The Search Landscape in 2017
- 1. 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
- 3. Some Remarkable, New Data On Searcher Behavior…
- 4. How Many Searches Happen on Google.com? In May, Google told SearchEngineLand it was 2+ Trillion… Source
- 5. How Many Searches Happen on Google.com? Source That’s 480-720B searches/year on just Google.com US
- 6. 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
- 8. Google Search Activity The average searcher does ~3.4 queries per day on their desktop and mobile (each).
- 9. Mobile CTR 2.0% on Paid 40.9% on Organic 57.1% Don’t Click
- 10. 2.8% on Paid Desktop CTR 62.2% on Organic 35% Don’t Click
- 11. CTR on Google Mobile vs. Desktop There may be more traffic opportunity from desktop STILL due to higher CTR Source
- 12. From All Google… to Only Mostly Google.
- 13. Jumpshot’s Search Volume Distribution (Oct. 2016) Source Halloween?
- 14. If We Assumed There Are 50 Billion Monthly Searches on Google.com…
- 15. Google Images Would Have: 22.58 Billion Searches/Month
- 16. YouTube: 3.13 Billion Searches/Month
- 17. Yahoo!: 2.08 Billion Searches/Month
- 18. Bing: 1.9 Billion Searches/Month
- 19. Google Maps: 1.76 Billion Searches/Month
- 20. Amazon: 1.56 Billion Searches/Month
- 21. Facebook: 581 Million Searches/Month
- 22. DuckDuckGo: 472 Million Searches/Month
- 23. Google News: 236 Million Searches/Month
- 24. From SEO First… to Holistic Marketing.
- 25. 2000-2012: SEO is Possible w/o Other Marketing
- 26. 2012-Today: SEO Rewards Great Marketing
- 27. 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
- 28. Launching a New Venture? SEO Brand & Product Unique Value Proposition Audience & Influencers Content & UX
- 29. From SERP Rankings… to SERP Features.
- 30. SERP Features Are Near-Universal
- 31. SERP Features Massively Impact CTR
- 32. Many Features Remove SEO Opportunity
- 33. But, in 2017, There’s Also More Feature Opportunity Than Ever Before You can do SEO to show up here And here
- 34. And here
- 35. Here And here Here too Also here Yup!
- 36. 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
- 37. 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
- 38. AdWords 54.7% of Results, 3.4% of Clicks
- 39. Local/Maps Results 15% of Results, 0.9% of Clicks
- 40. Tweet Blocks 7% of Results, 0.23% of Clicks
- 41. Google Shopping 9% of Results, 0.55% of Clicks
- 42. Image Block 11% of Results, 3% of Clicks
- 43. YouTube 6.3% of Results, 1.8% of Clicks
- 44. Personalized Gmail ??% of Results, 0.16% of Clicks
- 45. Top Stories? Unfortunately, we couldn’t get data on these (yet)
- 46. Knowledge Panel 38% of Results, 0.5% of Clicks
- 48. You’re Welcome!
- 50. We Spend A Lot of Time on Our Mobiles Source
- 51. Almost 90% of That is In Apps Source
- 52. But Apps Are a Winner-Take-All Market Source
- 53. The Avg Person Really Only Uses 3 Apps Source
- 54. Apps Are Only Valuable for a Few; Mobile Websites are Crucial For Everyone Source
- 55. A Better Alternative: PWAs Source
- 56. Be Careful Over-focusing on Mobile Only Source
- 57. Desktop’s Plateauing, Not Dying Source
- 58. From Expressed Intent… to Implied Intent.
- 59. Past: Query Terms Determined Results
- 60. Today: Google Knows What You Want Better Than (& Before) You Do
- 61. 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
- 62. Different Devices/People; Different Results Seattle, WA Northampton, MA
- 63. It’s Not Just Search Suggestions; It’s Rankings Too
- 64. e.g. In San Diego, Comics Rule:
- 65. If Google Becomes a Suggestion Engine, Marketers Will Be Left With Two Choices: Capture attention here Or compete, unaided, here
- 66. When I first stumbled across this article, I didn’t even know where in Japan I’d go…
- 67. By the time I reached evaluation stage, it was too late to convince me to stay anywhere else…
- 69. Many Queries Get No Clicks at All According to our clickstream data, <25% of searchers will click from a result like this.
- 70. This is so common that, according to our data, 49% of searches results in 0 clicks!
- 71. Why Sacrifice Ad $$ for Answers? These are high CPC ads, with high ROI Why is Google hurting ad CTR w/ these answers?!
- 72. Answers More Searches Google’s willing to lose a lot of short-term revenue in exchange for addictive search behavior
- 73. Is the Future Ads as Answers?
- 74. In Organic, Featured Snippets Are Google’s Primary “Be the Answer” Bet.
- 75. Extracted, Card-Style Answers are Also on the Rise
- 76. From Voice Search… to Smart Assistants.
- 77. Voice Search = No Threat
- 78. Smart Assistants = Some Threat
- 80. From Net Neutrality… to an Uncertain Future.
- 81. Source
- 82. Source
- 84. Source
- 85. 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
- 87. Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz | @randfish | rand@moz.com bit.ly/searchscape17