My talk from BRAVE - The morning of October 2012

1. GETTING TO THE TOP OF GOOGLE
What you can do in 2012
Jon Payne, Noisy Little Monkey

2. results
links
content
social
brand

3. A SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE
You do not want hand-outs
NoisyLittleMonkey.com/Feedback

4. WHO IS THIS MUPPET?
Jon Payne
Over 12 years in Online Marketing
Noisy Little Monkey Ltd
Digital Marketing Agency

5. consult
research
train
do
report

6. Who trusts you?
Over 80 businesses, charities and government bodies in Europe, North America & Africa

7. WHO ARE YOU
What do you want?

8. We are not talking about SEO
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhruzek/4165799037

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The band (their albums, tour dates, popular tracks), the team (their scores, the gossip), the animal
Things. Not strings.

10. DIGITAL MARKETING
Digital Marketing = SEO + Everything

12. Digital marketing?
http://www.sexypeople-blog.com/2010/04/swanson-family.html

13. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE GRAPHS

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Digital marketing?
Search Engine Optimisation

15. Digital marketing?
Number 1 on Google gets you good graphs

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Digital marketing?
Search Engine Marketing such as Google AdWords

17. Digital marketing?
Ads in Search Results Pages give you good graphs too

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Digital marketing?
Creating content that is useful to your customers

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Digital marketing?
Help and / or reward them for sharing it on relevant social media

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Digital marketing?
Get ranked

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Digital marketing?
Get search volume and you can influence Google suggest

22. Digital marketing?
Traffic to the whole site improved by 22% in the following month

23. Digital marketing?
This is your blog on digital marketing

24. Digital marketing?
People entering the site via a blog post

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Digital marketing?
Maps, reviews, emails

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Digital marketing?
Conversion Rate Optimisation

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Digital marketing?
Pro Tip: Put a simple enquiry form on EVERY page of your website

28. WHO DOES IT WELL?

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Bigup Yeo Chest
http://www.youtube.com/user/Yeotube

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Bigup Yeo Chest
http://www.facebook.com/YeoValley & BBC Website 11/10/2011
Lots of buzz
Links from
auntie

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Bigup Yeo Chest
Mentions and links on Twitter indicate relevance, predictive search shows “branded search” volume

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Bigup Yeo Chest
top of 13.5 million pages “for free”

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Bigup Yeo Chest
This is what Google thinks you’re looking for if you search for organic yogurt

34. HOW DO YOU DO IT?
and on a realistic budget?

35. BACK TO SKOOL
Understand how Google works

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How does Google search work?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNHR6IQJGZs

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Links?
The bits of a web page that, when clicked, will take you to another web page or fire off an event

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Internal links
When page a links to page b, page a bestows some of its authority onto page b
www.yoursite.com/page-a
www.yoursite.com/page-b

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Outbound links
You’re saying to your visitors (and Google), “Hey, you can trust this other site, because I do”
www.yoursite.com/page-a
www.anothersite.com/page-b

40. YOU’VE PROBABLY HEARD THIS ONE
“The more links you have, the higher you will rank”

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That’s bull!
http://www.flickr.com/people/oli/

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Inbound links
Cool! So long as this other site is trusted and not nasty / spammy
www.yoursite.com/page-a
www.anothersite.com/page-b

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Reciprocal links
Beloved of ‘SEO’ companies.
Unless there is a ‘real world’ partnership , you could be penalised by Google
www.yoursite.com/page-a
www.anothersite.com/page-b

44. Your
site
BBC
lots of links to it,
so it has lots of
authority
Local Chamber of
Commerce
Few people link to it,
but those that do are
trustworthy Link Farm
Loads of links to it,
but mainly
reciprocal and
quite a few
questionable links
g
Links pass authority
Cultivate links from trusted websites, they pass more authority

45. Your
site
BBC
Local blog
Business
partner
Local
press
Trade
magazine
Local Chamber of
Commerce
g
Links pass authority
A diverse, but relevant, set of linking websites is best

