Search Engine Optimisation: Keys to Success

Transcription

1 Search Engine Optimisation: Keys to Success David Lakins Follow me: twitter.com/davidlakins

2 About Key Multimedia Founded in 2007 Based in Poundbury, Dorchester, Dorset Create Content managed and e-commerce websites Online marketing and website performance Search engine optimisation Pay Per Click Management Article marketing Blog Posting Social networking Twitter & Facebook Writing Content 2

3 Starting a Search... Q: When looking for new information online, on what type of website do you start? Source: The Nielsen Company

4 Search Engines Are Still Important Although there appears to be a Social Networking revolution taking place throughout every market on the Internet, Search Engines still remain extremely important for customers sourcing information and planning their holidays.

5 Search engine (Google) dominance Recent figures on Google's dominance show it being responsible for 90% of searches in the UK and 65% of searches in the US. This reach makes it single-handedly the biggest referrer of visitors on the web. For anyone trying to promotes their business online, it means your website has not only got to work but also needs to be found by one of the many search engines. 5

6 Search is changing Natural Search Paid Search listings Mobile Search Image Search & Video Search Geographical & localised search results Ability to choose your preference Major search engines collaborating Bing and Yahoo Bing is the default search tool within Facebook 6

7 1. GET THE FUNDAMENTALS RIGHT

8 Getting the Fundamentals Right Set clear objective & goals What do you want your website to achieve? Understand your target audience, their drivers, wants and needs. How are you going to measure success? no. of visits; booking enquiries ; conversion to actual bookings 8

9 Creating a useable, accessible and standards driven website Make sure your website works e.g. download speeds, images missing, links that do not work Check your site displays in all the major Internet browsers IE 6, IE 7, IE 8, Firefox & Safari and Mobile Operating Systems Does it meet W3C.org website standards Creating a website that meets W3C standards is half way to creating a search engine friendly website. 9

10 2. LISTENING Absorbing what is happening in your industry Listening to the chatter about your products and services What are customers saying about your competitors?

11 2. LISTENING

12 LISTENING Twitter Facebook Discussion Forums Blogs Google Blog Search

13 3. LEARNING

14 3. LEARNING: Customer Needs What customer types exist? What are they looking for? What language and search terms do they use? Where do they go? How do they like to interact? How much time do they have? Where are they in the buying process? How willing are they to share openly?

15 Tools to Boost your Customer Insight and Keyword Research Google Instant Google Related Searches Google's standard web search Web options Google Adwords Keyword Tool Wordtracker Google Insights Google Alerts

16 Google Instant

17 17 Related Searches

18 Related Searches

19 Google Web Search Google's standard web search provides more than just lists of web pages By performing a search of your market keywords, Google will tell you what type of content it sees as important. If you see videos, blogs or images this gives you another way to reach the top 10 of Google. Adword ads (PPC) tell you the market is commercially viable and more importantly that the keyword you entered is good enough to pay for, especially if there are 10 ads or more.

20 Researching your market

21 Google Maps & Google Places Google Places is one of the most important things to get right for Holiday Parks Mobile and location based searching uses Google Places data! Create your Google Place with your search terms in mind Add multiple locations if you own more than one Park Encourage Reviews reviews can affect map results 21

22 22 Mobile Search

23 Google Web Options Google recently added new functionality to its search tools:- Videos Forums Discussions Filter results by across time spans (perhaps give us an insight into the way Google might be displaying results in the future)

24 Google Web Options

25 Using Google Analytics Installing a strong analytics tool on your website will allow you to not only view figures such as page views and traffic levels, but also the sources of your website traffic and the keyphrases that your customers searched for to reach your website. Is traffic arriving to your site through the keywords that you identified as being crucial to your SEO? If not, it may be time to re-evaluate these terms. 25

26 Google Adwords Keyword Tool Indentifying keywords and search phrases are probably the most important factors in targeting your customers Adwords Keyword Tool is a valuable tool that tells you what keywords and phrases people are using to find what they are looking for. See how competitive each keyword is amongst Adword advertisers, showing you which keywords are commercially viable.

27 Researching your market

28 Google Insights

29 Google Alerts Stay in touch with what's hot in your market Enter the most popular phrases in your market and Google will then send you links via depending on what type you select. Get information from news, web pages, blogs, video and groups. PS monitor your Park name!!

