choose short men & tall women
DESCRIPTION
Rand Fishkin's presentation on 12 SEO & Inbound Marketing tactics that ignore common, irrational biases in favor of smart tactics & solutionsTRANSCRIPT
Choose Short Men
(and tall women)
Rand Fishkin | @randfish | moz.com/rand
http://bit.ly/chooseshortmen
Let’s talk about dating…
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-looks-and-online-dating/
Here’s the problem
As men’s height falls, messages drop (the opposite is true for women): http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-biggest-lies-in-online-dating/
Height Is Holding You Back…
Height Is Holding You Back…
Not only is height a poor, arbitrary limitation, most lie about it: http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-biggest-lies-in-online-dating/
Remove the Irrational Bias
And You Can Get Every Other
Criteria You Want, Fulfilled
Let’s Apply This Principle to
the Marketing World
8 Irrational Biases(and how your inbound marketing can benefit by rejecting them)
Bias #1: Ranking Position is All That Matters
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/mission-imposserpble-establishing-clickthrough-rates
CTR is Influenced By More than Position
CTR is Influenced By More than Position
Star Ratings, Reviews & Price
Author Photo
Date of Publication
Video Snippet
Start w/ Great Titles, Meta Descriptions & URLs
Terrible
Excellent
Snippet Testing Tool: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets
Profile Pics = CTR Boost
Rel=Author Guide from AJ Kohn: http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/how-to-implement-rel-author
Video XML Sitemaps = CTR Boost
Video SEO Guide from Wistia: http://wistia.com/doc/video-seo
Rich Snippets: High Value in the Right Niches
Visual Rich Snippet Guide: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/a-visual-guide-to-rich-snippets
Bias #2: SEO is About Ranking for the “Money” Keywords
The Chunky Middle & Long Tail Are Amazing
Google Wants the Head for Themselves
Google Wants the Head for Themselves
Google Wants the Head for Themselves
Regular Content + UGC = Long Tail Success
Tens of thousands of pages of content created by professional marketers (our writers and those who ask Q+A)
Bias #3: AdWords is All The Keyword Research You Need
Search Suggest Is a Great Keyword Research Tool
Search Suggest Is a Great Keyword Research Tool
Great tool for grabbing search suggest data: http://ubersuggest.org
Google News: Research the Undiscovered Keywords
In the next 1-5 days, these will all
have significant search volume
Social Media Leads to Queries
Bias #4: My Site is the Only Place to Do SEO
Controlling Brand SERPs Matters
Earning Rankings on Other Sites May Be Easier
Dominating SERPs is a Powerful Tactic
RUsers: 100mm 1B+ 200mm 120mm 20mm
Users: 15mm Millions 14mm 7.5mm 18mm
Consider SEO for Your Profiles &
Content on these Sites, Too.
Controlling Brand SERPs Matters
You can’t let this rank on page 2!
Bias #5: Social Sharing is Fire & Forget
What You Say and How Matters
Via http://followerwonk.com
Timing Matters
At the highest point, only ~6.5% of my followers are online, which means only 4,514 of my 69,458 followers could possibly see a tweet.
Repetition Matters
The 3.5% online at night are almost certainly not the same as the 6.7% online in the morning.
Via http://followerwonk.com
Link Placement Matters
URL at the end & hash tag next to the URL
URL in the center of text blocks, no usernames or hashes around it
Hashtags & Mentions Matter
Using the event hashtag will get it in front of IFBC attendees
Mentioning me makes sure I see it, which might mean I RT
Snippets Matter in Google+
Not a great image (3:4 style format works best)
Comes from title & meta description
When @jennita (Moz’s community manager)
shares content on Facebook, she’ll often
upload an individual image from the post to make it better stand out in the
Facebook timeline
Snippets Matter on Facebook
Bias #6: SEO is About Best Fitting to the
Perfect Algorithmic Formula
http://www.seobythesea.com/2011/07/how-google-might-rank-pages-based-upon-usage-information/
Google SEES ALL. KNOWS ALL.
