My SEO presentation at Traverse Events, Brighton, UK. 20th April 2013
1. Locally informed, globally inspired
Search Engine Optimisation
Adrian Land at Traverse 13
20th April 2013
Head of Inbound Marketing at My Destination
@adrianland |adrianland.co.uk | mydestination.com
2. What is SEO today?
To demystify Pandas, Penguins and Bots
Relationship of SEO, Social Media and Content
5 practical SEO things to do today
What are we going to talk about today?
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
5. • Understand your audience
• Provide what they want
• Profitably
Its just marketing…
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
6. What are SERPs and SEO?
“The process of improving the volume and/or quality of traffic to a web site or
a web page via ‘natural’ or unpaid practices”
Personalised SERPs based on your search history, your open graph, your social
media interactions, thematically related search, ‘suggest’/’instant’, and now
your other Google products & services you use
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
7. But the mission is still the same
To give the best, most relevant results
Oh, and to show advertising to loyal customers
Search is evolving all the time
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
8. And the types of answers have evolved
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
9. • Search is getting very specific
– Types: Websites, Images, Maps, Shopping, Blogs, Video, Places, Discussions,
Academic, Patents etc.
– Frequency: By hour, day, specific date, years
– Location: Given and implied
• Search isn’t just Google anymore. What about YouTube, Facebook etc.
• 3 types of keywords
– Brand / Navigational
– Transactional
– Informational
Keywords imply users intent and needs!
Therefore keywords = Marketing
65% of sessions online start with a search
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
10. >200 to >500 ranking factors*
* Depends on who is guessing
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
11. 2 starter guides to SEO
2 resources for you embedded in this presentation or you can
find them on the web.
5 practical things to do coming up
SEOMoz’s
SEO starter guide
Google’s
SEO starter guide
http://bit.ly/11CBhC1http://mz.cm/115lSbT
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
12. What is SEO today?
To demystify Pandas, Penguins and Bots
Relationship of SEO, Social Media and Content
5 practical SEO things to do today
What are we going to talk about today?
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
13. Then these 2 cute little animals turned up to the party
Dates: http://searchengineland.com/google-panda-update-25-seems-to-have-hit-151732
14. They then went on a local trip to EMD!
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
15. Key themes – step changes & personalisation
Panda:
Onsite: Code & Content. Health and hygiene of site, IA, keyword [over]optimisation, and
inbound links. Manual review surveys, then programmed. Step change from algo/past
Penguin:
Offsite: Purge of ‘spammy’ links. Re-inclusion requisition, Disavow, DMCA reporting
Local & Mobile (including Venice):
Queries that contain a location, and what device you are on and where you are
Personalisation:
SERPs display affected by Social, open/knowledge graph, freshness, authorship
Query intent
Spam clean up:
Exact Match Domain name and more ‘thin content’ purge
Other:
Site performance, Snippet site-links, Snippet updates, the Onebox/Answers,
SERPs MVTs, spelling & autosuggest, DMCA/copyright, Voice search, 13 more
languages, Tools e.g. GWMT, Rich snippets, Insights
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
16. If you run a quality website
With unique, quality text
That has a following, is social and referred to
That is frequently updated
That has the information that users want
You should win
If you don’t you won’t!
Why does that matter?
17. What is SEO today?
To demystify Pandas, Penguins and Bots
Relationship of SEO, Social Media and Content
5 practical SEO things to do today
What are we going to talk about today?
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
18. They are all related, they need each other.
SEO, Social media & Content
SEO
SocialContent
Site
architecture &
hygiene
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
19. What is SEO today?
To demystify Pandas, Penguins and Bots
Relationship of SEO, Social Media and Content
5 practical SEO things to do today
What are we going to talk about today?
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
20. 1. Use Google’s own Webmaster Tools
2. GA dashboards
3. Keyword Research
4. Content
5. Use that content to build relationships &
links
5 SEO things you can do today
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
21. • Verify your site & log in daily/weekly
• If you have any problems you will get a message
• Health
– Check crawl errors, and fix
– Crawl stats and improve
– Fetch as Googlebot to test indexation of specific pages
• Traffic
– Search queries – what terms and their rank and CTR
– Links to your site – see the latest inbound links
• Optimisation
– Sitemaps – check your indexation status for key pages
Google.com/webmasters
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
22. 1. Use Google’s own Webmaster Tools
2. Analytics & Insight using GA dashboards
3. Keyword Research
4. Content
5. Use that content to build relationships &
links
5 SEO things you can do today
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
23. • Setup filters to show you different sections of your site
• Set up multiple dashboards
• Automate their delivery by format and to whom
• Measure against objectives
• By entry pages, by referrer and keyword
Google.com/analytics
24. 1. Use Google’s own Webmaster Tools
2. GA dashboards
3. Keyword Research
4. Content
5. Use that content to build relationships &
links
5 SEO things you can do today
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
25. • It is a science mixed with experience and common
sense – think LIKE a recipe where you customise to
taste
• 2 free tools
– Google insights
– Google adwords
Keyword research
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
26. Google Trends
http://www.google.com/trends/
Use to find trends over time.
