Optimising Your Business Online. Slides from the workshop delivered by Symphony3 on behalf of Small Business Victoria.
Go to business.vic.gov.au for more information.
Scaling API-first – The story of a global engineering organization
Your Business Online
1.
2. Introduction
The new marketing paradigm
Why you should optimise your online presence
How it should tie into your business goals
Fundamentals of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Introduction to social media marketing
Workshop exercises – work on your business
7. Why Perform Search Engine Optimisation
(SEO)?
The online retail space is set to grow with 69 per cent
of respondents planning to invest in improved site
content and 66 per cent will spend more time on
online marketing. Some 70 per cent cited SEO as
being the most effective source to acquire customers.
From Forrester Report: “Online retailing in Australia 2010: Marketing,
merchandising and customer service”
8. Why Perform Search Engine Optimisation
(SEO)?
Gives higher long term ROI compared to any other
online marketing vehicles (Source: Marketing Sherpa
Report 2010).
Higher natural rankings builds trust among searchers.
80% of websites are found through search engines
(Source: Forrester Research).
Research suggests that if your not in the top 5 – 15 for
your search terms your website is almost non- existent
on the internet.
9. Why High Ranking Matters
Positioning is important!! Positioning is important!!
3.Above the red fold – 100 % viewed. 3.Appear on Page 1 – More traffic = More leads!
4.Drops to 50% - 20% below the fold. 4.Appear on Page 2 – Less traffic = Less leads!
10. Your Competition Keeps Getting Bigger
Search Drives Sales, Both Online and Offline:
For every dollar spent online, the average search
user spends $2.56 offline
'Search influences 20-30% of purchases made at
retail locations’
eMarketer 2007
12. What is SEO?
The process of ensuring that your website is
highly visible and relevant to search engines:
On-Page SEO
Off-Page SEO
What is a Search Engine and how does it work?
Robots, crawlers, spiders or ‘bots’
The Index
The Algorithm
13. What are the goals of your website?
Website goals might include
Top 5 ranking position for 10 key phrases
Increase traffic to the site by 50% in 6 months
Conversion rate increased from 1% to 2%
Online revenue increased from $15,000 per
annum to $30,000
Attract additional five new leads per week
14. Return on Investment
Research suggests that SEO gives higher long
term ROI compared to any other online
marketing vehicles (Source: Marketing Sherpa Report 2010).
However ROI varies depending on industry,
products, website size etc
Remember: It can take 6 months to see results
Commit to 6 months and then measure ROI
ROI should be based on clear $ return
15. SEO – Google Ranking Achievement
Report
Keyword Sept Nov Feb
web design melbourne 59 22 20
website design bendigo 4 1,2,3 1
graphic design 100+ 100+ 20
graphic design ballarat 10 9 7
web design workshops
1 1,2,3 19
bendigo
online marketing mildura 1 1 1
Website Case Study - www.designexperts.com.au
16. Will SEO work for your business?
For smaller businesses, SEO (tends to) work
best for:
Sites which sell niche products or services
globally
Sites which sell in a specific location
Sites that don’t try to be all things to
everybody!
17. Exercise
Are you on Google? Do a search for your
business’ brand name at Google, Yahoo and
ninemsn. Where does your website rank?
Do a search for your key product or service
(not using brand names)
18. How do search engines reference a
website?
Direct submission
Search engines can use your XML site map
(if you have one)
Following links from other web pages
19. Is your website search engine friendly?
Content
Navigation and link
structures
Site structure and
layout
Poor structure and
navigation cause
major roadblocks
20. Which pages should you optimise?
Analyse your website structure and content
Prioritise your home page
Optimise your top level category pages
If you sell products at your site optimise your
product pages
21. Which pages should you NOT optimise?
Privacy page
Terms and conditions/legal information
Disclaimers etc.
Add as PDF’s
22. How do people search?
People search in phases:
Broad ‘interest phase’
‘Research and
refinement’ phase
‘Purchasing or buying’
phase
23. Who searches for your product?
Understand your target market(s):
Who are they? Develop personas
What problem are you solving for them?
How are they likely to search?
24. Analysing your competition
An important step in the keyword research
process is competitive analysis:
Identify direct competitors
Which sites rank in top positions for your
important search phrases?
Check their source code for key phrase
selection
25. Keyword Research Tools
Keyword research tools help you:
Decide on keywords and key phrases
Understand search volumes
Two types:
Free
Paid
29. Important SEO Page Elements
Header
Body
Title Tags
Headings
Body Text
Internal Link Text
Images
Meta Data
30. Exercise
Identify your target market: Who are they?
What do they buy from you?
What keywords do they use?
Ask the room
Create an SEO site map for your website
31. How to write content which converts
Write content that offers value
USP
Turn features into benefits
Include calls to action
35. Checklist
Action Frequency
Review your ranking positions Weekly
Review your analytics Monthly
Refine your SEO procedure according to
Monthly
your analytics
Link Building Ongoing/regularly
On-page refinement Monthly
New content Ongoing/frequently
37. Why Social Media Marketing?
Customers are spending a large amount of
time there!
