Advanced SEOHow to boost your website’s ranking

For the Chartered Institute of Marketing, EssexGareth Cartman

Agenda

An introduction to SEOBefore we start…Why websites failWhy websites succeedTricks of the trade…

KeywordsAnchor textLinksOn-page tweaksSocial mediaAnalyticsPay Per ClickSome naughty stuff

Website rescue breakout sessions

An introduction to SEO

AuthorityPopularityClarityPersistence… underhandedness

An introduction to SEO

Stephen Hawking

Books

Some bloke down the pub

An article in the Guardian

TV programme

Cheryl Cole

An introduction to SEO

My site

Web directories

Other website, same topic

Social media links (Twitter,

etc.)

Bloggers

Before we start…

Html tags<a href=“…”>text</a><h1>…</h1><h2>…</h2>

Meta tagsPagerankHTML vs FlashCSS

Why websites failTracyskarate.com

Why websites failHavenworks.com

Why websites failwww.neckandbackpainchiropractic.com

Why websites failsmithandgoldsmith.homestead.com/home.html

Why websites fail

No clear strategySEO + Web design don’t work togetherNo keyword strategy

Tags & Titles!Too insular

No inbound linksNo social media / networkingNo local listings / directories

Sitting back and doing nothingMore content + interaction

Why websites succeed

Who is number 1 for “Click here”?Why is Wikipedia number 1 for everything?Why is The Sun number 1 for newspaper?Why is comparethemarket.com increasing

market share?

Tricks of the trade… keywords

Use Google Adwords Keyword toolAnalyse your on-page keyword densityLook for temporal trends (Facebook lexicon, Google

trends, Twist)Test with paid search – measure with analyticsSegment and prioritise your keywords for intent

NavigationalTransactionalInformationalCommercial

Tricks of the trade… anchor text

What is anchor text?Why is it important?How can I influence anchor text?

Tricks of the trade… Links

Why do I need inbound links?How can I get inbound links?Why are some links better than others?Why are some links harmful?What does a good link profile look like?Always use Yahoo Site Explorer. Always.How do internal links affect my rankings?

Tricks of the trade… yahoo

Tricks of the trade… link juice

Tricks of the trade… link juice

Tricks of the trade… link juice

Tips of the trade… link juice

The more SEO you do, the more juice you can get…

Direct the ‘juice’ flowBlock ‘juice’ flow to low-importance pages

(e.g. contact form)Increase the importance of ‘juicy’ pagesE.g. “bet 10 get 20” (freebetbookmaker.com)Page-sculpting

Tips of the trade… on-page tweaks

Positioning keywordsTop + bottom para + in bold

Keyword densityText high up in html codeRemove unnecessary outbound links or

‘nofollow’ themAlways text navigation, never imageDon’t use flash, despite the temptations

Tricks of the trade… social media

Be active and be presentBookmark & share (socialposter.com)Provide fresh, original content

link-bait (top 10)Create communities (Facebook, Twitter)Use the latest technology, but use it sparingly

(video, podcast, etc.)

Tricks of the trade… analytics

Tricks of the trade… analytics

Tricks of the trade… analytics

There is no limit to what you can know…Set up goalsFind trendsRe-direct your strategy around those trendsKnow your visitors

Where are they? Who are they? What are they doing?

Tricks of the trade… PPC

Paid search on google / yahoo / bingSee if your site is profitableTest, test, test: try different ad copyMeasurements

- Clickthrough rate- Bounce rate- Conversion rate

Quality score – how to improve it

Tricks of the trade… some naughty stuff

Comment spamArticle spinningSocial bookmark spammingPaying for linksSub-domain switching (301 redirects)

Tricks of the trade… some naughty stuff

“Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit”

Google

Website rescue breakout

Moorhill dog kennels needs your help. Having expanded to create more kennels, it needs to fill them and sees the website as key to doing so. How do you develop short and long-term plans for success?

Rubaduck.com wants to start selling a stock of rubber ducks, and needs to switch focus quickly. How can you shift that stock online and make Rubaduck the no.1 resource for rubber ducks?

Woman Junction is an online website for women, with few repeat visits and a low advertising revenue. The site is also suffering from high bounce rates. How can you boost revenue and increase repeat visitors?