Get Found! Content  &  Op*miza*on  Strategies  for  Startups  

Devin  Concannon  

What’s Inbound You Ask? Inbound  Marke*ng  is  concept  originated  by  the  marke*ng  so?ware  company  Hubspot    Focuses  on  earning  your  customers  aCen*on,  in  contrast  to  “outbound”  marke*ng,  where  you  “beg,  buy,  or  borrow  your  way  in”    Inbound  marke*ng  focused  organiza*ons  experience  a  cost  per  lead  61%  lower  than  outbound  marke*ng-­‐dominated  organiza*ons  

More  on  Inbound  Marke*ng's  growing  prevalence:    hCp://www.seomoz.org/blog/inbound-­‐marke*ng-­‐is-­‐taking-­‐off    

The Way People Buy Things is Changing

Realiza*on  of  a  Need  

Inves*gate  Op*ons  

Get  Recommenda*ons   Read  Reviews  

Look  at  all  Possible  Informa*on  

Make  a  Purchase!  

Before we dive into Inbound, lets talk Design Where  are  you  sending  your  visitors  and  poten*al  customers?  Does  your  site  design  ins*ll  trust,  convey  your  message,  and  ul*mately  push  people  towards  your  desired  business  outcome  (ie  conversion)?    

Good Design is a Barrier to Entry

Why invest time and resources in promoting a site that’s not doing it’s job?

Conversion Optimization Fundamentals Image  via  Oli  Gardner  of  Unbounce:  hCp://unbounce.com/landing-­‐pages/landing-­‐page-­‐rehab/      

•  Videos  •  Strong  

direc*onal  cues  •  Strong  calls  to  

ac*on  •  Complimentary  

imagery  •  Social  proof  (ie  

reviews,  tes*monials,  social  media)  

•  Ad  message  matches  upstream  source  

A Page Built to Convert

Images,  Social  Proof  

Descrip*ve  headline  

Prominent,  Above  the  Fold  Conversion  Form  

Social  Sharing  

Strong  Call  to  Ac*on  

The Bottom Line: Make Things Easy On Your Customers The  golden  rule  to  web  design  is  the    simpler  you  make  things  to  understand    and  use,  the  more  likely  people  are  to  do  them    

A  fantas*c  resource  for  common    sense  web  design  and  usability:  www.amazon.com/Dont-­‐Make-­‐Me-­‐  Think-­‐Usability/dp/0321344758    

A/B Testing: Always Be Testing! • Something  in  your  design  can  always  be  improved  • A/B  tes*ng,  also  known  as  split  tes*ng,  is  a  simple  way  to  test  changes  to  your  page  against  the  current  design  and  determine  which  ones  produce  posi*ve  results  

Google’s Free A/B Testing Tool

Google’s  Website  Op*mizer  is  a  free  A/B  tes*ng  tool  that  will  allow  you  to  test  different  design  changes  via  the  addi*on  of  html  tags  to  your  targeted  test  pages  

•  Determine  a  scalable  schedule  of  tes*ng  and  s*ck  to  it    

•  You  should  have  at  least  one  test  going  at  all  *mes  

•  There’s  no  such  thing  as  a  bad  result;  constant  learning  

•  Read  the  Unbounce  Blog  for  great  CRO  *ps  

There  are  a  mul*tude  of  free  tools  and  services  provided  by  search  engines  that  EVERY  site  should  be  using  

Google  Webmaster  Tools  -­‐  Verified  site  owners  can  see  informa*on  about  how  Google  crawls,  indexes  and  ranks  your  site  

Bing  Webmaster  Tools  –  Similar  to  Google’s  tool  with  slight  difference  in  depth  and  quality  of  informa*on  

Google  Analy*cs  –  A  free  enterprise  class  analy*cs  plaoorm.  Will  tell  you  almost  everything  you  need  to  know  about  site  traffic  and  user  engagement  

We’re almost to the good stuff, but first…

Let’s  do  some  work  

Google  Webmaster  Tools  

Bing  Webmaster  Tools  

Google  Analy*cs  

So what’s this SEO Optimization stuff I keep hearing about? A  brief  overview  of  SEO,  how  search  engines  work,  the  Google  Algorithm,  etc  

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a web site or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.

