delivering award winning seo objectives and implementation: case study of passport to trade 2.0

Delivering award

winning SEO

objectives and

implementation: case

study of Passport to

Trade 2.0

SEMRush webinar 26th February 2015

Dr Aleksej Heinze

@AleksejHeinze

Centre for Digital Business

Providing research

and advice to

business leaders in

the constantly

changing digital

society

www.salford.ac.uk/business-school/business-services/centre-for-digital-business

How did we get here?

http://blogs.salford.ac.uk/business-school/european-search-awards-2014-shortlist-businessculture-org/

How did we get here?

Source: http://www.semrush.com Organic search positions data for US Market

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The overall aim of the Passport to Trade 2.0

project was to research and raise awareness to

a global audience of differences in business

culture, including use of social media for

business, across 31 European countries, thus

helping to improve international trade with these

countries.

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Key lessons from Passport to Trade 2.0

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• Developing organic SEO objectives

• Understanding “buyer persona” – online and

offline methods

• Integrating SEO and Social Media

• Using WordPress plugins

• Creativity in content development

• Crowdsourcing content

Developing organic SEO objectives

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• a) Increase the number of organic search

visitors to the main website from about 50 per

month in 2012 to 3,000 per month post project

launch.

• Result:

• an average of 8,549 visitors in the months post

project completion until mid-January 2014

• Feb 2015 - 67,322 visitors per month

Developing organic SEO objectives

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• b) Improve organic ranking on Google for strategically important keyword terms such as ‘international business culture’ ‘business culture +[Country Name**]’, and ‘business etiquette in +[Country Name**]’. In the three months from the end of the official project (September 2013) to achieve at least 1,000 visitors per month for first page organic search traffic.

**Where [Country Name] is one of the 31 countries being researched by this project.

Organic ranking objective 2:

Visits 19th Dec 2013 to 18th Jan 2014 Visits 24th Jan 2015 to 23rd Feb 2015

Developing organic SEO objectives

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• Make clear that all team members – even those

not so technical - understand what these mean

• Clear measure of success relevant for your

needs

• Set up measurement mechanisms –

– Google Analytics

– SEMRush

– Social Media profiles engagement

What do you typically include in your

SEO objectives?

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• Visitors

• SERP position

• Conversions

• Time on site

• Pages visited

• Repeat visits

• Other

Questions about SEO objectives

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Understanding “buyer persona” – online

and offline methods

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• Focus groups with students

• Focus groups with companies

• Online survey

• Extensive content peer review

Understanding “buyer persona” – online

and offline methods

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• Understanding the terminology and areas of

interest

• Simple search preferences – Video vs text

• Extensive keyword research

• Key social media and search behaviour

understanding

Questions on buyer personas

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Integrating SEO and Social Media

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• Businesses: using SlideShare, LinkedIn and Twitter – #P2T2 as amplification platforms for the content.

• Students: YouTube short informative animations based on the ‘Did you know?’ theme. A Facebook page was also used to share updates.

• Educational institutions: A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) was produced which summarisedthe search and social media aspects of the website through a series of 12 x 15-minute long tutorial videos.

Integrating SEO and Social Media

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• Targeting related keywords across channels

• Integrating links from all profiles to main site

• Low need for maintenance of resources

What Social Media platforms do you usually

integrate with your SEO campaigns?

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• Twitter

• Facebook

• LinkedIn

• Google+

• Blog

• SlideShare

• YouTube

• Other

Questions about integration of SEO and

Social Media

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Using WordPress plugins

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• WordPress SEO – great for non technical

editors

• Google Analytics – keeps GA on all pages

• Tweet, Like, Google +1 and Share – consistent

call to action on all pages

• Language Bar Flags – international audiences

with multi lingual needs

• Facebook Members – keeps the Facebook

community on the site

WordPress Plugins

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Creativity in content development

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• Video animation

• SlideShare

• Educational training material

• Text

• Original content – ca 2000k words per country

specific landing page

Creativity in content development

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Comments on Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM)www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByNcj6b3Fzo

Questions about creativity and content

development

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Crowdsourcing content

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• International team to start the project

• Online survey

• Participation in focus groups

• International peer reviewers and advisory board

members

Questions on crowdsourcing

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Key lessons

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• Have clear organic SEO objectives

• Develop “buyer persona”

• Integrate SEO and Social Media

• Use SEO / SMO focused WordPress plugins

• Content is king – be creative in your content

development

• Don’t have to produce it all - crowdsourcing

content can work for you

“Mediocrity will

never do. YOU are

capable of

something better”Gordon B. Hinckley

There are no

shortcuts to

a winning

campaign

Further questions?

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