competitive seo strategies | john caldwell | creatorseo

John Caldwell

john@creatorseo.com

01 5313061 / 061 513267

086 2410295

1. Introduction

SEO Introduction

� Customers expect to find information for products

and services in multiple on-line locations

� SEO is the process used to increase the amount of

visitors to a website

i.e. obtain a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search

engine including Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines

www.creatorseo.com

SEO Introduction

� A Web site is, by definition, a singular on-line entity.

It has a unique address, internal links and menus,

some level of Web design elements supporting the

Web page content and is basically a standalone

document

� A Web presence is a greater influence than a

"standalone" net site

www.creatorseo.com

Why bother with SEO?

� 85% of all traffic on the internet is referred to by search engines

� 90% of all users don’t look past the first 30 results (most only view top 10)

Google Queries

http://www.quora.com/How-many-search-queries-does-Google-serve-worldwide-every-day

How Do Search Engines Work?

� Spider “crawls” the web to find new documents (web

pages, other documents) typically by following

hyperlinks from websites already in their database

� Search engines indexes the content (text, code) in these

documents by adding it to their databases and then

periodically updates this content

� Search engines search their own databases when a user

enters in a search to find related documents (not

searching web pages in real-time)

� Search engines rank the resulting documents using an

algorithm (mathematical formula) by assigning various

weights and ranking factors

� Spiders read text and nothing else

What a Search Engine Sees

What a Search Engine Sees

2. Which?

- search engines!

Be found on the internet

� Ranking

= 2a+0.7b+12c+9d+2(a-b+d)-1.5e+2f …………..

Be found on the internet

� Ranking

= 2a+0.7b+12c+9d+2(a-b+d)-1.5e+2f …………..

Google has approximately 250 items in its algorithm

1 Search terms in the HTML title tag2 Search terms in the HTML body copy3 Search terms in bold typeface4 Search terms in header tags5 Search term in anchor text in links to a page6 PageRank of a page (the actual PageRank, not the toolbar PageRank)7 The PageRank of the entire domain8 Quality of link partners9 Type of backlinks that bring anchor text juice for search terms10 The speed of the web site

11. Search terms in the URL - main URL and page URLs 12. Search term density through body copy (About 3 - 5%?) 13. Fresh content 14. Good internal linking structure 15. Age of the domain 16. Links from good directories 17. Image names 18. Image ALTs 19. Reputable hosting company 20. Sort of the same as your number 8 but I'd also add to have good diverse link partners too :) 21. Geo located search results

22. Rate of new inbound links to your site 23. Relevance of inbound links - subject specific relationship with target page negative factors too:

There are hundreds of Search Engines

… but you can get very good results by optimising the site for the primary search

engines

Be found on the internet

� Ranking

= 2a+0.7b+12c+9d+2(a-b+d)-1.5e+2f …………..

Be found on the internet

� Ranking

= 2a+0.7b+12c+9d+2(a-b+d)-1.5e+2f …………..

Be found on the internet

� Ranking

= 2a+0.7b+12c+9d+2(a-b+d)-1.5e+2f …………..

Search Engine Market Share

Search Engine Market Share

What do Search Engines think?

3. SEO Strategy

Strategy

� Language? Culture?

Search Pyramid

Search Pyramid

You have to get these

right first

Search Pyramid

Before you get these

right first

The search demand curve

Source: SEOMoz

Search and targeting

1

Search and targeting

1 2

Search and targeting

1 2 3-4

Search and targeting

1 2 3-4 4+

4. Geographic

Targeting

Google.ie

Trading internationally

� Common situations:

� one country, several languages

� one language, several countries

Trading internationally

� What can be done?

� domains by country?

� main domain and subdirectories per language?

� main domain and directories per language?

Trading internationally

� Best option domains by country

� creatorseo.com

� creatorseo.fr

� creatorseo.de

� but

� complicated to manage and coordinate

� one CMS for all or one per domain?

Trading internationally

� Directories by country/language

� creatorseo.com US

� creatorseo.com/fr/

� creatorseo.com/de/

� One language, several countries

� creatorseo.com/es/

� mycompany.com/es-pu/ (Peru)

� mycompany.com/es-mx/ (Mexico)

Trading internationally

� Directories by country/language

� Cheaper

� Less technical resources required

� Easier to manage and coordinate

� Directories contribute to increase the general

relevancy of a domain

Trading internationally

� Subdomains by country

� Search Engines consider subdomains almost a

completely different entity than their domain

� they don’t inherit most of the domain's relevancy

� Example of a sub domain

� http://spanish.creatorseo.com

X

5. Competition

Competition

� On-line competition may not be your traditional

competition

� Different competitors in different regions

SEO is about beating your competition in the

targeted geographies

Search is a process

www.creatorseo.com

6. PPC versus SEO

PPC versus “Organic” SEO

Pay-Per-Click “Organic” SEO

� results in 1-2 days

� easier for a novice or one with

little knowledge of SEO

� ability to turn on and off at any

moment and easily updated!

� results take 2 weeks to months

� requires ongoing learning and

experience to achieve results

� very difficult to control flow of

traffic

PPC versus “Organic” SEO

Pay-Per-Click “Organic” SEO

� generally more costly per visitor

and per conversion

� fewer impressions and exposure

� easier to compete in highly

competitive market space (but it

will cost you!)

� generally more cost-effective,

does not penalize for more

traffic

� SERPs are more popular than

sponsored ads

� very difficult to compete in

highly competitive market

space

PPC versus “Organic” SEO

Pay-Per-Click “Organic” SEO

� Ability to generate exposure on

related sites (AdSense)

� ability to target “local” markets

� better for short-term and high-

margin campaigns

� ability to generate exposure on

related websites and directories

� more difficult to target local

markets

� better for long-term and lower

margin campaigns

Which one?

� You shouldn't be limited to SEO or PPC.

� Integration is the best approach. Each has

different strengths and weaknesses.

7. Audience

Audience

� Know your audience

� Cultural

� In Mediterranean counties

- Internet use is driven more by social factors rather

than anything else,

� where Nordic countries rely on the internet for more

pragmatic, functional purposes.

� Language

8. Local content

Local content

� Use local addresses and contact information

� Add local case studies/ testimonials

� with names and images

� Customise content for each country or market

� More relevant, increases local link building

opportunities, and decreases duplicate content

� Currency

9. Design and

usability

Design and usability

� Different countries prefer different design

aesthetics

� Recreating your website in a different language

may not be enough

� Get feedback on your site from locals in your

target country

10. Be local

� Register each site with Google Places, Bing

Business Portal for example.

11. Tools

Tools to use

www.mysiteperformance.com

12. Google guidance

Guidance

� Create useful page titles

� Use informative URLs

� Provide relevant page descriptions

� Add your business to Google Places

� Manage your site links

Guidance

� Value proposition

� Call to action

� Relevance

� User experience

Things to watch out for

� Spelling, stylistic, or factual errors

� Is your content mass-produced by or outsourced

to a large number of creators, or spread across a

large network of sites?

� Does your page have an excessive number of ads

that interfere with the main content?

� Are the articles short or lacking in helpful

specifics?

� Is your main content below the fold?

Some Final Tips

� Get a local mailing address

� Send website visitors to the right domain

� Speed

� Add Google translate to your site

Some Final Tips

� Country Top Level Domain's automatically

associated to country

� Webmaster tools help directories-by-country

sites

� Host in country

� Cross domain canonical links

John Caldwell

john@creatorseo.com

01 5313061 / 061 513267

086 2410295