how to disrupt established markets with seo in 2015 - login 2015
TRANSCRIPT
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How
How to disrupt established markets with SEO
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About me
Yannis KaragiannidisHead of Growth @
TransferGo
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Agenda
01 02 03 04• Why SEO• Crawling and accessibility• Sitespeed and performance• Advanced Data and Keyword research• Localization and Internationalization• Advanced link building techniques
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Why Search Engine Optimization matters
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Why Search Engine Optimization matters
Source: ComScore
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Why Startups need SEO
Source: compete.com
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Why Startups need SEO
Source: compete.com
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AgilityFlexibility versus established players
As part of overall SEO efforts all of the elements in the following (non-exhaustive) list might need to be manipulated:
• Keyword targeting—which terms you have chosen to represent your products, content, and brand.
• Site structure—how information on your website is structured and how you present that information to users. Are your products and pages properly differentiated?
• Content strategy—what information are you going to publish on your site? None? All of it? Who will be responsible for this?
• The earlier SEO can be integrated into the business model the better.
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NoveltyThe linkbait factor
• Novelty is what linkbait is all about• Interesting products get immediate press coverage• Press coverage brings links• Get the full advantage of the coverage if you ‘re SEO-optimized
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Efficacy of Partial Implementation
Practicing SEO is a bit like practicing meditation—full enlightenment is an ongoing journey requiring a lifetime of work, but also a little bit will go a long way.
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Crawling & accessibility
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Accessibility
Optimizing the accessibility of your website for search engines means that you optimize your website for humans too.
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Accessibility#1 - See your website as a crawler
1. Disable JavaScript on your browser
Path: Settings -> Show advanced settings -> Privacy -> Javascript
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Accessibility#1 - See your website as a crawler
2. Disable CSS
Tip: install Google Chrome Web Developer extension
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Accessibility#1 - See your website as a crawler
3. Set user-agent as GoogleBot
Tip: Use the User-Agent Switcher extension
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Accessibility#1 - See your website as a crawler
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Accessibility#1 - See your website as a crawler
Things to check:1. Can you see all of your menu links (drop downs too!)? 2. Do all of the menu items and links appear as plain text? 3. Are all the links clickable? 4. Does this reveal any text that was previously hidden? (Hidden text
can send a red flag to Googlebot. It might not always be there maliciously, but it shouldn't be there.)
5. Is your sidebar or widgets content all the way at the top? Remember, your most important links and content should be at the top of the HTML. This is more important the bigger the site is.
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Accessibility#2 – Crawl with a Screaming Frog
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Accessibility#2 – Crawl with a Screaming Frog
Sort by levels to see the depth of your website
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Accessibility#2 – Crawl with a Screaming Frog
Check where your pages stand
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Accessibility#2 – Crawl with a Screaming Frog
Check for crawling errors
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Accessibility#2 – Crawl with a Screaming Frog
Find & Fix long titles / descriptions
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Accessibility#2 – Crawl with a Screaming Frog // Title & Descriptions guide
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Accessibility#2 – Crawl with a Screaming Frog // Title & Descriptions guide
MacDesktop:Title: 487pxDescription: 928px
Mobile:Title: 552pxDescription: 763px
Tablet:Title: 552pxDescription: 1040px
PC/GenericDesktop:Title: 482pxDescription: 928px
Mobile:Title: 550pxDescription: 757px
Tablet:Title: 550pxDescription: 1035px
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Accessibility#2 – Crawl with a Screaming Frog // Sitemaps
Tip: Google Sitemaps
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Accessibility#2 – Crawl with a Screaming Frog // Indexation metrics
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Accessibility#2 – Crawl with a Screaming Frog // Indexation metrics
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Accessibility#2 – Crawl with a Screaming Frog // Indexation metrics
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Accessibility#2 – Crawl with a Screaming Frog // Indexation metrics
Tip: Use MozBar and SEOQuake chrome extensions
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Accessibility#3– Duplicate page errors / HTTPS
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Accessibility#3– Duplicate page errors / HTTPS
• Internal links point to the new HTTPS URLs.• Redirect all HTTP to HTTPS URLs• Ensure that all rel=canonical tags within your HTML don’t point to
the old HTTP version..• Watch Google Webmaster Tools during the transition
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Accessibility#3– Duplicate page errors / Trailing slash
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Accessibility#3– Duplicate page errors / Trailing slash
• Select one format, with or without trailing slash• Change all the internal links• Put a 301 redirect in place or canonical tags
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Accessibility#4– Block malicious links to your website
Occasionally, malicious competitors might link to your website with a query attached to it.
