The secrets that search engine optimisation (SEO) professionals don’t want you to know - Digital...

Digital Eyes Media Academy

WELCOME BACK

IT’S BEEN A MONTH….

What have you implemented in your business since the last session?

THE SECRETS THAT SEO PROFESSIONALS DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW!

AIMS OF THE SESSION

By the end of the session we’ll all have an understanding of the following:

• Know what SEO actually is

• How it can help to drive business to my website

• The keywords I care about

• What’s Google looks for in a website

• Links and how they help

• Where and how to get links

• It’s not just about web pages….

Who’s had experience of being involved with SEO before?

There is NO answer!

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is simply understanding how search engines rank content and using this understanding to ensure a website

or some other digital asset ranks well.

Myth buster

TRUE OR FALSE?

You need to submit your website to Google and every search engine that you want to appear in

FALSE

TRUE OR FALSE

If I buy webdesignerstoke.co.uk I will rank number 1 for “web designer stoke”

FALSE

TRUE OR FALSE

Social media will help build my search engine visibility

TRUE

A FEW OTHER MYTHS

• Keyword density is important

• What worked last year works now

• SEO can be automated

• Google page rank influences your rank

RUBBISH!

ANATOMY OF A SEARCH RESULTS PAGE (SERP)

WHY IS SEO IMPORTANT FOR YOUR BUSINESS

• 70% of users click organic search results – HubSpot

• 60% of clicks are for the top 3 search results – HubSpot

• 75% of users NEVER go to page 2 of results – HubSpot

• 93% of online activity starts with a search – Search Engine Journal

BUT IT’S NOT JUST WEBSITES

Why?

Findability

Cost Effective

Targeted

Brand Visibility

High ROI

Focus Standards

What are your thoughts about using SEO for your business?

“MY MARKETPLACE IS TO CROWDED AND I CAN’T COMPETE”

BOLLOCKS!

HOW DO SEARCH ENGINES WORK?

Simply put, search engines crawl the web to understand what web-pages are about in order to serve relevant pages to people searching the web

YOU AND I SEE THE WORLD DIFFERENTLY

• Location personalisation

• Device personalisation

• History personalisation

• Circles preference

• Intent personalisation

THE GOOGLE BEAUTY PAGEANT

Relevancy• Content• Website

structure

Popularity• Inbound Links• Social Signals

Behaviour• User Profiling• Searcher

Intent

KNOW YOUR MARKET

Google is NOT the king of the world, be sure you understand that you focus on search engines your visitor

and target market use

How can small and newer businesses beat the competition?

IT ALL STARTS HERE

SHORT TAIL VS LONG TAIL

IT’S NOT GUESS WORK

Don’t guess what your potential customers are searching for, find out!

USEFUL TOOLS

• Google keyword planner

• adwords.google.com

• (free with an account)

• Google analytics

• Other useful keyword tools

Spend the next 10 minutes thinking of the 5 most important keywords for your businesses website.

Write them into your notebook

BREAK

MAKING SURE YOUR WEBSITE IS SHIP SHAPE

• Keywords in your pages

• Page titles

• Content headings

• Page URL’s

• Internal links

• Images and other media correctly labeled

• Page speed

• Broken links

COMMON PITFALLS AND HOW TO SPOT THEM

• Multiple versions of a domain and or homepage

• Duplicate content

• Poor internal links

• Bad titles and headings

• Broken links

• Missing image descriptions

How to identify a problem?

Links make the web go around

NUMBER OF LINKS

Most Authoritative

Least Authoritative

Generally the more links a page has the more authoritative it will be

AUTHORITY OF LINKS

Least Authoritative Most

Authoritative

Small blog

Articlesite

forumMajor News

Website

However the authority of each page linking through also matters.

Industry Blog

RELEVANCY OF LINKS

Most Authoritative

Money Advice Blog

Least Authoritative

The relevancy of the inbound links also plays a large part of establishing authority

Accountancysite

Music Website

Golf Website

RULE OF THUMB FOR LINKS

If it’s easy to obtain by anyone, it’s low value

The harder a link is to get, the more valuable

SOME USEFUL LINK BUILDING TOOLS

• DMOZ – dmoz.org

• Submit your information and hope for the best

• Industry specific directories

• Don’t spend lots of money to be in them!

• Leverage supplier contacts

• Get links back from customers websites

• Check your competition

• Social media profiles

• Google places verified listing

AVOID….

• Reciprocal linking

• Blog commenting with links back

• Forum links

• Paying someone in China, India or some other country to give you thousands of links to your site

SHHHH….. IT’S A SECRET!

How to compete with £million SEO budgets without spending a penny!

EVERYONE KNOWS THEY NEED TO BUT DON’T!

EXAMPLE: MEET PAUL

Business: Spin Less PlatesSector:Business management softwareCompetitors in search: Small companies like Sage, Kashflow & MicrosoftTime in business: 18 months

Where does Paul rank for “small business software”?

Overall if it’s good for users it’s good for search engines

Measuring progress

Questions?