- Wikipedia.org

Organic (SEO) vs. Paid (PPC)

Where  do  people  really  click?  

90% of Clicks

10% of Clicks

In Pursuit of the Algorithm What  factors  influence  Google’s  rankings?  

Source:  hCp://www.seomoz.org/ar*cle/search-­‐ranking-­‐factors    

The Perfectly Optimized Page For  the  example  phrase  “chocolate  donuts”  

•  Keyword  leads  the  *tle  tag  

•  Keyword  use  in  the  meta  descrip*on  

•  Keyword  use  in  the  H1  tag  

•  Keyword  use  in  copy    

•  Use  of  contextually  similar  terms  

•  Keyword  use  in  image  file  name,  alt  tag  

•  Short,  keyword  friendly  URL  

•  Keyword  reflected  in  internal  links  

Source:  hCp://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfec*ng  

-­‐keyword-­‐targe*ng-­‐on-­‐page-­‐op*miza*on  

 

Technical Factors that Affect SEO Search  Engine  Spiders  look  at  over  40  page  characteris*cs    •  Sub  Directories  vs.  Sub  Domains  •  URL  Formasng  •  Page  Load  Speed  •  Dynamic  URLs  •  Redirects  •  Custom  404  pages  •  Page  Updates  •  CSS  •  Java  Script  •  Ajax  •  Flash  •  Duplicate  Content  •  HTTP  Headers  •  Robots.txt  

Some Scalable SEO Strategies

Determining Your Core Keywords

Crea*ng  A  Seed  List    •  Begin  adding  keywords  rela*ng  to  

your  business  to  an  Excel  document  

•  Look  at  compe*tors  sites  for  addi*onal  keyword  ideas  

•  Add  core  terms  to  Soovle,  to  get  autocomplete  sugges*ons  from  search  engines  

•  Add  as  many  relevant  keywords  as  possible  to  your  seed  list  

Determining Your Core Keywords

 •  Take  your  seed  list  and  run  it  

through  Google  Keyword  Tool  

•  Set  results  to  exact  match  and  sort  by  local  monthly  searches  

•  Export  the  results  to  CSV  and  add  them  to  a  new  tab  of  your  Seed  List  

•  Trim  out  Global  Searches  and  Compe**on,  and  you’ll  end  up  with  a  list  similar  to  right  

Trimming your Seed List

 •  Iden*fy  recurring  keywords  that  

aren’t  relevant  

•  Use  the  text  contains…  condi*onal  formasng  to  trim  the  recurring  KWs  from  your  list  

•  Go  through  and  spot  check  each  remaining  KW  for  relevance  

 

Shaping your Content Architecture

 •  Use  condi*onal  formasng  to  

begin  grouping  similar  keywords  together  

•  Color  code  each  KW  category  and  name  each  according  to  the  unifying  theme  

•  You’ll  end  up  with  a  rough  outline  of  site  content  as  well  as  gesng  a  sense  of  the  SEO  opportuni*es  

 

Shaping your Content Architecture  •  For  an  exis*ng  site,  use  your  sitemap  or  the  Screaming  Frog  SEO  Spider  tool  to  

list  out  your  pages  

•  Iden*fy  exis*ng  pages  to  target  with  your  KW  research.  Internal  links  should  reflect  your  targeted  keywords  when  possible    

•  With  unused  KW  research,  perform  a  content  gap  analysis    •  For  a  new  site,  use  your  KW  research\areas  of  business  priority  to  shape  

architecture.  I  like  Excel  for  this…    

Building a Copy Deck  •  Using  your  site  architecture  and  keyword  research,  begin  wri*ng  up  your  

op*mized  on  page  elements  in  an  easy  to  use  format  

•  Best  prac*ce  is  between  350-­‐500  words  per  page  

•  Your  copy  should  be  contextual  and  use  your  targeted  keywords  around  3  *mes  per  page  

•  Use  internal  links,  bold  and  header  tags,  bulleted  lists,  tables,  images,  etc.  BeCer  user  experience  =  beCer  results  for  SEO  &  conversion  

