SEO training workshop 2013 update

Consultant/Director – ThinkSearch
Account Director – Bloom Social Business
Search Specialist – Fortune Cookie
Operations & Account Director – No Pork Pies
Director of Strategy – Cubeworks
Director of Strategy & Communications – Fresh Egg
Social Media Analyst – iCrossing
Knowledge Manager – iCrossing
Account Director – Spannerworks
Web Designer - Spannerworks
Bar Manager – Browns Restaurant
Training:
Econsultancy, Turner Media, Virgin Atlantic, Admiral, BAA, Lands
End, Mars Drinks, Escape Studios
Clients:
HBOS, GCAP, P&O, Sanctuary Spa, iwantoneofthose.com, Just
Eat, Liberty of London
Knowledge Management:
Social Intranet, workshop programs, lunch ‘n’ learn, PDP, Strategic
planning Group
Other:
Climbed & summitted Kilimanjaro, have a 7 yr old son and 1 yr old
daughter
Interests:
Social Media, Home Cinema, Gilles Peterson, Gardening Find me online:
Website: www.thinksearch.co.uk
My blog: www.aldissandmore.com
My hobby site: www.loftsites.co.uk
On Twitter: www.twitter.com/timaldiss
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/timaldiss
Facebook: www.facebook.com/timaldiss

Agenda
•  Introduction to SEO and PPC
•  Keyword and Market Research
•  Keyword Strategy
•  Content Matrix
•  Content creation
•  Content Optimisation
•  Creating Meta Data
•  Link Building
•  SEO performance Monitoring

Deﬁnitions
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving
the volume and quality of trafﬁc to a web site from
search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic")
search results.

Pay per click (PPC) is an advertising where advertisers only
pay when a user actually clicks on an advertisement to
visit the advertisers' website.

Wikipedia

How Google shows it’s results
9
How Google lists your web pages for SEO:
How Google lists your web pages for Paid:
3
url
urlurl
url
urlurl
url
1 2
Search spiders follow links Software compiles pages Pages stored in database
31 2
User searches Algorithm manages auction Results rendered live

10
3
url
urlurl
url
urlurl
url
1 2
31 2
User searches Algorithm manages auction Results rendered live
User query
Documents
retrieved
Order by
reputation
Display
results

11
3
url
urlurl
url
urlurl
url
1 2
31 2
User searches Algorithm manages auction Results rendered liveAd Rank = Maximum Cost Per Click bid x Quality Score
User query
Documents
retrieved
Order by
reputation
Display
results

Beneﬁts of SEO
• Unlimited Trafﬁc
• Targeted visitors
• High converting referrals
• Brand awareness
• Web site exposure
• Fixed limited costs

Beneﬁts of PPC
• Immediate Results
• Highly targeted visitors
• High converting clients
• Brand awareness
• Web site exposure
• Virtually unlimited costs

2012: 20 updates and counting!
Panda 3.8 — June 25, 2012
Panda 3.7 — June 8, 2012
May 39-Pack — June 7, 2012
Penguin 1.1 — May 25, 2012
Knowledge Graph — May 16, 2012
April 52-Pack — May 4, 2012
Panda 3.6 — April 27, 2012
Penguin — April 24, 2012
Panda 3.5 — April 19, 2012
Parked Domain Bug — April 16, 2012
March 50-Pack — April 3, 2012
Panda 3.4 — March 23, 2012
Search Quality Video — March 12, 2012
Panda 3.3 — February 27, 2012
February 40-Pack (2) — February 27, 2012
Venice — February 27, 2012
February 17-Pack — February 3, 2012
Ads Above The Fold — January 19, 2012
Panda 3.2 — January 18, 2012
Search + Your World — January 10, 2012

2012: 20 updates and counting!
Panda 3.8 — June 25, 2012
Panda 3.7 — June 8, 2012
May 39-Pack — June 7, 2012
Penguin 1.1 — May 25, 2012
Knowledge Graph — May 16, 2012
April 52-Pack — May 4, 2012
Panda 3.6 — April 27, 2012
Penguin — April 24, 2012
Panda 3.5 — April 19, 2012
Parked Domain Bug — April 16, 2012
March 50-Pack — April 3, 2012
Panda 3.4 — March 23, 2012
Search Quality Video — March 12, 2012
Panda 3.3 — February 27, 2012
February 40-Pack (2) — February 27, 2012
Venice — February 27, 2012
February 17-Pack — February 3, 2012
Ads Above The Fold — January 19, 2012
Panda 3.2 — January 18, 2012
Search + Your World — January 10, 2012
Panda = content
Penguin = links

