December 8, 2014: Dan Shure was one of the first people we spoke with when Didit launched its Expert Interviews last year. Shure, along with Eric Enge and Rand Fishkin, has been one of the most prescient observers of the current changes affecting SEO, so it was only natural we’d want to touch base to see what’s new as we roll into 2015.
Didit: When we interviewed you last year, much of the discussion focused on the Google Hummingbird algorithm. You noted that “we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg of what Hummingbird is really about.” A year later, are we seeing more of that “Hummingbird iceberg” now and what does it look like?
Dan Shure: I’ve seen so many different explanations of what Hummingbird is supposed to be – but I don’t believe any of them unless I hear it straight from Google. And Google has said next to nothing about it. It’s tough because people (SEOs mostly) want to try to pin down Hummingbird as one thing. (Like Panda is “quality” and Penguin is “web spam”). What I am concluding more and more is that Hummingbird is a lot of things. A TON of things. It’s not just one thing. Hummingbird is something that allows Google to take their search engine to the next level. This could be in a variety of areas: semantic search, the knowledge graph, contextual search, rapid algo/ranking adjustments, speed, query re-writing. The list goes on. But I don’t think it’s any one of those — it’s all.
I wrote a little about Hummingbird here last January on the Isoosi blog.
Didit: Over at the Moz blog Rand Fishkin says that it’s possible to have good SEO without link building. This seems a little naïve to me and I am certain that there will be black hat guys who will still struggle to game the system. How do you feel about this?
Dan Shure: Oh it’s possible! But “possible” is a sneaky word, because even if it’s “possible” .5% of the time, his statement would be true. That’s not to claim I know an actual percentage. But I have in fact seen first hand it’s possible.
For example, I conceived of and designed an entire site section for a client at the beginning of 2013. It’s sort of a Wikipedia-like area about their core topic. The section is about 45 pages of very well structured and planned out content, written by experts. And we constantly update and refine it. I tweeted about this very site the other day — and that screenshot shows only organic traffic to this site section. It has seen very healthy growth over the last 18 months — including traffic that converts. We built NO links to this section. Any links were completely earned and not built. But the lesson SEOs have to learn is that just because something worked in one situation, doesn’t mean it will work in another. SEOs are always busy looking for that magic formula, but the REAL magic (IMO) is being able to see a situation for what it is and responding to it in a unique way.
Didit: Native advertising and SEO. Some say that native is inherently black hat; others say that native by definition is helpful. What is your take on this debate?
Dan Shure: There’s an easy blanket rule I use for these situations. If you would do something anyway and had no idea what SEO was, it’s fine. The problem is when SEOs come in and ruin it by going “oh, I could do this for LINKS!,” without any ties back to the original purpose. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should and I think the best SEO happens when you leverage something you should be doing anyway. That’s just smart marketing that happens to be good for search. Not the other way around. Advertising in general can be helpful if it’s meaningful and relevant to the person who sees it. In fact, great advertising should make the user feel lucky to have seen the ad. The problem is that most advertising does not do this, because it’s too broad, doesn’t properly target the right people, or the messaging is off.
Didit: I’m sure your sick and tired of hearing about how content is king, but it seems that with Google taking all of our toys away, that SEO and branding need to cooperate. Your take?
Dan Shure: Oh I love talking about content – not sick of it at all! (Maybe that phrase “content is king” is a little overdone when it’s given as advice). It’s true that branding matters, but in my opinion Google doesn’t care about a “brand” as much as it does about the right signals. Google’s definition of a brand is a site that’s popular. For example – I talk about branded search and even more importantly a term I coined called PropWords (“Proprietary Keywords”). The point I make is that if your brand name, domain name, CEO, product names, etc., have search volume, this is a HUGE signal that your site is popular. For example someone types “whiteboard friday” and clicks on Moz’s result. Over and over this happens in Google. This is a huge trust signal.
Also, I don’t do SEO much differently now than I did in 2011. I’m not a huge link builder, so I don’t view Google as taking things away at all. I see it as more of an advantage every day that SEO is becoming more aligned with real marketing and real branding. And to succeed you need to have a special mix of art and science.
Didit: Matt Cutts is taking a sabbatical. Where do you think he will go? Where should he go?
Dan Shure: The official statement from Google is that he is coming back in the New Year. I assumed from day one he would not be returning to Google. I honestly believe he was actually a true ally for SEOs (as much as he could be) and Google just seems to be moving in a direction he would not feel proud to be a part of. I could actually see him starting something of his own (maybe a company?). He seems super passionate about Internet security, and I could envision him doing something in that field.
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