It’s low cost and easy to use
It’s online word of mouth marketing – and
it’s highly effective (network effect)
39. Social Media Risks
Fear by some businesses
Loss of control of brand
Time-wasting by employees
Waste of time and resources
And others, both real and perceived
40. Social Media Framework
People
Alignment with the
Business
Financial Goals
Operational and Marketing
Activity
Social Media Foundations
41. People
Can you describe your audience?
Do you know their needs?
Who are the influencers you need to reach?
42. Social Media Foundations
Do you have the skills, culture leadership in
your business?
Do you have a social media policy?
Do you have a budget?
Do you know which tools to use?
What data are you going to collect?
43. Marketing Activity
What are your communications strategies?
Do you have a listening strategy?
Are you going to talk and inform?
If so, what are you going to say?
47. Conclusion
SEO and Social does provide long term ROI in
many cases
You will see revenue increases if implemented
correctly
It can take time to see results
Measure online success using analytics
Ensure you also measure business benefits
48. Small Business Mentoring Service
Business mentors help you to identify a clear direction
for you and your business.
Business mentors can also advise you on how to:
conduct market research
price and/or cost your products or services
develop an effective marketing strategy
use other business management tools
To arrange a session with a business mentor go to:
www.sbms.org.au
49. Questions?
Thank you for attending
Check out
business.vic.gov.au/workshops
for more workshop information
Editor's Notes
Engage with participants and discuss each of their Web sites e.g. ask them if they are aware of how many people are visiting their site, how and where that traffic comes from, and what the user reads while at the site.
Talk about the changes to marketing over the last few years – people moving away from traditional print advertising, yellow pages, radio and TV advertising to online. Exercise: To prove how things have changed ask the group how many of them have used yellow pages recently? How many have responded to traditional ads in the newspaper or on TV, how many have responded to a direct mail advertisement. How many have used Google to find a product? How many have used social networks?
Talk to participants about how SEO forms part of an overall online strategy – this also may include Adwords for search marketing and will almost certainly include social networking and perhaps blogging and other social media tools. It is important to also consider how SEO has changed with Universal search meaning more people are finding video content (and images and news). YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine according to some stats.
This slide explains some of the key tools you will need to implement a strong SEO strategy. Explain what Google Analytics is and ask the group if they currently use it. Show the group Google Places and explain that for local businesses this is essential – it is the quickest way to get to page one and if they do one thing after the session it should be to sign up to Google Places Explain what a Content Management System is. If you can access a CMS show them how it works – explain that tools like Wordpress which were initially blogs can be used for full websites. Google Webmaster tools – explain that Google Webmaster tools provides a lot of information on your site and is important to have if you are thinking of managing your own SEO process
This slide explains some of the key tools you will need to implement a strong SEO strategy. Explain what Google Analytics is and ask the group if they currently use it. Show the group Google Places and explain that for local businesses this is essential – it is the quickest way to get to page one and if they do one thing after the session it should be to sign up to Google Places Explain what a Content Management System is. If you can access a CMS show them how it works – explain that tools like Wordpress which were initially blogs can be used for full websites. Google Webmaster tools – explain that Google Webmaster tools provides a lot of information on your site and is important to have if you are thinking of managing your own SEO process
The stat speaks for itself and is backed up by the statistics on the next slides regarding ROI.
Read the first bullet point regarding ROI. It is important to explain at this stage that a positive ROI can’t be guaranteed for every business. Business owners need to understand that SEO professionals who guarantee number one placings are making promises they can’t be sure of fulfilling. However if you follow the basic guidelines you will see improvements in traffic – whether that results in increased business will depend on many factors, including the competition, and the quality of your product and services
Show how the red indicates where people look and that the thick red line is above the fold – (people don’t need to scroll) this has major implications for getting seen – the second graph shows the diminishing rate of clickthroughs as rankings drop away – 1 st place gets 42%, 2nd gets 12%, 3 rd gets 8% etc
This is an old stat – however it is important to stress that SEO can assist greatly with offline sales as people research products before they go to a store to buy the product.
This slide shows the difference between pay per click and natural search and the percentage of clicks – it also shows universal search( where Google makes it easier to search for images video etc) and also the focus on local search
The goal of SEO is to give pages in your Web site the best possible chance to rank highly in search results and attract targeted traffic. On-Page SEO On-page optimisation involves incorporating keywords relevant to the topic of a page into the specific areas of the page that search engines scan to determine relevance. Off-Page SEO Off-page SEO involves influencing the ranking position of your Web site by securing links from other Web sites to improve the perceived ‘popularity’ of your site in the eyes of the search engines. So what is a Search Engine and how does it Work? Understanding how a search engine works helps your audience understand the fundamentals of SEO
Explain that each website is different. What is important is that your website goals are directly tied back to business metrics. (For example, high traffic is no good unless it is the right visitors who are visiting (E.g. What point is there in getting thousands of visits from America if you only sell to people in Victoria). The challenge is to convert the right visitors with the right messages so that they become customers or advocates.
