What Happens at the Beginning of an SEO Campaign by Zachary Colbert
You will start off by doing some keyword research, these are certain words or phrases that you will want to rank higher in search engines for. Try to find out what keywords you want to target for the business you’re working for, aiming for about two or three keywords per landing page.
Work on the anchor text, this is the text that makes the link to your page, the bit that is underlined that you click on.
You need to make sure that images have alt tags as search engines cannot read them, another good practice is to name the file names with your key words in, in stead of having them saved as ‘IMG_00628′
Urls also need to be well structured e.g. http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk/seo/ rather than http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk/klerj2rf895e/vdjr67ge/4580gjg/ this can make a big difference to your page rank.
When you have decided on your keywords you are then limiting the amount of terms you can use for anchor text, this should all be based on what you think the user will be searching for.
You may want to use other search engine data keyword research tools, such as:
How to Persuade Managers and Stakeholders to Invest in SEO by Rishi Lakhani
Start off by getting to know the important people above you, there’s a reason why they are above you and you need to learn how to influence them.
Don’t go too overboard with the SEO talk, all the managers, clients and other bosses just want to know the bottom line. They want to know the basics, not the intricate ins and outs of everything.
Don’t make your reports sing and dance in the boardroom; you need to get your point across quickly and simply to these people, as they have a lot of things to go through throughout the day.
Use arguments that sway decisions in the stakeholders mind, not your own. If your boss wants to be top of Google search results then that’s where you want the meeting to sway and how you’ll do it.
We attended Brighton SEO (organised by Kelvin Newman of site Visibility) this year and filmed Simon Dance talking about search engine optimisation and online marketing. He had some very interesting things to share and mentioned some useful hints and tips for all SEO people.
We attended Brighton SEO (organised by Kelvin Newman of site Visibility) this year and filmed Simon Dance talking about search engine optimisation and online marketing. He had some very interesting things to share and mentioned some useful hints and tips for all SEO people.
Google recently launched a change to search for speeding up searching. This has got the SEO community really worked up!
Google says:
“Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster. Our key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that you can scan a results page while you type.”
For those new to SEO our Search Engine Optimisation Training in Brighton, Sussex, provides hands-on, practical tuition. Learn how to climb the rankings and increase traffic to your site using core SEO techniques. Google Analytics Training also available.
What content creators need to know about the change is this:
“Smarter Predictions: Even when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, predictions help guide your search. The top prediction is shown in grey text directly in the search box, so you can stop typing as soon as you see what you need.”
Marissa Mayer Google’s company vice president said that until now, each search typically lasts 25 seconds – 9 seconds of typing, 1 second in which the query reaches Google, is processed and sent back, and 15 seconds during which the user considers which search result to click on. With Google Instant the average search will be shortened by two to five seconds per query – which, given the billions of people who use the service every week, would mean 11 hours of searching saved every second. Now many tech savy people were put off by the fact that Google was constantly watching and restricing their search results with personalised search when they were logged into Google, so would sign out to get more natural reasults, with the promise of speed on the table being signed is is a lot more attractive.
Not only that but Google is going to start tweaking their searches in real-time, so Google will constant offer feedback and feedback changes behaviour. So whereas before , if users had turned off personalised search (SEO’ers always do this to see the natural organic search results) everyone would see the same results, SEO is about checking results and and improving position, but that’s going to become more difficult if no two searches are the same (SEO owch!). It will be more difficult for SEO analysts to work out which results will do well from a particular query, because the results will keep changing as the user types as well as being different for each user being signed into Google. It will also be harder to examine the results mechanically. In addition to this Google will be giving constant offer feedback and feedback changes behaviour.
Google will use your behaviour when you are online to guess what you’re looking for before you finish asking it – in fact, which will begin offering results as soon as you type a letter, it also seems to be prioritising big brands – see Kelvin Newman’s The biggest Winners from Google Instant. Although according to Goggle is is based on the most popular searhes so, for example if you type in W the first suggestion is Weather.
This appeared so unbelievable, not so very long ago – Google said:
“In 2000 we thought the idea of being able to search before you typed was so weird we made it our April Fools joke,” Mayer, one of Google’s longest-standing employees, noted. “Just 10 years later we’re seeing that it’s actually possible.”
Read what Google is saying about expecting traffic fluctuations around organic keywords.
This move by Google is really just the beginning of search being about semantics rather than syntax. I will be posting Zachary Colbert’s presentation on this at Brighton SEO soon. Chief executive Eric Schmidt suggested in an interview in August that “As you go from the search box [to the next phase of Google], you really want to go from syntax to semantics, from what you typed to what you meant.”
