Useful Tips on SEO and the power of SEO when incorporated as part of the marketing plan. SEO is more than just keywords and is a vital part of any website build. This presentation addresses the Google Updates and what you can do to avoid getting penalised.
Useful Tips on The Power of SEO - BritMumsLive June 2014
1. Useful Tips on the Power of SEO
and the World Beyond
#BritMums Live
Presenter Jo Turnbull
June 2014@SEOJoBlogs
2. #BritMumsLive @SEOJoBlogs
Who is SEO Jo Blogs?
• Jo Turnbull started in SEO while
working for a mobile tech company
• Moved agency side 2009
• Freelance online marketing
consultant, helping small and
medium sized businesses with their
marketing
• Organiser of Search London
• Editor and Events Organiser for
State of Digital
9. #BritMumsLive @SEOJoBlogs
SEO Used to Be
• Meta Titles
• Keyword
Stuffing
• Spammy Links
• Ranking in
Google
• Guaranteed
Results
Photo from being30.com
10. #BritMumsLive @SEOJoBlogs
Elements of Ranking
• Title Tags
• Meta Description Tags
• ALT Tags
• H1, H2, H3 (and accompanying CSS)
• Keywords in the content
• Internal Links (images vs. keyword rich text)
• URL Structure
• Advanced Linking
• Authority
• Age of domain
15. #BritMumsLive @SEOJoBlogs
Some Clarity
• Panda – Feb 2011 (Europe April) – cracks
down on thin content, content farms
• Penguin – April 2012 - “over optimisation
penalty” adjusted spam factors like keyword
stuffing. This was a site quality update but
affected links.
• Hummingbird – September 2013
18. #BritMumsLive @SEOJoBlogs
• Ben Holbrook wrote a post about his favourite
things to do in Barcelona
• He then scheduled tweets to promote it every
day for a couple of weeks
• He added the #lp (Lonely Planet) hashtag when
tweeting
• Lonely Planet then retweeted the post to their
1M+ followers
• 10,000+ unique visitors to Driftwood Journals, 33
re-tweets and 128 “favourites”.
Twitter Affects Traffic
22. #BritMumsLive @SEOJoBlogs
“Search London” Grew
• Networking group for those in search
• Jan 2012 – 592 members
• 5 meetups 2012
• January 2013 – 1100 members
• Increase 86%
• June 2014 – 1315 members
Photo from being30.com
23. #BritMumsLive @SEOJoBlogs
How Did it Grow?
• Strong domain - www.meetup.com
• Good speakers – don’t be afraid to
ask
• Catchy titles each presentation
• Guest posts
• Interact with others at the event
• Email members
• Tweet before, during and after
• Central venue
Photo from being30.com
28. #BritMumsLive @SEOJoBlogs
4. Facebook Brings Traffic
• Ben “liked” the Facebook
pages of each place
mentioned in the post
• Emailed places he had
written about, suggesting
shares
• Ben also contacted the
Madrid tourist board
• 2.1k Facebook likes
• 100 tweets
• Almost 4,000 unique page
views within a week
29. #BritMumsLive @SEOJoBlogs
5. SEO Includes Sponsorship
• A financial services company
sponsored a sporting event in a
capital city
• The aim was to increase brand
awareness and traffic
Photo from being30.com
30. #BritMumsLive @SEOJoBlogs
5. Impact on Traffic and Social Media
• Organic traffic: Up 100%
• Direct: Up 41%
• Referral: Up 9%
• 22% Increase in conversions
• 463% Increase in blog traffic referrals
• 1,723 new Facebook fans gained on non-paid
digital efforts alone
• 5% increase in Twitter followers in one month
• 46% growth in FB likes
31. #BritMumsLive @SEOJoBlogs
SEO has a Positive Experience on
Brand
• 68% participants agreed about leaving with a
more positive view of the brand
• 50% participants more likely to buy from the
company
• 96% participants agreed the company was a
great fit for a sponsor
• 65% participants viewed the company as a
genuine brand
• 90% participants can’t wait for the next event
32. #BritMumsLive @SEOJoBlogs
6. SEO is PR
• Word of Mouth Online
• Work with the PR department
• Compliment Relationships
• Networking + SEO
• SEO + PR = Great Results
• Long lasting effect
Photo from being30.com
33. #BritMumsLive @SEOJoBlogs
SEO is About Tying it All Together
• Twitter
• Networking and Relationships
• Creating good content
• Facebook
• Sponsorship
• PR
41. #BritMumsLive @SEOJoBlogs
Summary
• Love Your Site
• Don’t Be Afraid of Google
• Create Content Users Want to Read
• A Picture Tells a Thousand Words
• Share Great Content
• Love What You Do
42. #BritMumsLive @SEOJoBlogs
Share Great
Content
Get in Touch
http://SEOJoBlogs.com
Turnbull.Jo@gmail.com
Photos from Being30.com, DriftwoodJournals.com, Flickr
and Bas van den Beld
Thank You
Photo from being30.com
Hummingbird -
Hummingbird is about synonyms but also about context
In a nutshell, think about why people are looking for something rather than what they are looking for. A content strategy should be designed to answer their needs, not just provide them with facts
Panda
Keep low quality and low content sites away from the top ranking results and give the actual quality sites their due.
Many websites with lots of advertising, or with low quality content, saw a huge decline in the rankings. Ever since Panda was launched, there have been many updates, more than 20.
Penguin
Affected rankings of sites that practice black-hat SEO techniques like duplicate content, keyword stuffing, cloaking
1. Aggressive exact-match anchor text
2. Overuse of exact-match domains
3. Low-quality article marketing & blog spam
4. Keyword stuffing in internal/outbound links
It is about off line and online integration
A few weeks later I did a Google search for “best things to do in Barcelona”. Because I’d optimised my title for this key term, and because the Lonely Planet tweet had validated my post, it was ranking in position 3!
Ever since, that one page has continued to bring in HUGE traffic. Most recently, in the month of May 2014 you can see that that one blog post was read 18,693 times!