Behind the scenes at Google (these days)
link

Optimized Titles
Optimized Descriptions
Optimized Linking
Optimized Content
580,000,000
results for
“business knowledge”
•  Web pages must be accessible to the search engine crawlers (spiders)
•  Web pages should include unique optimized titles and meta-data
•  Content should be optimized to support target keywords and keyword phrases
•  Offsite optimization must be used to promote site
How do we increase your visibility?

What is natural search made up of
Page Titles
Headings/sub headings
Meta Description
Meta Keywords
Body Content inc. bold text
Hyperlinks
Image ‘alt text’
Editorial/advertorial content
Social Media
3rd Party links
On-site factors
Off-site factors

What is natural search made up of
Page Titles
Headings/sub headings
Meta Description
Meta Keywords
Body Content inc. bold text
Hyperlinks
Image ‘alt text’
Editorial/advertorial content
Social Media
3rd Party links
Informa.com - Investor Relations

bringing knowledge to life

Businesses, professionals and academics
worldwide turn to Informa for unparalleled
knowledge, up-to-the minute information
and highly specialist skills and services

none
On-site factors
Off-site factors

Exercise – on page factors
Bold text Image alt tags Meta description
Hyperlinks Body copy Page title
Headings/sub headings Meta keywords

Exercise – on page factors
source code
(only seen by
search engines)
on page
(seen by users and
search engines)
<'tle>

Page
Title

<meta
keywords>

Meta
Keywords

<meta
descrip'on>

Meta
Descrip'on

<h1>

Heading

<body>

Body
copy

<h2>

Sub
heading

<b>

Bold
text

<a
href=“link”>

Hyperlink

<img
alt=“describe”>

Image
alt
text

1st

9th

6th

2nd

3rd

4th

8th

5th

7th

Page Titles
What is it?
The Page Title, is the title of the web page that
appears at the top of a browser window. The
Page Title also appears prominently in search
results.
Why it’s important:
Search engines weight the <title> tag heavily.
To be effective, page titles must be unique to
each page and must contain the most
appropriate keywords in relation to the theme
of the web page.
Best Practice:
  Limit the page title to 70 characters.
  Include brand ﬁrst and test in association
with targeted key phrases ﬁrst
  Copy should be written with users in mind
(title copy appears in search results)
  This is the main Call-To-Action in a SERP
page
  Title should display a compelling
marketing message

Headings/Sub headings
What is it?
The heading is the focus for the page for the eye
as well as the search engine. The heading should
include obvious descriptive words for the content
of the page.
If you can’t describe in brief all of the content of
the page in the heading consider rewriting,
possibly adding an additional page.
Keyword choice, frequency, placement and
spacing are all attributes that search algorithms
may include in their ranking calculations. Even
minor content modiﬁcations can have a major
impact on keyword rankings.
H1 H2
Best Practice:
•  Every page should have one H1 tag
•  Other headings should use H2 or H3 tags
•  Don’t wrap heading tags around links
•  Write copy geared towards users and
readability
•  Using relevant keywords and phrases within
the page will improve relevancy
•  Do not repeat tags as this will dilute value of
your main keywords
H3’s

Body Content
What is it?
Body content includes the copy, images and other assets
that appear within the HTML <body> tags of a web
page. This includes all content visible to a user in the
browser window.
Keyword choice, frequency, placement, and spacing are all
factors that impact on positional rankings. Even minor
content modifications can have an impact. Good copy is
as important to the effectiveness and credibility of your
website as it is to search engines.
Best Practice:
•  Write copy geared towards users and readability
•  Using relevant keywords and phrases within the page
will improve relevancy
•  Focus on no more than 3-4 keywords per page
•  Break long paragraphs into shorter, more concise
informational blurbs
•  Avoid repeating keywords unnecessarily
(keyword stuffing)
•  Aim for 3-6% keyword density e.g. a page of 100 words
would have 3 to 6 mentions of a single word or key
phrase
•  Headings and links are included within this word count,
but linking words or phrases optimises the destination
page not the page where the link sits
•  Use derivatives and definitions of terms e.g. carbon
offset/green, car/motor
•  200 words is optimal

