8 Ways to Make SEO Work on a Budget

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Presenter Jo Turnbull

September 2014@SEOJoBlogs

@SEOJoBlogs

Who is SEO Jo Blogs?

• Jo Turnbull started in SEO while working for a mobile tech company

• Moved agency side 2009

• Organiser of Search London since October 2010

• Editor and Events Organiser for State of Digital since June 2012

• Freelance online marketing consultant, helping small and medium sized businesses with their marketing since 2010

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How Can I do SEO on a Budget?

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1. Brilliant Basics incl Technical Audit

2. Conversion Rate Optimisation

3. Content Marketing Plan

4. Networking Events

5. Social Media

6. Outbrain

7. Integrate SEO with Traditional Media

8. Sponsorship

SEO on a Budget

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SEO With No ££

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1. Brilliant Basics is Very Important

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• Screaming Frog

• URLs

• Meta data

• Redirects

• Sitemap

• Robots.txt

• Google Analytics

• Page Speed Insights

Site and Technical Audit

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• Check for messages

• Crawl Errors

• Check sitemap

• Look at Search queries

• What are people typing in

• How is the site ranking?

Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools

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Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools

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• Redirects

• SEO Quake

• Firebug Lite

• Tag manager

• Majestic SEO

• SEM Rush

• (Searchmetrics)

Toolbars and Tools

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• Benchmark Report• Traffic to site• Home and Main Landing Pages Speed • Error Codes • 301 and 302 redirects • Robots.txt• Sitemaps • Meta Data – eg Duplicate/Long Page Titles • Duplicate/Long Meta Descriptions

Checklist

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• 68% of shoppers abandon shopping carts

• Where are your customers dropping off?

• In 2014 there will be $1.5 trillion dollars worth of e-commerce transactions

• $3.17 trillion dollars lost due to cart abandonment (Study by Emarketer)

2. Conversion Rate Optimisation

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• 25% of navigation too complicated

• 24% website crashed

• 21% process was taking too long

• 15% website time out

• 15% item them wanted out of stock

• Test out the site yourself and share with client

• Look at sessions to the shopping cart URL against check out completions

Why are People Dropping Off?

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Where Can You Make a Difference?

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• Look at Conversion Funnel – where people are dropping out?

• 62% of online shoppers think it’s important for an ecommerce to have sections for special priced items

• Offer discount with exit intent pop ups – 27% of people who abandoned their carts went to look for a coupon

• Offer free return - 2/3 shoppers said they would buy more online if returns were free

• Remarketing campaigns – Abandoners spent 55% more when remarketed

Fix The Site

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3. Content Marketing Plan

Photo from being30.com

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Don’t be the Bull in the China Shop

Photo from being30.com

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• Make Their KPIs your KPIs

• Content Calendar

• Incorporate plan around sales

• And email campaigns

• Record Results and share good news

• Discuss SEO assisted conversions

Work with the Marketing Department

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• Short, medium and long term goals

• Prioritise key products

• Focus on landing pages

• Use your expertise – what are competitors doing?

• What are your customers looking for ? - Use insite search

Key Components of Plan

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How To Make Content Stand Out

Photo from being30.com

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• Is it practically useful? Top 10 Tips?• Does the content inspire a high-energy emotion

like awe, anger, or anxiety ?• Did your tone convey emotion? • Is it practically useful? • Is it interesting? • Is it surprising?• Does the author have fame/credibility?• If it’s supposed to be funny, is it actually funny?

Source:Moz

And Go Viral

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Source: https://www.distilled.net/blog/the-content-matrix/

Content Matrix

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• SoD SEM Rush Tool post

• http://www.stateofdigital.com/semrush-review/ (185 shares)

• http://www.stateofdigital.com/use-paid-tools-solve-provided-google-analytics-problem (253 shares)

• http://www.stateofdigital.com/7-ways-deliver-roi-seo/ (159 shares)

• http://www.stateofdigital.com/start-career-seo/

Example

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Share Tally

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Topsy

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• Check Social profiles – increased?

• FB, Twitter and Google +

• Screengrabs are great visualisation

• Graph it

• Look at revenue attributed to SEO

• Increase in online visibility

• ROI of SEO

Be Clear and Report Results

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4. Networking Events

Photo from being30.com

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“Search London” Grew

• Networking group for those in search• Jan 2012 – 592 members• 5 meetups 2012• January 2013 – 1100 members • Increase 86%• Sept 2014 – 1357 members• Meetup.com/Search-London continues

to grow

Photo from being30.com

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How Did Search London Grow?

• Strong domain - www.meetup.com• Good speakers – don’t be afraid to

ask• Catchy titles each presentation• Guest posts• Interact with others at the event• Email members• Tweet before, during and after• Central venue

Photo from being30.com

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Integrate Off and Online

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Tweets Matter

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Tweets Affected Traffic

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• Jo Turnbull attended a Search Conference the week before Search London took place

• Jo spoke to many search professionals at the conference and let them know about “SEO at the Heart of Google”

• She wrote a post on her blog – SEOJoBlogs about Search London taking place at the Google Campus

• She published the post, tweeted it and shared with others

• Sharing is caring – other people retweeted it and there were 650 visits to SEO Jo Blogs in one day

No Finance = Use Your Networks

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5. No Budget, Use Social Media

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Promoting via Twitter

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• Ben Holbrook wrote a post about his favouritethings to do in Barcelona

• He then scheduled tweets to promote it every day for a couple of weeks

• He added the #lp (Lonely Planet) hashtag when tweeting

• Lonely Planet then retweeted the post to their 1M+ followers

• 10,000+ unique visitors to Driftwood Journals, 33 re-tweets and 128 “favourites”.

