building a future proof plan for organic local search rankings by mike stewart pubcon new orleans...

@smbSEO @dallasSEOguru

ORGANIC LOCAL

Building a Future Proof Plan For

SEARCH RANKINGS


“Computers are incredibly fast,

accurate, and stupid. Humans are

incredibly slow inaccurate and brilliant. Together they are

powerful beyond imagination.”


“Greatness is won, not awarded.”GUY KAWASAKI


Making that moneyyy!ME


MY STORY

2000

2009Media

ConsultantGTE/Verizon Yellow Pages

Decided to build“a better mousetra

p”

Yellow Pages

Multi Product

Digital Marketing

Local Search

Paid Search

Organic Search


Double TruckI THINK


INSPIRATION TO DO GREATNESS?Telling Stories is Much Better Than “Buying Links or Ads”


MORE THAN EVER

- SOMEONE SMART

“The opposite of networking is NOT working"


MORE THAN EVER

- ALBERT EINSTEIN

“Imagination is more important than knowledge"


WE THINKGOOGLE WON

VS.


THE LOCAL SEARCH S-

CURVE


MONOPOLIES DIE…


THINK BEYOND GOOGLE SEARCH…


SEARCH WILL BE COMMANDS


Siri, Amazon, Facebook, Bing


#SEOLIFE

SEO SEOVS.


GUIDELINES FOR LINK BUILDING:

Google says, “Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site's ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.”

Google even allows you to report

paid links here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/paidlinks?pli=1

Google also reverse engineers link data with disavow tool in Webmaster Tools

Bing says, http://www.bing.com/webmaster/help/link-building-7a3f99b7


WHAT GETS YOUR SITE IN ‘TROUBLE”?

Buying Links Automated Link Building

Large Scale Article Marketing

Unnatural Link Acquisition Rates

Footer Links Unnatural Networks

Blog Roll Links Duplicate Content

Links Pages Heavily Optimized Anchor Text Link Profile


THAT’S NOT ALL

Excessive Forum Comments Excessive Blog Comments

Low Quality Directory Links Hidden Links

Paid Advertorials Guest Blog Posts

Press Releases with Optimized Anchor Text


HOW GOOGLE DEFINES PAGERANK:


PAGERANK IS LIKE HIGH SCHOOL


Dumb it down forSTAKEHOLDERS


SEO 101


WHAT IS SEO?

Back to basics: SEO is about creating, editing, organizing and delivering content and metadata to increase relevance to specific keywords on the web.


INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE


SALES “FUNNEL” MOVES

FASTER IN LOCAL.


Directional Media Hasn’t Changed in 100 Years

CAT/GEO KEYWORDS ARE LOCAL INTENT!


BUT NOBODY SEARCHES:

I love “Content Marketing” …


Keyword Rich Anchor Text is

Dead.


HOW MANY SEARCH?


LOCAL SEARCH DATA IS NO LONGER FREE


The ONLY Accurate TOOL for LOCAL

KEYWORD DATA is


Must have a “LOCAL PPC GURU”


Starts with a strong

foundation


PRODUCT/SERVICE CITY APPEAL

• NAP information• Hours• "Doors" - email, form, online chat, etc• Trust signals / Credibility factors• Compelling strategic statement• Call to action• Location specific metadataBonus:• Unique location specific details on page


60-90 SECOND VIDEO OVERVIEW


PPC ARCHITECTURE


CITY TARGETED SERVICE TERMS 3- KEYWORD

MATCH TYPES


METRO TARGETED CAT/GEO TERMS

KEYWORD MATCH

TYPES


DYNAMIC NUMBER INSERTION


CLICK TO CALL ATTRIBUTION BY SOURCE


YOU KNOW WHAT CITATIONS ARE?

Local Citation is simply where your company is mentioned on other websites and places found on the Internet.

Consistent “Normalized” NAP – Name Address and Unique Phone Number

Any Website May Provide a Local Citation, Emphasis on IYP and Directory Sites


PHONE DATA DRIVEN SYSTEMS

RCF / Telebranch from Local Telco Provides Advantages especially for Service Area Businesses

• Create New Franchise Locations • B1 Line Feeds to Data Centers vs Ambiguity of

Cellular Business Data• Match Your Listed Address to a “Physical Mail Box

Service Address”• Make Sure Office Staff Confirm NAP for “India”

Record Update Calls


25% OF THE IS CREDITED TO CITATIONS


The moment you realize the best answer to a question seldom gets the link.


THE GOOGLE WAY TO BUILD LINKS

• The only authentic link building method for small businesses is to build brand ambassadors, perform real outreach with relevant and useful content and PR.

