Overhauling Content Strategy As Part Of A Site Migration - Search London 2015
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1. The document discusses overhauling content strategy as part of a site migration project. It outlines a methodology used by the author and their team to research client, competitor, and customer needs to inform a new content strategy. 2. The research phase involves auditing owned assets, understanding brand and business objectives, analyzing competitors' strategies, and gathering customer insights from keywords, search trends, surveys, and social listening. 3. This information is used to make decisions about content themes, structure, and format to address user needs and differentiate the site, ensuring the migration satisfies search intent and user experience alongside technical SEO best practices.
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Overhauling Content Strategy As Part Of A Site Migration - Search London 2015
- 1. OVERHAULING CONTENT STRATEGY AS PART OF A SITE MIGRATION BRIONY GUNSON @brionygunson
- 2. WHO AM I? SEO Account Manager Resolution Media @ Manning Gottlieb OMD @brionygunson
- 3. TODAY WE ARE GOING TO COVER… • A methodology that my team and I have used to overhaul client content strategy when handling a site migration. • Beyond just the usual IA implications, it’s about setting up the site to address user needs whilst also satisfying search intent. @brionygunson
- 4. A TALE OF TWO HALVES – MIGRATING A SITE AND CONTENT STRATEGY @brionygunson VO: a lot can potentially go awry with a site migration… Image sources: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3262/2684820457_a1797af6c7.jpg http://abetteruserexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/content-strategy-480x432.jpg
- 5. IT’S UNDERSTANDABLE THAT CONTENT STRATEGY IS NOT OFTEN THE MAIN FOCUS @brionygunson VO: But I want to highlight why it’s actually a great opportunity to investigate content strategy as part of the process, as there’s so much insight gleaned from the research done to ensure that a site migration goes well.
- 7. WHY MIGRATE A SITE? @brionygunson 2008 2015 VO: It could be about: • Updating technology • Visual design and layout • Overhauling content • Upgrade CMS • Change of vendor Or all of the above!
- 8. WHAT IS THE TRADITIONAL ROLE OF AN SEO IN ALL OF THIS? @brionygunson Image source: http://giphy.com/search/white-kid-computer-thumbs-up
- 9. PREVENTING ORGANIC TRAFFIC LOSS @brionygunson Panic stations!! HHGTTG image
- 10. TECHNICAL BEST PRACTICE & ON-PAGE REVAMP @brionygunson Image of the scrum board & daily r ankings graph from BrightEdge VO: typically look to ensure technical best practice is in place and use this as an opportunity to revamp on-page optimisation, e.g. • 301 redirects from old to new site are in place • The new site can be crawled and indexed by search engines • Preventing duplicate content on the new site • Resolving 404s • Measuring and tracking traffic, rankings, index – meticulously measure pre & post migration etc
- 11. THE ROLE AND REMIT OF AN SEO CAN BE DICTATED BY A VARIETY OF FACTORS… @brionygunson Image source: http://giphy.com/search/white-kid-computer-thumbs-up
- 12. A DECISION THAT REQUIRES A LOT OF TIME, MONEY, ENERGY AND EMOTION @brionygunson VO: We want our clients to have the best possible product – so what about also looking to increase traffic, engagement, conversion? Image source: http://www.vebidoo.de/erich+cermak
- 13. REALLY, IT’S AN AMAZING OPPORTUNITY TO REALLY GET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER! @brionygunson We should look to build a site that's design, structure and functionality make it compatible with the content needs relevant for our client’s audience. By doing an extra bit of research, an SEO can contribute a lot more insight and value to the client, whilst ensuring the SEO objectives are met. Image source: https://southcarolina1670.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/house-after.png?w=676
- 14. A TALE OF TWO HALVES – MIGRATING A SITE AND CONTENT STRATEGY @brionygunsonImage sources: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3262/2684820457_a1797af6c7.jpg http://abetteruserexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/content-strategy-480x432.jpg
- 15. BUT WHAT DO I MEAN BY “CONTENT STRATEGY?” @brionygunson In this context, it’s very much about investigating what the website content strategy should be and basing this on consumer needs. Image source: http://abetteruserexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/content-strategy-480x432.jpg
- 16. AND HOW DO WE IDENTIFY THESE CONTENT NEEDS? @brionygunson Image source: http://abetteruserexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/content-strategy-480x432.jpg
- 17. @brionygunson CLIENT CUSTOMERSCOMPETITORS BY BEEFING UP THE RESEARCH PHASE PRE-MIGRATION Foundations for website content strategy VO: as part of a migration, you will (or certainly should) do quite a lot of research which you can break down into three key areas – client, competitors & customers.
