Today's post focuses on a vision for your online presence. This vision outlines what it takes to be the best, both from an overall reputation and visibility standpoint, as well as an SEO point of view. The reason these are tied together is simple: Your overall online reputation and visibility is a huge factor in your SEO. Period. Let's start by talking about why.
Core ranking signals
For purposes of this post, let's define three cornerstone ranking signals that most everyone agrees on:
Links
Links remain a huge factor in overall ranking. Both Cyrus Shepard and Marcus Tober re-confirmed this on the Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors session at the SMX Advanced conference in Seattle this past June.
On-page content
On-page content remains a huge factor too, but with some subtleties now thrown in. I wrote about some of this in earlier posts I did on Moz about Term Frequency and Inverse Document Frequency. Suffice it to say that on-page content is about a lot more than pure words on the page, but also includes the supporting pages that you link to.
User engagement with your site
This is not one of the traditional SEO signals from the early days of SEO, but most advanced SEO pros that I know consider it a real factor these days. One of the most popular concepts people talk about is called pogo-sticking, which is illustrated here:
You can learn more about the pogosticking concept by visiting this Whiteboard Friday video by a rookie SEO with a last name of Fishkin.
New, lesser-known signals
OK, so these are the more obvious signals, but now let's look more broadly at the overall web ecosystem and talk about other types of ranking signals. Be warned that some of these signals may be indirect, but that just doesn't matter. In fact, my first example below is an indirect factor which I will use to demonstrate why whether a signal is direct or indirect is not an issue at all.
Let me illustrate with an example. Say you spend $1 billion dollars building a huge brand around a product that is massively useful to people. Included in this is a sizable $100 million dollar campaign to support a highly popular charitable foundation, and your employees regularly donate time to help out in schools across your country. In short, the great majority of people love your brand.
Do you think this will impact the way people link to your site? Of course it does. Do you think it will impact how likely people are to be satisified with quality of the pages of your site? Consider this A/B test scenario of 2 pages from different "brands" (for the one on the left, imagine the image of Coca Cola or Pepsi Cola, whichever one you prefer):
Do you think that the huge brand will get a benefit of a doubt on their page that the no-name brand does not even though the pages are identical? Of course they will. Now let's look at some simpler scenarios that don't involve a $1 billion investment.
1. Cover major options related to a product or service on "money pages"
Imagine that a user arrives on your auto parts site after searching on the phrase "oil filter" at Google or Bing. Chances are pretty good that they want an oil filter, but here are some other items they may also want:
- A guide to picking the right filter for their car
- Oil
- An oil filter wrench
- A drainage pan to drain the old oil into
This is just the basics, right? But, you would be surprised with how many sites don't include links or information on directly related products on their money pages. Providing this type of smart site and page design can have a major impact on user engagement with the money pages of your site.
2. Include other related links on money pages
In the prior item we covered the user's most directly related needs, but they may have secondary needs as well. Someone who is changing a car's oil is either a mechanic or a do-it-yourself-er. What else might they need? How about other parts, such as windshield wipers or air filters?
These are other fairly easy maintenance steps for someone who is working on their car to complete. Presence of these supporting products could be one way to improve user engagement with your pages.
3. Offer industry-leading non-commercial content on-site
Publishing world-class content on your site is a great way to produce links to your site. Of course, if you do this on a blog on your site, it may not provide links directly to your money pages, but it will nonetheless lift overall site authority.
In addition, if someone has consumed one or more pieces of great content on your site, the chance of their engaging in a more positive manner with your site overall go way up. Why? Because you've earned their trust and admiration.
4. Be everywhere your audiences are with more high-quality, relevant, non-commercial content
Are there major media sites that cover your market space? Do they consider you to be an expert? Will they quote you in articles they write? Can you provide them with guest posts or let you be a guest columnist? Will they collaborate on larger content projects with you?
All of these activities put you in front of their audiences, and if those audiences overlap with yours, this provides a great way to build your overall reputation and visibility. This content that you publish, or collaborate on, that shows up on 3rd-party sites will get you mentions and links. In addition, once again, it will provide you with a boost to your branding. People are now more likely to consume your other content more readily, including on your money pages.
5. Leverage social media
The concept here shares much in common with the prior point. Social media provides opportunities to get in front of relevant audiences. Every person that's an avid follower of yours on a social media site is more likely to show very different behavior characteristics interacting with your site than someone that does not know you well at all.
Note that links from social media sites are nofollowed, but active social media behavior can lead to people implementing "real world" links to your site that are followed, from their blogs and media web sites.
6. Be active in the offline world as well
Think your offline activity doesn't matter online? Think again. Relationships are still most easily built face-to-face. People you meet and spend time with can well become your most loyal fans online. This is particularly important when it comes to building relationships with influential people.
