Given at the CIM East Digital Bootcamp to over 50 delegates as an introduction to SEO. This walks serves to look at the concepts behind getting Google to love your site and how you can help SEO become a part of your everyday business processes. Activities covered include link building, analytics, webmaster tools, online pr and outreach.

1. Search Engine Optimisation

2.  Ian Miller, Search Director at Crafted Media
 Team of 15 across all search disciplines
 Responsible for increasing visitors, & converting them
 Wide range of clients across B2B & B2C industries

3. http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2010-02-19/

5.  The UK internet economy is worth £100 billion.
 Over 1 billion searches per day on Google alone
 Google has over 91% market share in UK
 Organic search results have around 3 times more clicks
than paid (AdWords)
 Google has $43 billion in cash

8. “To organise the world’s
information and make it
universally accessible and
useful”
Google’s mission statement

18.  Improves the technical foundation of a site
 Increases the authority and presence of a site against its
peers
 Ensures the content is in line with the desired searcher’s
intent
 Helps shape user experience for maximum response

20.  It follows things blindly, good or bad
 If you feed it what it wants, it likes you
 If you try and lie to it, it will probably find out
 If you’re nicer to it, it prefers you to others
 Popularity breeds popularity
 The more information you give it, the more it looks for
 Sometimes, it throws a tantrum

22.  What does a site look like to a search engine?
 Can a search engine find all your pages?
 Is there duplication e.g. non-www & www?
 Can it see the content e.g. Flash?
 Is authority being passed through the site properly?
 How do you treat errors?

23.  Google’s Webmaster Tools
 Crawl errors
 Sitemaps
 Content quality
 Geo-targeting
 Statistics
 http://crftd.md/gwmtintro

24. 1
2
3

26.  How does your site look to a search engine?
◦ Xenu crawler
◦ IIS Toolkit
◦ Screaming Frog

27. “Performance is the
aggregation of marginal gains.”
Dave Brailsford: British Cycling, Team Sky

30.  Highly visible
 Influential in their sector
 Mentioned outside of an anchor text link
 Referenced against their peers
 3rd party citations
 Have brand advocates

31.  Number and quality of links
 Anchor text distribution
 Brand mentions
 Social media activity
 PR coverage
 Citations
 Resource hubs

33.  Leverage all your contacts and ask:
o Suppliers
o Organisations
o Partners
o Charity work
o Customers
o Staff

34.  Create your own links:
◦ Resource lists
◦ Niche directories
◦ Event listings
◦ Contact blogs/news sites in your sector
◦ Give away products for review and competitions
◦ Videos
◦ Screencasts and webinars
◦ Awards, ego-bait

36.  Install SEOmoz toolbar
 Create master contact list
 Contact someone on that list every day
 Find common issues, work to fix them
 Business process often at odds with SEO, integrate

37.  Advanced search operators
◦ http://www.soloseo.com/tools/linkSearch.html
◦ http://crftd.md/advsearch1
 Examples:
◦ intitle: “intitle:directory haulage company”
◦ inurl: “inurl:gov.uk essex business”
◦ Compound “inurl:ac.uk intitle:links graphic design”

39.  What data do you own?
 Scale is interesting – “World’s biggest…”
 Effective PR is about the reader, not the source
 Find communities and engage before you need them
 Get a link!
◦ “brandname –site:brandname.com”

42.  Have a hub that people can point back to
◦ http://www.newsroom.hsbc.co.uk/
 Social has many benefits, but for SEO it’s links and mentions
 Use social to find contacts
◦ Followerwonk
◦ Simply Measured

45.  Ensure all company content is online
◦ Brochures
◦ Case studies
◦ News & PR
◦ Help files & FAQ’s
◦ Call centre notes
◦ Tacit knowledge
 Create non-commercial content
 Interlink, give people something else to see
 Use this content as a basis for outreach

47.  Small surprises are best, do the unnecessary
 Ask for feedback, push them to other review sites
 Customer reviews on products or services
 Keep in contact, be interested in them away from a
transaction
 Consider if they have a website, ask for a link
 Promote them, they’ll promote you

49.  Site structure is paramount
o If you want to rank for a keyword, what page justifies it?
 Avoid “This is a...” use “This widgetomatic is a…”
 Keywords come first – optimise page titles & H1s
 Use words that are relevant to your searcher, not just your
industry
 Good copy naturally includes keywords; avoid any “density”
metrics
 Google keyword tool
 Google Insights

53.  Consider wider goals than a sale, create a funnel
 Make calls to action clear and obvious
 Remove barriers for them
◦ Avoid unnecessary fields on contact forms
◦ Remember their details
◦ Follow up automatically
 Prove it all in Analytics

55.  SEO is the long game
 Expect incremental success
 Embed it as part of the business process
 Quick wins are often shallow
 Prove results against additional value created, not always
final objectives

57. 1. Be critical of your own site. Get registered with tools
2. Produce a content plan (and stick to it)
3. Create master contact list
4. Ensure SEO is considered as part of business process
5. Learn advanced search queries
6. Understand your competitors
7. Mobilise your customers
8. Make friends with the sales department
9. Define success and measure against it

59. ian.miller@craftedmedia.com
@millerian

60.  Advanced link operators
◦ http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html
◦ http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/operators.html
◦ http://searchengineland.com/21-link-builders-share-advanced-link-building-queries-29848
 Learn Google Analytics
◦ http://www.seomoz.org/blog/overcome-the-google-analytics-learning-curve-in-20-minutes
◦ http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/bin/request.py?hl=en&contact_type=indexSplash&rd=1
 Tools
◦ http://www.facebook.com/insights/
 Links
◦ http://www.verticalmeasures.com/link-building/top-100-link-building-resources/
◦ http://ontolo.com/blog/61-new-link-building-resources-post-panda-link-building-edition-0225-0310
◦ http://wiep.net/talk/link-building/link-request-email-template/

61. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mats_eriksson/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dahlstroms/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/manfrys/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/preppybyday/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eschipul/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikebaird/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeshlabotnik/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/powerbooktrance/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stewart/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmsmith000/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tmray02/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertvega/