Phil Buckley's 2012 presentation at ConvergeSouth: SEO, AdWords and Analytics ConvergeSouth2012

1. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

2. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Everything you think you know is probably wrong
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

3. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Since last year’s ConvergeSouth conference…
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

4. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
October 18, 2011
Google announces they will be encrypting search
queries, for privacy reasons. Unfortunately, this
disrupts organic keyword referral data, returning
"(not provided)" for some organic traffic.
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

5. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
November 3, 2011
Google announces an algorithm change rewarding
freshness will impact up to 35% of queries (almost
3X the publicly stated impact of Panda 1.0). This
update primarly affects time-sensitive results, but
signalls a much stronger focus on recent content.
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

6. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
November 14, 2011
In a bid to appear transparent, Matt Cutts releases a
post with 10 recent algorithm updates.
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

7. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
December 1, 2011
Matt Cutts does it again.
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

8. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
January 10, 2012
Search + Your World.
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

9. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
January 19, 2012
Top Heavy.
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

10. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
February, 2012
Google releases another set of “Search Quality
Highlights. No actual details, but everyone is talking
about the “new transparency”.
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

11. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
April 24, 2012
After weeks of speculation about an "Over-
optimization penalty", Google finally rolled out the
"Webspam Update", which was soon after dubbed
"Penguin."
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

12. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
May 16, 2012
In a major step toward semantic search, Google
started rolling out "Knowledge Graph", a SERP-
integrated display providing supplemental object
about certain people, places, and things.
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

13. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
June 9, 2012
Panda 3.7 is released and causes major SERP
fluctuation. This causes even more SERP change
than the Penguin update.
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

14. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
July 19, 2012
Google sent out a large number of unnatural link
warnings via Google Webmaster Tools. In a
complete turn-around, they then announced that
these new warnings may not actually represent a
serious problem.
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

15. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
August 10, 2012
Google announces that they will start penalizing
sites with repeat copyright violations, probably
via DMCA takedown requests.
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

16. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
August 10, 2012
After a summer hiatus, the June and July Search
Quality Highlights were rolled out in one mega-post.
Major updates included Panda data and algorithm
refreshes, an improved rank-ordering function (?), a
ranking boost for "trusted sources", and changes
to site clustering.
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

17. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
August 14, 2012
Google makes a significant change to the first page,
limiting it to 7 results for many queries. SEOmoz
research shows that this change impacts about 18%
of the keywords they tracked.
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

18. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
September 27, 2012
Panda algorithm update – this would be the 20th
This was a fairly major Panda update that impacts
2.4% of English search queries and will rolled out
over multiple days.
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

19. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
September 28, 2012
Google launched a major algorithm update coined
as being "minor" that targeted low quality exact
match domains - the EMD update.
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

20. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
October 5, 2012
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

21. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
October 9, 2012
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

22. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
What is “noticeably affected”
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

23. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
So what?
What do all those slides mean to me?
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

24. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Shit just got real
Image from noaa.gov
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

25. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
photo by Philip Roeland
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

26. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

27. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Mesothelioma
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

28. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

29. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

30. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
2012 Google Quality Rater Guidelines
http://pdfcast.org/pdf/google-guidelines
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

31. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

32. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
How to bridge the gap for the 6 months you’re
digging yourself out of the hole…
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

33. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Google wants your money
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

34. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Insurance (example keywords in this category include "buy car
insurance online" and "auto insurance price quotes")
Loans (example keywords include "consolidate graduate student
loans" and "cheapest homeowner loans")
Mortgage (example keywords include “refinanced second
mortgages” and “remortgage with bad credit”)
Attorney (example keywords include “personal injury attorney”
and “dui defense attorney”)
Credit (example keywords include “home equity line of credit” and
“bad credit home buyer”)
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

35. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
AdWords as an Organic Test
Use AdWords as a highly prices test to see what
phrases convert and what drives unqualified traffic.
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

36. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
RIP Exact Match & Phrase Match
• keyword misspellings
• singular/plural forms
• stemmings (word endings such as "ing", "ed", etc.)
• accents
• abbreviations
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

37. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
More Details on Quality Score Calculation
By hovering over keyword status, you can now see
Google’s rankings (below average, average, above
average) for three key attributes: Expected
clickthrough rate, ad relevance, and landing page
experience.
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

38. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Ad Rotation Changes
You no longer can rotate ads evenly long-
term. After 30 90 days of even rotation of ads,
Google will start displaying ads that are most likely
to get more clicks.
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

39. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Google Analytics
Not changing every day
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

40. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
A world without keywords
Remember my first slide about Google updates?
Encrypted search = Not provided
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

41. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Not provided
45% WTF?
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

42. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

43. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

44. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

45. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Drop off
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

46. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
This slide is not blank
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

47. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
The Future
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

48. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley
Photo courtesy of sookie via Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sookie/31219031/

49. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

50. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

51. SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley

52. Thank you
SEO, AdWords and Analytics
Phil Buckley @1918 Director of SEO at Virante linkedin.com/in/pbuckley