Enterprise Ireland - eMarketing Event - Kilkenny - March 2016

1. SEO and Growth Hacking
to grow your
International Business
Enterprise Ireland eMarketing Event
Using the Internet to Compete in International Markets
John Caldwell
john@creatorseo.com
061 513267
086 2410295

2. • Introduction
• The Search Landscape
• How Search Engines Work
• Keywords
• Growth hacking
• International SEO
• Duplicate Content
• Tips
Areas covered:

3. • Physicist
• Headed up Global Marketing and
Intelligence Teams
• Founded CreatorSEO, Intelligence
Market and Research and Experts
• Specialise in helping businesses grow
internationally

4. Some of our customers ........

5. Search Engine Optimisation - Introduction

6. It All Starts With Strategy
• Which market?
• Which country or
countries?
• Focussing on a region?
• Emphasising particular
products?
Reach Act Convert Engage
Digital strategy:
Customer
analysis
Competitor
benchmarking
On-line partner
analysis
SWOT
Marker-place analysis:
Vision and
mission
Goal setting Analytics
Managing digital
marketing
Goals and KPI’s:
Segmentation and
targeting
Brand position and
value proposition
Engagement and
content strategy
Integrated
communication
strategy
Strategy:

7. If your not on page 1
of search results
you don’t exist!

8. Ranking Positions – Averages on Google
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Unknown brand
Known Brand

9. search engines and social media
are the gatekeepers of your
Content visibility

10. Search engines – How they work?

11. What a Search Engine Sees

12. Be found on the internet
• Ranking – its just a formula….
= 2a+0.7b+12c+9d+2(a-
b+d)-1.5e+2f …………..
• … but Google has more than
250 items in its algorithm
• … and growing
1 Search terms in the HTML title tag
2 Search terms in the HTML body copy
3 Search terms in bold typeface
4 Search terms in header tags
5 Search term in anchor text in links to a page
6 PageRank of a page (the actual PageRank, not the toolbar PageRank)
7 The PageRank of the entire domain
8 Quality of link partners
9 Type of backlinks that bring anchor text juice for search terms
10 The speed of the web site
11. Search terms in the URL - main URL and page URLs
12. Search term density through body copy (About 3 - 5%?)
13. Fresh content
14. Good internal linking structure
15. Age of the domain
16. Links from good directories
17. Image names
18. Image ALTs
19. Reputable hosting company
20. Diversity of link partners too
21. Geo located search results
22. Rate of new inbound links to your site
23. Relevance of inbound links
24. 301s, 404s, 414s etc
25. Duplicate title/meta tags
26. Participation in link schemes
27. Quantity of backlinks
28. Quantity of linking root domains
29. Quality of linking root domains
30. Link distance from higher authority sites
31. Outgoing followed links from back linked pages

13. Hummingbird and Carousel

14. Artificial Intelligence – Machine Learning
RankBrain
Is Google’s name for a
machine-learning artificial
intelligence system used to
help ranking

15. Paid adverts
(PPC)
Paid adverts
(PPC)
Natural or
Organic Search
(SEO)
News
Google Search results

16. The Golden triangle

17. Which? - search engines!

19. … but it is usually enough to focus on the main Search Engines
• Ranking
= 2a+0.7b+12c+9d+2(a-b+d)-1.5e+2f …………..

20. … and let’s not forget

21. Strategy
Target audience: Language? Culture?
what
why
whowhere
when

22. Search Pyramid
Social
Link Building
Keyword Research &
Targeting
Accessible Quality Content
Bring all this together with intelligence

23. The search demand curve
Source: SEOMoz
1 2 3-4 4+

24. What is Google looking for?

25. Google now also looking at:
Keyword relationships and
usage – close bonds between
keywords on each page
Date can be important –
most recent content
– if applicable
Predict what you are
looking for!
Phrases are unique
The intent of your search
– information open queries

26. Unique content
Google likes unique content
Does your content on a PAGE
meet all the searcher’s
needs?
Are you better at giving the
searcher the information they
need?

27. Data

28. • Data is a strategic asset
• Can be a key differentiator for
sustained growth, efficiency
and compliance
• Most data models tend to are
siloed, outdated and too
narrow

29. Knowledge
Information / Understanding
Data / Facts

30. Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools

31. Mysiteperformance and Google keyword checker
• Test your site on - www.mysiteperformance.com

32. Google Alerts & Google News & Google Publisher

33. Growth Hacking

34. Marketing
incl. SEO
Customer
Needs
Data
Growth Hacking

35. Normally a MARKETERworks
side by side with a
CODER2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
• Growth hacking is about doing whatever it is to get digital/user results
- using the right tactics and practices

36. MARKETER and
CODER
Try things till it
works!
• What really happens:
20112012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

37. Marketing
incl. SEO
Customer
Needs
Data
Growth Hacking
 Analytics
 Baseline
 Create a dashboard
 Perform AB Testing
 Create interventions
 Make changes
 One Metric That Matters?
 Talk to customers
 Make more changes
Analysebeforeandafterchanges

38. Internationalisation
Google.ie,Google.co.uk,Google.de,Google.fr……

39. Trading internationally
• Common situations:
• one country, several languages
• one language, several countries

40. Trading internationally
• What can be done?
• domains by country?
• main domain and subdirectories per language?
• sub domains?
• Geo targeting on Google

41. Trading internationally
• Best option domains by country
• creatorseo.com
• creatorseo.fr
• creatorseo.de
• but
• complicated to manage and coordinate
• one CMS for all or one per domain?

