How to SEO a Terrific - and Profitable - User Experience

Marianne Sweeny@msweeny

marianne@portent.com

How to SEO a Terrific & Profitable User Experience

The Portent Webinar Series

#PORTENTUThis is the hashtag

PORTENT.CO/WUDS77These are the links

(Yes, use .co, not .com)

Locked in Technology• Information Retrieval model• Term frequency

Search Engine Optimization• Algorithms• User dependency

Search engine retaliation• Panda• Penguin

User Experience and SEO• Interaction Design• Site Structure• Navigation• Content• Links

Bs of New SEOKey takeaways

What We’ll Cover Today

Locked in Technology

Digital Maoism: Panda focuses on abstraction more than real people

Computational-ism: Penguin sees a world that can be understood by computer processes with humans as sub-processes

6

IR is Locked-in Technology

Traditional IR Model

7

File organizationindexed documents

Acquisitiondocuments, objects

Representationindexing, ...

Probleminformation need

Representationquestion

Querysearch formulation

Matchingsearching

Retrieved objects

feed

bac

k

System User

Search Engine Optimization

t = how many times the query appears in a document

T = total number of terms in a document

D = set of all documents

d = number of documents with that term

Pick the document with the highest

Term Frequency/Document Frequency

All Time Algorithm

Hits

10

The sounds of crying and teeth grinding inspire

me…

• Quality of links more important than quantity of links

• Segmentation of corpus into broad topics

• Selection of authority sources within these topic areas

Hilltop Algorithm

Pre-query calculation of factors based on subset of corpus

• Context of term use in document• Context of term use in history of

queries• Context of term use by user

submitting query

Consolidation of Hypertext Induced Topic Selection [HITS] and PageRank

Topic-Sensitive PageRank

WE HAVE A NEW & BETTER WAY

13

Search Engine D

ependency

Search Engine Retaliation

No one manipulates

search results but US!!!!

March 2012

A Year in the Life of Panda Updates

• Expanded image results (ALT text)• More accurate detection “official

pages”• Improved safe search (NS)• Freshness (3)• Non-custom 404 detection• Use of Web history for refinement• Demote link analysis (NS)

• Symbol indexing• Google+ profile indexing• Speed up offline Panda processing• High quality sites algorithm update

(NS)• IMG search refinements• Anchor text refinement (Penguin

preview)• Freshness (video, “stale results”• Synonyms update• Site quality detection update (Panda)

June/ July 2012• New improved ranking function

(NS)• Improved image search (on topic)• Improved safe search (NS)• Find more high quality content

from trusted sources (2)• Freshness improvements• Data refresh for Panda high quality

sites algorithm• Page quality: help finding high

quality pages with unique content• Panda launch Japan/Korea• Freshness bug fix

February 2012

• Related query refinements• Parked domain detection

algorithm• Deeper indexing (more “long-tail”

documents)• Wider auto-complete suggestions

(search suggest)• Fresher, more complete blog

search results• Duplicate content detection

refinement (better original content signals)

• Better image freshness determination (news queries)

• Top Results code refinements: not too many from same site, e.g. host crowding, easier to maintain (and quicker to change)

More Search Updates 2012August/September 2012• Find more high quality content

from trusted sources• Term proximity scoring• Handling stale content – more

granular based on document age• <title> and content semantic

match improvement• Bug fix to way links are used in

ranking (Penguin)• Panda high quality sites data

refresh (2)• Improved video indexing (NS)• Improved cursor aware predictions

(CN, JPN, KO)• PDF optimization• Results based on document

freshness

October/November 2012

Sarge, this link war doesn’t make sense?

Shut up and stop thinking kid. Talk like that can get you de-

indexed.

Hey, how come

you’re not wearing pants?

Spam detection update/algorithmTargets “over optimization”

• Anchor text distribution• Inbound link distribution• Cluster analysis

Good links are (according to Google)• From respected sites/brands/people• Exist on popular pages• Provide value to user• Are contained in the page text (not sidebar components)• Are not duplicated too many times throughout linking site

Penguin Basics

21

So, what are you going to do about it?

OPTIMIZE THE USER EXPERIENCE & MAKE MONEY

Interaction Design: Orientation

Interaction Design: Site Search

Interaction Design: User Controls

Interaction Design: User Assistance

• Distance reflects relevance

• Page structure now a factor

• URLs are guides

Site Structure

Navigation

• Users lose orientation on the site• They suffer “navigational blindness”

• Intersection of what you have/do with how customers look for what you have/do

• Use online tools to mine customer search behavior around offerings

• Check to see if you have relevant content and fill gaps

Content

Content: Relational Content Modeling

• Guided Tours: built on analysis of other user pathways and knowledge of corpus

• Produced Views: page of assembled content items focused on a single subject

• Task List Drop Downs: “I Want To…” links to pages of assembled content focused on single common task

Content: Relational Content Modeling

• Related Links: related as in “next steps” not what Marketing wants to be a next step

• Best Bets: editorially assigned result that may not be chosen by the search engine

Links are intended as a human-mediated relationship between sites (not a one night stand)Source and destination must share contextual relationshipCreate a positive experience with links to information users may not find, may not know they needBuild link-based relationship model of relevance

• Create or find Authority resources (on and off site)• Connect to HUBS

Links

Bs of NEW SEO

• Be realistic about where you can place visibly

• Let every page be about some “thing”

• Focus the user attention

• Maximize the real estate to maximize user focus

Be Focused

Google+ & Google LocalOther Social channels (FB, Twitter, Linkedin)

Be Social

• Connect to related content on and off the site

• Make it easy for users to connect to you • RSS feed/subscription• Alerts• Social channels

• Link building is out, link “earning” is in

• Keep them engaged and on the site

• Make sure site search works

Be Connected

Search engine Webmaster accounts to look at• Indexing profile• link to the site

Competitive Landscape• Review competitors placement for certain phrases• Use SEMrush or Majestic SEO to review key pages

against yoursEmerging Authorities• Look at the SERP for your phrases, who holds the top

spots, those are the authorities to the search engineCustomer behavior• Site analytics• Google Trends & Yahoo Clues

Be Aware

• Search engines are not smart

• Search engine companies have an agenda

• User Experience was an early influencer of relevance

• User Experience is a recent influencer of relevance

• Search is a user experience

• Creating an optimal user experience is the new SEO

Key Takeaways

PORTENT.CO/WUDS77These are the links

(Yes, use .co, not .com)

Q&A#PORTENTU

Me:@msweeny

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