Hyperlinks
What is it?
Hyperlinks describe the content of the page that
the link points to. Including the correct text in the
hyperlink can beneﬁt the visibility of the page that
you are linking to.
Search engines weight hyperlnks. To be effective
the link should not be a non-speciﬁc ‘click to read
more’ but rather a phrase indicative of what the
user should expect on the linked to page.
Best Practice:
•  Not too many links between one page and
others
•  Write copy geared towards users and
readability
•  Use text descriptive of the page linked to
•  Use contextual links to relevant internal
content
•  Using relevant keywords and phrases within
the page will improve relevancy of the linked
to page
•  Focus on one keyword
•  Keep the link concise
•  Example: “get an instant home insurance
quote”

Meta Descriptions What is it?
The Meta Description is an HTML tag used
to describe a page to users and search
engines.
The Meta Description tag is evaluated by
search engines to determine relevancy.
Additionally, the Meta Description is
commonly included in search engine
results.
Best Practice:
  Limit descriptions to 156 characters
  Include all targeted key phrases
  Copy should be written with users in
mind (description copy appears in
search results)
  Create a unique meta description for
every page
  Should describe overall theme of the
page and entice users to click-through
<meta name="description" content="Businesses,
professionals and academics worldwide turn to Informa for
unparalleled knowledge, up-to-the minute information and
highly specialist skills and services" />

Image alt. text What is it?
The ‘alternative text’ option that is used
by screen reader software for the short
sighted is also read by search engines.
Image alt.text plays a big part in image
search results.
Adhere to the Disabilities and
Discriminations Act (DDA) and is W3C
recommended.
Best Practice:
•  Describe the banner by using
keywords related to the page that the
banner is placed on
•  Use descriptive image names if
possible
•  Use captions around the image to aid
relevancy

What is Paid Search Advertising?
•  Paid Search or “Pay Per Click (PPC)” Advertising model in
which advertisers pay search engines to display text, image
and video ads on their website. Ads are served based on
keywords or phrases.
•  There are many search engines and companies that
provide this form of advertising model:

Budget
What is it?
Having enough budget is a crucial factor for
running an effective campaign. Planning is critical
to achieving targets. Knowing how much you have
to spend will help you determine CPC, CPA & ROI
and forecast effectively.
Why is it important?
It can be easy to waste money by not considering
keywords, copy & landing pages in addition to
budget planning. A campaign can be ineffective
without enough budget e.g. Not enough visibility
and therefore less traffic.
Ultimately a tipping point will be reached when
spending more will have no further benefit, this is
managed by implementing a test and learn
strategy based on spend
Caps are put in place to control spend and ensure
optimum visibility these can be daily/weekly etc
Budgets need to be split between Search Engines
in order to gain maximum reach or users
Best Practices
•  Budgets can be reapportioned seasonally e.g.
tax year end and tactically e.g. to integrate
with other media
•  Review budgets on a regular basis (not
annually), best practice is setting a month
budget as this can be adjusted to reflect the
current market

Keywords
What is it?
PPC is an auction-based environment is open
for all. Auctions are based on keywords or sets
of keywords – called campaigns or Ad Groups.
While it’s important to cover both branded and
generic keywords there are cost and complexity
implications. Generic terms will cost more but
will also drive more trafﬁc; Branded keywords
will convert better. It’s better to have a separate
advert for each keyword group
Best Practices
•  Monitor brand keyword bidding by
competitors to ensure relevancy and
coverage
•  Group keywords together to form ad groups
•  Use negative keywords to ﬁlter unwanted
impressions e.g. ‘private Ryan’
•  Test competitive keywords on broad, phrase
& exact match
•  Continually revise keywords

