Topic Modeling

OMS Atlanta | July 2011

Writing for People and Search Bots

Gillian MuessigCo-founder and President, SEOmoz

• Topic modeling• Vector space models• SEOmoz’ primary research on

Latent Dirichlet Allocation• Relationship & applications to SEO

Today’s Menu

Search Ranking Factors 2009

Search Ranking Factors 2011

Link Signals

LanguageSignals

Topic Modeling

Topic models provide a simple way to analyze large volumes of unlabeled text.

Topic:A cluster of words that frequently occur together.

Topic Modeling

http://neoformix.com/archive.html

• Use contextual clues• Connect words w/similar meanings• Distinguish between uses of

words w/multiple meanings.

http://www.stanford.edu/~kaisa/research.html

What Topic Modeling Does

Why Engines Need Topic Modeling

Term & Inverse Documents Frequency

Co-Occurence

Topic Modeling

Content-related signals require the ability to determine INTENT

Rock or baseball?Are you SURE?

If Your Response Is…

Simplistic Term Vector Model

Correlation Is Strong

Deviation is Small Standard Deviation

LDA Tool in the Labs

URL input box

LDA Tool in the Labs

Text input box

It’s Relative

•Don't presume that getting a 15% or a 20% is a terrible result

•Some queries simply won't produce results that fit remarkably well with given topics

Causation? Not So Fast!

• Are good links are more likely to point more "relevant” pages?

• Do other aspects of Google's algorithm naturally bias toward these results?

• Correlation is NOT causation!

Causation vs. Correlation

Out of the SERPs!

Keyword spamming might improve your LDA score, …but not your rankings

Don’t

Compare Your FriendsDo

The Whole PictureWhat to Write and How to Write It

OMS Atlanta| July, 2011

How to Build Your Keyword List

OMS Atlanta | July 2011

Salespeople & Customers

Google AdWords Tool

Be Wary ofMatch Type

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Bing AdCenter Excel Plug-In

www.seomoz.org/blog/using-the-adcenter-excel-plugin-for-keyphrase-research

Google Trends

Not Very Accurate

Sign In for Y-Axis Numbers

Internal Site Search Stats

Competitive Keyword Research

Restrict queryto competitor’s

domain

How Tough Is It to Rank for That?

Choose the “Best” Phrases to Target

The Long Tail of Keyword Demand

The Search Demand Curve

Predict Effort Required to Rank Well

How Tough Is It to Rank for That?

How to Write It

OMS Atlanta | July 2011

The Era of In-Your-Face Marketing Is Officially Over

Page Copy Is About More Than Keyword Frequency

Query Deserves Freshness (QDF)

Query Deserves Diversity (QDD)

Avoid Duplicate Content / Use Canonicalization

Hot Topics

These subjects get picked up faster than articles on latent dirichlet allocation

Money | Health | Family

Infographics

Rules of Engagement

• Focus on the issue• Control the trolls

Thank You

Gillian MuessigPresident | Co-founder, SEOmoz

OMS Atlanta | July, 2011

No… REALLY thank-you!

Use code: OMS2011

Try SEOmoz PRO free for 45 days

OMS Atlanta | July 2011

Moz Tools

OMS Atlanta | July, 2011