SEO “Wizardry”


Or, In Normal Speak –

Leveraging Data for Insight
What can tools show you?
•   Hard numbers
•   Lots of pretty graphs
•   Obscure terminology
•   Tactics- Not Strategy
Which means…
 • You have to use your own analysis
 • Draw your own conclusions
 • Create an actionable plan from those conclusions
Tools:
•   Screaming Frog
•   Alchemy
•   Facebook Debugger
Quick On-Site Strategy Check
•   What are their priority categories and topics?
•   Are they segmenting with subdomains?
•   What’s their topical dilution?
•   How are they segmenting according to intent?
Cross-Data Check- SEMRush
• Sort by directory hierarchy

• Breakout categories 1-2 levels down

• Cross check with SEMrush for categorical volumes

• Look for open opportunities and weaknesses
Cross-Data Check- SEMRush
Canonical Strategy


• Where are they consolidating blog posts or other equity to within the site?
• Are they consolidating into static pages?
• Are they using an internal canonical strategy?
Facebook Debugger
What does this tell me?
Are they:

• Leveraging OG with “verbs” and “actions” to increase
  sharing?
• Are they fully optimizing content and site for sharing?
Semantics, Concepts and Entities
• What’s the topical strength of category pages
• What user base are they targeted? Do? Know? Go?
  Multiple?
• Are these pages intended for transactional, information or
  direct traffic?
Concepts and Entities
                        Overall Makeup vs.
                        “Density”
Analysis Off-Site
•   Who are they?
•   What are they doing?
•   More Importantly, how are you viewed?
Tools:
•   Majestic SEO
•   AnalyticsSEO
•   SEMRush
What are we looking at?
 • Commonalities
 • Promotional timelines
 • Potential link quality
Link Trends
 •   What’s your natural backlink cadence?
 •   What’s your competitor’s cadence?
 •   Low points in backlink generation
 •   High points in backlink generation
Link Trends- Majestic
Anchor Text Distribution
 The obvious- What are they building
 for?


 The not so obvious- How does that
 tie into the overall topic and theme of
 the site?
Unless they’re doing major cleanup, the Pre-Penguin trail is there.




• What did they find important?
• What phrases were their efforts concentrated on?
• How are you performing in comparison?
Manual querying- ~
GoRank- Does heavy lifting for you


• Full phrases
• Drills down to individual words
• Helps show relationships between phrases
Link Quality Snapshots- AnalyticsSEO


Benefits:


• You can potentially see their skeletons & low quality links
• You can identify which competitor has the highest “quality” links


Drawbacks
• Only AC rank for judging quality
• Trust scores aren’t integrated
• Cross-reference AC Rank with Trust Scores In Majestic
Various Tracking Graphs

• Track specific URLs against your
  competitors that are performing
  better than you [Majestic]
• Track your pages that are struggling
  to perform for high volume phrases
  above the fold
• Track the drop off of referring
  domains
    • Indicator of feed links
    • Indicator of non-static links
    • Only momentary value
YOUR JUDGEMENT!

What tactics are helping vs. hurting strategy?

              Use your brains.
I’m approachable, I promise.



