2012-04 Inbound Marketing; Survival in Classified Ads

Inbound Marketing
Marketing for Survival in Classified Ads

Gillian Muessig – ICMA April 2012

ICMA12
60 days to play
with the Mozzers

The Web’s Most Popular SearchMuessig – ICMA April 2012
Gillian Marketing Software

9% of Internet Users are Using an
Online Classified Site Right Now

Where can you
find an edge?


Inbound Marketing

News/Media/PR
SEO Email
Blogs + Blogging Research/White Papers

Infographics
Comment Marketing

Social Networks
Online Video
INBOUND MARKETING! Webinars
Forums (AKA all the “free” traffic sources)
Document Sharing

Social Bookmarking Word of Mouth

Direct/Referring Links Podcasting

Type-In Traffic Q+A Sites

Interruption vs.
Inbound Marketing


from doing what we
want to do,

That’s Interruption Marketing

Ads

Interruption Marketers Me

How we buy in 2012


R

You don’t buy those visitors.
You earn them.

1999-2002


On-Page Optimization

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization

Slaves to PageRank

http://www.elliance.com/aha/infographics/Google-PageRank-Explained.aspx

PageRank Busted!

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-science-of-ranking-correlations

2003 - 2005


Anchor Text

http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/anchor-text

Keyword-Match Domain
Names

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/exact-match-domains-are-far-too-powerful-is-their-time-limited

Registration & Historical
Information

http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=1121

Topic Modeling

LDA correlates w/
Google rankings
better than any other
on-page feature

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/content-optimization-revisiting-topic-modeling-lda-our-labs-tool

Why Engines Need Topic Modeling

Term Frequency & Inverse
Document Frequency

A clear demo of the inherent weakness of a metric like keyword density

Content related signals
require ability to determine INTENT

Rock, grenade,
or baseball?
Are you SURE?

Causation? Not so fast?

• Good links may be more likely to
point to more "relevant" pages
• Other aspect of Google's algorithm
may naturally bias towards
these pages

Out of the SERPs!

•Keyword Spamming
might improve your
LDA Score, but
probably not your
rankings

How to use topic modeling
• Think about negative keywords
in a similar fashion to negative keywords for ppc.
• Think about positive keywords in localized terms

Perspective: it’s all relative
• The numbers are RELATIVE
•Track numbers over time – shoot for
improvement

2006-2009


Domain Authority

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-domain-authority-page-authority-metrics

External Link Source Diversity

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links

Search Quality Raters

http://www.seobook.com/archives/000915.shtml

2009-2012


Twitter Data

Google:
“We use it as a signal in our organic and
news rankings. We enhance our news
universal by marking how
many people shared an article.”

http://searchengineland.com/what-social-signals-do-google-bing-really-count-55389

Twitter Test

Page A Page B
646 links from 36 root domains 1 link from 1 root domain
2 tweets 522 tweets

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-do-tweets-influence-search-rankings-an-experiment-for-a-cause

Twitter: Clearly Influencing
Google
Page B – the
tweeted version –
ranks #1!
Page A Page B
646 links from 36 root domains 1 link from 1 root domain
2 tweets 522 tweets

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-do-tweets-influence-search-rankings-an-experiment-for-a-cause

Twitter Data for QDF

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tweets-effect-rankings-unexpected-case-study

Author Authority
Do Search Engines Use Author Authority to
Rank Pages in the SERPs?

Google: Yes we compute Bing: Yes. We calculate the
and use author quality. authority of someone who tweets.
We don’t know who For known public figures or
anyone is in real life. publishers, we do associate them
with who they are.

http://searchengineland.com/what-social-signals-do-google-bing-really-count-55389

Facebook Likes & Shares

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/facebook-marketing-ultimate-guide

Brand Signals

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-next-generation-of-ranking-signals

What are Brand Signals?

Brands
Have real people working
at a physical address
Generics
Often exist only online


Brand Signals

Brands
Have authentic, followed
social accounts
Generics
Rarely have significant
social accounts


Brand Signals

Brands
Display obvious, robust
contact information

Generics
Frequently use email
forms only


Brand Signals

Brands
Register with
government/civic
organizations
Generics
Stay “under the radar”


Brand Signals

Brands
Receive traffic from
diverse sources

Generics
Search is often
90%+ of traffic


Brand Signals

Brands
Generate branded search
query volume

Generics
Have little-no branded
search demand


Brand Signals

Brands
Run offline
marketing/advertising
campaigns
Generics
Ignore the offline world


Entity Association


Changing ranking
factors


Search Engine Ranking Factors
2009

http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

Search Engine Ranking Factors
2011
Preliminary Data

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/early-ranking-factors-data-an-april-linkscape-update

Big Changes from 2009 to 2011

• Link-Based Factors are waning
• Social Data is increasing
• Page-Level Link Metrics Fell the Most (43% - 22%)
• Keyword-Level Domain Metrics, Brand Data + Social Rising

The next update of the ranking factors will be online in April, 2013

Pandas and
Farmers


From the Mouths of Googlers

Wired.com:
How do you recognize a
shallow-content site?