- 18. @brionygunson CLIENT CUSTOMERSCOMPETITORS Inputs can include: • Target audience • Auditing owned/earned assets • Previous campaigns • Brand strategy What does the client want to achieve from this migration? BY BEEFING UP THE RESEARCH PHASE PRE-MIGRATION VO: makes sense to ensure you fully understand the client – understanding what it is that they want to achieve with the redesign/overhaul, so you are clear on what you are migrating over and the stakes involved.
- 19. @brionygunson CLIENT CUSTOMERSCOMPETITORS BY BEEFING UP THE RESEARCH PHASE PRE-MIGRATION Inputs can include: • Share of Voice on social • Share of Voice via organic search • Backlink profile • Estimated traffic • Recent campaigns How can we differentiate ourselves? VO: similar to client research, we would also look to see who is doing well in this space. Where there is overlap this is where we need to think about how we can differentiate our clients from their competitors.
- 20. @brionygunson CLIENT CUSTOMERSCOMPETITORS BY BEEFING UP THE RESEARCH PHASE PRE-MIGRATION Inputs can include: • Keyword research • Search trends • Survey data • CRM data • Facebook demographic data • PPC demographic data Is this enough for user needs? VO: Thinking about the crossover: Is the current content doing a good job at targeting those terms? How do we compare to competitors?
- 21. @brionygunson KEYWORDS ONLY TELL PART OF THE USER NEEDS STORY VO: Rise of “how to” & “why” search queries has opened up a lot more content opportunities for brands – increasing presence of search snippets show the importance Google is giving to answering user needs
- 22. @brionygunson Google keeps users satisfied! Gives them all they need! Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pestfoto/7263971706
- 23. SOCIAL LISTENING GIVES US ADDITIONAL LAYER OF INSIGHT @brionygunson VO: We want to see what convos are happening on social around our clients, their products and their competitors and any relevant topics So we want to add this additional layer into the site migration process when understanding clients, competitors & customers. Image source http://40n2v21d6ogh2vw593p4ksu1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/04/SocialMediaSchedulingListening-776x415.jpg
- 24. Input keywords in SLT Review output for relevancy Group relevant content by theme Input themes into SLT Review output for search queries Search vol, rank, content format METHODOLOGY OF IDENTIFYING THOSE NEEDS VIA SOCIAL LISTENING @brionygunson “Train tickets” “Cost”, “Type”, “Where to buy”, “How to collect” Search vol 50 rank 38 travel guides “when is the cheapest time to travel by train?” VO: The scale and depth to which you want to go to is up to you!
- 25. @brionygunson CLIENT CUSTOMERSCOMPETITORS WE TAKE THIS INSIGHT AND MAKE A DECISION WITH THE CLIENT ABOUT WHAT WE CAN USE FOR THE MIGRATION
- 26. WHEN SHOULD THIS RESEARCH TAKE PLACE? @brionygunson Reviewing objectives Defining IA In build Migration Day Second Release? Reviewing objectives This presents a big over simplification of a migration process! But, ideally, we want to be starting research 8-10 weeks before any decisions are made about defining site structure – the earlier you can be involved in the site migration process the better.
- 27. SO, HOW HAS THIS WORKED FOR US? @brionygunson Image source: https://plus.google.com/+RicardoNunoSilva/posts/R9vC5UtU4VK?pid=57965 10546364478562&oid=102679111540717383584
- 28. PREVENTING ORGANIC TRAFFIC LOSS @brionygunson Panic stations!! HHGTTG image
- 29. 0 500,000 1,000,000 1,500,000 2,000,000 2,500,000 3,000,000 Jun-14 Jul-14 Aug-14 Sep-14 Oct-14 Nov-14 Dec-14 Jan-15 Feb-15 Mar-15 Apr-15 May-15 Jun-15 Jul-15 PHEW! MIGRATION WENT WELL AND WE GREW TRAFFIC WHILST REDUCING SIZE OF SITE BY 50% MIGRATION DAY @brionygunson SECOND RELEASE National Campaign +70,000 organic visits compared to July 2014 VO: New site launched in August 2014 with new content, CMS, design, layout, structure & we reduced the size of the site by 50%. Post launch, we see a slight drop off in Sept but this is seasonality, & then we start to see a gradual lift up until another release in February 2015 where we launched a content hub based on user needs research. +70,000 visits compared to 2014 when there was a national campaign that same month – with TV, radio, OOH, paid spend – boosting search interest around the brand.