One great way to do that is to go to public events related to your industry, such as conferences. Better still, obtain speaking engagements at those conferences. This can even impact people who weren't there to hear you speak, as they become aware that you have been asked to do that. This concept can also work for a small local business. Get out in your community and engage with people at local events.
The payoff here is similar to the payoff for other items: more engaged, highly loyal fans who engage with you across the web, sending more and more positive signals, both to other people and to search engines, that you are the real deal.
7. Provide great customer service/support
Whatever your business may be, you need to take care of your customers as best you can. No one can make everyone happy, that's unrealistic, but striving for much better than average is a really sound idea. Having satisfied customers saying nice things about you online is a big impact item in the grand scheme of things.
8. Actively build relationships with influencers too
While this post is not about the value of influencer relationships, I include this in the list for illustration purposes, for two reasons:
- Some opportunities are worth extra effort. Know of someone who could have a major impact on your business? Know that they will be at a public event in the near future? Book your plane tickets and get your butt out there. No guarantee that you will get the result you are looking for, or that it will happen quickly, but your chances go WAY up if you get some face time with them.
- Influencers are worth special attention and focus, but your relationship-building approach to the web and SEO is not only about influencers. It's about the entire ecosystem.
It's an integrated ecosystem
The web provides a level of integrated, real-time connectivity of a kind that the world has never seen before. This is only going to increase. Do something bad to a customer in Hong Kong? Consumers in Boston will know within 5 minutes. That's where it's all headed.
Google and Bing (and any future search engine that may emerge) want to measure these types of signals because they tell them how to improve the quality of the experience on their platforms. There are may ways they can perform these measurements.
One simple concept is covered by Rand in this recent Whiteboard Friday video. The discussion is about a recent patent granted to Google that shows how the company can use search queries to detect who is an authority on a topic.
The example he provides is about people who search on "email finding tool". If Google also finds that a number of people search on "voila norbert email tool", Google may use that as an authority signal.
Think about that for a moment. How are you going to get people to search on your brand more while putting it together with a non-branded querly like that? (OK, please leave Mechanical Turk and other services like that out of the discussion).
Now you can start to see the bigger picture. Measurements like pogosticking and this recent search behavior related patent are just the tip of the iceberg. Undoubtedly, there are many other ways that search engines can measure what people like and engage with the most.
This is all part of SEO now. UX, product breadth, problem solving, UX, engaging in social media, getting face to face, creating great content that you publish in front of other people's audiences, and more.
For the small local business, you can still win at this game, as your focus just needs to be on doing it better than your competitors. The big brands will never be hyper-local like you are, so don't think you can't play the game, because you can.
Whoever you are, get ready, because this new integrated ecosystem is already upon us, and you need to be a part of it.
Hi Eric,
thanks for sharing this great and helping post. I do agree with every single point you have highlighted. Moreover, then links to the related products and basic info always have great CTR. I think it also give a user more confidence to stay on site.
Nice post. Getting a good ranking and getting a good business is two entirely different things. I have seen it on my websites. My ranking was almost on top positions in google but i was failed to achieve good business. I was receiving good amount of traffic per month but bounce rate was more than 50%. Interactive user friendly design is necessary for getting good business online.
Hi Hitesh, I am agree with you. I have also seen difference about ranking and business. Top ranking does not mean good business. Pages interactivity is necessary.
Really helpful and easy to understand stuff for all of us. I completely do agree with all your valuable points that you have maintained in this awesome post, but 4,5, and 6 points are in my favorite basket. There is no doubt that offline marketing also plays an important role in branding the products and company name.
We are now living in SEO Bizarro World or were we living in SEO Bizarro World? I feel sorry for the people who never got to beat Billion dollar companies in the SERPs from the comfort of there own kitchen. I am not saying you can't out rank big well established brands but it used to be very easy. It was like we were Rebels giving the finger to the Corporate masses that's what it used to be like.
You couldn't just buy your way in the SERP's you actual had to know what you were doing. The playing field was even. Now SEO has really turned into PR and content game. Pushing smaller businesses out of the way that can not compete with the sheer volume of content and PR pushing. You need $$$ if you want to compete in a really competitive industry. On page SEO and a perfect site structure will only get you so far,
Not all is lost you can still achieve great ranking in a competitive space but you really need to think out of the box and work on your link bait skills and a little prayer that your content goes viral couldn't hurt.. (Building quality content is still one of the best things you can control)
Sorry I digress. My point is/was that going back to the mid 90's things were different. Just imagine having the ability to run a TV, Newspaper or A radio ad whenever and wherever you wanted because it was basically free. Normally only large brands ran national ads because it was expensive. Now in 2015 internet advertising ie SEO has gone backwards giving the inherit advantage to large corporations that already have a brand. Branding takes time so be Patient
Sorry had an extra shot in my caramel macchiato
Agreed! It is a bit like going back in time. However, smart aggressive smaller businesses can steal a march on others that are not as ready to move as quickly as others are. Many larger businesses are slow and ponderous in adapting these types of philosophies.
