data analytics and seo to grow your international business | john caldwell | creatorseo
TRANSCRIPT
Data Analytics and SEO to grow your
International Business
Enterprise Ireland eMarketing Event
Using the Internet to Compete in International Markets John Caldwell
[email protected] 513267086 2410295
• SEO
• PPC
• Social Media
• Videos
• Website ……
Internet marketing
It All Starts With Strategy
SEO is a set of processes that can be used to optimise the natural ranking of a website or web page in order to achieve a defined Search / Marketing Strategy
The strategy can include:• Targeting a particular market• Which country or countries• Focussing on a region• Emphasising particular products• Etc…
Reach Act Convert Engage
Digital strategy:
Customer analysis
Competitor benchmarking
On-line partner analysis
SWOT
Marker-place analysis:
Vision and mission
Goal setting AnalyticsManaging digital
marketing
Goals and KPI’s:
Segmentation and targeting
Brand position and value proposition
Engagement and content strategy
Integrated communication
strategy
Strategy:
Evaluate where you are now and make the right decisions
Data Analytics
What is a good result
Data
Grade B Grade A Failed
Page views 1,500 1,000 125
Time on site 2.43 2.01 0.43
E-mail sign ups 10 12 2
Purchased 4 10 1
Analytics to understand customers and to drive marketing!
7
General Sources of Internet related data
• Webtrends, Google Analytics or other analytics program
• Database logs/reports
• Search engines
• Collected data (user login data, feedback forms, newsletters, third party systems / services, surveys, etc.)
• Environmental information – industry bodies, government, blogs, etc.
Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools
Mysiteperformance and Google keyword checker
• Test your site on - www.mysiteperformance.com
Google Alerts & Google News & Google Publisher
Selected digital analytics point solutions
Function/Feature Vendor
Attribution C3 MetricsEbay Enterprise (Formerly ClearSaleing)ConvertroVisual IQ
Benchmarking AlexaCompeteDoubleclick Ad PlannerGoogle Trends
Clickstream analysis Bing Webmaster ToolsGoogle Webmaster ToolsPiwikSite MeterStatCounter
Selected digital analytics point solutions contd.
Function/Feature Vendor
Real-time analytics AbsolutdataAnametrixChartbeatGoSquaredWoopra
Tag management BrightTagEnsightenSiteTaggerTagManTealiumiQ
Testing (A/B and multivariate) AdWords Campaign ExperimentsMaxymiserOptimizelySiteSpectWingify
Selected digital analytics point solutions contd.
Function/Feature Vendor
Voice of customer iPerceptionsConcept FeedbackForeseeLoop11.comOpinionLabUserTesting.com
Source: Third Door Media
• Data is a strategic asset
• Can be a key differentiator for sustained growth, efficiency and compliance
• Most data models tend to are siloed, outdated and too narrow
Knowledge
Information / Understanding
Data / Facts
Most businesses are
Data rich and Knowledge poor
Data rich and Knowledge poor
Look at the past Use data to drive Understand signals tochanges shape the future
Hindsight Insight Foresight
Things you need to look at.....
• Identify the metrics that matter
• Use metrics that are actionable – that lead to making a change
• Proper configuration – accurate data on numbers that matter
• Act on what you find
• Internet objectives, customer experience, engagement.
• How good is the acquisition strategy?
• What is the visitor loyalty & recency?
• What is not working or broken?
• What is working?....Top Landing Pages
• Are you making money or noise?
• What content makes us most profit?
• How sophisticated is the search strategy?
• What are your goals and targets?
• Can the marketing Campaign conversions/outcomes be optimised?.
• Are you helping the already convinced buyers?
• What are the competition doing?
• And there are many more
I have lots of Data ..... so what?
• And there are many more
I have lots of Data ..... so what?
Marketing incl. SEO
CustomerNeeds
Data
Marketing incl. SEO
CustomerNeeds
Data
Growth Hacking
Marketing incl. SEO
CustomerNeeds
Data
Growth Hacking Analytics
Audit/review = Baseline
Create a dashboard
Perform AB Testing
Create interventions
Make changes
One Metric That Matters?
