The presentation I gave at BRAVE & Bristol City Council in January 2012

1. GETTING TO THE TOP OF GOOGLE
What you can do in 2012
Jon Payne, Noisy Little Monkey | 25th January 2012

2. results
brand links
social content

3. WHO IS THIS MUPPET?
Jon Payne
Over 12 years in Online Marketing
Noisy Little Monkey Ltd
Digital Marketing Agency

4. consult
report research
do train

5. Who trusts you?
Over 80 businesses, charities and government bodies in Europe, North America & Africa

6. WHO ARE YOU
What do you want?

7. We are not talking about SEO
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhruzek/4165799037

8. DIGITAL MARKETING
Digital Marketing = SEO + Everything

10. Digital marketing?
http://www.sexypeople-blog.com/2010/04/swanson-family.html

11. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE GRAPHS

12. Digital marketing?
g
Search Engine Optimisation

13. Digital marketing?
Number 1 on Google gets you good graphs

14. Digital marketing?
g
Search Engine Marketing such as Google AdWords

15. Digital marketing?
Ads in Search Results Pages give you good graphs too

16. Digital marketing?
Creating content that g useful to your customers
is

17. Digital marketing?
g
Help and / or reward them for sharing it on relevant social media

18. Digital marketing?
g
Get ranked

19. Digital marketing?
g
Get search volume and you can influence Google suggest

20. Digital marketing?
Traffic to the whole site improved by 22% in the following month

21. Digital marketing?
This is your blog on digital marketing

22. Digital marketing?
People entering the site via a blog post

23. Digital marketing?
g
Maps, reviews, emails

24. Digital marketing?
g
Conversion Rate Optimisation

25. Digital marketing?
g
Pro Tip: Put a simple enquiry form on EVERY page of your website

26. WHO DOES IT WELL?

27. Bigup Yeo Chest
g
http://www.youtube.com/user/Yeotube

28. Bigup Yeo Chest
Links from
auntie
Lots of buzz
g
http://www.facebook.com/YeoValley & BBC Website 11/10/2011

29. Bigup Yeo Chest
g
Mentions and links on Twitter indicate relevance, predictive search shows “branded search” volume

30. Bigup Yeo Chest
g
top of 13.5 million pages “for free”

31. Bigup Yeo Chest
This is what Google thinks you’reglooking for if you search for organic yogurt

32. HOW DO YOU DO IT?
and on a realistic budget?

33. BACK TO SKOOL
Understand how Google works

34. How does Google find work?
g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNHR6IQJGZs

35. Links?
g
The bits of a web page that, when clicked, will take you to another web page or fire off an event

36. Internal links
www.yoursite.com/page-a
www.yoursite.com/page-b
g
When page a links to page b, page a bestows some of its authority onto page b

37. Outbound links
www.yoursite.com/page-a
www.anothersite.com/page-b
You’re saying to your visitors (and Google), g
“Hey, you can trust this other site, because I do”

38. YOU’VE PROBABLY HEARD THIS ONE
“The more links you have, the higher you will rank”

39. That’s bull!
g
http://www.flickr.com/people/oli/

40. Inbound links
www.yoursite.com/page-a
www.anothersite.com/page-b
g
Cool! So long as this other site is trusted and not nasty / spammy

41. Reciprocal links
www.yoursite.com/page-a
www.anothersite.com/page-b
Beloved of ‘SEO’ companies.
g
Unless there is a ‘real world’ partnership , you could be penalised by Google

42. Links pass authority
Local Chamber of
Commerce
Few people link to
it, but those that do
are trustworthy Link Farm
BBC Loads of links to
lots of links to it, but mainly
it, so it has lots of reciprocal and
authority quite a few
questionable links
Your
site
g
Cultivate links from trusted websites, they pass more authority

43. Links pass authority
Business Local
partner press
Trade
Local blog
magazine
BBC Your Local Chamber of
Commerce
site
A diverse, but relevant, g of linking websites is best
set