 

No Copywriter? Automate Your Copy Writing

 •  For  large  sites,  unique  copy  

crea*on  presents  a  problem  

•  This  post  from  BreC  Snyder  on  SEER  Interac*ve’s  blog  describes  how  to  automate  the  process  

•  Using  Excel  formulas  you  can  write  bits  of  copy,  add  KWs,  and  generate  “uniquish”  copy  at  scale  

 

Source:  hCp://www.seerinterac*ve.com/blog/how-­‐i-­‐wrote-­‐500000-­‐unique-­‐googlebase-­‐descrip*ons-­‐in-­‐2-­‐hours    

Sizing up the competition  •  Iden*fy  3-­‐5  compe*tors  in  your  

ver*cal  to  glean  compe**ve  intelligence  

•  Look  at  SEMRush  for  an  idea  of  paid  search  presence.  Check  rankings  of  your  compe*tors  sites  for  your  targeted  keywords  via  Rank  Checker  

•  Check  backlink  profiles  via  SEOMoz  Open  Site  Explorer.  Use  this  data  to  help  develop  your  linking  strategy  and  iden*fy  link  sources  

 

 •  Take  your  paid  search  and  organic  

rankings  data  and  perform  a  content  gap  analysis.  This  will  show  areas  for  you  to  focus  your  ini*al  efforts  on.    

•  Look  at  social  presence  and  record  the  amount  of  followers,  types  of  content  posted.  Also  any  blog  they  happen  to  run.  All  of  this  data  can  help  inform  your  efforts.  

Be Innovative

 •  Wrap  your  HTML  in  

Schema  markup  for  nice  rich  snippets  

•  Create  and  embed  videos  on  page  on  a  video  plaoorm  like  Wis*a  for  the  most  SEO  benefit  

•  Add  reviews  and  user  generated  content  to  pages  for  SEO  benefit  and  the  stars  in  your  snippet  

•  Add  Rel=Author  verifica*on  to  your  blog  for  a  picture  in  SERPs  

 

Tracking Your SEO Campaign

Establishing KPIs

Reporting  •  A?er  establishing  KPIs,  establish  

repor*ng  to  track  progress  on  a  weekly/monthly  basis  

•  Create  your  own  report  rather  than  relying  just  on  a  report  automa*cally  generated    

•  This  will  allow  you  to  observe  trends  and  changes  over  *me,  year  over  year  data,  and  the  KPIs  cri*cal  to  your  site  

•  My  reports  typically  feature  traffic,  site  performance,  ecommerce  (where  applicable),  and  link  acquisi*on  data  

Free Tools to Track your Campaign •  Use  GWT  to  see  impressions,  

submit  an  XML  sitemap,  inbound  link  reports,  page  speed,  html  errors  

•  Use  Google  Analy*cs  to  track  visits,  keywords,  referral  sources,  demographic  info,  etc  

•  Firefox  Rank  Checker  addon  to  get  an  idea  of  where  your  keywords  are  ranking  

•  Use  the  SEOMoz  Toolbar  for  instant  SEO  aCributes  for  any  page  

 

SEO Campaign Tracking Software

 •  SEOMoz  and  Raven  Tools  

provide  the  most  cost  effec*ve  SEO  campaign  tracking  so?ware  @  $99  monthly  for  a  Pro  acct  

•  SEOMoz  has  great  link  data,  on-­‐page  analysis,  and  compe**ve  research.  It  tracks  300  KW  rankings  

•  Raven  Tools  has  excellent  social  monitoring,  integrates  with  lots  of  partner  data  (Moz,  SEMRush,  GA)  and  tracks  1000  rankings.  

 

VS  

Ongoing Optimizations

Use  metrics  like  keyword  traffic,  rankings,  bounce  rate,  conversion  rate,  and  onsite  search  keywords  to  determine  opportuni*es  for  ongoing  op*miza*ons  

And I haven’t even touched link building yet…

Questions? More Information? Devin.concannon@gmail.com  @devin_concannon  Linkedin  Profile  

Thanks for Listening!