Halifax Savings Accounts
Pick Your Perfect Savings Account
With The UK’s No 1 For Savings
Halifax.co.uk/Savings
Copy
What is it?
Copy is the call to action, short and concise and
designed to induce the user to click through. The
copy is most likely to work well when it, promote
offers, deal & rates, and be written as clearly as
possible.
Poorly written copy will deter possible
customers, reduce click through rates and
therefore conversions. The message must be
relevant to the page and product linked to.
Best Practices
•  Use the brand in the heading Be cconcise
•  Make the message action orientated
•  Describe the product or service
•  Test different creative
•  Optimise creative
Additional Practices
•  Dynamic keyword insertion - Keyword
appears in ad title and makes ad appear more
relevant
•  Test various different call to actions

Title
•  25 characters including spaces
•  The actual search query can be used as the header
(called dynamic keyword insertion) to increase
relevancy and click-through rate for the ad
Copy
What is it?
possible.
Best Practices
relevant

Description line 1 & 2
•  Character limits apply but vary from engine to engine.
(Google = 2 lines, both 35 characters. Yahoo & Bing= 1
line, 70 characters)
•  Start the sentence with a verb to call out the call-to-
action
Copy
What is it?
possible.
Best Practices
relevant

Display URL
•  Use an URL that tells users who you are
•  Has to be the actual domain for the landing
page
Copy
What is it?
possible.
Best Practices
relevant

Landing Page
What is it?
The landing page is the entry point for
new customers; it has to respond to the
user query; has to be easy to use and well
laid out; must not impede the user
journey or disrupt the user experience.
Search engine algorithms evaluate the
landing page to calculate Quality Score,
which can impact on cost and ranking
position.
Best Practices
•  Target adverts to speciﬁc keyword/
product
•  Send to a relevant landing page and
keywords are relevant to the search
query

How natural and paid search
work together

Consumer behaviour
Eye Scan Study:
Marketing Sherpa and Eve-tools
performed a study to understand
how searchers interact with
search results
According to the study, the
majority of attention is given to the
first 5 listings on the top left
Lower positioned paid results on
page one can also receive
significant traffic on high
impression keywords
Source:
MarketingSherpa and Eyetools Link Study, August 2005
Enquiro Search Engine Results : 2010 white paper August 2007

Eye Scan Study:
Marketing Sherpa and Eve-
tools performed a study to
understand how searchers
interact with search results
According to the study, the
majority of attention is given
to the first 5 listings on the
top left
Lower positioned paid results
on page one can also receive
significant traffic on high
impression keywords
Source:
MarketingSherpa and Eyetools Link Study, August 2005
Enquiro Search Engine Results : 2010 white paper August 2007
Consumer behaviour

How paid and natural search work well together
Google has commissioned a number of studies in partnership with Enquiro (a market research company) that shows
brand recall and purchase consideration is greater when appearing in the top paid and natural search results for
generic queries. It is not surprising that recall is higher, when the brand displayed twice upon the page.
In the right hand graph, Google study shows that for a branded query purchase consideration increases by 7% if you
appear in both paid and natural.
Non brand searches Brand searches

Paid & Natural integration
paid
search

natural
search

number of words in search query

How to save money by integrating paid and
natural search tactics
1.  Analytics - Use the click stream data from Assisted Conversions to make sure all terms are on exact
match and thus lower CPC. Use Site Intelligence data to reﬁne mis-spells and lower CPC
2.  Search Terms - Test a broad range of search terms in Paid Search and incorporate the good converters
into Natural Search
3.  Creative message – Test different creative in Paid Search and deploy the most successful and relevant as
the meta description of the appropriate page for natural search
4.  Quality Score – improve bid prices and positional visibility by optimising your landing pages to make them
more relevant and conversion indusive
5.  Budget - Priorities Natural Search strategies for certain search terms, to offset costs in competitive Paid
Search markets. Alternatively, we can reinforce brand messages across both channels, or improve visibility
in ‘hard to reach’ natural markets with tactical paid search activity

SEO Processes
•  SEO Audit
•  Technical consultancy
•  Search Term Research
•  Forecast
•  Page Allocation
•  Meta Data Inventory
•  Content Strategy
•  Site-wide Optimisation
•  Initial submissions
•  Link building
•  Reporting

SEO Auditing
•  SEO Audit
•  Forecast
•  Reporting

SEO Audit > Process
Public access:
•  Xenu Link Sleuth – broken links
•  Screaming Frog – titles and meta’s
•  SEO for Firefox SEO Book browser plug in
•  Google Chrome – SEO Site Tools & SEO for Chrome
Paid for public access:
•  SEO Moz Open Site Explorer – back link proﬁle
•  Majestic SEO – back link proﬁle
•  Distilled, Raven Tools, Linkdex, Etc, etc
Access-based:
•  Google Webmaster Tools – keywords, positions & links

