Presentation at Grant Thornton UK LLP covering the changing landscape of SEO, five SEO basics (that are less prone to change) and three online keyword tools, plus a list of resources for ongoing learning.

1. SEO in an hour
03.12.13

2. What we’ll cover
● How Google works
● What is SEO
● 5 ways to ‘SEO the copy’
● 3 keyword tools
● Q&A

3. Q. What is Google's mission?
A. To organise the world's information and
make it universally accessible and useful.

4. (And sell advertising.)

5. Let’s ‘Google’ some stats...
● 300 million users (91% of the market)
● 1 billion+ questions answered a day
● 1 million+ spam pages created each hour

6. How are Google results served up?
Algorithm based on 200+ signals, eg:
● quantity/quality of sites linking to you
● quality of content
● ability to read/understand your content
● lower ranking for ‘bad’ SEO

7. (CC) Wikimedia Commons

8. Google is changing all the time...

12. 'free' Wikipedia
content
media content
local business

13. What are we trying to do?
Get to #1 on Google!
but
"For every search query performed on Google,
there are thousands, if not millions of web
pages with helpful information." – Google.

14. What is SEO?
...the process of affecting the visibility of a
website or a web page in a search engine's
"natural" or un-paid ("organic") search results.
[Wikipedia]

15. Let’s see how visibility
changes depending on
what users search for...

18. content marketing + UK

19. content marketing

20. How do we ‘do SEO’?
● Machines: We help Google read, understand
and index our content.
● Humans: We create high value content that
our target readers want to find, read, share.

21. Easy!

22. The practical stuff!
1. Headlines are really important

26. Exercise: Headlines that don't work
Spot the potential SEO issue in each headline.

27. Headline takeaways
● research and include main keywords
● keep it short or be cut-off (40-60 characters)
● puns don’t work – clarity over cleverness
● 'viral' heads do work – with certain brands
● beat the competition – must-click factor
● don't rely on images for context

28. The practical stuff!
1. Headlines are really important
2. Intros should be must-clicks

29. Exercise: Intros round
Put these heads/intros in the order of ranking
on Google.

30. Intros advice
● offer a compelling reason to read on but...
● don't spin or over-promise
● include synonyms/alternative keywords
● intro often forms metadescription
● be concise (cut-off around 250 characters)

31. The practical stuff!
1. Headlines are really important
2. Intros should be must-clicks
3. Images need to be described in alt text

32. Alt text in the cms

33. Alt text
<img src="http://static.guim.
co.uk/sysimages/Guardian/Pix/cartoon
s/2012/2/10/1328873046573
/valentines-day-scene-007.
jpg" width="460" height="
276" alt="valentine's day
scene" itemprop="contentUrl
representativeOfPage">

34. The practical stuff!
1. Headlines are really important
2. Intros should be must-clicks
3. Images need to be described in alt text
4. Videos need descriptions and keywords

35. YouTube
...is a search
engine, too.
● Optimise your
heads/intros
● Help Google
index content:
tags, link to
transcripts,
categories,
etc

36. The practical stuff!
1. Headlines are really important
2. Intros should be must-clicks
3. Images need to be described in alt text
4. Videos need text support
5. Do SEO research before creating content

37. More practical stuff: three SEO tools
● Google Trends
(compares up to five terms)
● Google Autocomplete
(also differentiate from other search results)
● Google Keyword Planner
(requires Google AdWords login)

38. Google Keyword Planner: “outsourcing” - showing number of average monthly
searches, level of competition, seasonal graph.

39. Example: general topic sourced from expert, angle honed via keyword research
in analytics and SEO tools.

40. Google Autocomplete suggests ‘tax’ keyword

41. Adding ‘tax’ brings article to top position on Google

42. "Good enough sucks"
fff

43. Ultimate SEO tip: Research angle 1st
Make better choices before you start.
● What does your reader want to know?
● How best can you tell them?
● Why would anyone want to read/view this?

44. Resource list
●
●
●
●
●
●
Google SEO Starter Guide – 32 pages of best practice
Moz (SEOmoz) guide - Beginners Guide to SEO
Content Marketing Institute blog
How I teach myself new digital content skills using cake!
– personal development/training
Bookmarks – SEO and content marketing
RSS feeds – find good sites and subscribe to them

45. Any questions?
@fionacullinan
fiona.cullinan@seven.co.uk
fionacullinan.com