• Specific business branding goals should have nothing to do with rankings... Blah blah blah blah blah…..

• Google says: “The best way to get other sites to create high-quality, relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can naturally gain popularity in the Internet community.”


#CUREMIGRAINE

S

How do you build content engagement?


FIRST, DETERMINE:Is the client an expert? Do they have a marketing team? Determine early if they (the client) can execute tactics.

You can’t fake the funk because it costs too much to do it consistently enough. Natural links originate from natural organic solutions to customer problems and ideas.


AUTHORSHIP EFFECTS LINK EARNING

• Direct impact on CTR of content which is factored into the algo (google tests results to see what sites drive better engagement)

• Authors post share worthy content to your (fully complete personalized social Profile Pages (Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn and twitter) to attract more links.

• Make content easy to share by adding relevant social share buttons

• Link out to profiles from profiles (this should be common sense)

• This will legitimize/increase AUTHORity ranking signals

• Comment, Engage, and Tweet to industry authorities about your topic.

• It you don't have an Author take advantage of rel=publisher


REPUTATION MANAGEMENT LINK BUILDING 101

“What others say about you matters

more than what you/your brand says

about you/it”


You need about this many links for most competitive

LOCAL KEYWORDS:


THE BEST LINK IS….The best local link is the one on Google local front page for your keyword and city.

The second best links are the ones that ultimately get you on the first page of Google for that product or service local cat/geo term… including PPC!

Reviews and reputation --- Reviews directly impact local page rankings. Don’t forget that Reviews are also links.


“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” ROBERT LOUIS

STEVENSON


Like content marketing on your site, Offsite you also must decide "who is your audience" and what they want to know.need


Teach your customers and friends to talk about your brand and blog about you. Ask customers where they go for information and how they search. Find out what customers are authors (mommy bloggers, journalists, critics, forum members, personalities, publishers, etc.)


WHAT DO

YOU SEE?


WHAT REALLY GETS SHARED?


7 SIMPLE CONTENT IDEAS THAT DRIVE SHAREABILITY:

1. GIVE: Offers, discounts, deals or contests that everyone can benefit from

2. ADVISE: Tips, especially about problems that everyone encounters; how to do something

3. WARN: Warnings about dangers that could affect anyone

4. AMUSE: Funny pictures and quotes, as long as they’re not offensive to any group- sometimes

5. the humor isn’t quite as strong

or edgy- it has to appeal to a general audience

5. INSPIRE: Inspirational quotes

6. AMAZE: Amazing pictures or facts

7. UNITE: A post that acts as a flag to carry and a way to brag to others about your membership in a group that’s doing pretty darned good, thank you very much.


DON’T CREATE SILLY GOALS!Like’s – Tweets – Retweets – Shares

Good KPI for: Content QualityEngagement RatesMeasuring a Loss of Exposure


1. Shareable Content On You Site. Got a WordPress Plugin?

2. Content People Want to Share

3. Great content has social proof.


DIGITAL ASSETS ANYONE?Origin Stories Contest or Quiz or SurveysTreasure HuntGiveaway gifts to charity Frequently Asked QuestionsTips and Adviceinterview an expert who is influentialinterview a political candidate Questionable/controversial content gets shared, opinions do matter)Paid celebrity endorsementsProduct ReviewsBIO pages

How To pagesResearch info White papersCase studies InfographicsStatisticsPolling Links PagesReviews/RecommendationsQ & A customers and vendors Customer journey storiesHow you fixed a migraine personal testimony/story

Live Streaming Video (webinars, ustream, hangouts)Blog CommentsPosting about postsLive BloggingEvent coverage Community engagement Charities Volunteer locallyTours News reporting Press releases


EMAIL OPEN RATES REALLY DON’T MATTER TO CLIENTS

Outreach email via Brand Persona

Requires Client Approval

Using @website.com client email

You are “networking” on behalf of…


UNDERSTANDING BACKLINK DATA


Roughly 50% of link data is in MajesticSEO, OpenSiteExplorer, Webmaster Tools, AHREFs

All it takes to make that % higher is for the webmaster to block a few bots


Variables move in same direction. Value of one increases the value of the other.

POSITIVE CORRELATION

STRONG CORRELATION

NEGATIVE CORRELATION

WEAK CORRELATION

Variables move in opposite direction. Value of one decreases value of the

other.

Variables are tight together. Variables are spread apart.


COMPETITOR LINKS?