Talk to customers
Make more changes
Marketing incl. SEO
CustomerNeeds
Data
Growth Hacking Analytics
Baseline
Create a dashboard
Perform AB Testing
Create interventions
Make changes
One Metric That Matters?
Talk to customers
Make more changes
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Your challenge is to become:
Data rich and Knowledge rich!
Search engines – How they work?
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
Understanding the Search Page
Paid adverts (PPC)
Paid adverts (PPC)
Natural or Organic Search (SEO)
News
The Golden triangle
Which? - search engines!
search engines and social media
are the gatekeepers of your
Content visibility
If your not on page 1
of search results
you don’t exist!
Be found on the internet
• Ranking – its just a formula….
= 2a+0.7b+12c+9d+2(a-b+d)-1.5e+2f …………..
• … but Google has more than 250 items in its algorithm
• … and growing
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 site11. 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. Diversity of link partners too21. Geo located search results22. Rate of new inbound links to your site 23. Relevance of inbound links24. 301s, 404s, 414s etc 25. Duplicate title/meta tags 26. Participation in link schemes27. Quantity of backlinks 28. Quantity of linking root domains 29. Quality of linking root domains 30. Link distance from higher authority sites 31. Outgoing followed links from back linked pages
There are hundreds of Search Engines
… but you can get very good results by optimising the site for the primary search engines
… but it is usually enough to focus on the main Search Engines
• Ranking
= 2a+0.7b+12c+9d+2(a-b+d)-1.5e+2f …………..
… and let’s not forget
World-Wide Search Engine Market Share
Strategy
Target audience: Language? Culture?
what
why
whowhere
when
Search Pyramid
Social
Link Building
Keyword Research & Targeting
Accessible Quality Content
You have to get these right first
Before you get these right
Hummingbird and Carousel
The search demand curve
Source: SEOMoz
1 2 3-4 4+
Internationalisation
Google.ie, Google.co.uk, Google.de, Google.fr……
Main aspects
• Multilingual sites• URL structure
• Language selection
• Keywords can be different in different countries
• Auto-translation
• Character encoding
• Meta tags and rel-alternate-hreflang links
• Geotargeting• URL structure (ccTLD)
• Server location
• Webmaster tools
• Meta tags
• Use “rel-canonical” and “rel-alternate-hreflang”
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?
• sub domains?
• Geo targeting on Google
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
• Sub-domains or Domain name alias• us.creatorseo.com
• fr.creatorseo.com
• de.creatorseo.com
• 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
• … but are a more integrated approach than having a number of unrelated domain names
X
Don’t forget to include the necessary language signals
• Meta language tag• <meta http-equiv="content-language" content="en-gb">• <meta http-equiv="content-language" content="en-ie">
• HTML language / country definition• <html lang="en-gb">
• Link element to different language-locales pages• <link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-ie" hreflang="en-ie" />• <link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-ca" hreflang="en-ca" />• <link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-au" hreflang="en-au" />• <link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en" hreflang="en" />
• Block automated translations in robots.txt
WordPress Multisite
WordPress Multi site
Questions
» Can each site have an independent URL? – Yes
» Can each site have a different user? - Yes, but there has to be a primary administrator
» Is there a master administrator for all the sites? - Yes, this administrator is key
» Does each site have its own database? - no, but there are tables that define each sub-site
» Is the theme area distinct for each site? - Themes are managed centrally, but each site can use any one of the available themes
» Is it possible to split the sites from the multi-site? - Yes, bit fiddly but can be done
Company confidential - Fleetminder May 2015qqqqPage 55
WordPress Multisite — the Pros
» Growth: Community members with the right access permissions have the ability to set up new sites when they need them, without relying on a potential bottleneck in the IT department. A multisite has a Network Admin, and each micro-site has its own local admin. Local admins can be given the ability to add sites for new events, product campaigns, gallery openings, etc.
» Streamlined site updates: For the administrator of a multisite, one WordPress update applies to all the sites, and the same is true for plugin updates.
» Control: With Multisite, the Network Administrator installs the plugins and themes that the sites can use. For standalone sites, plugins can be loaded at any time from any source by the site administrator.
» Content Syndication: Sites in a Multisite network do not automatically share content, but plugins can be set up to read content from one site to another, without having the overhead of making an HTTP request to a remote site. Be wary of duplicating content, though.