30 What Google likes to see 1. Quality 2. Relevancy 3. Accuracy Google s webmaster guidelines: Give visitors the information they're looking for Make sure that other sites link to yours Make your site easily accessible 30

31 31 Search Results a breakdown

32 32 Pay Per Click - PPC

33 33 Click Through Rate

34 What is SEO? Search Engine Optimisation is the process of making your website pages as appealing to search engines as possible. Your website should be optimised for keywords or phrases that your target audience is searching for online. For the most effective Search Engine Optimisation, each page on your website should be optimised for a single keyword or phrase. 34

35 Optimising your website Website optimisation can be split into two distinct areas:- 1. On the page optimisation - provides about 20%- 30% of the total ranking score 2. Off page optimisation or otherwise known as link popularity - provides about 70%-80% of the total ranking score 35

36 Optimising your website for Search Engines On Page Factors (20%-30%) Off Page Factors (70%-80%) 1. Title Maximum 90 Characters 2. Body Text Word Count, Minimum 200 Words 3. Headings H1/H2/H3 4. Link Text (Anchor Text) 5. Domain Names, File and Folder Names 6. Related Words in the Text, Latent Semantic Indexing Score 7. Keyword Repetition, Proximity, Prominence About 3%-6% 8. Alt tag attributes in Images and Links 9. Page Size and Code to Text Ratio 10. Search Engine Friendly Navigation No Session IDs 11. Number of Pages Indexed on the Website 12. Website Freshness/Frequency of Updates 13. Number of Outgoing Links and Relatedness 14. Domain Class (.edu/.org/.com..etc) 15. Site Map 1. Age of the Domain 2. Number of Inbound Links 3. Links From Delicious, Technorati, Stumbleupon, squidoo 4. Inbound Link Text (Anchor Text) Keyword Focus 5. Age of the Domains Linking In 6. Age of the Inbound Links 7. Keyword Theme of Domain/Link Page 8. Google Page Rank of Inbound Link Pages 9. Directory Listings (DMOZ.org, Yahoo, Second Tier Established Directory Listings. 10. Niche Directory Listings 11. Inbound Links From Authority or Subject Matter Expert Sites. 12. Domain Registration Length, the Longer the Better 13. Social media impact - links with Twitter and Facebook 36

37 On-Site Optimisation Optimise your web page titles, internal links and page content for the target keywords The best way to increase your rankings for a particular search term is to provide meaningful information or content based on that search term. Make sure you focus on the subject matter (don't try to satisfy too many terms with one web page). Get inside the searcher's head figure out what they want and give it to them. Be specific and provide details don't generalise and be descriptive. For a sales page use benefits and features to fully explain the problem and the solution. Update your information often setup a schedule to update and add more content. 37

38 See how Google views your website site: bsite.co.uk check how many of your pages are indexed and how your site is viewed. 38

39 Stressing Your Target Keywords to the Search Engines Using hyperlinks on descriptive pieces of text is also useful to build relevancy into a page. Rather than using [ Read more ] describe the link you are promoting on the text itself e.g. [ Yorkshire Holiday Park with swimming pooll]. Use of Synonyms Identify several synonyms that you can use as an alternative (or in the page copy) to boost the relevancy e.g. the keyword camping would have synonyms like campsites, tents, caravan park, holiday homes etc. Tip: Every Page of your website has the opportunity to be found by a specific key word / phrase and achieve a high search engine ranking 39

40 Off-Site Optimisation Today s modern search engine algorithms mostly rely on external ranking factors such inbound links pointing to a website. These external links are counted as votes for your website s popularity and quality. Recently, more emphasis has been given to links from social networking sites e.g. Facebook and Twitter 40

41 Off-Site Optimisation Acquire one-way inbound links to your website by: Writing and submitting Articles to major e-zine sites with links back to your website Submitting your website to niche and general high quality Directories Submitting Press Releases to PressBox and PRWEB.com Offer Articles and Tools on your website for others to link to Identify Complimentary Websites to gain links from Be a major source of news and information in your area of expertise 41 Write a regular Blog or Contribute as an expert on other blogs / forums

42 Off-Site Optimisation Become an online social butterfly Use Twitter to deliver time-sensitive information Use Facebook to engage with your customers and create a community Join online forums but remember to include a link back to your website Create a Delicious.com, digg bookmark for the website Use other Social Network tools like YouTube Identify complimentary websites to gain links from 42

43 7 things to do today to improve your SEO 1. Review all of your pages for content, Meta Descriptions and Title Tags and ensure each page is optimised for an individual keyword or phrase. 2. Check which terms are driving traffic to your website in your Analytics package. 3. Research terms that have high search volume and are relevant to your website. 43

44 7 things to do today to improve your SEO 4. Build those terms into your pages. Create new pages for the terms you have identified as having high search volume and being relevant. 5. Start building links to your website by finding online directories and other sites to gain links from. 6. Promote your site with Twitter and Facebook. 7. Add a blog and write regularly 44

45 Search Engine Optimisation: Keys to Success David Lakins Follow me: twitter.com/davidlakins