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Survey: SEO Assumptions
Conducted by:Eli SchwartzOnline Marketing ManagerSurveyMonkey
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Background
• We created a survey to test 16 common SEO assumptions • The survey was conducted via the SurveyMonkey Audience
tool• Respondents were randomly assigned into 1 of 2 surveys
with 16 questions• Survey sent to 3,000 people• Survey was open for 5 days• 615 people participated• The following slides show a comparison of means between
the 2 surveys when the data was shown to be statistically significant
• 2 surveys: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/seo-assumption-1 & https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/seo-assumption-2
• Actual survey response data: http://bit.ly/12kS2DfSlide
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Who answered the surveys? Survey 1
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Who answered the surveys? Survey 2
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Summary of conclusions
• Search users are biased towards Google, but they consider Bing’s results to be of equal quality to Google when branding is swapped
• A branded site impacts a user’s level of trust on content• An increase in Facebook likes influence a users likelihood of
sharing content• An increase in Tweets influences a users likelihood of sharing
content• An increase in Google Pluses influences a users likelihood of
sharing content• Linking to high quality sites makes a site/content more
trustworthy• US users do not seem biased towards .COM vs .CA• Users trust a guest post less when told that it is a guest post• An exact match domain makes a user more likely to do an
action like fill out a lead
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Summary of conclusions cont’d
• The publish date of content does not seem to affect user trust
• Poor grammar and spelling impacts user trust of content• The greatest reasons users would block a site from
appearing in search is because of “too many ads” and “poor content”
• If a user does not find what they expect on a webpage after clicking from search they will most likely go back to Google and click another result
• 33% of users start web surfing on Google• 76% of users rely on Google to search for information• Users appear to be able to guess the context of a link
whether there is optimized anchor text or not
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Question 1: Do users prefer Google or Bing
• Users in survey 1 were shown a Google search result page and a Bing Search Result page for the query “File taxes”. The headers on the SERP page showed whether it was a Bing or Google result
• Users in survey 2 were shown a Google search result page and a Bing Search Result page for the query “File taxes”. The headers on the SERP page were swapped, and users choosing Bing’s results actually thought they were picking Google.
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Question 1: Do users prefer Google or Bing
Google results labeled as Bing
Bing results labeled as Google
Bing results
Google results
Conclusion:Users are biased towards Google as a result of the brand
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Q2: How much does brand matter for trust?
• Users in survey 1 were asked about their level of trust for an article published on CNN.com
• Users in survey 2 were asked about their level of trust for an article published on Internetnews.com
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Q2: How much does brand matter for trust?
Conclusion:Users have a greater degree of trust for content on a recognized brand
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Q3: Impact of Facebook Likes
• In survey 1 users were told that there were a large number of Likes on an article, and asked if they were likely to read the content.
• In survey 2 users were told that there were a small number of Likes on an article, and asked if they were likely to read the content.
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Q3: Impact of Facebook Likes
Conclusion:Facebook likes do impact the likelihood of reading content
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Q4: Impact of Tweets
• In survey 1 users were told that there were a large number of Tweets on an article, and asked if they were likely to read the content.
• In survey 2 users were told that there were a small number of Tweets on an article, and asked if they were likely to read the content.
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Q4: Impact of Tweets
Conclusion:Tweets do impact the likelihood of reading content
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Q5: Impact of G Plus
• In survey 1 users were told that there were a large number of Google pluses on a photo, and asked if they were likely to share the photo.
• In survey 1 users were told that there were a small number of Google pluses on a photo, and asked if they were likely to share the photo.
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Q5: Impact of G Plus
Conclusion:Pluses do impact the likelihood of sharing content
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Q6: External links conveying trust
• In survey 1 users were told that a site they read links out to well known sites.
• In survey 2 users were told that a site they read links out to unknown sites.
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Q6: External links conveying trust
Conclusion:Outbound links do impact the trust of a site by users
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Q7: US user trust of ccTLD
• In survey 1 users were told that they read an article on unknown .COM site
• In survey 2 users were told that they read an article on unknown .CA site
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Q7: US user trust of ccTLD
Conclusion:ccTLD does not significantly impact trust
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Q8: Trust of guest posts
• In survey 1 users were informed that a writer was a staff writer and asked to rate their trust of the article
• In survey 2 users were told that a writer was a volunteer writerand asked to rate their trust of the article
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Q8: Trust of guest posts
Conclusion:Users trust a guest poster less than a staff writer
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Q9: Exact match domain as a level of trust
• In survey 1 users were told that the site they are looking at is an exact match for the business they sought.
• In survey 2 users were told that the site they are looking at is a random domain name for the service they sought
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Q9: Exact match domain as a level of trust
Conclusion:Domain name match to query does motivate trust
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Q10: Freshness
• In survey 1 users were told that the article was 10 days old
• In survey 2 users were told that the article was 2 years old
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Q10: Freshness
Conclusion:Publish date on evergreen content had no significant difference
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Q11: Spelling and Grammar
• In survey 1 users were shown an article about oil changes as it was published on Discovery.com. Users were asked to assess their trust of the article.
• In survey 2 users were shown the same article about oil changes but typos were inserted and obvious grammar issues were inserted.. Users were asked to assess their trust of the article.
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Q11: A
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Q11: B
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Q11: Spelling and Grammar
Conclusion:Spelling and grammar impact trust
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Q12: Users block sites in search
• This question was the same in both surveys
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Q12: Users block sites in search
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Q13: When users bounce
• This question was the same in both surveys
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Q13: When users bounce
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Q14: First website users go to
This question was the same in both surveys
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Q14: First website users go to
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Q15: Where users search for information
• This question was the same in both surveys
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Q15: Where users search for information
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Q16: Linking and context
• In survey 1 users were shown an article that used exact anchor text to link to another site
• In survey 2 users were shown an article that used a domain name as the anchor text to link to another site
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16A: Linking and context (exact match)
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16A: Linking and context (domain name)
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Q16: Linking and context
Link contained anchor text
Link did not contain anchor text
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Thank you!
Questions? Email: [email protected] or get in touch on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/schwartze