It is difficult to say what impact Google Instant will have on SEO. What do you think? Leave a coment – I’d be interested.
In these videos Sam discusses how to run a successful competition for link building. The example he gives is of an equipment hire firm running a photography competition so to build up a community and get valuable links from mainstream and niche publications. A great tip he mentioned (if you’re going to ask for links) is to build relationships with people, is it always much easier if you already have a rapport with someone, rather than just charging straight in with demands.
At Silicon Beach Training we promote a regular Photography Competition Follow us on twitter or facebook to keep up to date. We can testify that all of these techniques work as Sam almost exactly described the process we use to publicise our competion!
Creativity
Sam talks about creativity and how even the most boring product, if you think out side the box, can still run a competition.
Inflexible Client
If a client is stuck in their old habits you may want to put on your ‘sales hat’ and show them that these new tactics can help them in different ways.
Brighton SEO – Using Competitions for SEO – Part 2
In Using Competitions for SEO – Part 1, Sam explained that with a bit of creativity even the plainest of industries can create an interesting campaign using competitions. Its a fantastic way to build links and drive traffic thats quite often over looked. He goes on to explain how you can “sell” this idea to a client.
To sell a competition successfully to your client you need to focus on the benefits such as increasing audience, brand awareness and building links.
Sam’s case study was for a tool hire company that would give the winner an afternoon on one of their cranes. The competition was for people interested in photography, who had to send in ideas of how they would use the crane to take a photo. This meant that there were links from a number of well-established photo blogs and magazines.
At Silicon Beach Training we promote a regular Photography Competition Follow us on twitter or facebook to keep up to date. We can testify that all of these techniques work as Sam almost exactly described the process we use to publicise our competion!
Standard Entries
You will also need to add your link to relevant forums and directories.
Affiliates
Once you have considered your niche, you then need to consider affiliates, mailing lists, press releases, whilst always keeping in mind what the customers wants or expects.
The big brands are now getting more exposure in the Google search results than ever before. Although Google are talking about the importance of brand there seems to be little information about how “brand” is measured, what makes a brand stronger in the eyes of Google would be very useful indeed.
One thing is for certain - the way the big brands are handled by Google is changing, but so far we can only speculate on how Google measures a brands strength. It’s such a fuzzy area and one that is difficult to research so I put brand expert Nichola Stott on the spot at the last Brighton SEO meet and this is what she said:
Google is now allowing the initial pages of some search results to be dominated by a single brand or website, if it has sub-domains and a “strong user interest”. The fact that a user’s query “may be restricted” to a search of the one website/brand most associated with that query is an issue for SEO providers. For an example of this type ‘dell’ into Google and it will return the 5 top results from dell. But this is not universal – type Nike into Google and it’s a different story. This suggests these restricted searches will only effect brands that have been specifically targeted by Google so smaller businesses will not be effected. Your ranking, however will be effected by what Matt Cutts calls ‘trust metrics’.
He even goes on to say that Google doesn’t think about Brand that much! Mmmmm… I’m not so sure about that, but I certainly think that following his suggestions will definitely help your SEO efforts:
Provide great content
Become an authority in your niche
Be the expert that people want to link to (read linkbait)
Be the expert that people want to talk about (ie: references to your company name)
Rob Green from iCrossing talks about Data Analysis for SEO.
I know it’s taking me forever to upload all the videos from #brightonseo but I am getting there! Don’t judge me! @kelvinnewman of Site Visibility is already talking about the next one maybe in November. I might be finished by then!
Its time for Rob Greens presentation on Data Analysis for SEO. One of his recommendations was to use a combination of the Google Keyword Tool and Competitor Analysis data together to to collect more data to make more informed decisions about identifying keywords.
Rob suggested looking for search terms that include universal search in the results on them and using media (image and video) effectively to appear in universal search.
He made an interesting point about how you can use SEO to help increase brand awareness and encourage direct visitors to the website. Rob showed the effect that non-branded keywords can have on brand terms.
I really don’t need to go into more detail as Rob says it all and I have it all on video:
Data Analysis for SEO Part 1 – Rob Green form iCrossing
Read more for the second part of Data Analysis for SEO
The big brands are now getting more exposure in the Google search results than ever before. Although Google are talking about the importance of brand there seems to be little information about how “brand” is measured, what makes a brand stronger in the eyes of Google would be very useful indeed.
