What is SEO?

• Born in the Mid 90s (Lycos)

• Techniques to boost rankings in search engines

• SEO used to be so simple (keyword stuffing,

buying links, aggressive anchor text)

• Continually changing and more difficult to rank

How easy is SEO?

• Google dominates 80%+ of search queries

• Trying to rank at the top of Google is fierce for many keywords

• Click-through rates: 1st – 42%, 2nd – 12%, 3rd – 9%

• Sites judged on over 200 ranking factors across 3 key algorithms

The AlgorithmsPanda – Feb 2011

Penguin – April 2012

Hummingbird – August 2013

Panda

• Prevents low quality sites from ranking

• Would I trust this site with my credit card?

• Avoid: Duplicate content, non-specific content, difficult navigation

• Do: research for your blog, meta info, internal linking, helpful content

• Only takes a few pages to cause problems so make a good user experience!

Penguin

• Assesses your off site SEO efforts

• Would I be happy to share my credit card details with the site linking to me?

• Avoid: Buying links, unnatural links, aggressive anchor text, comment spam,

article marketing sites

• Do: Get links with brand and URL, build a diverse range of links, build

relationships with writers on authority sites

Hummingbird

• Google can now judge context

• Understanding intent of the user

• Start thinking like Hummingbird

• What do people need? Cater to that.

• Do: Research for your content, link out to resources, answer questions, be

helpful, be a thought leader

Think of the user funnel

• Deciding on content requires knowing your users

• Passing interest vs. Potential buyers vs. Ready to spend

• Hummingbird aims to help the curious

• So aim a lot of your content for the curious

• That’s where most customers are right now

What does it take for effective SEO?

• On site SEO

• Content Marketing

• Link Building -

• Social

On site SEO

• Enables websites to rank for some keywords

• Requires keyword research

• Look for low competition / high volume keywords “jewellery vs. handmade

ethical jewellery”

• Consider user intent – “buy” “How do I …?” “get”, “compare”

Content

• At least 500 words per post, 1500 – 2000 words of well researched helpful

content is optimal

• Internal link – be aggressive on the anchor text

• Include images and video – proven to rank higher

• Update at least 2 – 3 times per week, create a content calendar

• Optimise for a keyword or two

Content Continued

• Don’t expect floods of visitors immediately … Keep writing, and write some

more

• Promote all your blog posts on Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest

• And promote some more!

• Search Twitter/Quora for people asking questions .. Offer your resources

and blog posts as help

What to optimise on site?

• Meta title

• Meta description

• Page content

• Internal links

• Images

• Social buttons

Link building

• Web pages have avg. 72.4 links per page across the Internet

• TRUST: Links are like voting in an election

• PAGERANK: Some links are stronger than others

• INTERNET IS LINKS: Link building is certainly not dead

Dangerous Linkbuilding

• But not all links are made equal!

• ‘Black-hat’ link building includes

• paid links,

• comment, forum and profile spam,

• low quality guest posting,

• dodgy PR,

• overusing directories

‘White Hat’ Linkbuilding

• Aim to achieve links naturally through your blog and resources

• Guest post on sites that don’t usually receive guest posts

• Find industry & locality related directories

• Find out what your competitors links are … get them!

• Partake in Q & A websites (Quora,Yahoo Answers, Reddit)

• GIVE: Offer a scholarship to get .ac.uk links, offer products to bloggers, contests

More Linkbuilding Ideas

• LEVERAGE CONTENT: Build a resources page and reach out with it,

create an infographic and do the same

• Any links out from blog posts – contact that source for a link back or social

share

• Search web for your brand name

• DON’T FORCE IT: if you’re website grabs the user to come back again and

again you’ll get links

The Future of SEO

• Stronger conversational search (Hummingbird)

• Defining a niche and targeting keywords around that

• More emphasis on social media