How to evaluate a website for search & social

Intro

@venndigital

@nwheldrake

Search & Social Recap

Search - SEM

Organic – SEO, Content Marketing

Paid – PPC, Display

Social – SMO, SMM

Insight & ResearchUnderstand the website/client

• Industry/sector• Products/services

• Audience/demographic• Focus/goals• Competitors

This will start to build a picture of keywords and coverage needed…

Benchmarking

Understand your current performance in order to identify areas for growth and opportunity.

In order to understand where a site sits currently you must benchmark them within their industry

and via each channel.

SEO - BenchmarkingHistoric Data – Year on Year

SEO - BenchmarkingAlgorithms & Penalties

Data taken from semrushExample used is Interflora

SEO - BenchmarkingAlgorithms

• PenguinIdentify using backlink profiles.

• HummingbirdSemantic search – giving the user good content

• PandaQuality of content, variety, duplications

SEO - BenchmarkingSite Audit • H1’s• Meta descriptions• Duplicate content• Site speed • Schema mark up• Sitemap.xml • Robots.txt

Important signals to Google to help it read your site.

Paid - Benchmarking

Current Account Audit

• Current costs vs ROI• Performance Metrics & Data• Structural setup• Keyword analysis• Ad copy quality• Settings• Additional features

Social - Benchmarking

Current Coverage Analysis

• Profiles/ownership• Channels

• Followers/Fans/Likes ect… • Average engagement/reach• Referrals back to site

Competitors

Understanding and benchmarking against competitors will allow you to better target new site visitors and map out a path to get better

site performance.

SEO - CompetitorsBasic - Identify keywords and check rankings in

comparison.Intermediate – Use tools like sem rush

Advanced – Compare backlink profiles

Paid - CompetitorsIdentify via searching for head terms and long tail

keywords.

Social - Competitors

Conversion Rates

On-page/Landing pages

Conversion pathsCompetitor comparisonCall to actionsUsability/Experience

Conversion Rates

https://mixpanel.com/

StrategyIdentify goals and objectives for each channel, feed competitor research into strategy, when using multiple channels integrate your strategy.

SEOObjective: More traffic

PaidObjective: More sales

SocialObjective: Brand engagement

OpportunitiesIdentify areas of growth…

SEOTechnical – bad technical is unlikely to rankContent – bad content is unlikely to rank

Outreach - needed to strengthen and build (backlinks, social signals)

OpportunitiesIdentify areas of growth…

PPCStructural – relevance provides higher conversion

ratesQuality scores – lower cost per clicks

Conversions – Optimising performanceCoverage – New opportunities for testing

OpportunitiesIdentify areas of growth…

SocialAudience profiling – identify influencers and

engageEngagement – ongoing activity

Innovation – creative campaign ideasStrategy – focus on how your personas/brand in

developing.

Summary

1.Research2.Benchmark3.Competitor

4.Conversion Rate5.Strategy

6.Opportunities

Useful ToolsWebmaster tools

SemrushSearchmetrics

Google AnalyticsGoogle Adwords

(keyword planner tool)

Google TrendsHootsuite/Buffer

Sharetally.coFollowerwonk

Excel