BlueGlassX - SEO “Wizardry” by Selena Narayanasamy

BlueGlassX - SEO “Wizardry” by Selena Narayanasamy

  • 1.
    SEO “Wizardry” Or, InNormal Speak – Leveraging Data for Insight
  • 2.
    What can toolsshow you? • Hard numbers • Lots of pretty graphs • Obscure terminology • Tactics- Not Strategy
  • 3.
    Which means… •You have to use your own analysis • Draw your own conclusions • Create an actionable plan from those conclusions
  • 4.
    Tools: • Screaming Frog • Alchemy • Facebook Debugger
  • 5.
    Quick On-Site StrategyCheck • What are their priority categories and topics? • Are they segmenting with subdomains? • What’s their topical dilution? • How are they segmenting according to intent?
  • 6.
    Cross-Data Check- SEMRush •Sort by directory hierarchy • Breakout categories 1-2 levels down • Cross check with SEMrush for categorical volumes • Look for open opportunities and weaknesses
  • 7.
  • 8.
    Canonical Strategy • Whereare they consolidating blog posts or other equity to within the site? • Are they consolidating into static pages? • Are they using an internal canonical strategy?
  • 9.
  • 10.
    What does thistell me? Are they: • Leveraging OG with “verbs” and “actions” to increase sharing? • Are they fully optimizing content and site for sharing?
  • 11.
    Semantics, Concepts andEntities • What’s the topical strength of category pages • What user base are they targeted? Do? Know? Go? Multiple? • Are these pages intended for transactional, information or direct traffic?
  • 12.
    Concepts and Entities Overall Makeup vs. “Density”
  • 13.
    Analysis Off-Site • Who are they? • What are they doing? • More Importantly, how are you viewed?
  • 14.
    Tools: • Majestic SEO • AnalyticsSEO • SEMRush
  • 15.
    What are welooking at? • Commonalities • Promotional timelines • Potential link quality
  • 16.
    Link Trends • What’s your natural backlink cadence? • What’s your competitor’s cadence? • Low points in backlink generation • High points in backlink generation
  • 17.
  • 18.
    Anchor Text Distribution The obvious- What are they building for? The not so obvious- How does that tie into the overall topic and theme of the site?
  • 19.
    Unless they’re doingmajor cleanup, the Pre-Penguin trail is there. • What did they find important? • What phrases were their efforts concentrated on? • How are you performing in comparison?
  • 21.
  • 22.
    GoRank- Does heavylifting for you • Full phrases • Drills down to individual words • Helps show relationships between phrases
  • 23.
    Link Quality Snapshots-AnalyticsSEO Benefits: • You can potentially see their skeletons & low quality links • You can identify which competitor has the highest “quality” links Drawbacks • Only AC rank for judging quality • Trust scores aren’t integrated • Cross-reference AC Rank with Trust Scores In Majestic
  • 25.
    Various Tracking Graphs •Track specific URLs against your competitors that are performing better than you [Majestic] • Track your pages that are struggling to perform for high volume phrases above the fold • Track the drop off of referring domains • Indicator of feed links • Indicator of non-static links • Only momentary value
  • 26.
    YOUR JUDGEMENT! What tacticsare helping vs. hurting strategy? Use your brains.
  • 27.

Editor's Notes

  • #3 Spoke on some on-site technical, I’ll review some off0site data for compettitors. AtBlueGlass, we focus on the overall strategy – we don’t believe in putting an ounce of effort into strategy until we know the full competitive landscape. That means understanding overall strategy, and being able to view the tactics that are contributing to strategy.
  • #4 It’s hard! Especially in a post-panda and penguin world, when all sorts of algorithm changes are rolling out left and right. Your own analysis will give you more insight than any tool will. When you’re looking at data, look for what theyre screwing up so you can hedge your site when changes roll out.
  • #6 Get a good feel for the site itself. Run the domain through screaming frog and pull a big data dump so you can start sorting and sifting to understand structure.
  • #7 Breaking out the categories gives you a clear view of where your competitor (and your site) are gaining traction.
  • #9 How are they treating their evergreen content? If they have a strong audience often times you’ll see brands push content out on the blog and then canonical it to a static page to prevent it from getting buried
  • #12 Understanding the who what where of pages and who they’re targeting
  • #13 What’s the overall makeup of your site copy vs. their site copy – keyword density isn’t really something to pay attention to – it’s all about the overall makeup and relationships between the words. What’s the strength of your key pages in relation to your competitors?
  • #20 Are they still performing via brute force? Opportunity to hedge the correct way with diversification, branded and modified phrases/
  • #21 Look for modifiers and related phrases to blend with brand & domain terms.
  • #25 Gives you a quick overall view so you can drill down – this is where the analysis outside of pure data and snapshot is necessary. Identify sites by “AC Rank” but drill down into the true metrics of trust scoring in Majestic. This gives you a truer count.