Wordpress, the new 500lb Gorilla?

[joe.pistell]

Joe,
Do you have a source for:

Craig,

Its EVERYWHERE. One small example:

SMX West March 2013, The all-star panel is filled with a mix of the brightest minds in SEO [link to page]


QUESTION: What do you suggest for someone starting in SEO?

• Greg: Stop using the word SEO… it’s no longer about “tactics” its about “strategy.”
• Matt: What Google wants is what users want.
• Duane: There are best practices that you need to understand. You need more than just tactics. You need to have good negotiating skills, know basics about psychology, how to work with other teams, you need to know usability, you need to know paid search, you need to know ROI. If you’re still an SEO saying “my job is just to get traffic” then you’re not long for this world.
• Janet: Clients still want “ranking” but they don’t exist anymore. You need to educate and shift the discussion away from rankings and educate about how “ranking” is really about getting traffic and traffic is about getting sales/leads/conversions etc.
• Duane: Keep your company focused on what is actually important to your business goals. Forget about rankings

 

[craigh]

Thanks Joe.
I've seen a number of things along this line, but more towards "What the user wants is what Google wants".

More reading!

 

[joe.pistell]

Craig, it's EVERYWHERE.

ROI from SEO will no longer be in a silo where mad scientists deploy geek tactics to juice traffic. For SEO to create ROI, it MUST convert those visits into dollars!

Rand Fishkin tells his peeps that "Why We Can't Just Be SEOs Anymore - Whiteboard Friday"

Why We Can't Just Be SEOs Anymore - Whiteboard Friday - Moz


and again...
[h=2]Why We're Retiring SEOmoz[/h]
Goodbye SEOmoz. Hello Moz! - Moz
[h=2][/h]

 

[cmjerry4531]

SEO of old all about SEO techniques. Today's SEO from Matt Cutts down is all about delivering a great UX (User Experience). I'll say it again, Google is telling us what its SEO target is, it's not SEO mechanics, its a killer UX.

I'm totally on board for Internet Marketers/Inbound Marketers being forced to a higher standard than a #1 ranking, but search engine optimization is still built on relevance and trust.[/QUOTE]

Craig, it's EVERYWHERE.

ROI from SEO will no longer be in a silo where mad scientists deploy geek tactics to juice traffic. For SEO to create ROI, it MUST convert those visits into dollars!

Rand Fishkin tells his peeps that "Why We Can't Just Be SEOs Anymore - Whiteboard Friday"

I'm totally on board with forcing SEO's to have more accountability for their performance, as well as having a cohesive internet strategy. That being said, the same basic principles for getting higher rankings, and in turn traffic, are there.

1. Make sure your website is relevant
2. Find ways to get trusted sources to talk about your website

Granted, things have definitely moved towards the user experience. Google altered the algorithm to look at the whole context of the content, and not just individual phrases, and has forced designers to create pages that are more friendly towards the users with the page layout updates. So, while UX has become a higher priority, you still can't forget the robot in the other room.

Articles About Google's Recent Updates:

Keyword Density changed to latent Dirichlet allocation:
Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and Google's Rankings are Remarkably Well Correlated - Moz
Analysis of SEOmoz

Page Layout updates to improve reading experiences:
It's "Top Heavy 2" As Google Rolls Out Update To Its Page Layout Algorithm

Exact Match Domains Being Ousted By Brands
The EMD Update: Google Issues "Weather Report" Of Crack Down On Low Quality Exact Match Domains

 

[craigh]

1. Make sure your website is relevant
2. Find ways to get trusted sources to talk about your website

Granted, things have definitely moved towards the user experience. Google altered the algorithm to look at the whole context of the content, and not just individual phrases, and has forced designers to create pages that are more friendly towards the users with the page layout updates. So, while UX has become a higher priority, you still can't forget the robot in the other room.

I think this sums it up really well. While Google can see some portions of UX, they're still going to base rankings on your content, relevance, etc. I often wonder how much weight they give to their Analytics data - site traversal, time on site, user engagement, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if the way they judge UX is just integrating their Analytics into the algo.

The other important thing to note is that Google's results are so heavily biased now in comparison to X years ago. I have to open Safari, make sure no Google accounts are logged in OR I have to use the AdWords sample tool to try and see what unbiased results would look like. Even our SEO tool checks our rank based on the .ca rankings, but the in-city local rankings are completely different.

 

[csabatka1]

I think this sums it up really well. While Google can see some portions of UX, they're still going to base rankings on your content, relevance, etc. I often wonder how much weight they give to their Analytics data - site traversal, time on site, user engagement, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if the way they judge UX is just integrating their Analytics into the algo.

The other important thing to note is that Google's results are so heavily biased now in comparison to X years ago. I have to open Safari, make sure no Google accounts are logged in OR I have to use the AdWords sample tool to try and see what unbiased results would look like. Even our SEO tool checks our rank based on the .ca rankings, but the in-city local rankings are completely different.

I don't think biased isn't the correct word. The results are catered to the user, especially a logged in Google account.

 

[craigh]

I don't think biased is the correct word. The results are catered to the user, especially a logged in Google account.

Agreed. Biased was a poor choice of word.
The results are tailored to each individual, their search history, their location and the browsing history.

 

[joe.pistell]

Gents, the core of your replies are centered on defending your beliefs. You wrote:

"1. Make sure your website is relevant
2. Find ways to get trusted sources to talk about your website"

​

Yes, this is still mission critical SEO, but, SEO is evolving, it's headed into new territory.

This quote from Duane Forrester, head of Bing WebMaster tools at SMX 2013 addresses how the SEO touch points are changing:

"Duane: There are best practices that you need to understand. You need more than just tactics. You need to have good negotiating skills, know basics about psychology, how to work with other teams, you need to know usability, you need to know paid search, you need to know ROI. If you’re still an SEO saying “my job is just to get traffic” then you’re not long for this world.
​

Google is changing and so is "Best of class SEO".

 

[MikeFitzpatrick]

Google is changing and so is "Best of class SEO".

Google is changing in their ability to enforce what they have always pushed for. Good quality content that gets natural links based on value.

Regarding WordPress and SEO there are still a lot of contributing factors that still make it a superior platform/CMS:

• Pages and posts have a parent/child relationship so you can create a hierarchy, and weight pages with internal linking without even thinking about it.
• Ease of use equals more use and more content in most cases.
• Incredible "SEO" plugins that help guide novice users, and provide the most progressive features including automated internal linking based on content relevance.

WordPress SEO Plugin
SEO Smart Links - Premium WordPress SEO Plugin

• Pride of ownership. This is one of those intangibles that is easily overlooked. When you own a website it changes how you think of it. It becomes the garden that produces food that you helped to cultivate instead of the produce isle at the grocery store.
• The ability to be uniquely you and thus build relationships online. There are over 20k plugins and an infinite number of ways you can make your site look and function. With this flexibility you can truly connect with your prospects and customers in the way you want. This IS value, and as stated several times in this thread, value is SEO.

 

[joshgates]

Agree with what MikeFitzpatrick posted in the 'pride of ownership.'

Also there is a drastic shortening of the time-to-market for website customizations. When you have to go thru a vendor a simple website customization can take weeks or months to implement. When you have 'the keys' to your own WordPress website(s) you can make changes quickly and efficiently.