ROI – the amount of profit you generate from an activity minus the amount of money you spent to generate the profit performing the activity. The key message is for the business to decide whether it wants to commit to SEO. If so they need to invest time and resources for at least six months. After six months they need to see whether the sales or awareness they have generated justifies the time and money they have invested in SEO.
Key Message: SEO will work best for businesses that have a clearly defined target market, a clear defined product or service offering (niche is often best) If a business doesn’t have an overall marketing plan they should develop one before committing to SEO
The first exercise really only tells you if you are indexed on Google. If you put in your company name you should expect to be in the first few places. The second exercise is far more important. It will give you an indication of how well you currently rank
Explain the importance of valuable content – both of r search engines but even more importantly for human visitors. Content will influence conversions. Explain the importance of navigation and link structures – explain how to build a logical sitemap
Obviously you don’t optimise these pages – some web developers recommend adding them as pdf’s
Keyword research is the most important function of SEO as it dictates everything else you do. However in order to undertake good keyword research you need to understand your target market. Who are they? Why will they use your product or service? How will your target market search for your product. How your target market searches may be completely different to how you search.
Competitor Analysis It is easy to analyse what keywords your competition are targeting. Simply right click and select ‘view page source’ to analyse their site’s title tags and meta information. Quite often the keywords listed in the meta keywords tag will reveal their complete keyword strategy.
Keyword research tools are extremely important in helping you decide on keywords and key phrases you should target on your website for high rankings. Keyword research tools help you understand volumes, that is, how many people type in certain phrases every month (or day), and in some cases, competition for those phrases.
Please place emphasis on this tool as a really strong starting point for key word research for your group. Paid tools are available but Adwords will meet the needs (and budget!) of most small businesses who want to do SEO themselves.
See handout
It is important to mention that as Google and other Search engines have become smarter, content has become more important than ever. Google has become far better at recognising relevant content – your content should always add value to the person who has entered the search term you are trying to be found for. Once you get people to your page you need to provide valuable content as mentioned above. You also need to understand what you want the visitor to do once they get to your page. If you understand what you want them to do you can provide calls to action to enable you to achieve your goals. This might include buying something, subscribing to a newsletter or filling out an inquiry form
Off-page optimisation refers to SEO strategies that are done off the pages of a Web site to maximise its performance in the search engines for target keywords related to the page content. PageRank 'PageRank' is Google’s system for measuring the importance of a Web page. It is based on an analysis of both the quantity and quality of all links that point to that page. Google provides a measurement on a scale from 0 - 10, where 10 is the highest. You can see the PageRank attributed to any page you visit on the Web by downloading the Google Toolbar. Very few Web sites have a PageRank Score of 10. Adobe and Microsoft have a PR 9. Google itself has a PR 8. A link from a page with high PageRank score will help to lift the PageRank score of a low PageRank page. Explain the following three additional Off-page SEO techniques: Creating an XML Site Map XML Site maps are useful for helping search engines find and index all the pages on a Web site. There are a number of free tools that create XML Site maps, for example GsiteCrawler ( http://gsitecrawler.com/ ). Setting-up a Google Webmaster Tools Account Google Webmaster Tools offer valuable information on how a Web site is viewed by Google. Webmaster Tools are free and can be set up through any Google account. Participants can start the process at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/about.html . Setting-up a Google Analytics Account Google Analytics is a free service that generates detailed statistics about Web site visitors and their behaviour/browsing while on a site ( http://www.google.com/analytics/ ).
The list above shows some of the ways and places to build inbound links to your website. Google is changing is search engine all the time so if you submit links via articles make sure they are relevant.
Conclusion SEO has long lasting benefits You WILL see increased traffic and revenue from a properly implemented SEO program – however no one can make firm guarantees Remember – to successfully implement your SEO strategy you must: Set goals and means to measure your success; Target the right people Perform intensive keyword research; Integrate top key phrases properly onto your Web site; Target the right pages on your site Write Web copy which helps lift conversions; Set up reporting; Perform Off-page SEO; link building etc.; Continually refine your project; AND Avoid deceptive SEO practices!
Conclusion SEO has long lasting benefits You WILL see increased traffic and revenue from a properly implemented SEO program – however no one can make firm guarantees Remember – to successfully implement your SEO strategy you must: Set goals and means to measure your success; Target the right people Perform intensive keyword research; Integrate top key phrases properly onto your Web site; Target the right pages on your site Write Web copy which helps lift conversions; Set up reporting; Perform Off-page SEO; link building etc.; Continually refine your project; AND Avoid deceptive SEO practices!