44. Don’t waste homepage links
www.yoursite.com/index
www.yoursite.com/stuff-the-customer-buys
g
Don’t waste ‘Google juice’ on privacy policy, terms and conditions, etc

45. Get inbound links to important pages
www.yoursite.com/stuff-the-customer-buys
www.anothersite.com/page-b
Your homepage will always rank well, g give deeper, important pages some love
so

46. I can’t get a link from Auntie Beeb
http://www.flickr.com/people/el_momento_i_sitio_apropiados/
g
model: su novia

47. Au Contraire
Russell Smith
Editorial Development
BBC News Website
@Russell__Smith
• Links essential to online journalism
• BBC strategy to double outbound links from
10m to 20m a month by 2013
g
http://www.scribd.com/GuardianTech/d/38963534-BBC-guidelines-for-linking-%E2%80%93-Sept-2010

48. Thanks, Russell!
http://www.flickr.com/people/el_momento_i_sitio_apropiados/
g
model: su novia

49. Keep it natural
Is this
• Number 5 on Google UK reflected
on news
• Number 1 on Google UK sites, social
media, searc
• Number 8 on Google UK h volumes?
g
http://www.google.co.uk/search?&q=trampolines

50. HOW TO GET MORE LINKS
quality and relevance are key

51. Who links to your competitors?
http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/
g
Apply common sense to these results!

52. Who mentions your competitors?
g
Type <“your competitors name”> -site:<their webaddress> into a Google search

53. Get involved, get links
• Discussion forums (be a really useful engine)
• Research (white papers, or mine your data)
• Social bookmarking (reddit, stumbleupon, etc)
• Comment on industry blogs
• Why not start your own blog?
g
Actually, scratch that.

54. Get involved, get links
• Discussion forums (be a really useful engine)
• Research (white papers, or mine your data)
• Social bookmarking (reddit, stumbleupon, etc)
• Comment on industry blogs
• Why not start your own blog?
g
Because your visitors and Google love fresh, up to date content!

55. GOOGLE READS ALL YOUR CONTENT
quality and relevance are key (again)

56. How does Google determine relevance?
Looks pretty, AND made with code and text = Accessible, good experience
Looks pretty, but is all images.
(Even the words, they are part of the image, as if you’d taken a photograph of a motorway sign).
Not computer readable = Inaccessible, poor experience
The code and text returns below, but this is really, really bad.
g
A site that is accessible makes the web a better place for everyone. This is a good thing.

57. How does Google determine relevance?
g
http://www.noisylittlemonkey.com/news/499/how-is-google-plus-changing-search-results/

58. Domain level indicators
Don’t change your domain name to match g popular search without setting up 301 redirects first
a

59. Search terms in the file path
g
If your website isn’t built like this, you need to get a new website. Seriously.

60. Search terms in the Page Title
g
This also shows on Google’s results page, so make it snappy, useful and attract the click!

61. Search terms in the Page Headline
Make sure your site is accessible for blind people – this mustn't be an image!
g
AND don’t waste the space by saying ‘Welcome to our site’

62. Search terms in the Alt Text
g
Make sure your site is accessible for blind people – label all images

63. Search terms in the copy
g
Use synonyms and keep it readable for humans. Don’t just stuff search terms in here

64. Search terms in the Meta Description
Becomes this on Google
g
View Source to see it. Right click white space in Chrome / Firefox / Safari and select “View Source”

65. YOUR PAGE MATCHES A SEARCH
when it is good quality and highly relevant

67. I don’t know how people search
http://www.flickr.com/people/el_momento_i_sitio_apropiados/
g
model: su novia

68. Maybe I can help?
This is good
for volumes.
Ignore those
numbers
g
http://www.google.co.uk/insights/search

69. Maybe I can help?
This stuff is better
than the AdWords
Keyword Research
tool!
Ignore the regional stuff too. That data is definitely off.
g