E.g. https://transfergo.com/?thisservicesucks
These pages can get indexed, and replace your normal pages
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Accessibility#4 – Block malicious links to your website
Fix on .htaccess file:
# Malicious queries<ifModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} querystring [NC] RewriteRule .* http://example.com/$1? [R=301,L] </ifModule>
Replace “querystring” with the queries you identify that others link to you
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Sitespeed & PerformanceSitespeed & Performance
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Sitespeed & Performance
Optimizing your website’s loading speed will not only give Google better ranking signals but will improve user experience too
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Sitespeed & Performance#1– Measure your page speed // Check your homepage
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/
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Sitespeed & Performance#1– Measure your page speed // Check your different pages types
Check all the different page types your website might have, the results differ
E.g.:• www.homeaway.com - Score: 74/100• www.homeaway.com/vacation-rentals/texas/r1139 - Score: 72/100• www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p55664vb - Score: 63/100
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/
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Sitespeed & Performance#1– Measure your page speed // Fix according to priorities
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/
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Sitespeed & Performance#2– Track pageload in Analytics
On your Google Analytics installation, simply add the following tracking parameter into the tag:
_gaq.push(['_trackPageLoadTime']);
If you ‘re a high traffic website, you can set a sample size by adding:
_gaq.push(['_setSiteSpeedSampleRate', 5]);
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Sitespeed & Performance#3– Use YSLOW plugin
You ‘ll notice 3 levels:1. YSlow (V2) - Runs the full set of 23 rules 2. Classic (V1) - Runs the first 13 rules 3. Small Site or Blog - Runs 14 rules that apply to small sites
Run #1 if you ‘re getting more than 10k visitors / month
Yslow.org
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Sitespeed & Performance#4 – Find large images
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Sitespeed & Performance#5 – Use Google’s Closure Tool to minify JS
Google’s Closure compiler will help you minify your JS and reduce the loading speed
https://github.com/google/closure-compiler
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Sitespeed & Performance#6 – Optimize CSS files
cssminifier.com and / or csscompressor.com
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Sitespeed & Performance#7 – Install mod_pagespeed for Apache
If you run Apache, use Google’s pagespeed module to boost your loading times
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/module
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Sitespeed & Performance#8 – Browser caching
Leverage browser caching via directives on your .htaccess file for:
• Photos• CSS• JavaScript
Timesheet:
5 minutes in seconds = 300 1 day in seconds = 86,400 1 week in seconds = 60,4800 1 month in seconds = 2,629,000 6 months in seconds = 15,774,000 1 year in seconds = 31,536,000 (basically ‘infinite')
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Advanced data & keyword researchAdvanced data & keyword research
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Data & Keyword researchWhy Keyword research
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Data & Keyword researchWhy Keyword research
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Data & Keyword researchWhy Keyword research
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Data & Keyword researchWhy Keyword research
If you’re not getting enough search engine traffic to your site, you’re not using the words your customers use.
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Data & Keyword researchWhy Keyword research
Keyword research can give you:
• traffic to your site by using the words people use when they’re searching
• Better website copy by incorporating terms consumers immediately identify with
• Develop great content ideas• Better understanding of consumer’s behavior• Identification of the size of the market• new revenue streams by using popular keywords to inspire new product
and service ideas.
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Data & Keyword researchConsumer decision funnel
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Data & Keyword researchConsumer decision funnel
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Data & Keyword researchKeyword research
But how to do keyword research?
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Data & Keyword researchKeyword Planner
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Data & Keyword researchKeyword Planner
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Data & Keyword researchKeyword Planner - problems
1. Keyword Planner returns only keywords that are VERY closely related to what you put into it
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Data & Keyword researchKeyword Planner - problems
2. Keyword planner returns to you the same keywords that returns to anybody else, including your competitors
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Data & Keyword researchKeywords & competition
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Data & Keyword researchKeyword split
Split the keywords into three categories:
• Head Keywords - single-word keywords with insane amounts of search volume and competition. They usually don’t convert well. E.g. “watches”
• Body Keywords - 2-3 word phrases that get decent search volume (at least 2,000 searches per month), but are more specific than Head Keywords. E.g. “men watches”
• Long Tail Keywords - 4+ word phrases that are usually very specific. E.g. “buy royal london watches online”
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Data & Keyword researchStart Keyword Planner
Get started with Head and Body keywords
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Data & Keyword researchStart Keyword Planner
Customize your search criteria
Try >= 2000 monthly searches
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Data & Keyword researchStart Keyword Planner
Select Ad groups
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Data & Keyword researchStart Keyword Planner
And get grouped keywords and save keywords
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Data & Keyword researchStart Keyword Planner
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Data & Keyword researchStart Keyword Planner
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Data & Keyword researchStart Keyword Planner – Competitive research
A few other ideas other than competitor websites:• Pinterest pages• Blog posts• Wiki pages• Press releases• ..and anything that ranks for the keywords you want to rank
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Data & Keyword researchGo Long-Tail: Tools – Soovle.com
Soovle.com is an easy to use, free tool that shows you keyword suggestions results from Amazon, Wikipedia, Ask.com, Google Suggest and YouTube.
