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Slide 1: Blogging for natural search engine performance Chris Bland Senior Account Manager, SEO Greenlight
Slide 2: Introduction to Greenlight
Slide 3: Who we are The largest independent search marketing agency in Europe, headquartered in London, and with offices in New York. Clients across Europe, the US, and Asia with a track record of delivering results in competitive and aggressive online markets. Clients include P&G, Starwood Hotels, Expedia, American Express, RBS, Asda Wal-Mart, and more. An established specialist organisation with 7 years experience …providing total search engine marketing …. and nothing else. The only SEO agency in Europe with its own publisher network, making us the fastest link builders in the industry Our Paid Search team is the only phd-driven Paid Search division in the UK, powered by a unique Search Science team with cutting edge technologies and systems.
Slide 4: Greenlight – Six operational divisions Client Services Client Services dedicated account management, bespoke reporting & proactivity Profiler consumer, competitor, community and conversion intelligence Architext recommendations, build, consulting, training, and mentoring LinkCatalyst rapid and unique link building provision Campaign Management expertly managed Paid Search campaigns Quant & AdAPT PHD-developed Paid Search Management technologies
Slide 5: Demonstrable Success in SEO
Slide 6: Introduction to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Slide 7: Why search is important?       Over 32 million people in the UK are now online* £42 billion spent online in UK in 2007* 90% of people use search engines as primary means of finding websites* 1.4 billion search queries carried out in the UK in July 2007 alone It is perfectly measurable and accountable and highly scalable It is an excellent channel to attract both new customers who search on generic terms like ‘car insurance’ and existing customers who are more likely to use a search engine than to remember your web address * Figures provided by Internet Advertising Bureau (www.iabuk.net)
Slide 8: The Search Engine Industry 79% 4% 8% 5% Big Four (UK): 96% Hitwise (2007) 43.7% 12.8% 28.8% 5.4% 90% ComScore (2006) 89.9% 2.3% 3.17% <1% 95% XiTi (2007) 88.5% 1.4% 3.4% <1% 93% Axandra (2007)
Slide 9: Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) Paid results Natural Results
Slide 10: So where do you need to be? Rankings need to be HIGH!
Slide 11: What is a Search Engine? A database containing an index of the content of the Internet, which returns to the user a list of web pages that match a search query performed on that database. 1. ? The Internet contains billions of websites and documents. 2. 3. Software programs called Spiders are sent out by search engines to scour the web, looking for web pages to add to the INDEX. A user searches a Search Engine for whatever they want. 4. 5. The Search Engine queries its spider-compiled index for matches to the query, and ranks them in order of relevancy. The Search Engine returns a results page of websites to the user
Slide 12: The Key Issues A database containing an index of the content of the Internet, which returns to the user a list of web pages that match a search query performed on that database. XXXX How Cheap popular are flight to these No Spain ? sites? mention of flights or Spain! Relevancy Accessibility e.g. Links to Product Yourcannot be followed need to be because site and its pages by pages Credibility spiders relevant for every conceivable unfriendly theSearch Engine of navigational menu is search term that ispopularityto Search engines factor in to link relevant yoursites products, services, on where reflective of Spiders. before decidingbrand, and to rank them. your business objectives. X
Slide 13: Credibility – A Voting Model 1 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 6.5 2.5 8.5 3.5 5.5 0.5 0.5 2.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 1 0.5 0.5 0.5
Slide 14: Credibility – Context hotel guide s m o d ls ea el ot h ro h el ot Ne els ls ot h te k ho or s y eal rk w ld Ne hote yo w el ot h ap e ls Ch ote h s Cheap hotels Ch ea p Discount hotels N ew Yo r k m s Book hotels ho t el g uid e ho te ls Ho te l on ilt H ro o trav el d eals ho l te s al de
Slide 15: The main advantages of using blogs for SEO
Slide 16: The SEO Support Role Blog posts add very usefully to the breadth of thematically relevant content of your site. This additional content has a distinct role in SEO strategy: Reinforce prominence of main site landing pages for major target terms - Highly contextualised linking - High degree of control over the anchor text of the link being placed - Dynamic linking when major keywords are used Use blog post content pages to rank for ‘long-tail’ keywords Search engine results page - Attracts better CTR on research queries to blog.domain - Blog vertical search - Attract a double listing - Google blog links
Slide 17: More Flexible and Diverse Rankings The main pages of your site should be working hard for you! Blog posts offer an opportunity to add visibility in areas that they are not so focused on: Content can be quickly added and amended allowing for tactical use of SE rankings Search engines often treat fresh content favourably Blog posts are more discrete enabling you to rank for topics that you would rather not feature as part of your main site content The more informal and familiar tone of blogs posts allow you to use and therefore rank for less ‘on-brand’ vocabulary that users may use naturally
Slide 18: Blogging for SEO – Case Study - McDonalds
Slide 19: How to take advantage of the SEO potential of blogs
Slide 20: Step 1 - Keyword Analysis: Identify and prioritise relevant keywords Identify the full breadth of keywords and phrases that users might be searching for where you would like your site to appear. This should include all brand and product names, the main generic terms relating to your products or services, any relevant combinations of these (eg. with location words) Use keyword generation tools eg. Google AdWords Suggestion tool Use server traffic referral KWs to understand which words you are currently being found under Use PPC campaign keywords to further reveal the long tail of possible search queries Prioritise the full list according to: Natural Search Volume (use Google Volume Estimator tool) Commercial relevance Rank (look for weak keywords where you do not rank on Page 1)
Slide 21: Step 2 – Devise keyword targeting strategy Organise KWs into thematic keyword groups with no duplication between them Identify a handful of real volume driving keyword opportunities in each category Identify target landing pages for each of these – main landing pages Identify important long-tail keywords or phrases (high PPC CTR or product relevance) – possible blog pages
Slide 22: Step 3 – Devise blog tactics to match keyword targeting strategy Create dynamic linking rules to benefit major traffic terms Organise blog content categories to match keyword categories Draw up lists of ideas for blog posts from long-tail target KWs
Slide 23: Step 4 – Optimisation: Accessibility Ensure blog structure allows SE spiders to crawl the length and breadth of the blog content Key issues with known blog software Host on your site (subdomain is convention)
Slide 24: Step 5 – Optimisation: Relevancy Ensure that the blog post page itself is relevant to the term by considering its placement within the following key SEO page elements: - Titles - Heading - Body content Use pictures (particularly of obscure products or terminology) as these are often searched for in their own right and are often hard to include on main site pages
Slide 25: Step 6 – Optimisation: Credibility Insite - link to blog posts from other sections of the site Use ‘nofollow’ tags to conserve credibility particularly if you link to competitors. Exception if you are linking to highly credible and relevant authority site Offsite - exploit opportunities on other sites/blogs to highlight (and link to!) your posts Blog content syndication (RSS)
Slide 26: Thanks for listening! Chris Bland Senior Account Manager, SEO Greenlight Chris.Bland@greenlightsearch.com