AMAZON & GOOGLE SEO PRIORITIES
2017 EDITION

ASK ME QUESTIONS seriously, i’m
ok with it @portentint facebook.com/ian.lurie portent.com/blog

hi. i do seo.

NO

Buy our running shoes. They’re
the best running shoes you’ll find. We have pink running shoes, brown running shoes and running shoes that help you run. They’re shoes. For running. SEO…?

WE’RE MORE LIKE THIS LET’S
TAKE THIS A STEP AT A TIME, SHALL WE?

GETTING INSIDE A SEARCH ENGINE’S
HEAD

I READ PATENTS I READ
PATENTS

WE, ER, COLLECT RESULTS nothing
to see here. Move the $#@! along.

AMAZON INDEXES
ITS OWN DATA

Things that are the same

Delivers results based on relevance
and behavior

Scarcity
Single-factor search

Critical Strategy Optimize products with
fewest sellers

Relevance
Does this make sense?

Amazon provides no query data

So dig for it

EBAY: Terapeak Keywords

Search suggest

Search suggest

Search suggest

Google Insights for Search

Keyword Prioritization Title Keywords Product
description Bullets

Many sellers = Weak correlation

Fewer sellers = Strong correlation

Ideal Product Title Brand +
Line + Material + Attributes

Ideal Product Title Keyword close
to start

Ideal Product Title Sockmakers Zombie
Socks Blue SM 4 Pack

How about in the content
and bullets?

Aim for persuasive, not keyword-rich

In the keywords?...

Unknown: No data (but common
sense)

Build product “freshness” Poke around
with updates

I wrote a book

Less relevant than a camel

20 minutes after title change

20 minutes later

Questions

AnswerThePublic.com

Answerthepublic.com

“This airbrush is designed for
miniatures”

Update description to answer questions

Rely on Amazon’s query segmentation

RC Cars

RC Cars

RC Cars
Radio Controlled Toys

RC Cars Radio Controlled Toys
Remote Controlled Vehicles

Don’t repeat product name or
other keywords (Doesn’t help them sell more stuff)

EXCEPT…

What’s Changed

“Remote Controlled Moose Call” 2016

“Remote Controlled Moose Call”

“Remote Controlled Moose Call” 2017

“miniature terrain”

More weight to keyword field?
Less weight to titles? Magic?

Word vectors…?
Word Vectors…?

REDUCED CORRELATION W/ REVIEWS

REDUCED CORRELATION W/ REVIEWS

Quality + Count + Velocity
+ Votes - Simplicity– Patterns – Trends

Cough.

Behavior Did the customer click?
Did the customer buy? Did they like it? Did they like who they bought from?

Product performance for key phrases
determine rankings

For this, I paid and
got up early? for this, i paid?

Rank well so you can
perform well so that you can rank well

Provide evidence that you’ll sell
more stuff

Try some phrase targeting

“To buy my book, search
‘one trick consulting’ on Amazon”

One Trick Consulting

That proves you can sell
more stuff for “consulting”

Where Amazon’s Going

Voice

Oy.

Oy vey.

Scarcity
Single-factor search

Focus on what Amazon wants

HISTORY MAJOR

GOOGLE INDEXES
OTHERS’ DATA

Google is indexing massive, ridiculous,
mind- numbing amounts of unstructured data

They want to sell more
ads Which means they need more page views

For that, they need to
give the right answers

Delivers results based on relevance,
behavior and authority

Multi-factor search

What’s Changed

i will kick your @#!$
Google Panda is now part of the algorithm

i will kick your @#!$
Google Panda Measures site quality That panda? He’s a wimp. Google Penguin is now part of the algorithm

Don’t Get Cute

Nope

Hell no

Tell ‘em Ian Said To

The Coming SSL Apocalypse Get
on HTTPS by November, 2017

The Mobile-First Index

Costs you “crawl budget” The
Big Change: Rankbrain

Old way My Dog My
dog’s name is Alfred. He’s a great dog. Some small dog breeds are yappy. Not Alfred. He’s a total prince. Except when he pees everywhere. And chases the cats. And wakes me up at 3am. Actually, sometimes I seriously consider jamming him in the microwave. But that dog is so damned adorable I just can't wedge him in there.

New way My Dog My
dog’s name is Alfred. He’s a great pup. Some small breeds are yappy. Not Alfred. He’s a total prince. Except when he pees everywhere. And chases the cats. And wakes me up at 3am. Actually, sometimes I seriously consider jamming the mutt in the microwave. But he's so damned adorable I just can't wedge him in there.

Things that are the same

Your first job: Visibility aka
“hygiene”

Google provides some insight into
site health

Set up Search Console

All this lovely data…

All this lovely data…

But herein lies madness

Get a crawler, or a
“health check” toolset

Screaming Frog

Moz

I-N-F-R-A-S-T-R-U-C-T-U-R-E

Avoid duplicate content

May be duplication

/purplepeopleeaters
/purplepeopleeaters?p=1

www.mysite.com www.mysite.com/index.html mysite.com whoa say
what now?

Costs you “crawl budget” i’m
outta here

Don’t remove out-of-stock products that
will be back

Product

Links

Poof

Your customers

“Sorry, this isn’t in stock
right now. Here are some other options. Or, we can notify you when it’s back.”

Preserves authority Avoids redirects and
broken links

Your second job: Quality (impacts
behavior)

Google looks at dwell time,
bounce rate and clickthru rate

Compress images (for a faster
site)

700kb png 64kb jpg

IMAGEOPTIM/CAESIUM

1.1 megabytes

227kb

Google search console

More quality signals: Responsive design
Writing quality Server response

Your third job: Relevance

Use the right words

Google is Trying To Structure
Data: The Answer Box

“I sell athletic footwear! Not
running shoes!” “Philistine!”

AUDIENCE
Google Insights for Search

Adwords keyword planner

Onsite search data

Moz Keyword Explorer
SEMRush
AlchemyAPI

Answer the right questions

Google Suggest

Google Suggest

Google Suggest

AnswerThePublic.com

Target these in product descriptions
“[Model name] is best for overpronators”

Put words where they should
be

Title tags The most influential
on-page ranking factor

Titles must pass the blank
sheet of paper test

Will this, written on a
blank sheet of paper, make sense to a stranger?

Deer kill 10,000

Supreme Court Tries Sodomy

Description tags No direct ranking
impact

Keywords Tag: No

Update existing content

Find older product descriptions &
other content

This is an old answer.
Write a new one:

Update product language to answer
new questions

Update language to better describe
features

Strong Relevance Signal: Descriptive Navigation

Do you sell “products?” Or
“shoes?”

Blank Sheet of Paper Test,
2.0

More relevance signals: Structured markup
On-page links ALT attributes

And then authority

Links

Links are votes

Fix broken links, first

Opensiteexplorer.org

Easiest link acquisition ever
Opensiteexplorer.org

Google Search Console

Google Search Console

Consolidate?

Nofollow: No

Yes, there is lots more
Response codes Canonicalization … This is a starting point

Show Google you have the
right answers

HISTORY MAJOR

QUICK TIPS FOR HIRING AN
SEO

HIRE US.

NEVER hire if they say

“It’s a secret”

“We have connections at Google”

“We guarantee results!!!”

DO hire if

They don’t make you feel
dirty

They explain what they’ll do
and how

Amazon and Google Nothing in
Common

Except we need them

Next steps

First, do no harm

Work through these tips

Remember what they want

ian@portent.com @portentint Slides & links
www.portent.co/amazonseo I regret nothing