Presenter: Rand Fishkin, Moz, Wizard of Moz The landscape of search continues to shift, and the practices that earn high rankings, great traffic, and powerful ROI do, too. In this presentation, Rand will show how and where people are searching on the web, what's working in the results, and give away a few of the most powerful, tactical tips for web marketers to boost their traffic.

1. 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

2. Bit.ly/seoin2018

3. Some Remarkable Data
On Searcher Behavior…

4. WhereDoPeople Search?

5. BreakdownofSearcheson
MajorWebProperties
(May2017)

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

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

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

12. What are the Web’s Top
Traffic Referrers?

13. 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%

14. 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)

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

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

19. 2.8% on Paid
Desktop CTR
62.2% on Organic
35% Don’t Click

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

21. The move from SERP ranking to
SERP Features

22. SERPFeaturesAre Near-Universal

23. SERPFeatures Massively Impact CTR

24. ManyFeatures RemoveSEO Opportunity

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

26. And here

27. Here And here Here too Also here Yup!

28. 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

29. 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

30. The move from results
to answers.

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

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

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

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

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

37. AdsCanBeAnswersToo…

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

39. TheseSnippetsAlsoPower VoiceSearch

40. Extracted, Card-StyleAnswers
areAlso ontheRise

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

42. The move from expressed to
implied intent.

43. Past: QueryTerms Determined Results

44. Today:GoogleKnowsWhatYou WantBetterThan(&Before)
You Do

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

46. DifferentDevices/People;DifferentResults
Seattle,WA Northampton,MA

47. It’s NotJustSearch Suggestions; It’s RankingsToo

48. InSanDiego,
comicsrule:

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

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

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

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

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

54. 8BroadAreasofGoogle’sRankingAlgorithm
(forclassic,ten-blue-linksstyleresults):
Links
Quality of Host
Domain
Query
Satisfaction
User
Experience
Personalization
Technical &
Crawl
KeywordsContent

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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