SEO Workshop With James Scanlan and Collette Easton

What is Search Engine Optimisation?

Active Practice of improving quality & volume of traffic from search engines

Making content & structure more relevant for key search engine terms

What is the potential?

Add credibility to a website due to the editorial nature of search engine results

Reduce non-relevant visits Create a measurable campaign

What can’t SEO guarantee?

That your website will rank at the top for every search engine, for every search phrase

Knock competitors sites off SERPs Results if implemented as a one-off project

How Search Engines Work

Crawling, Indexing, Search Queries, Ranking Complex software using algorithms to identify & collect

information from web pages Users query an index not the live internet Results returned by matching search query The most relevant pages sit at the top

Getting to the top of Google?

Relevance Popularity

Managing the SEO Project

I do, we do, you do

Let’s get started: Step 1: Business objectives & Search Goals Step 2: Keyword research Step 3: Benchmarking Step 4: On page optimisation Step 5: Link Building Ongoing: Reporting

Marketing your Practice

Step 1: Business objectives

Step 1: Business objectives

Important step – don’t create an aimless campaign Business objectives should form the basis of the SEO

goals, which should translate into revenue’ SEO goals are essential to realise the business objectives

Step 1: Business objectives

Increase online brand awareness Increase revenue generated from website Get ahead of competitors X, Y & Z Launch new service Improve existing services visibility Drive down marketing & advertising costs How results are measured

Step1: Search Goals

Without identifying a set of specific to-do’s the project cannot take shape and task responsibility cannot be assigned

SEO initiatives should not focus on hundreds of web pages, when only a handful of important landing pages turn visits into prospects

Step1: Search Goal Examples

Reporting KPIs understood Get to top of Google for local listings Complete on page optimisation for all important pages

Enquiry form What are examples of important pages?

Identify competitor SEO strategy Generate subject specific & relevant back links

Blogs Directories

Step 2: Keyword Research

Step 2: Keyword Research

Identifying the keywords users specifically search on is crucial

Step 2: Keyword Research (broken image)

Step 3: Benchmarking Activity

Step 3: Benchmarking Activity

Business objectives and search goals should of identified the KPIs to be used for reporting Pages Indexed Keyword positions Back link analysis Analytics

Traffic Goals

Alexa Rank

Step 3: Pages Indexed (broken image) Ask Google how many of your sites pages have been

indexed

Step 3: Keyword Positions• Conduct keyword searches on your chosen engines to

identify rises & falls in positioning

www.accountantA.co.uk Date Google Bing Date Google Bing

Accountant Edinburgh 18/4 3 5 11/4 4 4

Edinburgh Accountants 18/4 3 4 11/4 4 4

Tax Assistance Scotland 18/4 17 22 11/4 17 22

www.accountantB.co.uk

Accountant Edinburgh 18/4 1 3 11/4 2 2

Edinburgh Accountants 18/4 2 5 11/4 3 3

Tax Assistance Scotland 18/4 12 19 11/4 12 19

Step 3: Back link analysis

Step 3: Site Analytics

Visits Length of time on page Bounce rate Goals

Step 3: Alexa Ranking • What ‘number’ is your site in the UK?

Step 3: On page optimisation

Page titles Page meta descriptions Better anchor text Image ALT tags & filenames http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/09/

seo-starter-guide-updated.html Use Google Webmaster Tools content analysis section to

confirm correct length and duplication issues

Step 4: On page optimisation

Step 4: Page titles

Step 4: Unique meta descriptions

Step 4: Better anchor text

Step 4: Optimise Images

Step 4: Sitemaps

Sitemap for users XML Sitemap for Google

Step 5: Link Building

Step 5: Link Building

Discovered how many sites link to your site How many are trusted & authoritative?

Specialize in your business area Has Page Rank to transfer Has the keyword somewhere in the link anchor or the page is about

the keyword What can you bring to the party?

Brains, Money or Hard work

Step 5: How to Build Links

Get relevant curated resources to include you Get news articles to reference you Get suppliers & customers to link to you Get websites to use your widgets & badges Get writer with blogs to mention you Get individuals in forums & social media sites talking Submit relevant useful comments with links in signatures Submit to quality directories Submit PR & articles

Ongoing

The Long Haul

Plan for 12 months, set realistic expectations Plan when & how you will review progress Ensure that tasks are journalled Create actionable items for the coming months Assign responsibility for different reporting areas Internal responsibility with no external help needs at least

4 hours per week dedicated