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Don’t waste homepage links
Don’t waste ‘Google juice’ on privacy policy, terms and conditions, etc
www.yoursite.com/index
www.yoursite.com/stuff-the-customer-buys

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Get inbound links to important pages
Your homepage will always rank well, so give deeper, important pages some love
www.yoursite.com/stuff-the-customer-buys
www.anothersite.com/page-b

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I can’t get a link from Auntie Beeb
http://www.flickr.com/people/el_momento_i_sitio_apropiados/
model: su novia

49. • Links essential to online journalism
• BBC strategy to double outbound links from
10m to 20m a month by 2013
g
http://www.scribd.com/GuardianTech/d/38963534-BBC-guidelines-for-linking-%E2%80%93-Sept-2010
Au Contraire
Russell Smith
Editorial Development
BBC News Website
@Russell__Smith

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Thanks, Russell!
http://www.flickr.com/people/el_momento_i_sitio_apropiados/
model: su novia

51. • Number 5 on Google UK
• Number 1 on Google UK
• Number 8 on Google UK
g
http://www.google.co.uk/search?&q=trampolines
Keep it natural
Is this
reflected
on news
sites, social
media,
search
volumes?

52. HOW TO GET MORE LINKS
quality and relevance are key

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http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/
Apply common sense to these results!
Who links to your competitors?

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Type <“your competitors name”> -site:<their webaddress> into a Google search
Who mentions your competitors?

55. • Discussion forums (be a really useful engine)
• Research (white papers, or mine your data)
• Social bookmarking (reddit, stumbleupon, etc)
• Comment on industry blogs
• Why not start your own blog?
g
Actually, scratch that.
Get involved, get links

56. • Discussion forums (be a really useful engine)
• Research (white papers, or mine your data)
• Social bookmarking (reddit, stumbleupon, etc)
• Comment on industry blogs
• Why not start your own blog?
g
Because your visitors and Google love fresh, up to date content!
Get involved, get links

57. GOOGLE READS ALL YOUR CONTENT
quality and relevance are key (again)

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A site that is accessible makes the web a better place for everyone. This is a good thing.
How does Google determine relevance?
Looks pretty, AND made with code and text = Accessible, good experience
Looks pretty, but is all images.
(Even the words, they are part of the image, as if you’d taken a photograph of a motorway sign).
Not computer readable = Inaccessible, poor experience
The code and text returns below, but this is really, really bad.

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http://www.noisylittlemonkey.com/news/499/how-is-google-plus-changing-search-results/
How does Google determine relevance?

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Don’t change your domain name to match a popular search without setting up 301 redirects first
Domain level indicators

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If your website isn’t built like this, you need to get a new website. Seriously.
Search terms in the file path

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This also shows on Google’s results page, so make it snappy, useful and attract the click!
Search terms in the Page Title

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Make sure your site is accessible for blind people – this mustn't be an image!
AND don’t waste the space by saying ‘Welcome to our site’
Search terms in the Page Headline

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Make sure your site is accessible for blind people – label all images
Search terms in the Alt Text

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Use synonyms and keep it readable for humans. Don’t just stuff search terms in here
Search terms in the copy

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View Source to see it. Right click white space in Chrome / Firefox / Safari and select “View Source”
A Meta Description which ATTRACTS THE CLICK
Becomes this on Google

67. YOUR PAGE MATCHES A SEARCH
when it is good quality and highly relevant

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I don’t know how people search
http://www.flickr.com/people/el_momento_i_sitio_apropiados/
model: su novia

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http://www.google.co.uk/insights/search
Maybe I can help?
This is good
for volumes.
Ignore those
numbers

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Ignore the regional stuff too. That data is definitely off.
Maybe I can help?
This stuff is better
than the AdWords
Keyword Research
tool!

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Thanks, Google!
http://www.flickr.com/people/el_momento_i_sitio_apropiados/
model: su novia

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Search Demand Curve courtesy of SEOmoz
Aim low(ish). Seriously.

74. GOOGLE IS WATCHING YOU
and your friends

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Word cloud of @NoisyMonkey’s last 20 tweets
What are you talking about?