Company confidential - Fleetminder May 2015qqqqPage 59
WordPress Multi site
WordPress Multisite — the Cons
» Some plugins do not work with Multisite.
» Individual site admins cannot add plugins to their site; they must request them from the network administrator.
» Individual site admins cannot edit the theme files available to the multisite network. They can use plugins such as the Custom Style plugin to make CSS changes to their individual sites.
» If a theme is changed, it is changed for all networked sites using the theme. If a plugin is added or deleted, it will affect all sites that are using that plugin.
» Multisite uses more memory per page than a standalone site.
» The sites in a Multisite network are all sharing one single database. This can tax system resources on high-traffic sites, affecting all sites in the Multisite network.
Company confidential - Fleetminder May 2015qqqqPage 60
WordPress Multi site
WordPress Security
Company confidential - Fleetminder May 2015qqqqPage 62
WordPress SecurityCore Upgrades (WordPress)
Preventative Maintenance
Plugin Updates
Enterprise Grade Network Security
Backups
Backups and Restore
Spam minimisation
Uptime Monitoring & Performance Scans
Monthly Maintenance Report
Database Cleaning & Optimisation
Remove Malware
Scan and Fix any broken links
Inbound Marketing Support and CMS Review
Advanced Reporting Metrics & Competitive Analysis Tools
Web Support Tickets (Monthly)
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
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.
Audience and content
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
Strategy needs to consider Technology
Desktop
Mobile
Browser
Operating System
Source: KPCB
Google’s mobile friendly update (April 2015)
Source: Top 10 results for 15,235 search queries the week of April 17th (before the change), and again the week of May 18th - Stone Temple Consulting
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
Design and usability
Basic requirements for any website
A web site is a bit like an advert!
• Clear purpose
• Easy to use / intuitive
• High impact- you have only 4 seconds to impress!
• Optimised for visitors
• Target audience
• Easily found by the target audience
• Content must be dynamic and interesting
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
Be local
• Register each site with Google Places, Bing Business Portalfor example.
Google Rules - Google Algorithm Updates
Major Google Updates
• Quality Update – May 2015
• Mobile Update – April 2015
• Panda 4.0 — May 2014
• Hummingbird — August 2013
• Penguin 2 — May 2013
• Penguin — April 2012
• Panda 3 — November 2011
• Panda 2 — April 2011
• Panda/Farmer — February 2011
• Caffeine (Rollout) — June 2010
Major Google Updates
• Panda 4.0 — May 2014Even more focus on the quality of the content
• Hummingbird — August 2013 (Fast and precise)Completely new algorithm release – focus on semantic search and includes Google Knowledge Graph and geo-locating
• Penguin — April 2012Tighter focus on implementation of Google Webmaster Guidelines and crack-down on black-hat SEO (less bad-links)
• Panda — February 2011Crack-down on low quality sites and duplicate content. More focus on authority and trustworthiness
• Caffeine (Rollout) — June 2010Google web index update – improved search speed and user experience
Panda 4.0 – It’s mainly about quality,
• Conclusion I. “Content Based Topical Authority Sites” are given more SERP Visibility compared to sites that only cover the topic briefly.(even if the site covering the topic briefly has a lot of generic authority). More articles written on the same topic increase the chances for the site to be treated as a “Topical Authority Content Site” on that specific topic.
• Conclusion II. Sites with High User Interaction measured by shares and comments got a boost.
• Conclusion III. Thin Content and Automatic content is deranked, even if it is relevant.
• Conclusion IV. Sites with clear navigational structure and unique content got boosted.
Matt Cutts
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
• Create useful page titles
• Use informative URLs
• Provide relevant page descriptions
• Add your business to Google Places
• Manage your site links
• Value proposition
• Call to action
• Relevance
• User experience
• Relevant and unique content
Some Final Tips
• Get a local mailing address
• Send website visitors to the right domain
• Speed
• Use a translator!
Some Final Tips
• Country Top Level Domain's automatically associated to country
• Webmaster tools help directories-by-country sites
• Host in country
• Use Data to gain information and knowledge and develop the right strategy!
