Making Natural Search Pay for Retailers

Martin DinhamMarch 23rd, 2011

Guava

› 12 years market leading search marketing experience

› Built by acquisition- Guava UK June 2007- Neutralize October 2007

› Full-service Digital Marketing Agency

› Part of the Netbooster Group – Europe's largest online marketing agency

› Global capacity, multi territory a specialism

› 400 staff across Europe

Working with:

SEO / Retail Challenges - internal

› Large, complex website platforms

› Large complex IT departments !

› Content – volume, catalogue linkage

› User demands, eg Multi Faceted Navigation

› “Me too” product sets

Multi faceted navigation

There was the potential to create 8.15915283 × 1047 pages if the CMS was left to its own devices!

SEO / Retail challenges - external

› Competition

› Differentiation

› Persistent versus Dynamic keyphrase sets

› Seasonality

Competition

Seasonality

SEO solutions – site level

› Need automation / tools

› Integration with IT updates

› Balancing of BAU versus more strategic objectives

› Careful prioritisation of solution implementations

› Tight project management

SEO solutions – content

› Needs to be collaborative / knowledge transfer based

- product manager / trading team involvement critical

› Leverage your assets, reviews, “how to” guides etc

› Differentiation from the competition

Social Media and Retail

Source: GroupM Search 2011

Social Media and Retail

› User reviews – 30%

› Facebook – 17%

› Twitter – 9%

Linking

› Measurement of links as a vote revolutionised search engine technology

(PageRank)

› Influences good rankings on most search engines

“Your site's ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating.”

Source : Google Webmaster Central

SEO solutions - linkbuilding

› Contentious subject area

- JC Penney

- Overstock

John Lewis

http://www.loveandoliveoil.com/http://www.thefashionablehousewife.com/http://www.whosthemummy.co.uk/http://www.amothersramblings.com/http://www.livingwithwhite.com/

Asda

SEO solutions - linkbuilding

› Scale of targets, again you need more than manual approach

› Balancing effectiveness with risk

› So, this and market competitiveness means more creativity is required

› Leverage your assets

› Content – off site distribution

› Other marketing activity, eg competitions

› Other relationships, eg suppliers

Other channels

› Look at changes in Google SERPS, this is only going to continue

› Also Google acquisitions, Beatthatquote, but also Boutiques.com – long

term significance ?

› Other assets

- Local

- Video

- Shopping

Size of the prize..

› So, its complex

› But, the gains are there…

The size of the prize…

› HIGH STREET RETAILER (6 months);

- Non brand traffic UP 93%

- Non brand revenue UP 620%

› MAJOR GENERAL RETAILER (12 months)

- Non brand traffic UP 17%

- Non brand revenue UP 20%

Testimonial

› "We have been delighted with the quality and management of SEO & link

building work that Guava has delivered for Homebase. We are impressed

with the proven ROI from this work, and the support of Guava to help

identify this through analytics and drive double digit natural search

growth through visitors and revenue"

Multi-Channel Proposition Manager, Homebase

› Martin Dinham

› Martin.dinham@guava.com

› 0870 063 0707