•  Pages indexed by your Sitemap
–  Pages indexed in Yahoo
–  Pages indexed in Bing
–  Pages crawled in Google
•  Page load time (ms)
•  Robots.txt
•  Custom 404 page
•  Information architecture
–  URL Structure
–  HTML sitemap
–  XML sitemap
–  Video Sitemap
•  Duplicate content
–  Canonical Linking
–  Deleting old pages
–  301 redirect
•  302 Redirects
•  IP location – DNS server
–  GEO location
–  Shared server
•  Page layout
•  Main Navigation
•  Footer links
•  Main Menu layout
•  Redundant links
•  Outbound links
•  Image Optimisation
•  Alt Tags
•  Text in Images
•  General house keeping
•  Frames
•  Content inside unreadable web applications
•  Multiple Domains
•  Sub Domains
•  International Domains
•  SEO Domains
•  Old Domains
•  Duplicate Content?
•  Cross linking?
•  Check source code for:
•  W3C compliance
•  heavy amounts of code
•  Multiple H1 tags or lack of H1’s
•  Install Webmaster tools for; Google, Yahoo, Alexa and Bing.
SEO Audit > Technical Optimisation

Redirects
Factor:
Redirection facilitates movement of a visitor from
one page or website to another. Redirects are
often used in conjunction with domain name
changes, moving or removing content,
introducing new content, or directing users based
on proﬁling. Redirects can happen at the web
server (301, 302 Redirects) or at the page-level
(Meta-Refresh)
Implications:
The nature of a redirect communicates important
information to a search engine. 302 redirects also
indicate to the search engines that the content is
temporary and will be changed in the near future.
Popularity attained by the previous site or page
may not be passed on to the new site.
Best practice/Action required:
Server-side redirects are recommended in nearly
all cases. 301 Permanent Redirects should be
used when the change is long-term or
permanent, which allows pagerank and link
popularity to transfer.
Alternative practices:
NA

Javascript Navigation Factor:
Navigational elements are executed using
Javascript technology.
Implications:
Search engine spiders are unable to follow
Javascript navigation and are therefore
unable to ﬁnd pages accessible only
through Javascript. Additionally, human
visitors without Javascript-enabled
browsers will not be able to navigate the
site
Best Practices/Action Required:
Use CSS or HTML based navigation.
Supplement Javascript navigation with on-
page HTML-based navigation located in the
page footer.
Include a HTML link to a sitemap with static
links to key pages within the website.
Naviga&on
is
removed

with
Javascript
disabled.

Websites in Flash Factor:
Valuable website content is implemented using Flash
technology. For reference, see plugintomarriott.com
Implications:
Search engine spiders cannot read content or follow
links implemented in Flash.
- Implement a static HTML, low-bandwidth version of
the website that mirrors the content within your
Flash files
- Implement user-agent detection to deliver the
HTML site to spiders and the Flash version to human
visitors.
Alternative Practices:
Break up the Flash movies into smaller components
and lay the SWF files into optimized, linked HTML
pages with unique URL’s
Disclaimer:
Google is able to index flash sites. HTML content is still
a preferred method of crawlable content for any bot.
Please see iCrossing’s POV on Flash crawlability
(http://greatfinds.icrossing.com/?p=374).

Content Produced in AJAX
Factor:
AJAX, or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML,
is a web development technique used to
load content from a server without changing
pages. AJAX relies heavily on JavaScript to
display and swap content.
Implications:
Search engine spiders generally cannot read
AJAX content.
Use AJAX selectively, primarily for
supplemental content associated with low
search volumes.
Create a static, spider friendly version of your
site that includes content from within your
Javascript

Robots.txt Files
Factor:
A robots.txt file is a human configured file that
resides in the web server’s root directory and
contains directional information for search engine
spiders.
Implications:
Many search engines, including Google, will refer to
the robots.txt file to understand which directories
or files to exclude from crawling.
All web servers should include a robots.txt file
configured to exclude non-relevant folders and
files, such as support files, CSS files, sensitive
information.
Validate each robots.txt file using analysis tool
available in Google Sitemaps, or contact iCrossing
for assistance.
NA
Insert client or
domain specific
example

