Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz
| @randfish | rand@moz.com The Search Landscape in 2017 What’s changed (and changing) in SEO, searcher behavior, technology, & marketing

Bit.ly/searchscape17

Some Remarkable, New Data On
Searcher Behavior…

How Many Searches Happen on
Google.com? In May, Google told SearchEngineLand it was 2+ Trillion… Source

How Many Searches Happen on
Google.com? Source That’s 480-720B searches/year on just Google.com US

Google.com US Search Session Data:
Average Session Length: % of Search Clicks on Google Properties (YouTube, Maps, etc): % of Searches Resulting in a Query Change Before a Click: % of Searches Resulting in a Pogostick (click->back->click) ~55 seconds 11.8% * 21% 8% *11.8% of distinct search queries, 8.4% of all searches

Google Search Activity The average
searcher does ~3.4 queries per day on their desktop and mobile (each).

Mobile CTR 2.0% on Paid
40.9% on Organic 57.1% Don’t Click

2.8% on Paid Desktop CTR
62.2% on Organic 35% Don’t Click

CTR on Google Mobile vs.
Desktop There may be more traffic opportunity from desktop STILL due to higher CTR Source

From All Google… to Only
Mostly Google.

Jumpshot’s Search Volume Distribution (Oct.
2016) Source Halloween?

If We Assumed There Are
50 Billion Monthly Searches on Google.com…

Google Images Would Have: 22.58
Billion Searches/Month

YouTube: 3.13 Billion Searches/Month

Yahoo!: 2.08 Billion Searches/Month

Bing: 1.9 Billion Searches/Month

Google Maps: 1.76 Billion Searches/Month

Amazon: 1.56 Billion Searches/Month

Facebook: 581 Million Searches/Month

DuckDuckGo: 472 Million Searches/Month

Google News: 236 Million Searches/Month

From SEO First… to Holistic
Marketing.

2000-2012: SEO is Possible w/o
Other Marketing

2012-Today: SEO Rewards Great Marketing

On-PageKeywordUse Important Then: Important Now:
CrawlerAccessibility Links(themorethebetter) AnchorText KeywordsinDomainName InternalLinking&PageRankFlow ContentQuantity StayingUnderGoogle’sRadar Content’sOverallRelevance(incl.KWs) CrawlerAccessibility Links(butonlyfromlegitsources) AnchorText(betternotbetoogood) Branding&Memorability MobileFriendliness&OverallUX SearcherSatisfaction HaveNothingtoHide Why? A Change in Ranking Inputs

Launching a New Venture? SEO
Brand & Product Unique Value Proposition Audience & Influencers Content & UX

From SERP Rankings… to SERP
Features.

SERP Features Are Near-Universal

SERP Features Massively Impact CTR

Many Features Remove SEO Opportunity

But, in 2017, There’s Also
More Feature Opportunity Than Ever Before You can do SEO to show up here And here

And here

Here And here Here too
Also here Yup!

16 Features Every SEO Should
Consider: Videounits SERPFeature Type How toGet In “PeopleAlsoAsk” FeaturedSnippet MapsBox KnowledgePanel TopStories(News) Images Apps Create&optimizeonYouTube(or,rarely,Vimeo) Branding–getsearchedforwith/afterthequery Phrasing&positionofshortanswerincontent ClaimGMB,getlinks,earncitations,benearby Earnbrandassociation,usestructuredmarkup GetinGoogleNews,earnlinks,titlew/KWs Relevantimages,altattributes,&directembeds KWsintitle/description,getpopularinappstores

Books RelatedSearches Tweets SearchSuggest Sitelinks
SectionSitelinks In-DepthArticles Carousels/ListResults Writeabook,useKWsinthetitle,haveanISBN Besearched+foundcommonlyw/theKWs Verifiedaccountshelp,useKWsintweets Asw/relatedsearches,alsogeo-sensitive Getlinks&visitstoseveralpoppgs;usemarkup Growpopularsubsectionsw/popularsubpages Authorlongerpiecesthatreceiveattention/links Belistedalongsidecommonsetsontheweb 16 Features Every SEO Should Consider: SERPFeature Type How toGet In

AdWords 54.7% of Results, 3.4%
of Clicks

Local/Maps Results 15% of Results,
0.9% of Clicks

Tweet Blocks 7% of Results,
0.23% of Clicks

Google Shopping 9% of Results,
0.55% of Clicks

Image Block 11% of Results,
3% of Clicks

YouTube 6.3% of Results, 1.8%
of Clicks

Personalized Gmail ??% of Results,
0.16% of Clicks

Top Stories? Unfortunately, we couldn’t
get data on these (yet)

Knowledge Panel 38% of Results,
0.5% of Clicks

Knowledge Panel
??
!

You’re Welcome!

From Apps!…
to Apps?

We Spend A Lot of
Time on Our Mobiles Source

Almost 90% of That is
In Apps Source

But Apps Are a Winner-Take-All
Market Source

The Avg Person Really Only
Uses 3 Apps Source

Apps Are Only Valuable for
a Few; Mobile Websites are Crucial For Everyone Source

A Better Alternative: PWAs
Source

Be Careful Over-focusing on Mobile
Only Source

Desktop’s Plateauing, Not Dying
Source

From Expressed Intent… to Implied
Intent.

Past: Query Terms Determined Results

Today: Google Knows What You
Want Better Than (& Before) You Do

Elements We Believe Google Uses
in Predictive Intent: Location & Prior Behavior of Users inThat Location DeviceAttributes:Type,O/S, Speed,InstalledApps, etc Search,App, & Browser History Gmail Behavior (& possibly all keyboard behavior) Temporal Elements &Time-Based Patterns

Different Devices/People; Different Results Seattle,
WA Northampton, MA

It’s Not Just Search Suggestions;
It’s Rankings Too

e.g. In San Diego, Comics
Rule:

If Google Becomes a Suggestion
Engine, Marketers Will Be Left With Two Choices: Capture attention here Or compete, unaided, here

When I first stumbled across
this article, I didn’t even know where in Japan I’d go…

By the time I reached
evaluation stage, it was too late to convince me to stay anywhere else…

From Results…
to Answers.

Many Queries Get No Clicks
at All According to our clickstream data, <25% of searchers will click from a result like this.

This is so common that,
according to our data, 49% of searches results in 0 clicks!

Why Sacrifice Ad $$ for
Answers? These are high CPC ads, with high ROI Why is Google hurting ad CTR w/ these answers?!

Answers  More Searches Google’s
willing to lose a lot of short-term revenue in exchange for addictive search behavior

Is the Future Ads as
Answers?

In Organic, Featured Snippets Are
Google’s Primary “Be the Answer” Bet.

Extracted, Card-Style Answers are Also
on the Rise

From Voice Search… to Smart
Assistants.

Voice Search = No Threat

Smart Assistants = Some Threat

Voice Answers = Massive Threat
Source

From Net Neutrality… to an
Uncertain Future.

Source

Source

Source

If Net Neutrality is Eliminated
in the US, What Will It Mean for Site Owners? ISPswill chargesubscribersmore to visitsites outsidethe includedbundles,massivelyloweringtraffic opportunities. Alot of SEO will shift to sites included by ISPdefaults Sites targeting top 20-30% earners will be less affected Paying ISPs may be required to achieve the most traffic Google may show sites’status w/ the ISPin the SERP

Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz
| @randfish | rand@moz.com bit.ly/searchscape17