A Wakeup Call: Are You Prepared for the Day Your Rankings Vanish? |
| A Wakeup Call: Are You Prepared for the Day Your Rankings Vanish? Posted: 11 Feb 2014 02:53 PM PST Posted by Pratik.Dholakiya This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc. Here's a little secret: Smart SEOs expect to lose their rankings. It might not even be a penalty. Maybe it's a competitor who will pull ahead of you in the search results. Maybe it's an algorithm update that will redirect a dramatic portion of your audience. Someday, maybe, a more advanced Siri clone will eliminate the point of rankings altogether. Are you prepared for that day? Do you have a backup plan? Today, we're going to approach the threat of lost rankings in a way you might never have seen before. First, we're going to talk about what we believe it takes to keep your rankings. Second, and more importantly, we're going to talk about how to design an SEO strategy that will remain successful even if you lose your rankings. Let's get started. A bulletproof vest is best worn before you get shot This is your bulletproof vest. When clients approach us with penalized sites, they are devastated. With no severance package or unemployment option, a Google penalty is worse than a layoff. With a gap in employment history and nothing but a penalized website to point to in your resume, it may even be worse than getting fired. Recovery is difficult, time-consuming, and resource intensive. Let's not mince words. It can destroy families. If you're taking risks with your website, and it's not going to survive a Google penalty, I beg of you, make the changes now. Don't wait until it's too late. You will regret it. You need link quality control standards Whether you've been building links yourself or outsourcing to someone, audit your link profile. It's worth it. Take a look with fresh eyes, and with the mindset that you've just been penalized. What would you remove? Here are some suggestions:
Design is crucial We've discussed in depth why UI and UX are absolute necessities:
Here are a few specific ways to leverage UI and UX that we've talked about:
Understand modern on-site SEO On-site SEO goes much further than keyword placement:
I'm also with Rand Fishkin on these points:
Aim for an error-free site Errors can do a lot of harm to an otherwise high quality site. Start by checking for errors in Google Webmaster Tools and eliminating anything that shows up there: From there, you can move on to a tool like Moz's crawl diagnostics report. Here are some common SEO errors that you need to avoid:
Don't let errors like these ruin the potential of your site. Refine your content Analyze your existing pages. How many of them are contributing significant traffic? Among those that are bringing in significant traffic, are those users satisfied? You need to either eliminate or fix any content that doesn't meet these standards:
I highly recommend taking advantage of SurveyMonkey or some other form of market research in order to measure the value of your content and look for suggestions for improvements. Test how consumers value your content over the top-ranking pages. If they don't value your content more than the top search results, it doesn't deserve to rank, and it never will in the long term. Build serious quality links Don't build even one more link until you can build a link from one of the top sites in your industry. I mean top tier links. We're talking just one step below The New York Times. E2M Solutions doesn't rank because we've built hundreds of links. It ranks because we've built links from Moz, Forbes, CopyBlogger, VentureBeat, ProBlogger, and SearchEngineJournal. In short, there isn't even a chance that somebody will look at those links and think "that doesn't offer any 'real' marketing value, it's just for SEO." You need to start building links that meet at least some of these quality criteria:
If a link doesn't meet at least one of these three criteria, I would argue that it's not really worth building. We'll touch more on this later on in the post. For now, just realize that links below this tier are worth earning naturally, but they generally aren't worth building manually. Understand co-citations and co-occurrenceSEOs are increasingly noticing their own pages, and pages of their competitors, ranking in ways that don't make sense according to traditional knowledge of the link structure of the web. Specifically, we are seeing evidence of the following two phenomena: Co-Citation â€" This is when a site links to you as well as an authoritative or relevant site. In other words, if a page or a domain tends to link to authoritative sites, Google will tend to take links from that site more seriously. This is the concept of "good neighborhoods" versus "bad neighborhoods." For this reason, you want to build and attract links from sites that tend to link to high quality sources. This will separate you from low quality areas on the web. (In fact, you yourself should link to high quality sources, since the algorithm encourages links to high quality sites by helping you become part of a "good neighborhood.") Co-Occurrence â€" This is when a site mentions your brand name or your domain name without a link, but talks about it in the context of related subject matter. Rand Fishkin uses the example of OpenSiteExplorer. In that case, the description in the search result used text that wasn't found anywhere on the page, and instead quoted text from an entirely different page on the web that was only talking about OpenSiteExplorer. (It's worth noting that the previous page title, redirects, and anchor text likely played a part in this as well.) This is one example of Google using statistical data rather than links to determine what specific brands are all about. Google also appears to use search terms and other behavioral data to form ideas about sites on the web. While knowledge of co-citation and co-occurrence can be helpful in your manual link building efforts, the only way to fully take advantage of it is to attract natural links and discussions about your brand online. (More on this later in the article.) Gain social traction Social media activity doesn't have a direct impact on rankings in any significant way. While there is some correlative evidence that it's important, links are still much more powerful for SEO. While a lack of social media activity alone isn't going to harm your rankings, it can become the straw that breaks the camel's back. Google's internal quality guidelines make it clear that a site's reputation plays a big part in its quality. In some circumstances, runaway success in social media has had an unquestionable impact on rankings. While social signals don't seem