The Importance Of Planning Gary Taylor, SMX Stockholm October 2012

Transcription

1 The Importance Of Planning Gary Taylor, SMX Stockholm October 2012

2 Digital Director at Midlands-based media buying agency TMW Ltd. Key experience in SEO and web analytics. Run one of the top domain name and web hosting review blogs in the UK. 10 years experience in online marketing across retail, leisure and financial services. Some current clients inc. Previously spoken at Think Visibility and SAScon in the UK. Follow me on

3 The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

4 1. Keywords and Copy 2. Content formats images, video, rich snippets 3. Site growth and scalability 4. Meta data 5. User experience and creative 6. Internal linking and sitemaps 7. Validation and accessibility 8. Cross browser testing 9. Page and site speed 10. Ongoing optimisation

5 Potential pitfalls

6 Poor user experience General layout, time on site, bounce rate etc. Content scalability issues Site architecture, organisation, navigation etc. Difficulty optimising CMS issues with unclean URLs, image naming, duplicate content, meta data etc. Slow site speed Resource heavy; JavaScript, images etc. Lower rankings in the SERPs due to quality and technical issues Reduced conversion rates through lack of visibility

7 Ultimately

8 Scenario/Problem: New client running SiteCore CMS with WordPress blog Duplicate content issues (400 + instances) Google Webmaster Guidelines: If your company buys a content management system, make sure that the system creates pages and links that search engines can crawl.

9 Findings: Multiple URLs for the same pages across products. Multiple URLs for the same posts in blog.

10 Solution: Use of canonicalization to tell search engines which URL is the priority Use of Robots.txt to block indexing of tag URLs in blog Google Webmaster Guidelines: Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or auto-generated pages that don't add much value for users coming from search engines.

11 Recommended site crawl resources:

12 Content Structure Organisation Layout Image Source: smartlemming.com Objective (Purchase, Lead, Telephone Contact?...) Google Webmaster Guidelines: Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.

13 Get out the pen and paper (well an Excel spreadsheet at least!) Image Source: wiredmedia.co.uk Google Webmaster Guidelines: Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.

14

15 Initial benchmark authority recorded. Keyword ideas and copy brainstormed. Core pages are tabbed and target keywords listed.

16 Home Page HP Category Pages C1 C2 Sub Category Pages SC1 SC2 SC3 SC4 SC5 Products Accessories P1 P2 P3 A1 A2 A3 Google Webmaster Guidelines: Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.

17 Google Webmaster Guidelines: Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link. Hundreds of products across 32 headline categories

18 Home Page HP Category Pages C1 C2 Sub Category Pages SC1 SC2 SC3 SC4 SC5 Products Accessories P1 P2 P3 A1 A2 A3

19 Google Webmaster Guidelines: Monitor your site's performance and optimize load times. Google's goal is to provide users with the most relevant results and a great user experience.

20 Recommended site speed resources: developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed tools.pingdom.com/fpt Great read Seomoz.org Blog - 15 Tips To Speed Up Your Website

21 Case Study

22 Send Marketing Solutions One of the leading direct mail companies in the UK (millions of mailings for large clients like VW, B&Q and Arsenal Football Club) Wanted to create products to target SMEs who didn t have economies of scale to buy volume like their larger clients Wanted to improve visibility in the search engines and generate more leads Credit to OneResult.co.uk

23 Our Approach Understanding the product - What were the USPs? How could they convey this message to customers? How did we make them stand out in the SERPs? Our solution Clean/simple landing pages, with clear USPs and a video Used planning process to identify keywords & create copy Friendly design, not corporate demonstrate the product was accessible to all

24 Use wire framing software: Turn your excel planning ideas into working HTML models with wire frames of key pages before creative and development work begins.

25 Recommended wire framing software: Great read Smashingmagazine.com - 35 Excellent Wireframing Resources

26 Short, descriptive copy with call to action to watch video Clear contact details in line with video to catch the eye Video in prominent position above fold. Keywordrich copy below fold Main Nav underneath to take away from focus Google Webmaster Guidelines - Video Best Practices: The presence of a prominent, embedded video player using supported video formats can make your videos attractive to users & easier for Google to index

27 Recommended video solution: Great read SEJ - How To Properly Optimize Image Or Video Sites Video.js is a JavaScript and CSS library that makes it easier to work with and build on HTML5 video, today. This is also known as an "HTML5 Video Player". Video.js provides a common controls skin built in HTML/CSS, fixes cross-browser inconsistencies, adds additional features like fullscreen and subtitles, manages the fallback to Flash or other playback technologies when HTML5 video isn't supported, and also provides a consistent JavaScript API for interacting with the video.

28 Outcome: The clean layout, concise and targeted copy along with the prominent video has resulted in a strong organic listing with clear call-to-action in the SERP

29 Result for client Rolled out across full website rebuild Better rankings in SERPs CTRs more than doubled, through more prominent video listings across the product range Increased conversion rates 300% in 3 months

30