Cloaking
Factor:
Presenting one version of web content to
human users and a different version to
search engines is known as cloaking. This
process commonly occurs through IP
detection or user-agent detection.
Implications:
Search engines are continually improving
their ability to identify cloaking and often
harshly penalize offenders, including
banning the domain from their index.
Cloaking is a practice that should never be
used.
NA

URL Structure (session IDs)
Factor:
A web server assigns a unique session ID
variable within the URL for each visit for
tracking purposes.
Implications:
Search engine spiders revisiting a URL will be
assigned a different session ID each visit, which
will result in each visit to a page appearing as a
unique URL and causing indexing
inconsistencies, and possibly duplicate content
penalties.
Implement user-agent detection to remove
the session ID’s for search engine visits.
NA
Insert client or
domain speciﬁc
example

URL Structure (folder structure)
Factor:
Valuable content associated with highly
competitive keywords is organized many
folders deep within a web site.
Implications:
Search engines generally associate the
importance (read: relevancy) of content based
on its placement within a site hierarchy, so that
less importance/relevancy is associated with
content deep within a folder structure.
Web sites should be as ﬂat as possible, with
content relating to highly competitive keywords
implemented on pages high on the hierarchy.
Implement a URL rewrite on the server to
ﬂatten the folder structure to visitors and
search engines.

URL Structure(name value pairs)
Factor:
Name-value pairs are used within URL’s to
provide information necessary to produce
dynamic content. Name-value pairs generally
follow the “?” symbol in the URL.
Implications:
The primary challenge with name-value pairs
is that they create lengthy URL’s and therefore
risk scrutiny by search engines. Additionally,
name-value pairs often do not contain
valuable keywords, thereby reducing
relevancy.
Rewrite dynamic URLs on the server with
mod_rewrite or similar program. This will
shorten and simplify the URL and allow
valuable keywords to be used in the URL.
Use valuable keywords in the name-value
pairs whenever possible and keep the
quantity of pairs to no more than three.
http://www2.victoriassecret.com/commerce/
application/prodDisplay/?
namespace=productDisplay&origin=onlineProductDispla
y.jsp&event=display&prnbr=8U-220418&page=1&cgnam
e=OSSHUDSSZZZ&rfnbr=4782

Canonicalization Issues
Factor:
Canonicalization is the process of picking the best URL
when there are several choices, usually referring to the
homepage of a website.
Implications:
Search Engines may not pick the client-preferred URL,
rather the one they determine to be most relevant.
There are a few ways to ensure that the proper URL is
indexed:
  Consistent linking:
•  When linking to
www.bankofamerica.com on other pages
within the site, always use this method
•  When requesting links from other sites,
always point to www.domain.com if using
this method from the example above
  Use 301 Permanent redirects on the web server
•  Redirect the non-www homepage to the
www version of the homepage
NA
Insert client or
domain specific
example
Viewed as the same by most search engines:
http://www.bankofamerica.com
http://www.bankofamerica.com/index.cfm

Duplicate Content
Factor:
Duplicate content exists when two or more
pages within a website, or on different
domains, share identical content. Different
domain names do not create distinct content.
Implications:
Major search engines consider duplicate
content to be spam and are continually
improving their spam ﬁltering process to
penalize and remove offenders.
Avoid duplicate content issues by using
unique copy and other content on each page
of a website, to include streamlining the
content management system to associate the
correct content with the intended domain.
NA
Insert client or
domain specific
example

Internal Link Optimization
Factor:
Internal linking between pages within a web site, such
as navigational elements or a site map, plays an
important role in how search engines perceive the
relevancy and theme of both web pages.
Implications:
Proper intra-site linking will help facilitate effective
spidering, in addition to increasing relevancy of pages
and keywords used in the anchor text.
  Use static, crawlable text links
  Optimized anchor text should be used
  Keep the number of links on a sitemap to less than
100
  Sitemaps should be linked directly from homepage
and other major pages throughout the web site
  Use only core, 200-level URLs.
Refrain from using images, Flash, or non-static text
when possible for linking

