Dave Collins: SEO Demystified: Practical Techniques That Produce Astonishing Results – MicroConf Europe 2013

The MicroConf Europe 2013 Hub Page with all the information can be found here

Speaker: Dave Collins (@thedavecollins)

Also see the notes on the talk from MicroConf in Las Vegas

SEO

• 70% 60% 50% of SEO is simple!
• SEO is dead – but Dave Collins knows how to revive it!
• SEOs don’t have a good reputation, rightfully: They often don’t deliver
• For every person who knows what tey’re talking about with SEO, there are _______ who are talking out of their _____
• You want relevant visitors
• Google wants relevant visitors to find you
• Users want HELP!

Google’s role

• Wants to get rid of:
  • keyword stuffing
  • hidden keywords
  • shallow content
  • all forms of spam

The new SEO – Guiding Google

• Brute force doesn’t work – you can’t fight Google
• Help them understand your content
• The SEO cycle aligns itself only when SEOs give Google what USERs are looking for
• Distinction Black Hat – White Hat is obsolete. Nothing illegal about “Black Hat” – Even Dave did “spammy” stuff in the past (Testing)
• Getting “slapped” by Google does not feel like a slap – it’s a punch
• Optimized pages should NOT look like optimized pages (e.g. keyword stuffing)
• No “cunning plan” will work – at least not for long
• SEO has become much much harder in the last year –> Opportunity: your competitors won’t do it anymore

How to deal with (not provided) and Google’s changes

• “(not provided)” is killing keyword data
• Steps to deal with (not provided):
  • Google Webmaster Tools (shows some keyword data, good enough for trends)
  • Google Analytics
  • Keyword Rank Tracking
  • Keyword Research (e.g. using Google’s Keyword Planner)
• You are up for a fight against Google itself – i.e. Knowledgegraph (showing information directly in the SERPs)
• And now there’s Hummingbird (In Dave’s words: Knowledgegraph 2.0)

So what lies ahead, Dave?

• More pain
• Less accuracy, more extrapolation
• It’s going to be about the keywords
  • one main keyword per page
• Keyword research process
  • Brainstorm (pen & paper)
  • Analytics
  • Competition
  • Keyword planner
  • Identify primary keyword
  • Identify supporting keywords
  • Analytics (existing)
  • Analysis
  • Decision: optimise existing page or create new page?
  • Link in the content

Keyword Planner

• can only use with Google Adwords account
• Helps you find keyword ideas
• Do keyword research this way: (for secondary keywords)
  1. NOT “ad group ideas”, select “keyword ideas”
  2. Export to Excel CSV
  3. Keywords Performance Indicator = Searches ^ 2 / competition
  4. Delete not related keywords
  5. Insert small number of those words into your content – need to blend in seamlessly

Content Marketing

• It is about adding value
• People are supposed to like reading your content – tell a good story!
• If people like your content, they will share it
• Secret to good rankings: Write epic content!

-Christoph