16 Take-a-ways from the Science of SEO

Attending Hubspot webinars is a regular occurrence here in the Kuno labs. Dan Zarrella’s The Science of SEO was no exception. Dan is known as the “Social Media Scientist” across the internet and is the author of The Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design, and Engineering of Contagious Ideas. He’s known as the "Social Media Scientist" for having the propensity for gathering large swaths of internet data, crunching it and offering conclusions and correlations based on the results. The below are the 16 conclusions you can take-a-way from his SEO & SEM number crunching. While we here at Kuno weren’t surprised by the results, we are certainly happy that they reaffirm inbound marketing's power.

1. Search is not dead, but it’s not the only game in town.
2. Before they buy, they Google.
3. Social takes a back seat to search when buying.
4. Ranking well can make you seem more trustworthy.
5. Most people don’t trust PPC ads.
6. People don’t admit to clicking PPC ads.
7. Search traffic is just one cog in the machine.
8. Write for humans, not just spiders.
9. Your site is listed next to spam. Be distinguishable.
10. Search engine spiders work nights and weekends.
11. Experiment with media. There’s more than one kind of search.
12. Online conversation isn’t going to make you rank.
13. The linkerati works early in the day.
14. Post on your blog more than you are right now.
15. Buzzwords are boring. Give them timeliness.
16. Keep blog titles between 40 and 80 characters.

The data, charts and graphs which confirm the conclusions above are available in The Science of SEO slide deck. The most important take-a-way is number 14 – blog more. Because of this Dan recommends that small to mid-sized companies should hire content writers and producers in lieu of SEO personnel. Producing lots of quality content produces SEO results. If you have any questions about the data or the take-a-ways please leave a comment below. For help with link building see our 15 Effective Link Building Techniques for SEO.

Image: Dan and I courtesy of the person sitting next to me