Splash Pages
Factor:
A splash page can consist of either a large
graphic image or a Flash animation and
serves as the primary user entry point to a
website by using the root domain name as its
URL.
Implications:
Generally, splash pages replace the true home
page in a search engine index and are
detrimental to SEO practices. Splash page can
also prevent spiders from accessing the inner
pages of the site, resulting in inner pages not
getting indexed and ranked. Additionally, the
temporary nature of splash pages creates a
challenge for linking and relevancy purposes.
Best Practices/Action required:
Do not use splash pages.
For promotional or attention-getting content,
use a popup window on the home page or
unique pages prominently linked from the
home page.
Home Page: www.saturn.com/saturn/
Saturnindex.jsp

Document Accessibility Factor:
Pages or content that is moved, removed, or
changed can result in errors, such as a 404
Page Not Found.
Implications:
Missing content and broken links signal to
search engines that the website is not
properly maintained. The effect is reduced
rankings and also user frustration when bad
links are followed
- Repair all broken links as soon as possible
- Use 301 Permanent redirects to direct
users and search engine spiders to the new
location, as applicable
- Implement custom 404 page on the
website with helpful navigation for users.
- Keep 301 redirects in place for 60-90 days
before removing from the site
n/a

Excessive On-page Scripting Factor:
Search engine spiders index a limited
amount of web page code, approximately
100K, when crawling or spidering a web
page.
Implications:
Excessive use of on-page scripting or CSS,
especially at the top of a web page, limits the
amount of content search engines will see.
Place any Javascript code and CSS that is
longer than three lines into an external .js
or .css file. Use an external file increases
flexibility of code and easy way to update for
maintenance.
Move on-page scripting to the bottom of the
page.

SEO Moz Introduction to SEO
link

•  SEO Audit
•  Forecast
•  Reporting
Search Term Research

Search Term Research > 5 Essential Questions
•  What are your root keywords?
•  What are people actually searching for?
•  What is the size of your search market?
•  How competitive is each keyword?
•  What is the potential ROI for each keyword?

Search Term Research > Process
1.  Open the Search Term Research Template file and save a client version
2.  Conduct a Google keyword tool site scrape
3.  Review site for current tags and copy for initial search term list
4.  Add in Google Webmaster Tools data
5.  Conduct competitor research based on list from client
6.  Conduct desk research on core products to expand list
7.  Add in best performing search terms from analytics (traffic & conversions)
8.  Discard terms that are ranking well but not converting
9.  Add in any suggested search terms from the client
10.  Add in best performing search terms from PPC data
11.  Conduct a synonym search using thesaurus.com
12.  Add in related search term results from a Google search
13.  Use Google Insights to add in high breakout and rising terms (UK, last 2 years... see link). Export CSV and paste line charts in to main report for each
search term
14.  Run list through the Google keyword tool using UK exact match to expand the list, retrieve CSV, keep search volume and competition data
15.  Use Google Traffic Estimator if you need to to generate figures for the whole list as you can paste in more than 100 terms and it still gives you
seasonality data.
16.  Run a ranking report in Trackpal to check current visibility
17.  Compile all data into spreadsheet and look for terms that meet the following criteria:
1.  Have high traffic volume but aren't overly competitive
2.  Have visibility but could rank higher
3.  Are delivering traffic or conversions but could rank higher
4.  Are not already ranking highly and are delivering no conversions

Forecasting
•  SEO Audit
•  Forecast
•  Reporting

What is Forecasting?
•  Predicting the anticipated additional revenue from
Search Engine Optimisation
How?
•  By applying logic and experience to the current competitive landscape to
determine where positional improvements will take us onto page one
•  Apply accepted industry click through rates
•  Apply typical on-site conversion rates
•  Apply typical conversion value or proﬁt

Forecasting – Click Through Rates

•  SEO Audit
•  Forecast
•  Reporting
Page Allocation

What is Page Allocation?
•  It’s a form of Gap Analysis
•  It targets search terms to their logical destination
/desired ranking page
•  It identiﬁes requirements for additional pages
•  It pairs down search terms
•  It benchmarks which pages are currently ranking
and identiﬁes those that should rank

•  SEO Audit
•  Forecast
•  Reporting
Meta Data Inventory

What is Meta Data Inventory?
•  A list of optimised page titles and meta
descriptions by page for easy implementation via
the website Content Management System

