SEO is Evolving Faster Than Ever - survive and take advantage of all the recent changes.

SEO is Evolving
Faster Than Ever
How to survive and take advantage
of all the recent changes
#wcott #SEOSanity
@thompsonpaul

Paul Thompson
I’m a consultant doing SEO and web
marketing since 2002
People pay me to help turn their
websites into marketing platforms
WordPress since 2009
Find me:
paul@buzzwordstobusiness.com
@thompsonpaul
www.buzzwordstobusiness.com

Does it feel like keeping up
with SEO has been a wild ride
this year?
Struggling to decide which
things to pay attention to and
tackle next?

Don’t
Freak
Out !
#wcott #SEOSanity @thompsonpaul

Don’t be this guy either

Let’s understand the important
changes in SEO over the past year…
And build some plans for
how to benefit from them!

Mobile
Voice Search
Content Quality - Algo Changes
Changes to Essential Tools
Schema
Local Search

Google doesn’t have your website’s
best interests at heart.
Make strategic choices.
Develop alternative traffic sources
- email, social, Bing, podcasts…
Public Service Announcement

Mobile First
Index
In the past year, Google
has moved heavily
toward understanding
and assessing our sites
through the eyes of a
mobile user.

How do I know if my site’s moved to the MFI?
● As of July 1 all new sites are Mobile First indexed
● You’ll have a notification in your Google Search Console
● “Request Indexing” in GSC shows GoogleBot Smartphone

Content on Mobile
Don’t hide it, design for it!
● Content before design. Make your design work for your
content, not the other way around.
● Create a mobile experience that’s fast, clearly laid out, and
easy to navigate.
● Content in simple accordions and tabs is now indexed.

Font Sizes and Touch Zones
Easy to read and navigate.
● 16px minimum font size on mobile. Larger is better.
● Anchor link touch zone should be 48px square – 32px apart
● Keep in mind for all anchors, including social icons and
navigation elements.
● Mobile Usability in GSC assesses all pages. Spot check
using Mobile Friendly Test site.

Google now
measures speed
like a mobile
visitor
Yup, even for your desktop
Since July 2018
Speed still only a small
ranking factor
Only applies to some queries
MAJOR factor for ALL humans

Page size / Bandwidth / Speed considerations
Not all mobile data is unlimited. Don’t be a punk.
● Optimise all your images. Resize and compress. Use lazy
loading. Use modern formats like .webp and .svg
● Dequeue, defer, async javascript files where possible.
● Enable gzip compression, browser caching, page caching.
● For non-developers, most easily handled with quality
caching plugins and/or host’s caching tools

Google is getting
much more specific
about the kind of
speed it cares
about.

PageSpeed Insights
& Lighthouse Audits
● the tools have completely changed to
reflect Google’s new focus
Hint: it’s not
total load time!

SEO is Evolving Faster Than Ever - survive and take advantage of all the recent changes.

Lighthouse Audits
Built directly into the
Chrome desktop
browser.
For best results, use
Mobile device mode
and Applied 3G.

www.webpagetest.org
Customise Google Analytics tracking to collect real-user data
ga('create', 'UA-XXXXXXXX-3', 'auto', {'siteSpeedSampleRate': 100});

The difference...
Voice Search:
Voice instead of keyboard
Returns visible list of search
results
Already heavily used -
mostly on mobile
Voice results:
Responses from Amazon
Alexa, Google Home etc.
Dictates single search result!
Usage ramping up - stats
include personal info requests
- difficult for research intent

Voice Search - Answering questions!
● Longer, conversational queries
● How can we tell which organic traffic is from voice
search?
We can’t (yet). GSC doesn’t report separately. Boooo
● Formating answers well with subheaders, tables,
bullet points and Schema helps Google understand
better - and can deliver Rich Snippets.