Tweets Work

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Traffic Affected Rankings

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That Post is Still Driving Traffic

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Use Facebook – It works !

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Use Different Headings for Facebook

• Include a teaser text

• Attract attention of the readers

• Include an image

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Results

• Ben “liked” the Facebook pages of each place mentioned in the post

• Emailed places he had written about, suggesting shares

• Ben also contacted the Madrid tourist board

• 2.1k Facebook likes

• 100 tweets

• Almost 4,000 unique page views within a week

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SEO £0 to £2,500

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6. Content Amplification - Outbrain

• Digital media channel devoted exclusively to content amplification

• Platform recommends articles and videos to relevant audiences across a network of premium publisher sites

• Outbrain can help promote content and raise brand awareness through publisher sites

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6. Content Amplification - Outbrain

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6. Outbrain Results

• The campaign generated 199 clicks and 773,166 impressions

• 37.19% increase in sessions

• 44.63% increase in users

• 53.72% increase in new users

• 16.05% increase in referral traffic

• 20,700% increase in traffic to the landing page

• Cost £54.00 CPC 27p

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7. Integrate SEO with Traditional Media

• Newspapers still work

• Compliment Relationships

• Networking + SEO

• SEO + PR = Great Results

• Long lasting effect

Photo from being30.com

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Be Creative

• Don’t Forget about Offline

• Melville Jewellers moved to a new location in Perth, Australia

• Opportunity to attract new visitors

• Official launch party of Jewellery Store

• Off site promotion in newspapers

• 4 adverts in lead up to the event

• Flyers distributed in store and local surf club

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Be Active in the Promotion

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Maximise Your Circles

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Sell the USP

• Leaflets, advertisement in local paper

• Emphasised the “local” and “well established” jewellery store

• Offered Incentives eg $500 Pearl Necklace to be won

• Customers would win from a prize draw

• Opportunity to collect customer details

• Cost = $2,250 AUD promotion (plus cost of wine on the day)

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Example of Adverts

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Example of Adverts

#SearchLondon

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38" %: #-1#1; /#( %-+$< %: " /#21/#%44#71; /#! %-+$#=#6" ( " 44" /7#

>" 8%,/0#%' ) #/,' . #) " 0,. ' 0?#%44#( 1/: #,0#5 ; %/%' -" " ) 9

$123#456#$758 8 9:; #$1233<=>#. 9=7:9#

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* 12=9#I JJI #JKI J

&' LM+LL' #N' / ' LL' ( $##) %M' #&" M' O

! " # $%&' ( %) *+*, %- +%, " ( &.

@SEOJoBlogs

Do something different – for your clients

• Loyal customer of 13 years wins star prize

• $500 pearl necklace

• Further 10 prizes won

• Happy customers at Melville Jewellers

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Long Term

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• Doubled Turnover on the Day

• Increase in sales MoM 20% when industry sales dropped

• SEO is important part of marketing plan

• The following year, no SEO and sales dropped

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8. Sponsorship

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SEO For £20,000 - £30,000

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Increase Brand Awarness

• A financial services company sponsored a sporting event in a capital city

• The aim was to increase brand awareness and traffic

Photo from being30.com

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Worked with Marketing Dept and Bloggers

• Education with Marketing Department

• Encompassed the Sponsorship within the Content Marketing Plan

• Content Written in the lead up to the event

• Blogger outreach with The Remarkables

• Arranged for 2 bloggers to write up and take part in run

• Post run content

• Activation on the day – Fruit Stand and Chillout Zone

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Impact on Traffic and Social Media

• Organic traffic: Up 100%• Direct: Up 41% • Referral: Up 9%• 22% Increase in Conversions• 463% Increase in blog traffic referrals• 1,723 new Facebook fans gained on non-paid

digital efforts alone• 5% increase in Twitter followers in one month• 46% growth in FB likes

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SEO has a Positive Experience on Brand

• 68% participants agreed about leaving with a more positive view of the brand

• 50% participants more likely to buy from the company

• 96% participants agreed the company was agreat fit for a sponsor

• 65% participants viewed the company as a genuine brand

• 90% participants can’t wait for the next event

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There Will Always be a Cost to SEO

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• Time

• Money

• What will you choose?

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1. Building Relationships Takes Time

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How To Maximise Time

• Brainstorm ideas for content

• Buzz monitoring tools – buzz numbers (free trial)

• Topsy (what is trending)

• Google Keyword Tool (yes still useful)

• Google Instant Search – don’t click enter

• Google Insights/Trends

• Be prepared to address negative mentions on FB

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Create Content Users Want to Read

Photo from being30.com

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A Picture Tells a Thousand Words

Photo from driftwoodjournals.com

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Use the Tools to Maximise Exposure

• Twitter

• Networking

• Creating good content

• Facebook

• Outbrain

• PR and newspapers

• Sponsorship

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2. Don’t Be Afraid of the Finance Director

Finance Director

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Work with Your Agency

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Love What You Do

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Shout About Your Results

Be Proud of Them and then Chillax (but not too long)

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Share Great Content

Get in Touchhttp://SEOJoBlogs.com

Turnbull.Jo@gmail.com

Photos from Being30.com and DriftwoodJournals.com

Thank You

Photo from being30.com