search: the possibilities
DESCRIPTION
Graham Wilkinson, Client Performance Director at Columbus, presented on Search Engine Optimisation at the second of the Digital Communication in Government series on December 10. The series focuses on improving digital capabilities across the Victorian Public Service and promoting best practice. http://dpc.vic.gov.au/index.php/resources/communication/digital-communication-in-government-seriesTRANSCRIPT
Search – The PossibilitiesGraham Wilkinson – Client Performance Director
Content
Search: What and why? SEO: A constant evolution Search result formats: New and improved
SearchWhat and why?
Search starts with the web
30 TRILLIONIT’S MADE UP OF OVER
INDIVIDUAL PAGESAND IT’S CONSTANTLY GROWING
Google navigates the web by crawling
In other words, Google follow links from page to
page.Site owners choose whether their sites are crawled.
Everything is tracked in the index
Pages are sorted by their content and other factors.
It’s over 100 million gigabytes.
Spelling
Autocomplete Synonyms
QueryUnderstanding
SearchMethods
GoogleInstant
When a search takes place
Algorithms look for clues to better understand what your search query means.
Based on these clues, relevant documents are pulled from the
index.
The results are then ranked
Site & Page
Quality
Freshness
User Context
Translation
UniversalSearch
Over 200 factors are considered by the algorithms.
• How trustworthy, reputable or authoritative is a source?
• What is the most recent version of news and information?
• Where is the user and what is their search history?
• What are the users language settings?
• How can image, news, maps, video and personal content be blended best to provide the best results?
The resultsThis happens in 1/8th second.
What is search engine marketing?
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
“The act of marketing a website via search engines, whether this be
improving rank in organic listings, purchasing paid listings or a
combination of these and other search related activities.”
Paid Search (PPC)
“The act of obtaining
position within the paid, or sponsored
listings via a paid media placement
on a search engine results page. (SERP)”
Organic/Natural Search (SEO)
“The act of enhancing or optimising a website to obtain top placement
within the organic listings on a SERP.”
The power of search marketing
Proactive Consumption
Consumers seek out and indicate an active interest
in specific content, products and/or services
Mass Customization
Marketers can display a different listing to each
consumer based on perceived intent of his/her
query
Instant Direction
Consumers are instantly directed to a specific
destination based on the query they entered
Performance Pricing
Marketers name their price in real-time and pay only
for actual traffic delivered to their website
SEOA constant evolution
Major changes to the Google algorithm
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2020?
LSI, anchor text relevance, link
‘neighborhoods’, invisible text, META-
tag stuffing
BRANDY & AUSTIN
News, video, images & local introduced
into the SERP
UNIVERSAL SEARCH
Social signals, review sentiment
and real-time search results
SOCIAL & INSTANT
Penalties for over-optimised pages,
keyword stuffing and poor page layout
PENGUIN
Personalised search, no-follows, XML
sitemaps, duplicate content,
low-quality link
BOURBON & JAGGER
Suggested search terms in a dropdown
GOOGLE SUGGEST
Increased branding emphasis and real-
time search including Twitter feeds, Google
News and fresh content
VINCE & CAFFEINE
Poor content practices,
Schema.org, search query encryption, content freshness
PANDA & +1
Search the web using Google
Technical SEO – Just being visibleLinking – Very spammy low quality linksContent - Relevant & Authoritative On Page Optimisation – Stuffing as many keywords as possibleSuccess - Keyword Position & Rankings
SEO
SEO in 1998
SEO in 2013
Social profiles100,000 followers on Google+
Recent posts
Do your social profiles stack up against your competition and are you making the most out of them?
Technical SEOwww.technicalseo.com.au/TechnicalSEOPage speed and site architecture
Linkingwww.linking.com.au/LinkingHigh quality links for the updated algorithm
Contentwww.content.com.au/ContentFresh, authoritative and diverse
Socialwww.social.com.au/Social Rating: 4 – 500,000 votesSocial signals and authorship
Successwww.success.com.au/SuccessTraffic and holistic search performance
How to think about SEO?
OLD SEO: How do I rank for this query?
How do I best answer the questions that my users have?
NEW SEO:
Search result formatsNew and improved
PAID
ORGANIC
Revamped ad formats
Yellow ad labels replace the previous shading that distinguished paid ads
Branded search
Local search results
Google hotel finder
Points of interest
Video and image in search
Product listing ads
Ratings and reviews in search
Thank You