SMX Live: The Periodic Table Of SEO: 2012 Edition

8:01:26 AM Barry Schwartz: Starting soon

8:02:05 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:04:39 AM Barry Schwartz: We introduced the Periodic Table Of SEO last year at SMX Advanced. Since then, new elements have been discovered, such as a penalty for pages top-heavy with ads or boosts for being in Google+. Meanwhile, Google warns that an “over-optimization†penalty may be coming.

8:04:52 AM Barry Schwartz: Moderator: Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land (@dannysullivan)
Q&A Moderator: Jonathon Colman, Internet Marketing Manager, REI (@jcolman)
Speakers:
Jeff MacGurn, VP of SEO, Covario (@yerrbo)
Mark Munroe, Senior Director, SEO, Reply (@markemunroe)
Kristine Schachinger, Founder/Consultant, SitesWithoutWalls.com (@schachin)
Chris Silver Smith, President, Argent Media (@si1very)

8:05:09 AM Barry Schwartz: http://searchengineland.com/seotable

8:06:15 AM Barry Schwartz: Chris Silver Smith, President, Argent Media (@si1very) is up first

8:06:36 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:08:13 AM Barry Schwartz: Google is hard to predict

8:08:36 AM Barry Schwartz: 200+ signals, multiple analytics processes, human evals, combinations of those signals, UX components and more

8:09:09 AM Barry Schwartz: Ranking factors may be changed based on query types

8:09:33 AM Barry Schwartz: Quality and trust scores can be accessed separately from prominence, kinda like AdWords Quality Score

8:09:45 AM Barry Schwartz: examples, PageSpeed a factor on both

8:10:42 AM Barry Schwartz: Google looks at quality and trust factors now

8:11:34 AM Barry Schwartz: Trust factors might include sites that have "about us" pages

8:11:50 AM Barry Schwartz: Thin poor content sites do not have "about us" pages

8:14:02 AM Barry Schwartz: Trustworthy sites have contact us pages, have physical addresses, they have executive team profiles, phone numbers, terms and conditions pages, they have copyright statements, they will have current dates, etc.

8:14:57 AM Barry Schwartz: Other signs of authority, stories that have author bio-lines and photos, author profile page, author social media, authorship markup

8:15:38 AM Barry Schwartz: He then zooms into the privacy policy and says it can be a quality signal, a machine readable version as defined by the W3C

8:16:54 AM Barry Schwartz: Truste badges and trust seals could be a sign of quality sites.

8:17:40 AM Barry Schwartz: Spelling and Grammar mistakes can be a sign of low quality

8:18:36 AM Barry Schwartz: Low quality writing can be a sign of low trust

8:19:32 AM Barry Schwartz: Above the fold and page width is possibly a factor

8:20:24 AM Barry Schwartz: Google has a browsersize.google.com

8:21:42 AM Barry Schwartz: There is the page layout algorithm

8:23:47 AM Sico de Andrés: http://browsersize.googlelabs.com/

8:23:55 AM avi: http://browsersize.googlelabs.com/

8:24:07 AM Barry Schwartz: Thanks and now this tool is in Google Analytics, as of yesterday

8:24:34 AM Barry Schwartz: You should look into doing user interface testing and UI research

8:24:39 AM Barry Schwartz: That is about it

8:25:53 AM Barry Schwartz: Next up...

8:26:01 AM Barry Schwartz: Jeff MacGurn, VP of SEO, Covario (@yerrbo)

8:26:10 AM Barry Schwartz: He is talking about micro formats

8:26:17 AM Barry Schwartz: He shows recipes rich snippets

8:26:29 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:26:41 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:26:51 AM Barry Schwartz: Users are more likely to click on them

8:27:06 AM Barry Schwartz: There is a trend for richer snippets across all of Google

8:27:14 AM Barry Schwartz: More information is better in the SERPs

8:27:26 AM Barry Schwartz: Search engines better understand your pages because they have this data

8:27:43 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:28:07 AM Barry Schwartz: Looks, they take over and there is a filter on the left

8:28:32 AM Barry Schwartz: If you use the filter on the left, search results without micro-formatting will be eliminated from the results

8:28:57 AM Barry Schwartz: He said rankings will improve and traffic will increase

8:29:06 AM Barry Schwartz: Now he is talking about Links

8:29:39 AM Barry Schwartz: They did a test, created 5 domains, optimized for 4 nonsensical keywords and created links to a page on each domain

8:29:56 AM Barry Schwartz: Here are the results

8:29:56 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:30:04 AM Barry Schwartz: Wasn't much a difference he said

8:30:45 AM Barry Schwartz: Nofollow isn't really a nofollow, it doesnt mean it doesnt pass anything. There is some benefit he said.