DON’T JUST LOOK FOR COMPETITOR’S LINKS

Subject Matter Expert Blogs

Journalists

Related or Complementary Service Sites

Review Sites

Contribute Good Advice to Negative Reputation Sites


GEOARBITRAGE YOUR CAMPAIGN WORK

Geoarbitrage: to leverage global pricing and currant differences for profit or lifestyle

purposes

This does not mean outsource and automate natural human networking

efforts.

India can speak “YES/NO”


LINK LIST QUALIFICATION PROCESS

How to Use Amazon Mechanical Turk to Qualify URLs from a Link List?

Gather link prospect list in spreadsheet

Upload to Amazon Mechanical Turk

Define the question you are posting to Amazon Turkers: “Is this website relevant to this specific topic (yes/no)?”

Score this on a 1 to 10 scale. (2 cents or 5 cents each task)

Dig Deeper: Get Contact Information from the relevant links with a second Amazon Mechanical Turk job


WOULD YOU PAY THIS FOR CONTACT INFO?

Review over 1000 Scored URLs for Outreach Opportunities

• Separate Contact HITS in Groups of Hundreds

• Title Your Tasks “Quick and Easy”

• Start by Going After the 7-10 Scored URLs


BUYING TEXT LINKS


IS THIS LINK QUESTIONABLE?


SPAMMY LINKS POINTING TO:

White Hat Sites Black Hat Sites

Shielded from Spammy links, paid links, and link

networks or Negative SEO.Links cause serious harm. Negative SEO harms the

site


White Hat Sites Black Hat Sites

The Holistic & Multi-Channel Approach

• Uniquely Original Content Produced by Owner with Customer Journeys

• Link Profile is Out of the MajesticSEO “Gutter”

• Minimal % of Reciprocal Links• No Spammy Paid Directories• Minimal % of Forum Links• Zero: dofollow: comment

Spam Links

The “SCROOGLE” Approach

• Keyword Based Content That is SEO-Targeted without User Consideration

• Link Profile is All in the MajesticSEO “Gutter”

• High % of Reciprocal Links• Spammy Paid Directories• High % of Forum Links• Many :dofollow: comment

Spam Links


LINK WHEELS & FARMS

Link farms. Setting up a lot of sites just to link to the sites you wish to help rank better is very easily detected through link analysis.

Instead of focusing on getting links through tricks and shortcuts, instead focus on developing compelling content for your site, and interacting with the public through blogging and social media activities.


WEBRINGS“Webrings are similar to link exchanges, but they involve more than two sites. They’re essentially a club of sites that are associated by a common subject matter topic, and they link to each other in a ring.”

Webrings started way before WordPress blogs, BlogSpot, and open-sourced content management systems.

Now Google Hates THEM!.


RECIPROCAL LINKS

Since When is Reciprocity a Bad Thing?


DOES GOOGLE REALLY PENALIZE FOR SPAM?


HOW DID I GET TO THE PAGE?


Ranks on the 1st Page


WHY PEOPLE USE BLACK HAT PRACTICES:

• Because they can get away with it

• Because they disagree with Google’s policies

• Because the “quick” money is good

• Because white hat strategies just don’t work on a very small budget


It hurts when people get what they do/don’t deserve.


Ask Yourself: Do You Follow All Rules to a Tee?


BAD ADVICE• Multiple Hosting

Accounts / VPS

• Separate Class C’s

• Multiple Link Types & No Keyword Anchor-Text

• Unique Templates/Themes

• No Google Ban From Building Links Quickly

• Block the Bots w/ .htaccess Block List

• Great User Content “Related” to Money Site

• No Interlinking and strictly :nofollow:

• Expired Domains


WAIT FOR IT


TIPS FOR AGENCIES• Avoid the following clients:

• Won’t invest in real work (lazy)

• Have very little to risk (rank, bank, and tank approach)

• Have no brand

• Hired a dirty link building company in the past (most of the cleanup crew happens to be the guys that built the mess, don’t be surprised the they offer cleanup or sell access to cleanup (negative

SEO is real)

• Have something to hide (no persona behind the business)

• Reputation and customer service issues galore

• #1: Have never hired an agency before… learning how to work with you vs against you on your dime?


LINKBUILDING TOOL BAG• My Favorites:

• http://www.buzzstream.com/link-building

• http://www.analyticsseo.com/

• http://ubersuggest.org/

• http://getlisted.org

• https://followerwonk.com/

• http://majesticseo.com

• My Ultimate Favorite: https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome


GET IN TOUCH WITH ME:[email protected]

Slides available atwww.slideshare.net/smbseo

Understanding The Basics of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) (Internet Marketing Series) [Kindle Edition]