Scale of ROI from SEO Activities Over Time
Create content people
want to consume & share
Make the website’s pages
accessible to engines
Build links to individual
URLs for higher rankings
Optimize on-page
keyword usage/targeting
Optimize metadata,
schema, rich snippets, etc
Highest Value
Lowest Value
2004-2009
Scale of ROI from SEO Activities Over Time
Create content people
want to consume & share
Make the website’s pages
accessible to engines
Build links to individual
URLs for higher rankings
Optimize on-page
keyword usage/targeting
Optimize metadata,
schema, rich snippets, etc
Highest Value
Lowest Value
2004-2009 2010-present
Create content people
want to consume & share
Make the website’s pages
accessible to engines
Build links to individual
URLs for higher rankings
Optimize on-page
keyword usage/targeting
Optimize metadata,
schema, rich snippets, etc
The “Algorithm” Today Has Very Few Inputs:
Delightfulness
to Users
Accessibility &
KW TargetingAbility to Reach
an Audience+ +
=
Rankings(eventually – sometimes it takes a while)
Bias #7: There’s No Simple Way to
Increase Traffic
Site Speed Optimization: Simple.
http://www.slideshare.net/jcolman/web-performance-optimization-the-silver-bullet-of-seo-and-ux
Data from @jcolman of REI
404, 500 & 302 Fixes: Simple.
http://google.com/webmasters and/or http://pro.seomoz.org can help ID these
Re-targeting: Simple. Increases Traffic.
Best retargeting providers?http://www.seomoz.org/blog/comparing-the-top-4-retargeting-companies
Sharing New Content on Each Network. Simple.
Bias #8: CRO is about testing variations
of content and design
From my blog: http://moz.com/rand/
I want more people
who visit the site to
subscribe via email
A) More People
Visiting
B) Higher
Conversion Rate
Let’s Improve the Call to Action!
This must be
the problem!
A/B Testing
We’ll show half our visitors one and
half the other, and get a winner
Multivariate Testing
We’ll show each version to a
percentage of visitors and find a winner
We Can Test Everything!Location on Page
Display Width
Box Color
Address Verification
Loading After the Page
Different Versions Based
on User Behavior
Call-to-Action Copy
Social Proof Inclusion
Changing Messaging on
Different Types of Pages/Posts
That’s Not CRO
What if this isn’t the
problem?
What if this is?
What if this guy is?
Trust
Word of Mouth
LikabilityDesign
Associations
Word of Mouth
Amount of Pain
CTAs
UX
Effort Required
Process
Historical Experiences
Social Proof
Copywriting
CONVERSION DECISION(it’s a complex process)
TimingDiscovery Path
Branding
Price
Trust
Word of Mouth
LikabilityDesign
Associations
Word of Mouth
Amount of Pain
CTAs
UX
Effort Required
Process
Historical Experiences
Social Proof
Copywriting
WHICH OF THESE IS THEREAL ISSUE?
TimingDiscovery Path
Branding
Price
Ask Smart Questions to the Right People
Never Taken a
Free Trial
Took the Free Trial
But Left
Took the Free
Trial and Stayed
What are you seeking
from SEOmoz? What’s
brought you back?
What made you take
the free trial?
What initially made
you want SEOmoz?
What would make you
more likely to sign up?
What are your biggest
objections to signup?
What objections did
you have and how did
you overcome them?
What caused you to
cancel subscription?
What would have made
you stay a subscriber?
What objections did
you have and how did
you overcome them?
What’s been most
valuable to you?
Had success w/ Moz?
Can we share?
This is How the Pros Do It:
From Conversion Rate Experts’ case study (which is definitely worth a read):
http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/crazy-egg-case-study/
Boom.
This is How the Pros Do It:
From Conversion Rate Experts’ case study (which is definitely worth a read):
http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/crazy-egg-case-study/
Boom.
And Shakalaka.
This process made SEOmoz $1mm in additional
revenue in 2009, when we desperately needed it.
CRE detailed their results with us here:
http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/seomoz-case-study/
Remove Irrational Biases.
Win at Marketing.
Choose Short Men (and tall women)
• Email: [email protected]
• Tweet: @randfish
• Blog: moz.com/rand
http://bit.ly/chooseshortmen