- 30. AND RANKINGS FOR CORE TERMS BASED ON USER NEEDS ALSO INCREASED *144% increase in average rankings in 3 months, Generic terms from page 4 page 1 *avg. 62,000 search vol @brionygunson
- 31. HAPPY CLIENT AND A MUCH TIGHTER RELATIONSHIP @brionygunson VO: Much closer relationship with them, still drawing on these insights now AND we really understand their business and we’ve become much more important to them
- 32. 1. SEOs can do so much more: Site migrations present a great opportunity! Aim to maintain traffic but we can also work towards future proofing the site for content. Make your client visible AND valuable to users. 2. Beef up the research phase: Client, competitor and customer research done as part of a migration provides great insight, which, coupled with social listening, lays the foundations of a website content strategy. 3. Timing: Get involved at an early stage and allocate sufficient time for research AS WELL as getting best practice SEO in place for the migration. That said, the research can still be valuable even if the timing isn’t perfect. KEY TAKEAWAYS @brionygunson
Notes de l'éditeur
- Deliver SEO and content strategy, have experience in FMCG, travel, automotive.
- Just a recap of what Jo & Tim shared about what I was going to cover today. IA = information architecture
- So really the talk today is a tale of two halves – migrating a site & content strategy – now, a lot can potentially go awry with a site migration http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3262/2684820457_a1797af6c7.jpg http://abetteruserexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/content-strategy-480x432.jpg
- But really I want to highlight why it’s actually a great opportunity to investigate content strategy as part of the process, as there’s so much insight gleaned from the research done to ensure that a site migration goes well. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3262/2684820457_a1797af6c7.jpg http://abetteruserexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/content-strategy-480x432.jpg
- But first a little audience participation! Show of hands - who here as ever been involved in a site migration in some capacity? Ok great! I should stress at this point that the focus of this preso is not to go into the details of how to conduct a site migration – that’s a whole other talk in itself!
- But, we can cover a little bit – why would you migrate a site? It could be about: Updating technology Visual design and layout Overhauling content Upgrade CMS Change of vendor Or all of the above!
- Source: http://www.notprovided.eu/assets/migration-gone-wrong.png I should add that this is not one of our clients!
- Judging from the show of hands in the room, the majority here are pretty familiar but an SEO would typically look to ensure technical best practice is in place and use this as an opportunity to revamp on-page optimisation. 301 redirects from old to new site are in place The new site can be crawled and indexed by search engines Preventing duplicate content on the new site Resolving 404s Measuring and tracking traffic, rankings, index – meticulously measure pre & post migration This is a agile board from a recent migration we were involved in – SEO tickets peppered throughout each sprint phase.
- that are out of our hands (or hard to influence) Client set up Vendor relationships Budget Politics Culture HIPPOs
- We want our clients to have the best possible product – so what about also looking to increase traffic, engagement, conversion? http://www.vebidoo.de/erich+cermak
- https://southcarolina1670.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/house-after.png?w=676 Unlocks an opportunity to think about the future and go for it!
- So now we’re going to head into the content strategy half of the presentation. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3262/2684820457_a1797af6c7.jpg http://abetteruserexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/content-strategy-480x432.jpg
- In this context, it’s very much about investigating what the website content strategy should be and basing this on consumer needs.
- As part of a migration, you will (or certainly should) do quite a lot of research which you can break down into three key areas – client, competitors & customers.
- First of all, it makes sense to ensure you fully understand the client – understanding what it is that they want to achieve with the redesign/overhaul, so you are clear on what you are migrating over and the stakes involved. Get under their skin – understand their business, products, business & brand objectives. There is a level of auditing at this phase, in assessing the value and purpose of existing content – it’s a chance to assess whether the current content is useful and valuable to users. What is the quality of the traffic like, based on these pieces? Could it be improved, from an engagement of conversion perspective?