to play an important part in long term rankings, viral activity does affect "freshness" attributes, and can cause a page to rank number one for very competitive terms for a relatively short period of time. In short, if your page is "trending" in social networks, expect it to gain credibility. I will circle back to social strategy later on. Implement Google authorshipGoogle authorship allows you to use Google+ to link content to your name. You can learn how to set it up here. For now, authorship is most important because it gets your picture listed next to your search results, which can have a strong positive impact on click-through rates. Needless to say, this is a good way to pick up some extra traffic: There is also the possibility that authorship will eventually play a part in an algorithm that recognizes a concept called "author rank." In other words, it is possible that if you as an author tend to write content that users like, content that you produce in the future will be more likely to rank. It remains to be seen whether this is feasible, and exactly when it might happen. Now that you have your bulletproof vest, it's time to go to warThat's right; everything I've talked about up until now was just to get you prepared for this: I don't want anybody to face a Google penalty, and I've done my best to tell you how to avoid it, but none of this changes the fundamental flaw of most SEO strategies. If you couldn't survive the loss of your rankings tomorrow, your SEO strategy is broken. Let's talk about how to fix it. Be where your audience isIf you are popular in places where your target audience hangs out, you will be popular among your target audience. It's simple logic, but most SEOs are surprisingly lacking in this department. A fundamental goal of any cohesive online marketing strategy should be to develop a presence at your target audience's hangouts. This ensures that no matter what happens to your Google rankings, no matter how ad prices fluctuate, and regardless of any changes in the social media landscape, you will be recognizable among the people who matter. Now, what most people hear when I say this is that they should start guest posting. I'm going to argue in a second that that's not the only thing you should be doing, but for now, let's focus on some things you might be missing.
For some more depth on this, take a look at our ultimate guest blogging guide over at Moz. It's a guide to and an example of the kind of guest posting I believe you should be taking part in. Now, I want to clarify something. While everything I just said applies to guest posting, it's by no means limited to it. In fact, while guest posting is a powerful strategy, it really isn't the only one you should be using. Remember, the title of this section is: Be Where Your Audience is. So I ask again. Where are they? Blogs make up just a small part of their hangouts. Look for relevant forums: Many of these forums outright tell you how many people are on the site, this very second. In any case, it's clear how active the audience is from the number of posts. Frequent these forums. Lurk for a while and learn their culture. Learn what questions they ask and what they care about. Learn their idiosyncrasies. Make those forums a part of your blog. You want to live, breathe, and eat these forums, because this is where your hardcore audience lives. Answer questions. Ask questions. Get involved. Quote your interactions on these forums in your blog posts, and write full blog posts to respond to topics within the forums. You might even want to ask some of the top posters on these forums to write guest posts on your blog. The goal should be to make your blog an extension of this community, augmented with just enough mainstream appeal to keep growing. For more on this, Patrick O'Keefe has written an amazing guide. An important takeaway from that? Ninety percent of the discussions happening online about banks are happening on forums. I suspect this is the case for most topically oriented discussions. If you don't believe me, here's a screenshot from a physics forum. Physics. Capturing attention on a forum like this can work wonders for your exposure. Social network groups: I mentioned forums before anything else because this is where most of the lively discussions surrounding topics are happening. While there are plenty of discussions happening on social media, many of them aren't actually topically oriented. That said, there's no reason to ignore social media. You can try searching for Google+ communities relevant to your topics: Facebook groups and Pages can also be useful in some cases, and LinkedIn's groups can sometimes be useful for B2B professionals. Twitter, for the most part, is only good for finding influencers, though answering questions on Twitter can be useful. There's another way to leverage social networks, but I'll get to that in the next section. Quora: Quora is an excellent place to build exposure. I've found that posts on Quora tend to send traffic for longer periods of time than most social networks. Anywhere on the net where you can answer questions about your topic in front of a reasonably sized audience is a place that you should be. Kristi Hines has an awesome post over at KISSmetrics about this. Blog comments: Don't forget about blog comment sections. Some blogs have developed a large enough following to have "regulars" who contribute to their comment section. These are the kinds of blog sections you should try to take part in. In general: A good litmus test for the usefulness of an online discussion location is the number of "regulars" present. If these discussions keep bringing people back, this is the kind of place you want to be posting. If people post once and move on, it's not worth the effort. Do not just show up to these discussions with a link to your content. You want to become a person of value within these communities. That means you should pour every bit as much value and effort into your community posts as your blog posts and your guest posts. While the format of the information isn't always going to be the same, the effort should be. If you can only afford a half-hearted attempt, don't make an attempt at all. It's a waste of time. Social media doesn't work like you think it doesYou might get the impression from what I wrote above that I think forums are more important than social networks. Far from it. In the last section, I was arguing that you need to go where your core audience is, and distribute as much value as possible. For the most part, your target audience isn't on social networks. At least, they don't particularly care about your topic while they're on social networks. They are there to talk