to Hotjar
•Also aggregates
data for easy
analysis
Source: https://www.fullstory.com/

22. UserTesting.com
22
•Starts at $50 / user
•Does have limits at
that pricepoint
•Should have set
questions / specific
user journey in
mind
Source: https://www.usertesting.com/

23. Simple Persona Creation
•Layer data from quantitative sources including:
•Google Analytics
•Facebook
•Performance media
•Gather data from qualitative sources including:
• Surveys or feedback polls
• Focus groups or interviews
•If time, validate in internal journey mapping workshop
•Build persona including name, age, gender, interests, goals and values
23

24. You have a good
eCommerce conversion rate
at 3%…
24

25. Do you know what the other
97% of site visitors are doing?
25

26. So what kind of data should we have to understand what to prioritise?
Quantitative
26
•Micro conversions on site. This could
be:
- Newsletter sign ups
- Expression of interest / registration
forms
- Downloading a white paper
- Reading a full article

27. Do you know how much
your micro conversions
are worth?
If not, assign a relative
value to them in Google
Analytics.
Determining value
27

28. Determining value
28

29. And these metrics apply to all channels
29
Source: https://www.portent.com/onetrick/

30. Use your new data to create benchmarks,
determine multipliers to conversion and
set targets for website performance.
30

31. Have a read of Ian Lurie’s
“Digital Marketing
Strategies Done Right”
for an in-depth explainer
of multipliers to
conversion.
Resource callout - multipliers to conversion
31
Source: https://www.portent.com/onetrick/

32. Use your new data to prioritise on-
site improvements.
32

33. What’s your technology?
33
•Can Google read
your content
properly? (e.g. not
Flash)
•Is your website fast
enough?
•Is your website
mobile-friendly?
Source: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/data-measurement/mobile-page-speed-new-industry-benchmarks/

34. Persona and need state based keyword research
34
•Integrating
keywords with
need states,
personas and user
journey mapping
helps
contextualise,
understand and
answer your
customers wants
and needs.
Source: https://www.slideshare.net/ipullrank/seo-same-as-it-ever-was

35. What’s your content?
35
•Does it answer your personas questions
clearly and from the start?
•Are multiple aspects of the topic covered?
•Are you linking to both your own related
content and external resources?
•Are you including relevant mark-up?
Source: https://moz.com/blog/on-page-topic-seo

36. My hit list
•Technical - ability to “read” the site
•Technical - speed / mobile friendly
•Content - authority, on-site topic optimisation
•Technical - enhancements (structured data)
•Content - other formats
36

37. Use your new data to build
hypotheses to run A/B tests:
37

38. We hypothesise that by doing
x, we will increase y by z.
38

39. We hypothesise that by moving our
customer testimonials higher on the
page, we will increase our lead
conversion rate by 5%.
39

40. We hypothesise that by making the
heading and images on our campaign
landing pages location-specific we will
increase our conversion rate by 7%.
40

41. We hypothesise that by including more
lifestyle imagery on our product pages
we’ll increase conversion rate by 20%.
41

42. We’re human
42
•Use personas to inform your
hypothesis creation and your
anticipated uplift
•Start with qualitative data to
avoid confirmation bias
•If you’re curious about
behavioral psychology, check
out Coglode “gems”
Source: http://customerthink.com/understanding_buyer_psychology/

43. Research &
Analysis
Test & Learn
Hypothesis
Design
An A/B testing process to build off of
1
2
3
4
43
•Gather qualitative and quantitative data to build an
hypothesis off of
•Build an hypothesis based on the areas of improvement you
identified in the research, with clearly defined goals
•Design the test in coordination with multiple disciplines,
including SEO, copy and performance teams
•Run the test on your chosen platform until statistical
significance

44. 99% statistical significance means there’s
a 99% chance this didn’t happen by
chance.
44

45. My rules of thumb - Heuristic review
45
Source: https://www.widerfunnel.com/lift-model/

46. If you’re not sure what
uplift to aim for for your
first test, look for
industry case studies, or
aim for a 5% uplift
(minimum detectable
effect - MDE).
My rules of thumb - What should my target be?
46

47. My rules of thumb - Test duration
47
Source: https://vwo.com/ab-split-test-duration/

48. My rules of thumb - Running a test
•Run a canary test ( 90% original, 10% test) for 24 hours to confirm everything is
working fine
•Start a new test when running 50/50 so as not to corrupt data
•Implement a code freeze on the original and variant for the test
•Confirm test duration from multiple sources
•Implement rel=“canonical” on the test variant if it’s a separate page
•Smallest minimum detectable effect should be 5%
48

49. Document and share your
results…
49

50. Have you checked your A/B tests for
SEO impact?
50

51. Probably not.
51

52. Jumping for joy?
52
Source: https://moz.com/blog/what-happens-when-seo-and-cro-conflict

53. Or not.
53
Source: https://moz.com/blog/what-happens-when-seo-and-cro-conflict

54. But how?
54

55. SEO split testing
55
•Distilled has a paid
platform called
Distilled ODN
•They also have a
free modeling tool
here
Source: https://www.distilled.net/resources/do-it-yourself-seo-split-testing-tool-with-causal-impact/; https://odn.distilled.net/

56. The right data informs website and channel
performance, and can surface behaviors and
business outcomes you may not otherwise
discover.
56

57. Who, me?
57
•10 years in
marketing
• 8 years in
Analytics
• 5 years in CRO /
UX
• Lived in 3
countries, visited
40+

58. Contact details
Amanda King
SEO Specialist
Optus
Email:
amanda.king@optu
s.com.au
58

59. Thank you