- Similar to clients, we would also look to see who is doing well in this space – who’s got an active social presence, who’s ranking well, what does their backlink profile look like (since this can reveal a lot about content strategy), idea of traffic estimates (whether they are relying heavily on paid, etc), recent campaigns that did well, as well as those that didn’t do well. Similar to clients, we would also look to see who is doing well in this space And where they overlay – this is where we need to think about how we can differentiate our clients from their competitors, as well as think about where their strengths lie, and can we take any learnings from their activity – anything that might inspire us.
- Not just in relation to your client – thinking about the vertical as a whole. Does it need a refresh – both the content and target terms? Are there other terms we could or should be focusing on? Thinking about the crossover: Is the current content doing a good job at targeting those terms? How do we compare to competitors? - where are they? Geographically and online - what do they want? - what do they needs? - what do they think? - How do they feel? - are the satisfied? How can we create content that can drive traffic but genuinely satisfied user needs?
- Google have made it clear they are more focused on AI & machine learning than being a search engine – you only need to look at the number of research papers that they have published in this field (+400) Way people search has changed – need other terms – think about intent and context. There’s been a big move towards semantic search and following on from algorithm updates like Hummingbird, we are seeing features like Google Instant answers which look to target these long tail search queries, as well as provide more data on INTENT and CONTEXT behind user search queries. Featured snippet was driving roughly 20,000 clicks/week: http://searchengineland.com/swapped-losing-google-featured-snippet-case-study-228899 Intent, which comes from the user, explicitly states what he or she is looking for. And context could be understood as everything that surrounds a search and makes this go in either direction, i.e., what gives it meaning. Thus, by understanding and connecting intention and context, search engines are able to understand the different queries, both what motivates and what is expected of them. Google Instant answers – answer box – Google is doing it, brands definitely should be doing it! Be visible and valuable, answer the questions that they have. Check Bex’s email SEL case study on Google Instant answers – lost 390,000 visits Increase in “how to” & “why” search terms – Targeting people at the research phase, long tail, Find google stat for what traffic Wikipedia lost..
- Google have made it clear they are more focused on AI & machine learning than being a search engine – you only need to look at the number of research papers that they have published in this field (+400) Way people search has changed – need other terms – think about intent and context. There’s been a big move towards semantic search and following on from algorithm updates like Hummingbird, we are seeing features like Google Instant answers which look to target these long tail search queries, as well as provide more data on INTENT and CONTEXT behind user search queries. Featured snippet was driving roughly 20,000 clicks/week: http://searchengineland.com/swapped-losing-google-featured-snippet-case-study-228899 Intent, which comes from the user, explicitly states what he or she is looking for. And context could be understood as everything that surrounds a search and makes this go in either direction, i.e., what gives it meaning. Thus, by understanding and connecting intention and context, search engines are able to understand the different queries, both what motivates and what is expected of them. Google Instant answers – answer box – Google is doing it, brands definitely should be doing it! Be visible and valuable, answer the questions that they have. Check Bex’s email SEL case study on Google Instant answers – lost 390,000 visits Increase in “how to” & “why” search terms – Targeting people at the research phase, long tail, Find google stat for what traffic Wikipedia lost..
- http://www.shoutoutstudio.com/benefits-of-social-media-scheduling-and-social-listening/ We want to see what convos are happening on social around our clients, their products and their competitors and any relevant topics So we want to add this additional layer into the site migration process when understanding clients, competitors & customers.
