Driving and maintaining
traffic to your website
Mary Mzumara

When it comes to driving
traffic, it all begins
with search

To get out of a
tight fix!

To find the way

To plan an
escape

It’s the start of
any journey

Let’s look at some
simple search
SABC

Anyone know what their
most popular show is?
Take a guess?

Google has a
long memory

Unclear what SABC’s
most popular show is

Let’s look at radio

Search for
‘5FM’s DJs’

Getting it right

There are lots of
missed opportunities!

Think about all the assets
you have at your disposal

First, the basics, get
your house in order

3 key things that
influence search

1. On site factors
• Meta tags
• Title tags
• Alt tags
• Keyword optimised copy
• HTML validation
• Site Structure
• Domain age

2. Inbound Links
• “Invented” by Google – now the standard
• Volume of links is important
• Quality, authority and link strength of the site
linking to you is even more important
• Context and keyword relevancy of the link are the
most important

Let’s look at Quirk
Vs
Top Billing

3. Usage Data
• Usage data is the most effective way of judging the REAL
relevancy and value of a website
• Example: If users arrive on a site and leave immediately,
chances are it wasn’t relevant to their query in the first place
• Or: if a user repeatedly visits a website and spends a long
time on the site, chances are it is extremely relevant
• Relevant valuable sites get promoted, irrelevant sites get
demoted.

Search engine marketing
Search Engine Optimisation
(organic search)
+
Pay Per Click (paid search)

The BIG traffic comes
from organic rankings

The Search Cycle asks:
Why are they searching for what they are
searching for when they search for it?

We need to choose the phrases
which make the most money &
drive constant traffic

Once you understand the search cycle, you
need to select keywords based on four criteria

1. Search Volume

2. Competition for the phrase

3. Propensity to convert

4. Value of the potential conversion

A few keyword selection tools:

SEO Book
http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/
KW Discovery
http://www.keyworddiscovery.com
Digital Point
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion
Word Tracker
http://www.wordtracker.com/
Overture
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion
Adwords
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Always remember that search is localised

But nothing beats experience and testing

Once you understand your keywords, then
decide where you want to use them…

Search engine marketing
Search Engine Optimisation (organic search)
+
Pay Per Click (paid search)

Paid ads on search engines

Paid ads on content sites

HIGHLY targeted adverts

And you only pay when the user clicks!

So if you run your campaign properly, you
can’t lose money!

Selection of keywords is less important in
PPC because you can test their
effectiveness immediately

Anatomy of a PPC ad:
Title: 25 characters
Body: 35 chars/line
Display URL

Track your keyword conversions and bid
accordingly

Cost Per Click can be misleading

Provide a destination
for your advertising

Don’t forget your Quality Score:
•Click through rates
•Relevance of keywords to ads and search query
•Geographical performance of the account
•Landing page relevancy
•Landing page loading time
•“Other relevance factors” (aka the secret sauce)

Think about this carefully when building
your landing pages

Make sure you have a clear offer

Even better…

Have a Call to Action!

Put together a plan, test,
learn, optimise

The goal is to get more ‘free’ traffic

As digital
broadcasters, you
have no excuse

Build a relationship that
extends beyond your
traditional channel

Driving & keeping traffic
is about relevance and
engagement

Extend beyond
your website to
relevant spaces

What you can achieve

Content Sharing
Principle: Some sites just have a
bigger reach
Your site’s traffic

YouTube
Second largest search engine!
60% market share
70 million viewers a night
‘The overnight success’ thing

• Every presenter should blog
• Take a photo of everyone you interview, upload
it to a photo sharing space and link back to your
website
• Create a facebook fan page and extend your
Twitter content
• Use Twitter and Facebook as destinations for
competition fulfillment

For the DJ’s share…

• Use paid search tactically
– Target ads about presenters
– Ads about future shows
– Ads about what’s currently in the news if it’s a
topic you’re addressing

Anyone
can have
this spot

Anyone
can have
And the winner is… this spot

• Make sure you socially share your content

• Develop content that is worth linking to
– It must be sticky
– It has to be unique
– It has to be well presented

Clean up your Google CV

Shameless plug :)

Use every opportunity to
own more of your search
engine results page

The landscapes changed
– everybody has a voice
and can contribute