Enterprise Ireland - eMarketing Event - Kilkenny - March 2017

1. International SEO
and
Content Silos
Enterprise Ireland eMarketing Event
Using the Internet to Compete in International Markets
John Caldwell
john@creatorseo.com
061 513267
086 2410295

2. • Physicist
• Headed up Global Marketing and
Intelligence Teams
• Founded CreatorSEO, Intelligence
Market and Research and Experts
• Head office in Smithstown, Shannon
•Specialise in helping businesses grow
internationally

3. Some of our customers ........

4. We don’t just consult ........
We are not just experts in SEO ........

5. • Introduction
• The Search Landscape and how Search Engines Work
• Silos
• International SEO
• Duplicate Content
• Tips
Areas covered:

6. Search Engine Optimisation - Introduction

7. It All Starts With Strategy
• Which market?
• Which country or
countries?
• Focussing on a region?
• Emphasising particular
products?
Reach Act Convert Engage
Digital strategy:
Customer
analysis
Competitor
benchmarking
On-line partner
analysis
SWOT
Marker-place analysis:
Vision and
mission
Goal setting Analytics
Managing digital
marketing
Goals and KPI’s:
Segmentation and
targeting
Brand position and
value proposition
Engagement and
content strategy
Integrated
communication
strategy
Strategy:

8. search engines and social media
are the gatekeepers of your
Content visibility

9. If your not on page 1
of search results
you don’t exist!
Perception is reality

11. Search engines – How they work?

12. > 1.2 Trillion searches per year
> 40K GB of data moving every moment

15. Artificial Intelligence – Machine Learning
RankBrain
Is Google’s name for a
machine-learning artificial
intelligence system used to
help ranking

16. What a Search Engine Sees

17. The Golden triangle

18. 18
1. Google learns from us
2. We create our own social environments
3. It happens invisibly
4. SEO experts use this knowledge!!
What does this tell us?

19. Which? - search engines!

20. … but it is usually enough to focus on the main Search Engines
• Ranking
= 2a+0.7b+12c+9d+2(a-b+d)-1.5e+2f …………..

21. … and let’s not forget

22. Search Pyramid
Social
Link Building
Keyword Research &
Targeting
Accessible Quality Content
Bring all this together with intelligence

23. The search demand curve
Source: SEOMoz
1 2 3-4 4+

24. What is Google looking for?

25. You need to think like Google:
Keyword relationships and
usage – close bonds between
keywords on each page
Date can be important –
most recent content
– if applicablePredict what you are
looking for!
The intent of your search
– information open queries
- location matters

26. Unique content
Google likes unique content
Does your content on a PAGE
meet all the searcher’s
needs?
Are you better at giving the
searcher the information they
need?

27. 27
Navigational
Informational
Transactional
Search Intent
Content Marketing
Blogs
Articles
Information rich lists
Page Guides
Videos
Interactive tools
Data analysis
………

28. 28
Interprets your query
Determines your
search intent
Selects which ranking
signals match best
Rank Brain …….
Signals
Key terms
Freshness
Inbound authority
Engagement
Content depth
Related topics
………

29. No one way to DO SEO
- ALL depends on the signals!!!

30. Content Silos

31. A content silo is the
grouping of related
content around key terms.
These key terms are
topical grouped on areas
or themes.
These are implemented
on your website / digital
needs
Content Silos

32. 32
Make it easy for the search engines -
content silos
Google in particular want to have a
good understanding of your website’s
content.
- what your promoting
- how it is structured
- layout of content
Content organisation!
Traffic
SEO / User Experience
Content Silos

33. 33
Key term relevancy is based on a
page’s content as well as the
relevance of the entire website.
Content silos help provide relevance!
If you want to rank think of sections
rather than just a page.
Relevant Content
Traffic
SEO / User Experience
Content Silos

34. 34
• Silos
• Relevancy
• Consistency
• Amplify your content
Target the right audience with
the right content
– as per your digital strategy
– planned in your roadmap
Content Amplification

35. 35
Content Example – Google.co.uk ranking
Term 1 Term 2 Term 3 Term 4 Term 5
Ranking before process >500 201 306 432 >500
Implemented Silos & taxonomy 145 61 114 92 345
Relevancy - meta / content 86 39 51 44 74
LinkedIn engagement 52 30 64 37 49
Consistency – links / language 48 27 31 33 37
New relevant content (daily) 3 4 2 5 11
Get feed for your site:
john@creatorseo.com

36. 36
Think like Google!
Content - Authority - Authenticity - Trust

37. Normally a MARKETERworks
side by side with a
CODER2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
We All Want!