- The scale and depth to which you want to go to is up to you! – WHAT WE DID AND HOW WE DID IT Social listening is the needs analysis section – what they are in need of We put in keywords into radian6 to get back what people are talking about products or services. Go into an example of what we did for a client – use an example. 1. Put brand or product terms into SLT 2. Manual review of output for relevancy 3. Group relevant content by keyword themes 4. To refine it and have a deeper dive into what people are saying about these themes, enter them back into the tool 5. Manual review of output to glean long tail keywords/search queries 6. Look at search vol, where we rank, who ranks positions 1 – 3,
- We take this insight & make a decision with the client about what we can use for the migration, depending on what stage of the migration we are at. Benefits of the overlap in venn: Client (what they are about) + customer (what they want) = do more of that! It’s working Competitors + customers = identify what that is, so we can emulate and improve what they are doing. Competitor + client = stand out – differentiate yourself from them. Set up simple principles off the back of this That’s what our landscape analysis is about: bringing together data and insight on our client, their customers and competitors. In addition to helping inform the site migration work, this information can be also used as the building blocks for content strategy. All three together can act as the building block for a website content strategy – CAN INPUT FINDINGS INTO THE SITE MIGRATION BUT CAN TAKE RESEARCH TO CLIENT AND START CONVOS ABOUT WIDER CONTENT STRATEGY MENTION LONG TAIL TERMS….. VISIBLE AND VALUABLE WHEN CUSTOMERS WANT US.
- Big over simplification of a migration process! Ideally, we want to be starting research 8-10 weeks before any decisions are made about defining site structure – the earlier you can be involved in the site migration process the better. In fact, as soon as you get wind that a site migration is even possibly on the cards, you should probably arrange a meeting with relevant stakeholders to get as much information as possible. If you get involved earlier on, you’re more likely to have insights from your research included –BUT! I know that’s in an ideal world. In fact, we’ve had situations where it’s not been possible to influence IA –but it can start conversations around whether you need content hubs. If you can’t influence ia, your research can start conversations around other opportunities Although it depends on what work is being done in the interim. One client got us involved when they had already started rewriting all their website content and writing new pages on new topics, so we had to move quickly to see about what the information hierarchy should be based on priority of user intent. VM timelines – 2 months for VT research, 2x 100% of the time. 8-10 weeks out from 8 – 10 weeks from the migration you want to have the website content strategy documents It is flexible – you can adapt the approach and scale according to client, e.g – if you are brought in too late to influence IA (weighted by user needs), then you can still optimise the crap out of the site. Continue to draw on this research 6 – 9 months on, to inform content and campaigns SUBSEQUENT SPRINTS THAT WE CAN INCLUDE THIS IN
- Reduced the size of the site by 100% but maintained traffic levels
- Source: http://www.notprovided.eu/assets/migration-gone-wrong.png I should add that this is not one of our clients!
- New site in August 2014 where we had completely new site with new content, CMS, design, layout, structure AND we reduced the size of the site by 50%. But we managed to maintain traffic levels post launch - we see a slight drop off in September but this is seasonality and then we start to see a gradual lift up until another release in February 2015. +70,000 visits compared to 2014 when there was a national campaign that same month – with TV, radio, OOH, paid spend – boosting search interest around the brand. They launched a big campaign in may 2014 with a new current account (new product - and then we launched the new site in no other campaigns in this time.
- *144% increase in average rankings of priority keywords in 3 months, moving from page 4 to page 1 Lead to conversations about a blog, or content hub, needed a natural place to host this content rather than the traditional content page. Created new areas on the site rather than Level of insight allows us to have convos with senior stakeholders about creating these sections – showed there was a need & getting the build in as part of the migration, rather than selling it in at a later stage when it would need more resource.
- Much closer relationship with them, still drawing on these insights now AND we really understand their business and we’ve become much more important to them http://www.glogster.com/guitarhippie/my-totoro-glog-/g-6nara330cd8phdvv2vkvddh?old_view=True
- All this research is pretty ace, although quite manual process and resource intensive but we are still using it now. we truly understand the site’s capabilities and limitations, so we know what it can work. Understand also the complexity of the client and their business by undertaking this research The role of SEO has evolved and this showcases what we can deliver – identifying user needs. Caveat : not saying this is a definitive list of inputs – it’s just what’s worked well for us and our clients – sure there are many more inputs that you could use to inform this research. As a whole – for the whole preso: Role of SEO has changed - Importance of identify user needs - we incorporate social listening, why? Google is acting more like a human (machine learning and IA), so if can understand genuine user needs, then and incorporating that into website content strategy, we can be rewarded with more organic visibility AND have a better experiences for our customers. Yes, it’s long, it’s manual but the research will last a long time. Have a razor sharp view of what you are you trying to achieve – it’s a website content strategy, that first informs the site migration – have a really clear understanding of what you want to achieve.