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Word cloud of Noisy Little Monkey’s Facebook page
What are you talking about?

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Word cloud of Noisy Little Monkey’s Google+ page
What are you talking about?

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Word cloud of Noisy Little Monkey’s Blog for the last 6 months
What are you talking about?

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We’re talking to local businesses and international SEO experts.
Pretty much matches how we do business
Who are you talking to?

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Matt and Jon are our main guys for Twitter, they reach out.
And who are they talking to?

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Word cloud of @MrJonPayne’s last 20 tweets
And what are they talking about?

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Sharing diagram of http://theoatmeal.com/sopa
Who shares your stuff?

83. BEHAVE LIKE A TRUSTED BRAND
not a ‘thin affiliate’

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Google’s results
Who gives best price & service?

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Figleaves?
Who gives best price & service?

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underwear.co.uk?
Who gives best price & service?

87. • Earn ad revenue - send visitors to other sites
• Have little content, other than ads
• Often employ
– auto generated content
– scraped content
– poorly written content
• Use doorway pages
• Are built with low cost turn key solutions
• Get a high bounce rate
g
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66361
Thin Affiliates…

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Have real addresses, geographic phone numbers
Real brands

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Have real about us pages, that link to relevant social networks
Real brands

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Have employees on LinkedIn (& www.freebase.com)
Real brands

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Are paid up members of trade associations and pay for link(s) on Yell
Real brands

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Get branded search volume because of offline marketing & communications
Real brands

93. REAL BRANDS GET THEIR SOCIAL ON
But that’s a whole other kettle of slides

94. RESULTS
Are you local, mobile, reviewable?

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Verify that you’re the business owner on Google & Bing to get in the maps
Local listing

96. • Verify your listing ASAP!
• Add nice photos / videos
• Request reviews from customers
• Submit to local directories
• Create a business profile on
– Bview
– Qype
– Yelp
– Foursquare
g
http://www.google.com/places/
http://www.bingforbusiness.com/
Local listing

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Are you going to click the No 1 result?
Shopping listing

98. • Verify Google product feed
• Compare price
• Optimise product names / descriptions
• Utilise all feeds available
– Images
– Average review
– Review count
– EAN / Barcode
g
http://www.google.co.uk/merchants/
Shopping listing

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Mobile, video, news, rich snippets
Also consider

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Google Circles in Gmail?
The game changer is here…

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Verify that you’re the business owner on Google & Bing to get in the maps
Local Listing Google+

102. • Verify your listing ASAP!
• Add nice photos / videos
• Request reviews from customers
• Submit to local directories
• Create a business profile on
– Bview
– Qype
– Yelp
– Foursquare
g
http://www.google.com/places/
http://www.bingforbusiness.com/
Google+

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Google doesn’t mess with it’s results pages lightly. There are NO ADS!
Get your business on Google+

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http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/building-search-engine-of-future-one.html
Things. Not strings.

105. TAKE AWAYS

106. Great content is what gets you great rankings
g
http://www.stochasticgeometry.ie/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/snakeoil.jpg?w=257
Understand that SEO = N

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OK Cupid

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Great content gets you old school SEO and brand awareness

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• Do search term research (Google Insights)
• Insert relevant search terms on each page
– Or give to your web designer in a spread sheet
• Use 301 redirects if you change domain
• Use 301 redirects if you change URLs
• Sign up to Google Webmaster Tools
– Submit an XML sitemap
NoisyLittleMonkey.com/Feedback
Take Aways
Give feedback and view a copy of these slides + a printable tip sheet

111. • Get good graphs from Google Analytics
• Improve pages that cause exits
• Add a contact box to every page of your site
• Create great content - attract links & mentions
• Seed new content socially
NoisyLittleMonkey.com/Feedback
g
Take Aways
Give feedback and view a copy of these slides + a printable tip sheet

112. @MrJonPayne
NSFW
jon@noisylittlemonkey.com
@NoisyMonkey
THANKS!
?