The document summarizes an SEO meetup event hosted by Skyscanner. It introduces the speaker and his background with Skyscanner. He then shares 5 SEO lessons including ensuring clean HTML, focusing on conversions above the fold, monitoring search rankings, preparing for voice search, and diversifying traffic beyond Google. An interactive experiment is conducted to try and manipulate Google rankings. The speaker takes questions and promotes Skyscanner's app and website.

1. Miami SEO Meetup Kickoff event
August 22nd, 2018

2. • Intro and a bit about me
• A little bit about Skyscanner
• 5 SEO lessons
• Google manipulation live test
• Open forum/Q&A, how do we want to meet?
skyscanner.app.link/miamiseo

3. College
First job
Second job
Third job
Current job
A bit about my history as an SEO

4. A bit about Skyscanner….
• Founded in a pub in Scotland in 2013 because Gareth
Williams, our founder, wanted to find the cheapest flights
for ski destinations in Europe
• Now in 2018 we have over 70 million monthly users, over
70 million app downloads, in over 30 languages, over 1000
employees, 11 offices
• We let travelers user our direct connection technology with
over 1200 global partners to find some of the cheapest
rates on flights, hotels, and car rentals
To be the most trusted and used travel app in the world

5. Ongoing exponential growth…
To be the most trusted and used travel app in the world

6. …requires a lot of work ‘under the hood’
To be the most trusted and used travel app in the world

7. …especially ‘T-shaped’ marketers and growth hacking principles’
To be the most trusted and used travel app in the world

8. …organized in a lean and agile way to remove silos
To be the most trusted and used travel app in the world

9. Lets get into SEO
5 Learnings
skyscanner.app.link/miamiseo

10. Brief Google Timeline
Early search
engines
Early Google Peak SEO
Google
Recovery
Google
Rankbrain(AI)
Post-click era
Cheap flights Flights to London from Miami flights to London flights for me
Always clicks
No need to click on
results each time
1998 2018
Text match search
Google understands
authority or pagerank
of websites
Google understands
where searchers are
located
Google understands
where searches are
located and what they
like
Google provides
relevant results before
search is needed
Daily briefing informs of
relevant deals…“Book
normal business hotel
under $200”
Keywords = Intent

11. 1.MakesuretohavecleanhtmlelementsGooglecancrawl
skyscanner.app.link/miamiseo

12. 2.Makesureyour landingpageconversionis‘abovethefold’
skyscanner.app.link/miamiseo

13. 3.Alwaysbe“SERPing”
skyscanner.app.link/miamiseo
Google is trying to monetize as much search traffic as possible and is always changing.
Brands need to monitor the SERPs (search engine
results pages) to identify:
• What keywords are driving traffic currently
• What keywords could be driving traffic and if
they are a ‘lost cause’
• What keywords are driving traffic to competitors
• What new keyword trends are there with rising
demand
My favorite all-in-one SEO tool is Ahrefs.com

14. 4.Voicesearchiscoming(demo)
skyscanner.app.link/miamiseo
Featured snippet results are now being served as answers
Create FAQ style pages with answers ~30 words
• how to book multi city flights
• airbnb vs hotel
• airfares with military discount
• cheap spring break flights
• best party cities in the us
• can you fly without an id

15. 5.Growyour sourcesofacquisitionbeyondGoogle
skyscanner.app.link/miamiseo
Being completely dependent on Google for traffic can be risky.
‘Grey hat’ Quora hack with service Socioblend

16. • Can everyone turn off wifi (unique IPs)
• Open up a private/incognito tab on their phone
• Do a search for miami to new york
• Find and click on the Skyscanner result
• Interact with the page, do a search
Let’s Manipulate Google…
I’ll report back in the slack channel to see if we moved our rankings
skyscanner.app.link/miamiseo

17. Edinburgh • Glasgow • Singapore • Beijing • Miami • Barcelona • Shenzhen • Sofia • Budapest •
London • Tokyo
Twitter: @jamesfgibbons
LinkedIn: /jamesfgibbons
Email: james@jamesfgibbons.com
Email me to get on the Miami SEO slack

18. Open Forum / Q&A
skyscanner.app.link/miamiseo
Also we are at Skyscanner.com and no, we don’t
change prices based on cookies
Since we have free beer, can you download the Skyscanner app?
We promise you’ll find some crazy cheap flights…