Cyrus Shepard's PeepCon 3.0 keynote

1. State of SE0: 2018
@CyrusShepard • PeepCon 2018 • Manila

2. Danger vs. Opportunity

3. How you imagine your SEO:
Knowledgeable • Dedicated • Expert

4. Your actual SEO:
Busy • Not an Expert • Million Other Things to Do

5. ~150,000 People with "SEO"
in their Job Title
2.4 Million with "SEO" in their profile!

6. 2009: Known Updates

7. 2017: Mystery Meat

8. Traffic Visibility
Changing Definition of SEO

9. Traffic Visibility
Changing Definition of SEO

10. SERP Feature Explosion

11. Links to Google: 50
External Links: 40
Smaller Organic Link Ratio

12. • 2 Ads
• 1 Knowledge Panel
• Related Searches
• 6 Websites
Fewer Unique Web Results

13. Featured Snippets
12%+ Have
Featured
Snippets,
and Growing
https://ahrefs.com/blog/featured-snippets-study/

14. Featured Snippet Explosion
1. Double Snippets
2. Multiple Snippets
3. Video Snippets

15. Winning Carousels = Additive TrafficYes! (but only if you win)Research: Snippets Reduce Clicks
https://ahrefs.com/blog/featured-snippets-study/
4% Fewer
Clicks with
Featured
Snippets

16. Winning Carousels = Additive TrafficYes! (but only if you win)Related Questions
https://ahrefs.com/blog/featured-snippets-study/
34% of SERPS
Feature Related
Questions

17. Longer Meta Descriptions
Old: ~150
Characters
New: ~300
Characters
= Each Meta Description Becomes a Featured Snippet!

18. Ads + Google Properties
Especially prevalent in
• Travel
• Shopping
• Video
Verticals

19. 50% of all
searches by
2020 – 2 years!
Click-less Searches

20. 40%+ of Searches = No Click
https://moz.com/blog/state-of-searcher-behavior-revealed

21. https://moz.com/rand/seo-opportunity-growing-shrinking/
Are people clicking?

22. https://moz.com/rand/seo-opportunity-growing-shrinking/
Mobile No-Clicks Up

23. https://moz.com/rand/seo-opportunity-growing-shrinking/
Fewer clicks/search
26% Decline
From 11/15

24. Google Ad Revenue Up
Google Ad
Revenue Up 23%
YOY

25. But… Opportunities
Focus on birds in hand!
Or… why SEO is still
your best investment

26. https://moz.com/rand/seo-opportunity-growing-shrinking/
Growing Search Volume
26% Decline
From 11/05

27. 2.6%
O n l y
o f s e a r c h
q u e r i e s
results in an
a d c l i c k
Ads Capture Only Fraction of ClicksAd Blindness is Real
https://moz.com/blog/state-of-searcher-behavior-revealed

28. Google Sends More Traffic Than
Anyone Else
bit.ly/execseo2017

29. Top Ecommerce Marketing Channel
https://conversion.com/ecommerce-performance-report-2018/

30. Traffic
Visibility
Changing Definition of SEO

31. Show Me the Opportunities

32. Winning Carousels = Additive TrafficYes! (but only if you win)Yes, Featured Snippets Lower Clicks
https://ahrefs.com/blog/featured-snippets-study/
4% Fewer
Clicks with
Featured
Snippets

33. Winning Carousels = Additive TrafficYes! (but only if you win)
9%
20%
7%
Snippets Lower CTR, Unless You Win
https://ahrefs.com/blog/featured-snippets-study/
1) 28%
2) 14%
3) 10%
9%
Without
Snippets
With
Snippets

34. 71%
71% of Featured Snippets Yield Voice Answers
https://moz.com/blog/lessons-from-1000-voice-searches

35. People Also Ask!
Filter for "are
questions"
https://moz.com/explorer/

36. AMP = Not a Ranking Factor,
but an Impression Factor
1. Regular Results
3. Carousels
2. Google Apps
1,000,000+ Publishers Dominate Carousel + App Results

37. Winning Carousel = Additive Traffic
Barry Adams Case Study:
http://www.stateofdigital.com/google-amp-case-studies/

38. Embrace AMP!
80% of SERPS have
no AMP Result
The average
SERP has
only 1.6 AMP
results
https://www.rankranger.com/amp-on-google-serp

39. https://twitter.com/Jonny_J_/status/915327263738130432
Google pre-
renders AMP,
making it
"Instant"
Fast. Faster! Fastest!

40. Google Commissioned Study:
"AMP leads to a
10% increase in
website traffic"
https://www.ampproject.org/latest/blog/amp-two-years-of-user-first-webpages/
(most of these are likely News sites)

41. Google:
http://www.thesempost.com/google-search-amp-clicks-non-news-sites/

42. Mobile Speed!
http://bit.ly/2nXL6Nq

43. A Small Ranking Signal?
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-in-web-search-ranking.html
2010
2013
https://moz.com/blog/improving-search-rank-by-optimizing-your-time-to-first-byte

44. Fundamentals
https://www.slideshare.net/randfish/the-seo-world-in-2018/

45. Fundamentals
https://www.slideshare.net/randfish/the-seo-world-in-2018/

46. Hacking User Satisfaction
Through Engagement Metrics

47. Thanks!
Twitter: @cyrusshepard