Voice Results - More questions!
● For Voice Results, most smaller sites will need to
develop a plan over this year, not immediately critical
● Schema plays a major part in Google understanding
and delivering the answers, especially for local
business (Ignore Voice Schema for now)
● Be careful of Voice Results data – usage includes
generic voice assistant inputs as well

Content Quality
Algorithm Changes

Chasing the algorithms is pointless
● Google now typically announces only major algorithm
updates – occasionally others in advance that require
action, such as mobile speed update.
● Best use is to get an overview of what Google focuses on.
● Risk is overreacting and making unnecessary changes.
- e.g. meta description length, pagination

● No single smoking gun – much harder to diagnose and fix
traffic drops from algo updates
● Need to focus on site and page Quality, not just tactics
● Google EAT’s websites and pages? YMYL?
Recent major algo updates all focus on Quality
June 3 update was perfect example
Expertise – Authority – Trust

Google Quality Raters’ Guidelines
They don’t tell you how the algorithm is
ranking results, but they fundamentally
show what the algorithm should do.
Ben Gomes, Google VP of Search
Updated May 16, 2019
http://buzzto.biz/raters-guidelines
”
“

Update/Improve It
NoIndex It
Redirect It (careful!)
Nuke It

Specific types of pages to watch for
● Out of date, no longer relevant
● Thin – contain very little useful content
● Duplicate onsite or copied
● WordPress specific - tags, categories (maybe), events and
other taxonomies (e.g. date & author archives)
● Use your Analytics! Screaming Frog is terrific for this.

Intent
Navigational – they already know where they want to go
Informational – a question that needs an answer
Investigational – toward a more commercial outcome
Transactional – ready to buy or decide
● Look at the SERPs for type of result people are expecting.
○ E.g. “Best compact camera” doesn’t return product
pages! Probably a mix of Informational/investigational

A new approach
to content and
keyword
research
Not about keywords any more
Search engines are working
hard to understand content
like humans do.
Over 1/3 of Google search
queries are 4+ words long

Keywords
Sticking the
“right” words in
the “right places”

Concepts
● Topics, solutions, answers
● Rankbrain/Machine Learning understand our content like a
human reader
● They understand and want to see thorough treatment of a
topic or concept
● Not just a “keyword” - synonyms, semantically-related terms
● A page can rank for many (100s!) of terms

Use the SERPS! *
*Search Engine Results Pages

“People also search for…”

Keywords Everywhere
browser extension

Queries
By Page
Google
Search
Console

Answer The Public

Answer The Public
1. It allows you to get to know your
audience and what keeps them up
at night
2. Keyword research for those
conversational queries!
3. The related questions and terms
contributing to content quality.
4. It helps you answer questions that
can get you into Google’s featured
snippets

WordPress SEO plugins are adapting
● Content analysis in Yoast Pro version now accounts
for semantically-related terms
● Free Yoast version better understands synonyms
● Much closer to how the SE’s behave, instead of
being encouraged to manipulate how you write to
score green lights
● Google’s own Site Kit WP plugin – early dev release
- adds Analytics, GSC, Google Ads data in dashboard

Communicating
the value of our
content to search
engines
As sites get more complex,
search engines & visitors
need more help finding &
properly understanding the
value of our content.
And the relationships
between pages.

www.example.com/post-name/
● Flat - shows no relationship between pages
www.example.com/main-topic/sub-topic/post-
name/
● Helps search engines and users understand
hierarchy/relationships between pages
● Use categories in your permalinks (yes, really)
Internal Linking!
● To create hubs, silos, topic areas
● Make related topics cooperate, not compete
- powerful when overall architecture can’t be changed

3 Stages of getting organic traffic
Crawling
Indexing
Ranking

Google Search Console
New Google Search Console Coverage Report
● specifically for understanding which pages
are crawled and which worthy of indexing.
● remember, the tools changes are focusing on
what Google values & considers important!

Schema Markup
Data that explains data

9055551212
Product ID? Phone #? Price of a massive yacht?

Implementing Schema
Event, Recipe, Product, Rating, People, Business, Page structure, FAQ, How-To
● Easiest is to use JSON-LD but it’s ONLY for content that is
actually visible on the page! (You’ll get a penalty if it’s not.)
● Good plugins for specific types of content should also
generate the necessary Schema – recipes, event calendars,
ratings/reviews, FAQs
● SEO plugins like Yoast SEO & Rankmath starting to include
wide range of Schema capabilities
● Properly configured Local Business Schema is ESSENTIAL for
local businesses – both brick & mortar & services!

