‘Improve Your SEO’ LexisClick’s vision The digital marketing experts for ambitious SMEs on their journey to becoming market leaders Introduction to LexisClick We help our clients’ marketing succeed through the power of Easy online technologies and communities A pleasure to find to use through services including: • SEO Services A growing • Online Advertising business needs to be... • Email Marketing Services • Social Media Marketing • Web Design The first to Regularly return to • Marketing Services recommended To make them... Introduction to your presenter Lead Digital Marketing Consultant at LexisClick, 2007 – present. Started working in online marketing, designing and building websites in 1997 – when he designed and built British Steel’s first website from the delights of Scunthorpe. Followed by 10 years working in London in digital marketing across a variety of industry sectors both within business and as a consultant – with 6 years spent at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) as a digital marketing consultant. Stephen Bavister Managing Director LexisClick Today’s objective & agenda To help you understand the latest SEO thinking and developments in a connected, mobile-first world. 8.30 – 9.00 Part 1 9.00 – 9.10 Worksheet 1 9.10 – 9.15 Break 9.15 – 9.45 Part 2 9.45 – 9.55 Worksheet 2 9.55 – 10.10 Q&A 10.10 – 10.30 Networking & Finish What is SEO? What is SEO? It is all about getting here Why is Google so important? UK Search Engine Market Share Google’s market share January 2014 Google Bing 88.71% Yahoo Others UK Search Engine January 2014 share (%) December 2013 share (%) Change 88.71 88.74 -0.03 6.26 6.03 +0.23 3.3 3.29 +0.01 Others 1.73 1.94 -0.21 http://gs.statcounter.com/#search_engine-GB-monthly-201301-201401 SEO used to be relatively easy… Don’t get caught out… • Meta keywords tag • Keyword stuffing • Manual submission • Link building with poor quality links Google Panda • Introduced early 2011 • To stop sites with poor quality content from working their way into Google’s top results • Focuses on quality • Content is King • Cracked down on sites with duplicate content and sites with a high ad-to-content ratio Google Penguin • Introduced mid 2012 • To adjust web spam factors like keyword stuffing, low quality backlinks and keyword-rich anchor text • Rewards quality content and ethical link building processes Google Hummingbird • Introduced end of 2013 on Google’s 15th anniversary • Improved semantic search • Better understanding of the intent and contextual meaning of total phrase used in a search query • Progress fits in with the increasing use of voice search queries Going Forwards… Mobile • You need to understand mobile-user intent • According to Google, 69% of mobile users expect businesses to be within 5 miles of their location, and 55% of mobile users want to purchase within the hour http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2320360/6-Essential-Elements-for-Mobile-SEO-Success-in-2014 Semantic search • This aims to better understand a searcher’s intent, making search more personal and meaningful • You need to ensure your pages possess proper semantic markup (using HTML to reinforce the content of web pages rather than simply to define the site’s appearance) Multi devices • User experience is very important, regardless of whether a user is searching on a desktop, tablet or mobile device Check your site on multiple devices to ensure a great experience Personalisation • SEO has become a detailed and personalised experience • 43% of Google’s queries are ‘local’ which means they are related to location or carry a local intent http://www.bancmedia.com/seo-in-2014-what-to-expect/ Social sharing • Having an active, consistent and valued social media presence will increase your credibility, reputation and also SEO results • Google is of course encouraging users to get more active on their Google+ profiles because Google+ posts are crawled and indexed almost immediately Let’s look at a search for PIZZA… A lot of pages pop up as results, but no pizza.com (which does exist). Why is this? Because of Google’s 2013 changes. The results served to you will be: • Locally relevant (Westover Road, Wimborne Road, Lansdowne, Christchurch etc) • Contextually relevant (news articles about pizza and pizza trends) • Knowledge relevant (nutrition facts and Wikipedia data) Things to take into account So what does this mean if you are a local pizzeria? You need to realign your SEO in accordance with these concepts… LOCATION: 1) Get listed on Google Local Places and claim your Google+ profile. Ensure the data is correct and keep it up to date with valuable, visual and interesting content 2) Are you rating highly in reviews such as Trip Advisor? 3) Include a 360 interior view in your map view on Google so that customers can see inside your business before visiting CONTEXT: Build strong customer lists and make 1) Include the right information on your shareable content landing page – contact details, menu and any offers / delivery options. Is this visible on mobile and other devices? 