•  SEO Audit
•  Forecast
•  Reporting
Content Strategy

What is Content Strategy?
•  A written plan for winning at SEO by deploying
great content
Includes:
•  Rationale
•  Competitor review
•  Formats
•  Distribution
•  Scheduling

Exercise - build your own page
Set up your own page
based on these keywords:
-  ‘holidays’
-  ‘villa holidays’
-  ‘villa holidays in Tuscany’

Your page in it’s hierarchical context
Home

Category
Category

Sub

category

Sub

category

Sub-‐sub
Sub-‐sub

Product

Holidays

Category

Holidays
in

Europe

Sub
category

Holidays
in

Spain

Sub-‐sub

Holidays
in

Majorca

Villa
Holidays

in
Santa

Pollensa

Page Rank
Page Rank
Theme
Theme

What is a Content Brief?
•  A clear instructional document for copy writers.
•  Contains:
–  General SEO content writing guidelines
–  Instructions for writing new pages for the site
–  Instructions for writing extra content for existing pages
–  Detailed ideas of content and page sturcture

•  SEO Audit
•  Forecast
•  Reporting
Site-wide Optimisation

What is a Technical Brief?
•  A clear instructional document for the technical team.
•  Contains:
–  Detailed instructions for ﬁxing or adding elements to the website
required for search engines to easily crawl the site.

•  SEO Audit
•  Forecast
•  Reporting
Initial submissions

Are directories worthwhile?
•  Review current back link proﬁle
•  Review competitor back link proﬁle
•  Study latest guides (published by resources like SEOMoz)
•  Look for verticals
•  Assess cost vs impact against other tactics

•  SEO Audit
•  Forecast
•  Reporting
Link Building

What is Link building
•  Web site and web page popularity
•  Quality relevant websites
•  Relevant anchor text

Domain Level Link Authority Features — Correlated Data

Safe link building techniques
•  Partner links and client links
•  Reputable Directories – DMOZ, Yahoo, AOL, Etc.
•  Social Bookmarking and Social network tags
•  Local directories, Classiﬁed ads, Craigslist, Gumtree, Etc.
•  Afﬁliate programs
•  Yahoo answers/Quora/other Q&A sites
•  Wikipedia
•  LinkedIn
•  Leave reviews on review sites
•  Create an authority blog

Techniques to avoid
•  Building links too fast
•  Linking to banned or untrustworthy websites
•  Link exchanges
•  Using the wrong anchor text in links
•  Article Spinning
•  Using “Independent back link networks”
•  Site scraping and content repackaging
•  Phishing
•  Forum Spam
•  Blog Spam

Social Media
•  Focus on creating content that gets shared
•  Don’t waste your time building social media proﬁles if it’s not a great ﬁt
•  If you do do it keep it fun, but don’t do marketing here
•  Making it as easy to share content as possible is key
•  Audit your content and see what gets shared most and when

•  SEO Audit
•  Forecast
•  Reporting
Reporting

5 Things Website Owners would love to know
•  Is it working?
•  Is SEO really making a difference?
•  How many sales are we getting?
•  How much trafﬁc are we getting?
•  Where are we ranked per keyword?

That’s all folks…
…over to you!

Make it Happen
SEO Reporting doesn’t happen by accident.
1.  Choose your keywords
2.  Set your targets
3.  Keep going until you succeed.
4.  Then make your listings BETTER.

What have we learned?
1. Nail those on-page factors at
template level to force best
practice...What were they?
2. Google’s algo is heavily link based
so spend a proportionate amount
of time here... What %?
3. Focus on a mix of keywords (+ve
& -ve), creative, and
budget to make PPC work and
provide data for SEO strategy
4. Research keywords with a pinch
of salt but ﬁne tune based on
analytics
5. Optimise content but write for the user
ﬁrst – don’t over optimise
6. Meta descriptions are important but
aren’t a ranking factor
7. Resolving technical issues is a big part
of the battle
8. Benchmark your keyword rankings and
focus on improving them
9. Monitor analytics to make sure your
assumptions are correct

Tim Aldiss
Consultant/Director
ThinkSearch
tim.aldiss@thinksearch.co.uk
www.thinksearch.co.uk
Thank you

SEO training workshop 2013 update

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