42. Trading internationally
• Sub-domains or Domain name alias
• us.creatorseo.com
• fr.creatorseo.com
• de.creatorseo.com
• Directories by country/language
• creatorseo.com/us/
• creatorseo.com/fr/
• creatorseo.com/de/
• One language, several countries
• creatorseo.com/es/
• mycompany.com/es-pu/ (Peru)
• mycompany.com/es-mx/ (Mexico)

43. Trading internationally
• Subdomains by country
• Search Engines consider subdomains almost a completely different entity than
their domain
• they don’t inherit most of the domain's relevancy
• Example of a sub domain
• http://spanish.creatorseo.com
• … but are a more integrated approach than having a number of unrelated
domain names
X

44. Trading internationally
A new domain starts with
ZERO domain authority

45. Trading internationally
• Directories by country/language
• Cheaper
• Less technical resources required
• Easier to manage and coordinate
• Directories contribute to increase the general relevancy of a domain
• Domain authority is consolidsted

46. Trading internationally
• You don’t need multiple websites to rank internationally

48. Before internationalising your site
• Market research
• Site performance
• SEO implementation
• Speed of site
• Number of pages on your site – CPU and Memory
• Language or Country targeting
• Localisation costs

49. Competition

50. Competition
• On-line competition may not be your traditional competition
• Different competitors in different regions
SEO is about beating your competition in the targeted geographies

51. Audience and be local

52. Audience
• Know your audience
• Cultural
• In Mediterranean counties
- Internet use is driven more by social factors rather than anything else,
• where Nordic countries rely on the internet for more pragmatic, functional purposes.
• Language
• What are they searching for?

53. Keyword
Avg. Monthly
Searches World
wide(exact match
only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches US (exact
match only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches UK (exact
match only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches Canada
(exact match only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches Germany
(exact match only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches France
(exact match only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches China
(exact match only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches India
(exact match only)
hotels in dublin 49,500 1,900 18,100 390 590 110 10 90
dublin hotels 33,100 3,600 18,100 880 480 140 10 70
hotels dublin 18,100 590 6,600 170 1,000 390 10 10
hotel dublin 14,800 260 2,400 110 2,400 3,600 10 10
And that’s just English!

55. Local content
• Use local addresses and contact information
• Add local case studies/ testimonials
• with names and images
• Customise content for each country or market
• More relevant, increases local link building opportunities, and decreases duplicate content
• Currency

56. Design and usability

57. Basic requirements for any website
A web site is a bit like an advert!
• Clear purpose
• Easy to use / intuitive
• High impact
- you have only 4 seconds to impress!
• Optimised for visitors
• Target audience
• Easily found by the target audience
• Content must be dynamic and interesting

58. Design and usability
• Different countries prefer different design aesthetics
• Recreating your website in a different language may not be enough
• Get feedback on your site from locals in your target country

59. Duplicate Content

60. Duplicate Content and Languages
• Google and Bing have clearly said to keep one language on one URL.
- Proxied content
- Content served by a cookie
- Side-by-side translations
Can be very problematic for search engines to index a page in one language.
You want
1 URL = 1 language

61. Duplicate Content and Language Flags
• Hreflang tags are intended to ensure the correct localised page is seen by Google
• You can have multi-country targeted content in the same language.
- You need to combine hreflang tags + some localisation!

62. Ways to avoid Duplicate Content
• Use Hreflang tags
• Localised keyword optimisation
• Have local content … maybe testimonials
• Name Address, Phone, Currencies, Google Business profile
• Localised HTML sitemaps
• Localised navigation and home page features that cater to specific audiences
• Localised images that resonate with the audience
• Obtain links from local links

63. Some Final Tips
• Create useful page titles
• Use informative URLs
• Provide relevant page descriptions
• Add your business to Google Places
• Manage your site links
• Get a local mailing address
• Use a translator!
• Value proposition
• Call to action
• Speed
• User experience
• Relevant and unique content
Google shows search results based on
what's best for the user

64. International Success
The key to international success
is localising
while still maintaining a
globally unified brand.

65. Enjoy the rest of the day
John Caldwell
john@creatorseo.com
061 513267/ 01 5313061
086 2410295