If you are a marketer who thinks “Facebook is everything,” you couldn’t be more wrong, Rand Fishkin, CEO of Moz, told the Internet Summit on Wednesday in Raleigh.
Fishkin, cofounder and CEO of Moz, the online site focused on SEO and search, and is known as “The Wizard of Moz.” His blog is read by tens of thousands of marketers. He debunked much of the common content marketing advice heard in marketing today.
Facebook, he pointed out during his keynote address, “Wants to keep you on Facebook. It accounts for less than 5 percent of web traffic referrals.
If you’re putting all your time in Facebook, Fishkin said, “You’e missing more than 90 percent of all web traffic referrals.”
Discussing paid search, he said “Paid can boost your reach, but 90 percent of all social clicks are organic. On Google, it’s 80 percent.”
Twitter, a great, free, testing platform
Ironically, paid works best on content that amplifies well organically, he noted. Not only that, Google wants content that ranks well and may charge less for paid search that does.
Twitter, he added, “Is a great, free, low-risk testing platform for sharing.
On SEO he said you still have to use keywords to rank on Google. But they’re only the beginning.
The modern SEO pyramid starts with crawl accessibility so engines can find and index your content. Content needs to be compelling and solve a searcher’s query. It needs to be content that naturally earns links and citations and is amplified via social word-of-mouth.
Smart keyword research is a must using better metrics to prioritize them. In actuality, 70 percent of traffic to any given page comes from keywords you didn’t optimize for.
Keyword process
He presented a five-step process to follow keyword research:
- First, investigate what answers and content searchers need so you can effectively serve them.
- Second, Uncover related terms, phrases and topics.
- Third, Craft a title, subtitle and meta description that will stand-out and have strong relevance to the query.
- Fourth, Use a format that will service visitors on every device fast.
- Fifth, Provide Unique value no one else delivers.
Fishkin said that data on the best times to tweet, type of content that works best, and ideal length of content, are guides. “They are not rules,” he said.
Fishkin also is skeptical of another of what he calls “the worst lessons marketing ever taught content.”
The idea that if you create great content they will come is “pants on fire false.” Indeed, you want to create the best content you can, “But don’t expect greatness to compensate for marketing.
“Our job is not to make great content,” he said of marketers, “our job is to make content that accomplishes our goals.”