2) Google will determine whether your site is effective so make sure you have clear social media page links which offer customers interesting information and offers 3) Build strong customer lists and make shareable content available on your social media pages KNOWLEDGE: 1) Demonstrate your expertise through content. Provide details about your business, and further details about vendors, suppliers, partners and local groups 2) Are you offering gluten free and vegetarian options? Blog about it and share it on social media Building Your Strategy Discovery We see search marketing strategy as a cycle that begins with the DISCOVERY phase in which you need to develop a deep understanding of your Strategy objectives, market, customers, Strategy Development Feedback search terms, targets /Refinement and opportunities. Following this, the STRATEGY Action Planning can be developed, as well as a reporting framework for you to review and refine your activity. Measurement Actions The Foundations of SEO – What We Do? • Understand your business, objectives, priorities and the customers of the business • Map the user journey on your website • Research the primary search key phrases and target market • SWOT site analytics review (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) • Undertake a thorough technical audit on your website to identify issues and fixes • Cleanse backlinks – these are any sites linking back to yours, which Google may deem unnatural • Set-up SEO reporting system Attracting Customers The New Way • You need to go beyond purely thinking of first page rankings • You need to focus your attention on the foundations and objectives of your marketing, and what message you are putting out there The Technicalities of SEO According to SEOmoz, the key search ranking factors are: • Page link authority features • Page keyword usage • Domain level anchor text • Brand metrics • Page level social • Page keyword agnostic Place Page Signals (19.6%) Review Signals (10.3%) Domain keyword usage • External Loc. Signals (16%) Social Signals (6.3%) • Page level anchor text On-page Signals (18.8%) Behavioral/Mob. Signals (6.1%) • Domain link authority features • Domain keyword agnostic Link Signals (14.4%) Personalization (8.3%) http://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors Meta data • Meta description tags are important in gaining user click throughs from search engine result pages • They are HTML attributes that display preview snippets for a given page, roughly 155 characters • They are a webmaster’s opportunity to advertise content to searchers and let them know what the page contains Duplicate content • If your site just repeats itself over and over again, then this will end up having a negative impact on your search engine visibility • Scraped or plagiarised content will get you nowhere – Google is getting stricter at determining the original source of the content and degrading the rankings of sites, which ‘borrow’ or ‘steal’ Slower page response time Site speed results in an increase in page abandonment • The speed at which someone can view the content from a search result is a search ranking factor Page abandonment increase as a percentage • Slow-performing sites are 50% penalised in rankings because they give poor user experience 25% 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Page load time in seconds Worksheet 1 Name: Worksheet 1 Company: I strongly I strongly How are you doing? disagree agree 1 2 3 4 5 1. I have an SEO strategy in place for my business. 2. I have KPIs and targets in place for the website. 3. I invest time in producing quality content for my website. 4. I have looked at my website on a mobile and other devices. 5. I have an active and consistent social media presence for my business. 6. The content on my website sets me apart from my competitors and demonstrates my expertise. 7. I have mapped the user journey on my website and also the user journey before arriving to the website. 8. I have researched the target market for my business. 9. My site has little or no duplicate content. 10. My website provides a good quality user experience. Part 2 Design is crucial • Google’s guidelines clearly state “Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines.” • Most sites can more easily double sales by doubling conversion rates than by doubling traffic, and design is a crucial part of that • Great user experiences ultimately turn into repeat sales • When you earn popularity (rather than manufacture it), you end up expending fewer resources to bring in the same number of sales • Good design earns natural links Mobile Search • When it comes to design, we have a new saying – ‘mobile first.’ It’s extremely likely that the first device customers will view your site on, is their mobile / smartphone • When you need to look something up, we bet you don’t turn on your laptop, you use your phone or tablet.