How keyword research and multimedia content can help your business get an edge in blended search results on Google. Presentation delivered by Trevor Jones at Social Media Breakfast Bangor on May 3, 2012.
2. Introduction
• About Me
– Director of Marketing and Product Development for GWI
– Telecom marketer since 1997
– Born in Bangor, grew up in Glenburn (BHS Class of ‘89)
– @trevorjones71
– linkedIn.com/in/trevordjones
– Passions: Outdoors, technology, social media, music
• About GWI
– Maine based since 1994, based in Biddeford
– Internet access, phone service, cloud computing for home and business
– Serving 60 communities statewide
– www.gwi.net
– @gwimaine
– youtube.com/gwimaine
– facebook.com/GWIInc
2
3. Agenda
• SEO Overview
– Emphasis on content
Keyword Research
– How to choose keywords
– Free and paid tools
• Taking advantage of “blended search”
– Leveraging social media, video, and photos
4. Search Engine Optimization
• Activities to make your site more visible in search
• On-page
– Meta tags, page construction
– Keyword optimized content
• Headers, text and photos
– Internal linking
– Site maps
• Off-page
– Link-building
– Social sharing
“Content is King, Links are Queen, Likes are the New Links”
5. Keywords
• What your customer types into Google to find you
• Short tail
– Generic, 1-2 words
– Generate the most traffic
– Highly competitive, hard to rank for
– Tend to be research oriented and have low conversion rates
• Long tail
– More specific, 3+ words
– Flavors, brands, features, price points, colors
– Geo-targeted
– In many cases, less competitive
– Generate less traffic, but higher conversion rates
– Usually easier to rank for
6. Keyword Research
• The process of identifying the keywords you want to
optimize for
• Key factors
– Daily searches
– Competition
– Conversions
• Build a Keyword List
– Analytics – where do you get traffic from today?
– Espionage – where do your competitors get traffic from today?
– Brainstorming – how many different ways can you describe
what you sell?
– Ad words – what are you paying money for that you could get
free?
8. “Web Espionage”
• SpyFu
http://www.spyfu.com
• Enter a competitor’s
URL for their
– Top paid keywords
– Top organic keyworks
– Other competitors you
may not know
9. Brainstorm & Raid PPC
• Add every keyword
combination you can
think of to your list.
– Ask friends.
– Use a Thesaurus
• What are you paying for
with AdWords?
– Savings opportunities.
– Better results.
10. Prioritize Your List
• If you have a keyword research
tool, enter each of the phrases
you identified from Analytics
and SpyFu.
• Enter every other keyword
combination you can come up
with as well.
• Observe daily search totals
and competition scores
– Prioritize keyword phases with
light search volumes and low
competition.
– Next, prioritize more Paid Tools
competitive searches where
you already rank and want to •Hubspot’s Keyword Grader
http://www.hubspot.com/products/keyword-grader/
move up. •SEO Moz (30 Day Free Trial) http://www.seomoz.org/tools
11. Prioritizing Without
Keyword Research Tools
• Log out of Google + Clear your cookies
• Search for each phrase you found
• Note your position and that of your competitors
• If you are in the SERP, but not in the top 3, consider
generating content around those phrases
• Easier to move up than to get ranked
• If you are not in the SERP
– Use a free keyword research tool to determine search volumes
• Keyword Discovery - http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html
• Word Tracker - http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
– Generate content for the phrases, focusing first on the long tail
phrases with light search volumes.
12. Time to start
creating content!
• More pages = Better
– Vital Tools in the SEO Toolkit
• Blogs
• Press Releases
• Variety is Better
– Videos are fast growing and high visibility
– Photos
– Social channels
• The top three organic results in Google get 58% of Clicks
• Create stuff that’s worthwhile, meaningful, that people will
want to read
– Remarkable content attracts links
13. Keyword Optimization
Rules of Thumb
• Cardinal Rule – Write for humans first, search engines
second!
– 0.5% to 1.5% keyword density on a page is usually sufficient –
don’t exceed 2.5%
– At least 250 words per page. If more than 1200 words, consider
breaking it up.
• On Pages, include your primary keyword in:
– Page file name (url)
– Title Tag
– H1 Header
– First Paragraph
– Last Paragraph
– Links (Anchor Text)
14. Blended Search
• “Everything”
– Pages
– Pictures
– Videos
– Blogs
– Social Sites
• The blended search tool kit:
– YouTube
– Picasa Web Albums, Pinterest
– Blog
– Google Places
– Other social channels