8:31:31 AM Barry Schwartz: Social Signal Test: created and optimized 7 different domains for nonsensical keywords, simultaneously created 6 different social accounts, and they sent a different social signal and monitored on Google

8:31:49 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:31:59 AM Barry Schwartz: Google+ shot up right away, Facebook like did nothing

8:34:06 AM Barry Schwartz: Example:
- Created an orphan page
- Hosted an application (interactive HTML5)
- Promoted on social platforms
- Results were tens of thousands of visits, tens of thousands completed interaction with the app, thousands of stumbles and FB likes, hundres of FB shares, comments and tweets and within 2 weeks ranked #12 for competitive keyword

8:34:58 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:35:00 AM Barry Schwartz: Pinterest study

8:35:46 AM Barry Schwartz: Final Case Study

8:38:41 AM Barry Schwartz: He shows how the SOPA blackouts internet stories spread

8:39:17 AM Barry Schwartz: Craigstlist might have lost 800k in one day for blacking out but maybe the links and press mentions were worth it?

8:39:43 AM Barry Schwartz: They looked at over 10,000 pieces of content on this sopa stuff and less than 15% became popular and only 0.3% went viral

8:40:26 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:41:00 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:41:51 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:44:34 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:44:42 AM Barry Schwartz: Here are key takeaways, sorry - got lazy

8:44:56 AM Barry Schwartz: Finally, don't make it look and feel like spam and it has to be compelling content

8:45:32 AM Barry Schwartz: Mark Munroe, Senior Director, SEO, Reply (@markemunroe) is next up

8:45:48 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:46:19 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:46:41 AM Barry Schwartz: SEO in the past was not hard, now it is really hard

8:46:48 AM Barry Schwartz: Google's goal is?

8:47:38 AM Barry Schwartz: Google wants more money, challenge Facebook with social (Google+), improve search results, want answers right on the results and defend their position

8:48:16 AM Barry Schwartz: They want to give people the most relevant answers, it is relevance and trust

8:48:30 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:48:53 AM Barry Schwartz: He is mostly going to talk about quality

8:49:15 AM Barry Schwartz: Each of these have thresholds

8:49:33 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:50:19 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:50:27 AM Barry Schwartz: User behavior metrics is missing from on page and off page

8:51:14 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:51:43 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:52:16 AM Barry Schwartz: Would they use Google Analytics? He says no because it is a poor absolute metric

8:52:41 AM Barry Schwartz: Would they use Chrome or Toolbar? Probably not he said

8:53:36 AM Barry Schwartz: Bounce Rates: The problem is they change, it is a timing measure, technology changes bounce rates (i.e. ajax) etc, so he doesnt think it is a factor

8:54:01 AM Barry Schwartz: A new metric, Search User Experience (SUX)

8:55:27 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:55:40 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:56:49 AM Barry Schwartz: Google knows stuff about our site that we don't know, they know if the search is being satisfied or not, plus blocked site feature, short clicks, search refinements, alternative clicks, preview and rejection, etc

8:57:39 AM Barry Schwartz: You need to bridge the gap by optimzing the search experience

8:58:11 AM Barry Schwartz: Every keyword, every page is its own unique experience

8:58:31 AM Barry Schwartz: Goals may different between internal company goals and user/searcher goal

8:58:44 AM Barry Schwartz: Everything starts with a question

8:58:56 AM Barry Schwartz: content can not be judged on it's own, only as a response to a query

8:59:13 AM Barry Schwartz: Some engagement tools help if they are a response to the search query

8:59:32 AM Barry Schwartz: Here is the process

8:59:32 AM Barry Schwartz:

8:59:42 AM Barry Schwartz: to optimize the SERP user experience

9:02:28 AM Barry Schwartz: Last up: Kristine Schachinger, Founder/Consultant, SitesWithoutWalls.com (@schachin)

9:04:19 AM Barry Schwartz: So she starts with correlation vs coausation

9:04:33 AM Barry Schwartz:

9:05:03 AM Barry Schwartz: In every causation there is a correlation but not every correlation equals a causation

9:06:25 AM Barry Schwartz:

9:06:37 AM Barry Schwartz: (telling you, taking pics of slides rock)

9:06:51 AM Barry Schwartz: Often correlation is MISTKAN for causation

9:08:38 AM Barry Schwartz: We could make assumptions based on old ideas or incorrect perception. SEO changes every day, every week

9:09:46 AM Barry Schwartz: There are also spurious correlations

9:10:22 AM Barry Schwartz: So this happened when Penguin launched and Panda also updated. People thought they were hit by Penguin when they were hit by Panda

9:11:32 AM Barry Schwartz: So this is why you have to test.

9:13:52 AM Barry Schwartz:

9:14:04 AM Barry Schwartz: Almos tall SEO is correlated

9:14:33 AM Barry Schwartz: That is why when you put 10 SEOs in a room, they all have their own opinion

9:14:41 AM Barry Schwartz: Point is, TEST TEST TEST

9:15:01 AM Barry Schwartz: If you want to be an authority, you need to get a guy who can do scientific testing

9:15:23 AM Barry Schwartz: That is all - I dont think we have Q&A Time

9:15:29 AM Barry Schwartz: That is all