to their friends and family, and to share light content. In general, you won't find a hardcore audience on Facebook or any major social network. (I've already talked about the exceptions to the rule.) So why are social networks still important? I've stated a few times that you need both a hardcore and a mainstream audience. Social networks are a place to reach and retain your mainstream audience. While it's always better to get an email address than a Facebook Like, it's much easier for people to Like your Facebook page than to give away their email address. Social subscriptions are noncommittal and "safe." By the same token: simple, witty, visual content with mainstream appeal is the kind of thing that makes its way through social networks. Social networks are for entertainment. The best way to think about social networks effectively is to think of it as a different place than your blog. As I said before, forums, Q&A sections, and the occasional hardcore groups hiding on social networks should be thought of as an extension of your blog. Social networks themselves are more like the after party. Here's what I mean:
If you want success on social networks, you can't copy the most popular pages. Most of them are popular only because they are associated with a celebrity or a pre-established brand. If you want an example of a brand that's actually built a presence on Facebook, take a look at LondonDrugs, a Canadian retail chain. The moderately sized chain is made up of 77 stores. Look at their posts: Posts like these have earned the brand nearly 75,000 likes, with thousands of them "talking about this" each week. Most of what they publish are images, sized perfectly for Facebook, and they only occasionally link to their own sales and deals. The images tend to be actionable, and occasionally get funny. Pages like these can build a brand. So, I've talked about finding your hardcore audience on forums and the like, as well as drawing in a mainstream audience via social media. Is there another piece to building an online community? Absolutely. Join the inner circleWhile you could build an audience from scratch, starting with hardcore forum regulars and mainstream social networkers, things are going to move along much faster if you make friends with influential people. Influencers are the crucial shortcut to trustworthiness and exposure online. Join forces with them, and everything else gets easier. Let's talk about how to do that.
As an extension of that last point, influencers are more likely to take you seriously, and mention you to their audience, if there is something on your site worth talking about. Do you have a linkable asset? I've touched on content strategy throughout this whole post. I've mentioned how important design is, touched on how powerful online tools and software are, stressed the necessity for unique value, and even mentioned that the title alone should be strong enough to carry your content. But we haven't talked about linkable assets. What is a linkable asset? I've blogged about it at Search Engine Journal. To some extent, every piece of content you publish should be a linkable asset, something that an influencer would be willing to link to. But that's not really what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the force that powers the most successful sites on the web. Sites like:
I mentioned before that all the top sites on the web are built around their tools. In fact, these sites wouldn't exist if it weren't for the tools that they offered. Surrounding those tools are fervent communities of hardcore users. And surrounding those hardcore users are mainstream audiences. Put it all together and you get something that deserves media attention. And that's what I'm talking about. Doing something that deserves media attention. I don't want to play-down the value of good outreach. Without it, even the best on-site asset will fall flat. But that shouldn't be your mindset while you brainstorm. Your mindset should be that this asset is only worth developing if it's worth linking to with even the most bare-bones outreach. That is the quality to shoot for. It's all relative, of course. You don't have to be the next Facebook to be newsworthy. You don't need to have a huge amount of money to make it happen. You just need to identify a problem that people want solved, and create a free, on-site asset that solves that problem. The point is to genuinely and completely solve a clearly defined problem, and to do it for free. This is the value that you are exchanging for attention on the web. Some examples:
It's better to have just one linkable asset than it is to have years and years of blog content. Put the two together and you become a force to be reckoned with. "Outbound" isn't deadUp until now, I've been talking about "inbound" marketing strategies. I strongly believe that you don't have a long term business unless you can earn an audience and keep it. When you have an audience who wants to see what you'll say next, it's very hard to go broke. At the same time, if you can't make money selling a product on advertising alone, you may not have a business at all. You can and should pay for traffic for as long as it offers a positive ROI. Even Hubspot, the king of inbound marketing, uses AdWords. Neglecting paid strategies is a bad idea. If you don't have a product valuable enough to sell with advertisements, I strongly advise you to develop one. Here are a few things you must know about paid advertising:
Keep in mind that no matter how much value you can pull out of paid traffic, you aren't building a long term business unless you are retaining an audience and keeping yourself "top of mind" among these people. Leveraging your audience Up until now, I've sort of taken for granted that if you build a hardcore, repeat audience, as well as a steadily growing mainstream presence, sales will inevitably follow. There is some truth to this, but things don't always work out so well. It's undeniable that brand impressions, especially when they are voluntary, dramatically increase the likelihood that your audience will choose you over a competitor. Unfortunately, content loyalty does not always translate into sales, and if you postpone "selling" indefinitely, you will not optimize the value of your audience. So, how can you leverage an audience for profit?
Feeling ready?It's been our goal to arm you with the knowledge necessary to thrive in SEO by building a strategy that transcends search engines. If you learned anything, I'd love it if you shared this with your audience. As always, thanks for reading. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!       |
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