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/the-panda-that-hates-farms/all/1


Singhal: we ask…
“Would you be comfortable giving
this site your credit card?
Would you be comfortable giving
medicine prescribed by this site
to your kids?”



Matt Cutts responds: we ask…
1. “Do you consider this site to be
authoritative?
2. Would it be okay if this were in a
magazine?
3. Does this site have excessive ads?”



Wired.com:
How do you implement that algorithmically?



Cutts:
…look for signals that
recreate that same intuition



Singhal:
• Imagine in a hyperspace a bunch of points, some
points are red and some points are green
and in others there’s some mixture.

Your job is to find a plane which says,
Most things on this side of the plane are red
and most of the things on that side
of the plane are the opposite of red.


Googlers want to know…

Are you trustworthy?

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html

Are you an expert? Author?


Are your facts checked?


Are you genuinely interesting?


Is this worthy of
bookmarking?

Sharing?

http://www.brandwatch.com/2012/01/product-update-dashboard-sharing/

Is it a safe place to put my
credit card?

Is this site better than the
competition?

Where we’re headed


Some signals are
shrinking in
importance


What’s out?


Over SEO’ing: OUT!

seo seo seo seoseo seo
seo seo seo seo seo seo seo

Ignoring Online Reputation:
OUT!

What’s In?


Blogging With Social Promotion: IN!

Engines are mining multiple social
platforms to connect keywords to
data: IN!

Depth of Engagement
& Social Reputation: IN!

Engagement ring… get it?

Well Written Content
& LDA Scoring: IN!

Well Managed & Tagged Content:
IN!

Reputation Management
& Monitoring: IN!

Q&A Sites: IN!
Build Your Personal Brand

Competitive Research: IN!

http://www.seomoz.org/tools

More Social Platforms: Coming!

First Touch may not be
search engines: Coming!

Mobile search will continue to
rise: Coming!

Mobile coupons moving paper to
apps: Coming!

Darwinian Tips


SEO is still under-invested

SEO = ~15% of spend
PPC = ~85% of spend

1 Billion searches
per day
1 Billion searchers
per week

Don’t “Look” Like a
Content Farm

http://hubpages.com/hub/WomensFashionsofthe1920-FlappersandtheJazz-Age

Avoid “Classic” SEO Tactics

Directory Link Building Keyword-Variant Abuse

Reciprocal Link Pages Paid Links w/ Manipulative Anchor Text

Sitewide, Footer Links Navigation for Engines, Not Humans

Low Cost/Quality, Outsourced Content Generic Design and Layout

Anonymous Contact Forms Anchor-Text Rich Internal Links

Ad Blocks Dominating the Page Keyword Stuffed Titles + Pages

It’s great to do good SEO, just don’t look like the only reason the site exists is to draw Google traffic

New and evolving
opportunities


Become a “Brand”

Brands Generics
• Have real people working at a physical address • Often exist only online
• Have authentic, followed social accounts • Rarely have significant social accounts
• Display obvious, robust contact information • Frequently use email forms only
• Register with government/civic organizations • Stay “under the radar”
• Receive traffic from diverse sources • Search is often 90%+ of traffic
• Generate branded search query volume • Have little-no branded search demand
• Run offline marketing/advertising campaigns • Ignore the offline world


Do Competitive Research

Where do these
brands earn
their links?

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html
http://www.opensiteexplorer.org

Research Brand “Mention” Sources

Facebook page

Blippr?

Crunchbase profile

App profile on Blackberry

Twitter account

BusinessWeek Profile

Chrome Extension

Mashable Article

Focus on the User
Don’t Forget Engines

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/business/media/11search.html

Leverage rich snippets

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/05/introducing-rich-snippets.html

Be a personal brand: Q & A Sites

http://outspokenmedia.com/social-media/quora-hipsters/

Infographics: Hire guys like this!


When in Rome…
Find Your Corporate Voice

Phenomenal analysis
of statements by
I’m excited to be Googlers + how they
able to share my translate to
life’s passion with content/marketing
you. actions:
http://bit.ly/iGd7Pe


Get your social on

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Get your social on
And now… Pinterest


Gillian Muessig
Founding President, SEOmoz

• Twitter: @SEOmom
Try SEOmoz Free for 60 Days
• Blog: www.seomoz.org/blog ICMA12
• Email: gillian@seomoz.org


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