introduction to seo - by ian miller

CIMDigital Marketing BootcampSearch Engine Optimisation

Ian Miller, Search Director at Crafted Media

Team of 15 across all search disciplines

Responsible for increasing visitors, & converting them

Wide range of clients across B2B & B2C industries

Hello

What’s SEO?

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2010-02-19/

The UK internet economy is worth £100 billion.

Over 1 billion searches per day on Google alone

Google has over 91% market share in UK

Organic search results have around 3 times more clicks

than paid (AdWords)

Google has $43 billion in cash

Industry of big numbers

SEO is not magic

“To organise the world’s

information and make it

universally accessible and

useful”

Google’s mission statement

Improves the technical foundation of a site

Increases the authority and presence of a site against its

peers

Ensures the content is in line with the desired searcher’s

intent

Helps shape user experience for maximum response

Good SEO

Treat Google like a child

It follows things blindly, good or bad

If you feed it what it wants, it likes you

If you try and lie to it, it will probably find out

If you’re nicer to it, it prefers you to others

Popularity breeds popularity

The more information you give it, the more it looks for

Sometimes, it throws a tantrum

Building blocks

What does a site look like to a search engine?

Can a search engine find all your pages?

Is there duplication e.g. non-www & www?

Can it see the content e.g. Flash?

Is authority being passed through the site properly?

How do you treat errors?

Google’s Webmaster Tools

Crawl errors

Sitemaps

Content quality

Geo-targeting

Statistics

http://crftd.md/gwmtintro

Webmaster Tools

Analytics healthcheck1

2

3

http://crftd.md/wikiseo

How does your site look to a search engine?

◦ Xenu crawler

◦ IIS Toolkit

◦ Screaming Frog

“Performance is the

aggregation of marginal gains.”

Dave Brailsford: British Cycling, Team Sky

Build a brand

Highly visible

Influential in their sector

Mentioned outside of an anchor text link

Referenced against their peers

3rd party citations

Have brand advocates

Number and quality of links

Anchor text distribution

Brand mentions

Social media activity

PR coverage

Citations

Resource hubs

Translating to online authority

Just ask

Leverage all your contacts and ask:

o Suppliers

o Organisations

o Partners

o Charity work

o Customers

o Staff

How to get links

Create your own links:

◦ Resource lists

◦ Niche directories

◦ Event listings

◦ Contact blogs/news sites in your sector

◦ Give away products for review and competitions

◦ Videos

◦ Screencasts and webinars

◦ Awards, ego-bait

Fast, effective

Install SEOmoz toolbar

Create master contact list

Contact someone on that list every day

Find common issues, work to fix them

Business process often at odds with SEO, integrate

Improve the process

Advanced search operators

◦ http://www.soloseo.com/tools/linkSearch.html

◦ http://crftd.md/advsearch1

Examples:

◦ intitle: “intitle:directory haulage company”

◦ inurl: “inurl:gov.uk essex business”

◦ Compound “inurl:ac.uk intitle:links graphic design”

It works

What data do you own?

Scale is interesting – “World’s biggest…”

Effective PR is about the reader, not the source

Find communities and engage before you need them

Get a link!

◦ “brandname –site:brandname.com”

Create online PR

Have a hub that people can point back to

◦ http://www.newsroom.hsbc.co.uk/

Social has many benefits, but for SEO it’s links and mentions

Use social to find contacts

◦ Followerwonk

◦ Simply Measured

Social media activity

Become a resource

Ensure all company content is online

◦ Brochures

◦ Case studies

◦ News & PR

◦ Help files & FAQ’s

◦ Call centre notes

◦ Tacit knowledge

Create non-commercial content

Interlink, give people something else to see

Use this content as a basis for outreach

Look after your customers

Small surprises are best, do the unnecessary Ask for feedback, push them to other review sites Customer reviews on products or services Keep in contact, be interested in them away from a

transaction Consider if they have a website, ask for a link Promote them, they’ll promote you

Words are key, not keywords

Site structure is paramounto If you want to rank for a keyword, what page justifies it?

Avoid “This is a...” use “This widgetomatic is a…” Keywords come first – optimise page titles & H1s Use words that are relevant to your searcher, not just your

industry Good copy naturally includes keywords; avoid any “density”

metrics Google keyword tool Google Insights

What do you want them to do?

Consider wider goals than a sale, create a funnel Make calls to action clear and obvious Remove barriers for them

◦ Avoid unnecessary fields on contact forms◦ Remember their details◦ Follow up automatically

Prove it all in Analytics

Be patient

SEO is the long game Expect incremental success Embed it as part of the business process Quick wins are often shallow Prove results against additional value created, not always

final objectives

Takeaways

1. Be critical of your own site. Get registered with tools2. Produce a content plan (and stick to it)3. Create master contact list4. Ensure SEO is considered as part of business process5. Learn advanced search queries6. Understand your competitors7. Mobilise your customers8. Make friends with the sales department9. Define success and measure against it

Any questions?ian.miller@craftedmedia.com@millerian

Advanced link operators

◦ http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html

◦ http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/operators.html

◦ http://searchengineland.com/21-link-builders-share-advanced-link-building-queries-29848

Learn Google Analytics

◦ http://www.seomoz.org/blog/overcome-the-google-analytics-learning-curve-in-20-minutes

◦ http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/bin/request.py?hl=en&contact_type=indexSplash&rd=1

Tools

◦ http://www.facebook.com/insights/

Links◦ http://www.verticalmeasures.com/link-building/top-100-link-building-resources/

◦ http://ontolo.com/blog/61-new-link-building-resources-post-panda-link-building-edition-0225-0310

◦ http://wiep.net/talk/link-building/link-request-email-template /

Links

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mats_eriksson/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dahlstroms/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/manfrys/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/preppybyday/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eschipul/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikebaird/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeshlabotnik/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/powerbooktrance/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stewart/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmsmith000/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tmray02/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertvega/

Credits