Cyrus will cover the latest updates and trends including Google’s Fred Update, AMP, Progressive Web Apps, and more. In this session, we’ll also cover how search behavior has evolved and how publishers can best stay ahead of the curve.
17. Problem: Link Building, But No Rankings
https://moz.com/blog/what-link-building-success-really-looks-like
18. Truth #1: You Need Links to Rank
https://www.semrush.com/ranking-factors/
19. Truth #2: Google Ignores Your Links
https://moz.com/blog/state-of-links
20. Penguin 1-3
• Updates Pushed All At Once
• Steep Dives and Recovery
• +Manual Penalties
21. Penguin 4: Kinder, Gentler
• Real-time: Fewer Steep Dives
• More Links Ignored vs. Whole Site Penalized
• Fewer Manual Penalties
22. Strategies
1. Build Links, You Need Them
2. Double down on Relevancy+Intent
3. Pro Tip: Reavowing Links
https://www.blueglass.co.uk/blog/removing-disavow-file-seo-test
37. Winning Carousels = Additive Traffic12.3% of Google Web Queries have Featured Snippets
https://ahrefs.com/blog/featured-snippets-study/
38. Winning Carousels = Additive Traffic71% of Featured Snippets Yield Voice Answers
https://moz.com/blog/lessons-from-1000-voice-searches
71%
39. Winning Carousels = Additive TrafficDo Featured Snippets Earn More Traffic?
28.9%
14.3%
10.0%
CTR
https://www.advancedwebranking.com/cloud/ctrstudy/
40. Winning Carousels = Additive TrafficYes! (but only if you win)
+8.6%
19.6%
6-8%
https://ahrefs.com/blog/featured-snippets-study/
41. Winning Carousels = Additive TrafficHacking Featured Snippets: The Easy Way
1. Featured snippet
matches regular snippet
90% of time!
2. 75% are at least 3 lines
3. Include the question
4. Answer in 40-60 words
https://www.stonetemple.com/featured-snippets-new-Insights-new-opportunities/
51. What’s the price? Where are they?
How do I get there?
Can I make reservations?
What’s the website?
Hacking Intent: Answer More Questions
52. Hacking Intent: Better (linking)
Out than Back
• Link to Authorative Resources
• Internal or external
• Going forward is better than
going back
• Several Patents+Case Studies
support this concept
60. 1. Avoid Keyword Cannibalization
2. Alt Text for Improved Rankings
3. PageRank Sculpting = Not Effective
4. External Links = Not a Ranking Factor
4 Pillars of SEO Wisdom:
61. In the same way that Google trusts sites
less when they link to spammy sites or bad
neighborhoods, parts of our system
encourage links to good sites.
https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pagerank-sculpting/
- Matt Cutts, June 15, 2009
External Links = A Ranking Factor?
62. https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pagerank-sculpting/
- John Mueller, Sept 25, 2015
…links from your site to other people’s sites
isn’t specifically a ranking factor. But it can
bring value to your content and that in turn
can be relevant for us in search.
External Links = Not a Ranking Factor!?
74. …you certainly can sculpt your PageRank. I wouldn’t necessarily do
it with the nofollow tag…
When people talk about PageRank sculpting, they tend to think
nofollow and all that sort of stuff, but in some sense the ways you
choose to create your site–your site architecture–and how you link
between your pages is a type of PageRank sculpting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4IE4WLPLZQ
- Matt Cutts, 2009
Site Architecture = PageRank Sculpting