Yes Eric Agreed.. Being small and agile does have its advatages.
4 and 5 are tricky. Lot of brands doesn't understand them correct and producing low-quality and crappy content just to share them on social media.
Usually on monday morning mine feed is fill with local businesses sharing cup of coffee or tea and wishing me to have a great week. Same happen on friday afternoon sharing posts about coming great weekend.
Fortunately some brands are learning to do better, but I think it will be a long process before most brands get it.
Nice written Eric! we have to see online engagement isn’t always easy, but it has to seem easy, natural, organic, unforced.
Great post, thanks for this. Am I right in thinking that Google Plus still gives do-follows? They did last time I checked. I find number 7 gives great rewards; if you answer an email query immediately, or sometimes even answer the phone people really love it. The other thing I like doing is giving stuff away, it only has to be tiny for people to appreciate it. This is articularly if it is in response to something someone has communicated to you, rather than in a BOGOF offer.
Hi Toby - Google+ links are NoFollow at this point. Your other suggestions are right on. There are various ways to create raving fans for your brand, and the big key is to figure out what works best for you.
Thanks for the update Eric
thank you for a very informative post .
Hi, you really give very useful information, but not all bloggers can your advice to bring to life, to me personally enough, still need time, I really liked the information about a/B testing think in their spare the time to do
I literally just changed the oil in my car myself for the first time last weekend!
After struggling with a homemade old fashioned oil wrench and struggling with finding search results for the right size wrench for my car's oil filter, I definitely see how this is a great example of how good content would lead to multiple purchases.
Great real world example!
Hi Eric, Thank you for these great tips! I definitely agree with "Be active in the offline world as well." Too many business owners and marketers these days are so obsessed with achieving better engagement and recognition through online avenues they forget their customers aren't living inside computers or on the Internet. Offline word-of-mouth advertising/referrals can be critical to online success as offline interactions organically result in things like online sales, social network referrals, reviews and testimonials. In fact, I believe that even strictly e-commerce companies need to have offline representatives promoting them and engaging face-to-face with existing and potential customers, as well as vendors and manufacturers, when applicable. I also agree that businesses can no longer afford to ignore customer complaints written anywhere since someone in the U.S., for example, can quickly and easily read a bad review written by a customer located in any country. Again, thanks!
Agreed, offline activity can play a huge role in this. Best way to get a raving fan? Spend 15 or minutes with them in an engaged face to face conversation.
Truly supportive and straightforward stuff for every one of us. I totally do concur with all your significant focuses that you have kept up in this amazing post, yet 4 focuses are in my most loved wicker container. There is most likely disconnected from the net promoting likewise assumes a critical part in marking the items and organization name.
Visit Giving Searchers a Reason to Prefer Your Brand - Whiteboard Friday for more great information on the topic :
Hello Eric, Thank you for these incredible tips! I without a doubt concur with "Be dynamic in the disconnected from the net world too." Too numerous entrepreneurs and advertisers nowadays are so fixated on accomplishing better engagement
thanks for useful article my company
Nice Post. If my website is optimized properly for on page then i will surely get good ranking in short time.
Rookie SEO with a last name of Fishkin OMG, Anchortext is a proof :)
That Anchor made me stop reading for a while, conzentration was gone... so I stood longer on the page I guess, great work :)
Finished and found a missing "n" in 'There are may ways they...' and I say that just to make that great post mistake free.
Hi Eric,
I love printing interesting articles. So I did with yours. Do you have any influence on the print layout or how my printer transfers your post? It doesn't look as good as Moz.com does.
Cheers, Nic
P.S. Good going!
I am afraid I don't. Not sure if someone from the Moz team does though.
nice post, an informative one
Why is it that we who are trying to build market our websites are continuously told that backlinks are not important anymore? I mean come on. Someone has to know the answer to this. I follow everything you have said in this post. Even my webmaster tells me links are not a factor anymore. Will there be a time when this does start happening?
I enjoyed this article so much I read it twice. One of the areas I'm interested in is your number eight point about relationship building with influencers. There are so many different types of influencers online, such as industry experts, social media darlings and mega celebrities, and not every influencer is good for a business.Are there any resources you can recommend that outline the best way to vet and select influencers? How would you personally go about the process?I 'm extremely interested in your answer because there seems to be so many influencers in the news these days who have fallen from grace. Beyond celebrities who do something wrong and drag down companies they promote or support, many experts of late from a variety of industries have also lost their credibility after it was discovered that they lied about something or received money for lectures or consultations from companies that represent the industries that they just happened to support in their "unbiased" opinions.
Eric Enge thanks for informative post. I thing on-page content and link are important than other factors.