Our SEO Strategist, Daniel D'Auria, shared some valuable insights during one of Digital Exeter's meet-ups. You can read through his deck here - please feel free to get in touch with any questions / comments.
2. Digital Exeter
Building a strong Digital Community in Exeter | www.digitalexeter.uk
“A digital community? Well, there are many professionals in Exeter that have a job
focused on digital. Whether they’re marketers, web developers or tech enthusiasts, we
wanted to bring everyone together, in one welcoming environment, sharing knowledge
through our bi-monthly Digital Exeter event.”
3. • SEO Strategist at Organic for
3.5 years
• 9 years in SEO and digital marketing: in-
house, self-employed & agency side
• Worked across a wealth of B2B & B2C clients
• Client experience includes…
Who is this guy?
7. Content marketing
If 2014/15 was the year of content
marketing, that makes 2016 the year of
‘user centric’ content marketing.
In 2013, the change to the way Google handled
unnatural links in its algorithm drove a mass
wave of long tail keyword focused website
content production, to try and improve
SEO visibility.
This year is more about creating the right
content for the right person, at the right time.
= Content relevance is now king
8. Much published content achieves little
interaction, therefore has minimal
relevance or business value.
Content should be produced based on topic
interactions and mapped to business goals -
balancing supply with demand.
This approach will mean that you focus on
content that is valuable - both to users and
to your business. Google will reward
your efforts.
Focus on quality, then scale the quantity.
Content ANALYSIS
9. Keyword research is dead (as we know it)… Long live ‘Intent research’!
Map intent AND content types to improve user engagement
I need some
running shoes
= hub page
I like Nike
running shoes
= category
page
Can i return my
running shoes?
= FAQ page
What are best
trainers for
road running?
= blog post
user centric content
10. We need to think of the user first, what they want, how they want to consume the
information and then create content that is unique and innovative for them, mapped to
their customer journey.
Content types
13. Video IN SEO
With the increase in video content, there are a
number of things that need to be done to each
video in order to stand out from the crowd:
• Understand your audience and the video’s
objective- engagement vs. conversion
• Become an educator - solve
people’s problems
• Embed videos onto your website and other
relevant sites
• Ensuring relevant social markup is applied
(Twitter Cards and Facebook OG) to
maximise exposure is a crucial element
Video is a great way to get businesses engaging with
users and as a way to outreach to influencers.
14. YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine!
It’s a huge potential traffic source. Making sure
your videos are optimised is a critical step:
• Optimise video content with relevant keyword
labelling and descriptions, plus make sure
your YouTube channel is optimised
• Consider engagement by medium, i.e.
YouTube (full length) vs Vines (7 secs) vs
Facebook / Twitter (20 secs)
• Be iterative with video production based on
results - learn about your demographic and
their engagement levels
VIDEO IN SEO
16. Google is evil!
Google has been increasing the
information on its SERPs for years.
It wants to keep people on the SERPs to
maximise it’s ad revenue.
You must work with these new features to try
and dominate the SERPs, plus build brand
awareness and trust for users which increases
real estate:
• Tesco.com domain
• Wiki - Knowledge Graph
• News feed
• Twitter snippets
• Google Local
= integrated multi channel approach to SEO
17. Google ’Snippets’ Answer Box is a great
way to increase your real estate on the first
page - and traffic.
Google has been pulling answers directly from
information pages for some time, but we are
continuing to see more and more examples of
these boxes, so creating the right content in the
right structure is now more important than ever.
Ensure relevance and Q&A format, apply
correct mark up.
The example to the right shows content from
woorank.com which is ranking number 9 for the
featured search.
it’s all about structure
19. Mobile optimisation
Mobile is set to overtake desktop
usage in 2016. Mobile-centric UX and
engagement strategies will be crucial.
The power of social
Up to 90% of all mobile device time is
spent on mobile apps. Google now
includes apps in its index.
Mobile apps
Relationship building
Has to be the offsite focus. Do not pay for
or even think about links - it is not a future
proof strategy. Earn links through first
‘building relationships’ (also known as PR).
More content from Facebook and
Twitter will appear in SERPs in 2016.
Consider your multi-channel
content strategy.
Voice search
Think Local
This is rapidly increasing. Optimise
your copy for conversational and
colloquial language - not just
for keywords.
Localised results and Google Local are
becoming increasingly prominent - your
content strategy should reflect this shift.
also consider in 2016