Semantic Search is the new reality for organic search marketers. However, many of the technical SEO best practices we've become accustomed correspond the the "old world" of traditional SEO, and not the "new world" of Semantic Search. Learn how to start thinking about identifying and prioritizing optimization tasks in the Semantic Search world.

1. Technical SEO in a
Semantic Search World
Ethan Hays
Head of Digital Products
gyro
@ethanhays

2. The Web is a Mess
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3. Technical SEO is Table Stakes
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Technical SEO keeps your corner of the web clean, and easy to use.

4. SEO in 2014
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5. Semantic Search Changes Things…
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6. But How?
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Q: How does the Semantic Search model change the way I optimize my site?
A: Not much, if you were doing it right to begin with ;)
Semantic Search has to be integrated into our organizations at the
level of repeatable process, just like “traditional SEO” 5 years ago.
The fundamentals are still important, but they’re evolving.
1. Information architecture
• Depth of site architecture is critical
2. Code
• Establishing process for Schema.org microdata should be started NOW
3. Content
• Auditing for thin content at scale

7. Information Architecture
@ethanhays

8. Depth of Information Architecture
The depth of your IA is one of the most influential factors in how
link authority is distributed through your site.
1. Take an average site with home page authority of 100
2. Each page links to 100 other pages
3. Pages lose ~15% of authority before linking to other pages
(100 * 0.85)/100
(0.85 *0.85)/100
(0.0072 *0.85)/100
Home page
1 click
2 clicks
3 clicks Authority = 0.000061
A page 3 clicks away from
home is 1.6 million times
less authoritative than the
home page!

9. Analyzing Depth of IA
@ethanhays
1. Crawl your site using
ScreamingFrog 2.4
2. See the summary in the
Overview tab as it crawls
3. Export and open .csv
4. Select all crawl data

10. Analyzing Depth of IA (cont.)
@ethanhays
5. Insert > Pivot Table
• Drag Status Code
and Content to
Filter
• Drag Address to
Values
• Drag Level to Row
Labels
• Set Status Code
filter to “200”
• Set Content filter
to “text/html”

11. Code
@ethanhays

12. Schema.org Microdata
@ethanhays
Seachmetrics study data shows us it’s
important:
• Over 36% of Google’s SERPs contain listings with
Schema.org markup
And underutilized:
• Only 0.3% of websites have implemented
Schema.org markup
What’s the disconnect?
• Requires developers to code differently than they’re
accustomed to
• Schema.org is intimidating
 700+ data types in the hierarchy

13. Get Started on Schema.org Now
@ethanhays
Give your developers some background
• Most developers appreciate good technical documentation
• What is Schema.org? – LRMI whitepaper is a great place to start
Break the task into manageable chunks
• Don’t try to solve for all the data types at once
• Focus on the data types that are applicable to the largest number of pages
Give them concrete examples they can code to
• Giving them HTML for a correctly coded page
• Tell them to make the rest of the pages of that type look like the example

14. Use Handy Tools
1. Go to Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper
2. Select what kind of page you’re tagging
3. Enter the URL

15. Tag Your Stuff
4. Select elements on your page
5. Apply the correct labels
6. Continue highlighting and adding data items
7. Click “Create HTML”

16. Create Your Source Code
8. Click “Finish”
9. Click “Download”
10. Advanced SEO Power Move:
a. Sit down with your developers
b. Walk them through each line of added code
c. Sit down with QA to create test cases to verify correct implementation

17. What Data Types Apply to My Pages?
Use AlchemyAPI and plug in your most common page types:

18. Content
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19. Analyzing Word Count
@ethanhays
• Go to crawl data
• Insert > Pivot Table
 Drag Content and
Status to Filter
 Drag Address to
Values
 Drag Word Count
to Row Labels
 Set Content filter to
text/html
 Group your data
• Right click any
row
• Select Group
• Enter 200 in
the By: field

20. Analyzing Word Count (cont.)
@ethanhays
• You get a nice
grouping of pages
with what is likely
“thin” content
• Go back to the crawl
data worksheet
• Select the Word
Count column
• Apply a number
filter [Less than
200]
• You have a list of
content to
prioritize for
improvement

21. Accelerate Into The Turn
• Semantic Search is going to accelerate the rate of change in SEO.
• Begin to get your head around how you’re going to implement and drive
organizational adoption.
• What separates a website with good SEO from one with great SEO is rarely
how much technical knowledge the SEO has.
• It’s how good you are at communicating the why behind your
recommendations:
• Building a business case
• Educating your C-suite
• Integrating SEO into product manager & developer workflows

22. Thank You!
@ethanhays