Shows keywords, topics by
location
Can use for spelling e.g. Mallorca
or Majorca, Holiday versus
Vacation
Default is Worldwide
Can refine
Can focus by geography
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
27. Google adwords tool
Funny URL, so can’t bookmark – use this phrase to find it
every time
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
28. 1. Use Google’s own Webmaster Tools
2. GA dashboards
3. Keyword Research
4. Content
5. Use that content to build relationships &
links
5 SEO things you can do today
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
29. Work on your content
• Make your content great
• Make it relevant and
engaging
• Quality – “panda questions”
• Gentle keyword usage
• Make it shareable
Types of Content
Tell a story, Interviews, Rants
Infographics, music,
Case-study/research, What ifs
Predictions, Stupid and Funny
Contests, Deals, News
Comparisons, Reviews
How to's, Polls and surveys
Resource centres &
Lists - digests
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
30. The “Panda” questions from Google
We, and the bots, want quality content – real content, not automated,
not duplicate nor “thin” content. Here are some questions from Google
to think about when planning your content. Our content team use this too
• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it
more shallow in nature?
• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or
similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
• Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site
generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original
research, or original analysis?
• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in
search results?
Source: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/more-guidance-on-
building-high-quality.html
31. Continued…
• How much quality control is done on content?
• Does the article describe both sides of a story?
• Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
• Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread
across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or
care?
• Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
• For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
• Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
• Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the
main content?
• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
• Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
• Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
• Would users complain when they see pages from this site?
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
32. 1. Use Google’s own Webmaster Tools
2. GA dashboards
3. Keyword Research
4. Content
5. Use that content to build relationships &
links
5 SEO things you can do today
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
33. • Link building is still
important
• Links should be for
Users and SE’s alike
• Find sites and
communities and
reach out
Relationships and Link building
Find sites
– known to you, through social, or adv
Google searches
Log their details
– Contact details OR twitter (private list)
OR Email
Identify and reach out as a local expert
– Understand their offering BEFORE you
contact
– Tweet them – you want to engage NOT
pitch
– Be honest
– Build a rapport and relationship with
them first
Then… and be discreet
– Share their posts
– Offer to write some original and
compelling content for them
– Offer information or education (if
appropriate)
– Tweet your content or imagery – keep it
personal
– Ask if you can meet up
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
35. • Author rank is coming – great for people
who produce content
• Great if you contribute to multiple locations
• You should add G+ to your sites,
• Use rel=publisher and rel=author tags
• And add sites to your profile
• G+ acts as a catalyst that helps up rankings
in search engines – use as part of your
onsite socialisation
• There is no standard search anymore, G+
does influenced personalised search
Google + is going to be massive
@adrianland | adrianland.co.uk
38. Locally informed, globally inspired
Search Engine Optimisation
Adrian Land at Traverse 13
20th April 2013
Head of Inbound Marketing at My Destination
@adrianland |adrianland.co.uk
Editor's Notes
This presentation is to give you a flavour of recent times in SEO,What has happened in the search scapeWhat has happened to the ever changing My D setup and SEOAll in about 20 to 25 minutes. Max.I will be doing more on this and the topics covered in the workshops.
Doing SEO for 13 year, before SEOFrom Dotcom, start-ups that have become big to high street retailing and ecommerce giantsAcross retailing, intermediaries to marketplacesI love my technical SEOI personally take a holistic, user centric and pragmatic approach to SEO and web strategy. I believe in solid, long term plans that are less prone to fluctuations when search engines make their changes. I genuinely believe My D is doing the right thing for consumers.======================================
Put up if you have have a website? Keep up if you are getting the traffic, conversion and actions they want?Who has a marketing plan, and does it contain digital? Who wants more? And do you measure the results and improve?
I think in 2012 many people have banded around the words Panda and Penguin.What did they bring to the party?
Venice – was about local. This should favour some other tech developments that we will talk about soon.=================EMD means that more affiliate sites and long hyphenated domains should have gone.====================
I read Google’s official updates / release notes and try to decode what they mean.Here are some key themes. These too have had an affect on us, and many other far bigger and more established sites.The world we knew 2yrs ago has changed. We need to be agile and adjust.=====================================First of all Panda named after a lead engineer Pandu is a step change away from their previous algorithm.They used human focus groups to manually rate selected website and surveyed them. This included the amount of text, location of advertising, including their own networks, slow sites, and a series of editorial questions. Which I and Kirsty will walk you through in the workshops.We know this from leaked “Raters handbooks” and some of the Google’s own PR.They took this qualitative data and then tried to make an algo to copy the answers. Then did A/B tests to check. Then rolled out top the English speaking world.There have been many Pandas, Cubs and there are still more to come. Along side this there have been many other releases. They say in 2012, >600 and more to come before Christmas.>22 Panda releases so far and counting.=================================So Panda was onsite.Penguin was offsite. A purge of spammy links. And unnatural link profile – more in workshops=================================There are patents and other documents that talk about personalisation and local.If you do a search and the person next to you does a search, they will be different. Remember the previous variables. Well add 57 extra variables from your machine. From desktop to mobile. To your Geo coordinates, other apps you have installed on your phoneThe world gone personal and local in the name of relevance. ===============================
This presentation is to give you a flavour of recent times in SEO,What has happened in the search scapeWhat has happened to the ever changing My D setup and SEOAll in about 20 to 25 minutes. Max.I will be doing more on this and the topics covered in the workshops.