38. MARKETER and
CODER
Try things till it
works!
What really happens
20112012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

39. Marketing
incl. SEO
Customer
Needs
Data
Growth Hacking
 Analytics
 Baseline
 Create a dashboard
 Perform AB Testing
 Create interventions
 Make changes
 One Metric That Matters?
 Talk to customers
 Make more changes
Analysebeforeandafterchanges

40. Internationalisation
Google.ie,Google.co.uk,Google.de,Google.fr……

41. Trading internationally
• Common situations:
• one country, several languages
• one language, several countries

42. Trading internationally
• What can be done?
• domains by country?
• main domain and subdirectories per language?
• sub domains?
• Geo targeting on Google

43. Trading internationally
• Best option domains by country
• creatorseo.com
• creatorseo.fr
• creatorseo.de
• but
• complicated to manage and coordinate
• one CMS for all or one per domain?

44. Trading internationally
• Sub-domains or Domain name alias
• us.creatorseo.com
• fr.creatorseo.com
• de.creatorseo.com
• Directories by country/language
• creatorseo.com/us/
• creatorseo.com/fr/
• creatorseo.com/de/
• One language, several countries
• creatorseo.com/es/
• mycompany.com/es-pu/ (Peru)
• mycompany.com/es-mx/ (Mexico)

45. Trading internationally
• Subdomains by country
• Search Engines consider subdomains almost a completely different entity than
their domain
• they don’t inherit most of the domain's relevancy
• Example of a sub domain
• http://spanish.creatorseo.com
• … but are a more integrated approach than having a number of unrelated
domain names
X

46. Trading internationally
A new domain starts with
ZERO domain authority

47. Trading internationally
• Directories by country/language
• Cheaper
• Less technical resources required
• Easier to manage and coordinate
• Directories contribute to increase the general relevancy of a domain
• Domain authority is consolidated

48. Trading internationally
• You don’t need multiple websites to rank internationally

50. Before internationalising your site
• Market research
• Site performance
• SEO implementation
• Speed of site
• Number of pages on your site – CPU and Memory
• Language or Country targeting
• Localisation costs

51. Competition

52. Competition ---- Perception is Reality
• On-line competition may not be your traditional competition
• Different competitors in different regions
SEO is about beating your competition in the targeted geographies

53. Audience
• Know your audience
• Cultural
• In Mediterranean counties
- Internet use is driven more by social factors rather than anything else,
• where Nordic countries rely on the internet for more pragmatic, functional purposes.
• Language
• What are they searching for?

54. Keyword
Avg. Monthly
Searches World
wide(exact match
only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches US (exact
match only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches UK (exact
match only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches Canada
(exact match only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches Germany
(exact match only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches France
(exact match only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches China
(exact match only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches India
(exact match only)
hotels in dublin 49,500 1,900 18,100 390 590 110 10 90
dublin hotels 33,100 3,600 18,100 880 480 140 10 70
hotels dublin 18,100 590 6,600 170 1,000 390 10 10
hotel dublin 14,800 260 2,400 110 2,400 3,600 10 10
And that’s just English!

55. Local content
• Use local addresses and contact information
• Add local case studies/ testimonials
• with names and images
• Customise content for each country or market
• More relevant, increases local link building opportunities, and decreases duplicate content
• Currency

56. Design and usability

57. Basic requirements for any website
A web site is a bit like an advert!
• Clear purpose
• Easy to use / intuitive
• High impact
- you have only 4 seconds to impress!
• Optimised for visitors
• Target audience
• Easily found by the target audience
• Content must be dynamic and interesting

58. Design and usability
• Different countries prefer different design aesthetics
• Recreating your website in a different language may not be enough
• Get feedback on your site from locals in your target country

59. Speed

60. Duplicate Content

61. Duplicate Content and Languages
• Google and Bing have clearly said to keep one language on one URL.
- Proxied content
- Content served by a cookie
- Side-by-side translations
Can be very problematic for search engines to index a page in more than one language.
You want
1 URL = 1 language

62. Duplicate Content and Language Flags
• Hreflang tags are intended to ensure the correct localised page is seen by Google
• You can have multi-country targeted content in the same language.
- You need to combine hreflang tags + some localisation!

63. Ways to avoid Duplicate Content
• Use Hreflang tags
• Localised keyword optimisation
• Have local content … maybe testimonials
• Name, Address, Phone, Currencies, Google Business profile
• Localised HTML sitemaps
• Localised navigation and home page features that cater to specific audiences
• Localised images that resonate with the audience
• Obtain links from local links

64. Some Final Tips
• Create useful page titles
• Use informative URLs
• Provide relevant page descriptions
• Add your business to Google +
• Manage your site links
• Get a local mailing address
• Use a translator!
• Value proposition
• Call to action
• Speed
• User experience
• Relevant and most recent
unique content
Google shows search results based on
what's best for the user

65. john@creatorseo.com
John Caldwell
john@creatorseo.com
061 513267/ 01 5313061
086 2410295