Structured Data Testing Tool

Google My
Business
For local businesses,
Google is pushing GMB to
become your
homepage/showroom
Proximity is everything in
Local ranking- “the 3-pack”
Especially on mobile

Use All Elements of your GMB Profile
Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight!
● Set up your localBusiness Schema
● Insure the site has a favicon – 48x48px or multiple
● Description - use all 750 characters
● Posts/Events/Offers - critical SERP real estate
<sneaky>Format images to look like call-to-action buttons</sneaky>
● Reviews - you need a plan to solicit them
● Hold off on setting up your GMB Short Link for now

More GMB Profile Focus
● Questions and Answers - ask and answer your own!
<sneaky> Get friends to upvote the important ones </sneaky>
● Photos - keep a steady stream of new, relevant images
● Regularly build new citations and clean up existing ones
Your NAP (name, address, phone) must be consistent
● Check your Service Area if you’re a Service Area Business
● Continue to build content with local intent on your website
- case studies are ideal for this!

The Basics
Still critical even while addressing the new stuff.
○ Effective, engaging page titles
○ Enticing meta-descriptions with calls-to-action
○ Easy-to-scan copy – short paragraphs, bullets,
pullquotes, images to break up text
○ Earn inbound links from other related sites

Mobile
Switch to mobile-focused tools for testing and
analysing our sites.
Optimise content and usability for mobile visitors.
Get your TimetoContentfulFirstPaint to 2s or less.

Voice Search
Optimise for the longer, more conversational
questions voice searchers typically use.
Use Schema and page headings structure to help
search engines understand your answers better.

Content Quality
Use ideas from the Quality Raters’ Guidelines to
improve quality of new pages.
Create a process for regularly improving/updating
or removing existing content - thin/duplicate etc.
Match the content to the INTENT of the visitor.
Shift to researching concepts/topics not keywords.

Site Architecture
Use directory structure and internal linking to
build clearly defined relationships between pages
- creating topic clusters or hubs.
Use the GSC Coverage Report to discover pages
that need help getting indexed, or that should be
removed from the index.

Schema
Start adding Schema markup to your page types
and structure - breadcrumbs, logos, articles etc.
Set up Schema for your specific content types
such as products, reviews, events, and the new
FAQ and How To options - and test it!
Fully configure your Organisation, localBusiness.

Local Search
Fully configure ALL the features of your GMB.
Build a plan to ask for & respond to new reviews.
Create regular Posts/Events/Photos content and
build out your top Questions and Answers.
Regularly clean up and add new quality citations.
Regularly check GMB - Answer reviews/questions.

Links to Resources
Google PageSpeed Insights http://buzzto.biz/psi
Chrome Lighthouse audits
Click F12 in Chrome browser, select Audit tab in
Developer Tools
Webpagetest https://webpagetest.org
Google Search Console http://buzzto.biz/gsc
Google Quality Raters’ Guidelines
http://buzzto.biz/raters-guidelines
Screaming Frog Crawler (free for approx 100 pgs)
http://buzzto.biz/screaming-frog
Keywords Everywhere Browser Extension
Chrome http://buzzto.biz/k-e-chrome
Firefox http://buzzto.biz/k-e-ff
Answer the Public https://answerthepublic.com/
Yoast SEO plugin http://buzzto.biz/yoast
Rankmath SEO plugin http://buzzto.biz/rankmath
Google Site Kit WP plugin beta http://buzzto.biz/site-kit
Structured Data Testing http://buzzto.biz/schema-test
Rich Snippet testing tool http://buzzto.biz/rich-snippet
Basic localBusiness Schema generator
https://bit.ly/local-biz-schema
Advanced generator
https://bit.ly/advanced-schema

Don’t Freak Out!
Work the Plan
Online version of this presentation
http://buzzto.biz/wcottawa2019
SEO | Site Audits | Analytics | Conversion Optimisation | Web Marketing | Coaching
Paul Thompson
Buzzwords to Business
SEO & Web Marketing
paul@buzzwordstobusiness.com
@thompsonpaul

SEO is Evolving Faster Than Ever - survive and take advantage of all the recent changes.

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SEO is Evolving Faster Than Ever - survive and take advantage of all the recent changes.