Digital Marketing Priorities 2014 Brought to you by:

SEO…..Is Alive!

James GurdOwnerDigital Juggler

James will outline the context for effective SEO in 2014

#PlanToSucceed

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Agenda

SEO has evolved Technical SEO is king Mobile & local shine on Author influence Value of content Social currency Penguin: link quality vs. quantity Don’t forget on-page

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About me James Gurd

Owner & Lead Consultant, Digital Juggler

Co-founder #EcomChat Guest blogger for Smart

Insights, Postcode Anywhere & Econsultancy

Shameless consultant @jamesgurd

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SEO has evolved Consumer search patterns are more sophisticated. The long tail is magical world of discovery.

Search engines have reacted to increase contextual understanding > Hummingbird.

Beware the super long tail e.g. voice activated contextual search.

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SEO – still evolving! For some queries, organic is down

the page. Increasing variety of paid ads

changing the face of SERPs. Need to analyse data at device

level. If you’re CTR and traffic is low for

specific devices, test paid campaigns alongside SEO.

Figure: iPad search for “dishwashers”

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SEO – devolved? Google is protecting its revenue > (not provided) The data blind spot of (np) – what can you do?

1. Customise analytics tools to get ‘some’ data

2. Focus on page level optimisation

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Technical SEO is king Not sexy but critical for SEO Ensure website is properly structured:

Information architecture (IA) Internal linking Page load speed Duplicate content e.g. canonical tag URL parameters Indexation issues

Complexity increases with sub-domains, international etc.

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Mobile & local shine on More searches are being conducted on mobile devices. 40% of mobile searches have local intent* and 3 out of 4 mobile

searches trigger follow-up actions e.g. store visit/call/purchase. Hummingbird is one move to recognise this > finding the context in a

search (object orientated search models – patents already filed). If your mobile site doesn’t display well, will be a big FAIL for SEO.

* Source: Google’s Mobile Search Moments Study

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Don’t kill the mobile star Poorly optimised mobile sites drive 46% customers to competitors

(and kills your mobile SEO).

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Vote: mobile SEO

Do you measure your mobile SEO results?1. Yes

2. No

3. I don’t know Please only select one answer.

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Going local, down in… Chart source –

Moz 2013 Local Search Ranking Factors

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Author influence Search engines can associate content

with people People can influence others – reputation

can impact value of content Early days but expect trusted authors to

benefit in SERPs Tips:

1. Set-up G+ profiles for authors and link to web profile

2. Add mark-up to blogs/articles

3. Use the structured data testing tool

4. Consider guest blogging (on reputable, quality sites)

5. Employ writers who have an established, quality profile

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Vote: authorship

What do you think the key benefit of author mark-up will be in the future?

1. Authors of quality content will be rewarded with better ranking

2. Authors can maintain their reputation regardless of where they work

3. Authors can monetise their reputation by charging for content

4. I don’t know Please only select one answer.

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Value of content $118.4bn spend on content

marketing in 2013 according to eMarketer

27m pieces of content shared daily* Algorithm update > Panda Example SEO benefit – blogs**:

55% more visitors 97% more inbound links 434% more indexed pages

*Source: Content+ infographic, March 2013** Source: AOL and Nielsen

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Vote: content marketing

How do you measure the impact of your content marketing for SEO?

1. Inbound links

2. Traffic to website

3. Social shares

4. All of the above Please only select one answer.

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Social currency

Image source: Beyond

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Social for SEO: key tips Make sure key content/product pages can be shared Integrate visitor comments Share your content via social channels Give people a reason to RT/G+/Like Identify key influencers and build relationships:

Motivate them to share your links (but don’t pay!)

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UGC: build it and they will come?

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Penguin: link quality vs. quantity

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Don’t forget on-page Still a vital part of SEO – simply getting this right can give you high

visibility for non competitive keywords Do your keyword research (Google keyword tool, Wordstrea,

Ubersuggest, Soovle etc) Focus on most relevant keywords for page title, meta description and

H tags Optimise at page level – avoid site wide Optimise image assets e.g. alt tags Make sure copy is relevant and well written And don’t be afraid to be different – engagement helps with SEO

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Vote: on-page SEO

What is the most important on-page signal for SEO?

1. Meta keywords

2. Meta description

3. Page title

4. H1 tag

5. I don’t know Please only select one answer.

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Summary – questions please!1. SEO is very much alive!

2. You need to understand the changes

3. Mobile optimisation is critical

4. Content is the marketing fuel

5. Don’t forget the need to get basics right

Follow me on Twitter @jamesgurd

Please check out #EcomChat (Mondays)

Recommended Smart Insights resources:

SEO Hub page SEO 7 Steps to Success

ebook