70. Thanks, Google!
http://www.flickr.com/people/el_momento_i_sitio_apropiados/
g
model: su novia

71. Aim low(ish). Seriously.
Search Demand Curve courtesy of SEOmoz
g

72. GOOGLE IS WATCHING YOU
and your friends

73. What are you talking about?
g
Word cloud of @NoisyMonkey’s last 20 tweets

74. What are you talking about?
Word cloud of Noisyg
Little Monkey’s Facebook page

75. What are you talking about?
g
Word cloud of Noisy Little Monkey’s Google+ page

76. What are you talking about?
Word cloud of Noisy LittlegMonkey’s Blog for the last 6 months

77. Who are you talking to?
We’re talking to local businesses and international SEO experts.
g
Pretty much matches how we do business

78. And who are they talking to?
g
Matt and Jon are our main guys for Twitter, they reach out.

79. And what are they talking about?
g
Word cloud of @MrJonPayne’s last 20 tweets

80. Who shares your stuff?
Sharing diagram ofghttp://theoatmeal.com/sopa

81. BEHAVE LIKE A TRUSTED BRAND
not a ‘thin affiliate’

82. Who gives best price & service?
g
Google’s results

83. Who gives best price & service?
g
Figleaves?

84. Who gives best price & service?
g
underwear.co.uk?

85. Thin Affiliates…
• Earn ad revenue - send visitors to other sites
• Have little content, other than ads
• Often employ
– auto generated content
– scraped content
– poorly written content
• Use doorway pages
• Are built with low cost turn key solutions
• Get a high bounce rate
g
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66361

86. Real brands
g
Have real addresses, geographic phone numbers

87. Real brands
Have real about us pages,gthat link to relevant social networks

88. Real brands
g
Have employees on LinkedIn (& www.freebase.com)

89. Real brands
g
Are paid up members of trade associations and pay for link(s) on Yell

90. Real brands
g
Get branded search volume because of offline marketing & communications

91. REAL BRANDS GET THEIR SOCIAL ON
But that’s a whole other kettle of slides

92. RESULTS
Are you local, mobile, reviewable?

93. Local listing
g
Verify that you’re the business owner on Google & Bing to get in the maps

94. Local listing
• Verify your listing ASAP!
• Add nice photos / videos
• Request reviews from customers
• Submit to local directories
• Create a business profile on
– Bview
– Qype
– Yelp
– Foursquare
http://www.google.com/places/
g
http://www.bingforbusiness.com/

95. Shopping listing
Are you goingg click the No 1 result?
to

96. Shopping listing
• Verify Google product feed
• Compare price
• Optimise product names / descriptions
• Utilise all feeds available
– Images
– Average review
– Review count
– EAN / Barcode
g
http://www.google.co.uk/merchants/

97. Also consider
g
Mobile, video, news, rich snippets

98. The game changer is coming…
g
Google Circles in Gmail?

99. Get your business on Google+
This is a HUGE change. Google g
doesn’t mess with it’s results pages lightly

100. Get your business on Google+
This is a HUGE change. Google g
doesn’t mess with it’s results pages lightly

101. TAKE AWAYS

102. Understand that SEO = N
Great content is what gets you great rankings
g
http://www.stochasticgeometry.ie/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/snakeoil.jpg?w=257

104. g Cupid
OK

105. Great content gets you old school SEO and brand awareness
g

106. Take Aways
• Do search term research (Google Insights)
• Insert relevant search terms on each page
– Or give to your web designer in a spread sheet
• Use 301 redirects if you change domain
• Use 301 redirects if you change URLs
• Sign up to Google Webmaster Tools
– Submit an XML sitemap
g

107. Take Aways
• Get good graphs from Google Analytics
• Improve pages that cause exits
• Add a contact box to every page of your site
• Create great content - attract links & mentions
• Seed new content socially
• http://www.NoisyLittleMonkey.com/Feedback
Give feedback and view a copy of these slides + a printable tip sheet
g

108. THANKS!
?
@NoisyMonkey
@MrJonPayne
NSFW
jon@noisylittlemonkey.com