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Data & Keyword researchGo Long-Tail: Tools – UberSuggest.org
Like Soovle, UberSuggest.org grabs information from Google Suggest. What makes this tool unique is that it provides A LOT more keyword suggestions than Soovle.
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Data & Keyword researchGo Long-Tail: Tools – Google Webmaster Tools
Sometimes the best keywords are the ones you already rank for but they rank low
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Data & Keyword researchGo Long-Tail: Tools – Google Trends
Some of the keywords listed under “Queries” are potentially lucrative keywords that the Google Keyword Planner won’t show you.
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Data & Keyword researchGo Long-Tail: Tools – Google Trends
Other than keywords, get seasonality trends too.
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Data & Keyword researchGo Long-Tail: Tools – Other tools
• KeywordTool.io - Similar to UberSuggest but it adds a character before AND after the keyword that you enter
• SEMRush - Instead of entering a seed keyword and getting a long list of keyword ideas, SEMrush shows you keywords that your competition is already ranking for.
• Keyword Snatcher – crazy amounts of long tail keywords
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Data & Keyword researchKeyword Commercial Intent
You gathered tons of keywords, but which one are worthy? Split them in categories:
• “Buy Now” keywords – keywords that people searching them have literally their credit card in their hand
• “Product” keywords - searches that focus on a specific product category, brand name, or service. Searchers tend to be a bit earlier in the buying cycle than people using Buy Now Keywords.
• “Informational” keywords (e.g. how to..) - The vast majority of keywords online are Informational Keywords. As you might imagine, people looking for information don’t tend to convert especially well.
• "Tire Kicker" Keywords (e.g. free, download etc) - they 're very unlikely to convert
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Data & Keyword researchCheck cost and competition
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Localization and InternationalizationLocalization and Internationalization
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Localization#1 – Keyword Research for Local search
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Localization#1 – Keyword Research for Local search
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Localization#2 – On-site Optimization
Once you have your keyword set, the next thing you will want to do is optimize your own website for local search. Let search engines know what locations you are targeting by including geo-specific information, keywords and phrases in the specific places on your website as described below
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Localization#2 – On-site Optimization / Titles & Descriptions
• Locally optimized Titles• Locally optimized description• Locally optimized urls and/or breadcrumbs
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Localization#2 – On-site Optimization / Local content
• Local Address & Phone Number on All Pages• Location-specific pages• Locally optimized urls and/or breadcrumbs
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Localization#3 – On-site Optimization / Content
Write lots of quality content on a regular basis.
You must make a commitment to produce and publish content to your website (via a blog is fine) on a regular basis and share that content through social media. The content should be educational, entertaining, or simply value-added instead of sales-based.
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Localization#4 – 3rd party exposure
• Get a Google My Business Page.• Get your business on at least 20 of the top Business Directories,
such as Yelp, SuperPages, YP.com, Bing, Yahoo, Bestoftheweb, etc
• Generate positive reviews through your Google My Business Page and through Yelp. Focus on both quantity (you should minimally have at least 10 reviews and the most recent 10 should have positive sentiment) and also velocity (how frequently the reviews come in.)
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Localization#5 – Link building - Build local links
Don’t wait for local organizations (non-profits, Chambers of Commerce, trade groups, etc), local partners (suppliers, distributors, vendors), and local media entities to link to you – request links or find a way where you can contribute content (written, visual, video) to the link partner site in return for a link (either embedded in the content, through an author byline, or as part of a partner page).
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InternationalizationWhat is Multilingual SEO
Multilingual SEO is the practice of offering optimized website content in a variety of languages. Multiregional SEO is the practice of creating optimized website content that is tailored specifically to multiple geographic regions.
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Internationalization#1 - Domain & URL Structure
ccTLDs (e.g., example.de, example.fr)
Pros (+)• clear geotargeting• server location is irrelevant• easy separation of sites• legal requirements (sometimes)
Cons (-)• expensive• potential availability issues• more infrastructure• ccTLD requirements (sometimes)
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Internationalization#1 - Domain & URL Structure
Subdomains With gTLDs (e.g., de.site.com, fr.site.com, etc.)
Pros (+)
• easy to set up• can use Webmaster Tools geotargeting• allows different server locations• easy separation of sites
Cons (-)• users might not recognize geotargeting from the URL alone (is “de”
the language or the country?)
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Internationalization#1 - Domain & URL Structure
Subdirectories With gTLDs (e.g., site.com/de/, site.com/fr/, etc.)
Pros (+)• easy to set up• can use Webmaster Tools geotargeting• low maintenance (same host)
Cons (-)• users might not recognize geotargeting from the URL alone• single server location• separation of sites is more difficult/less clear
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Internationalization#2 - ccTLD & Webmaster Tools Geotargeting
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Internationalization#3 - hreflang
When do you need hreflang:
• You keep the main content in a single language and translate only the template, such as the navigation and footer. Pages that feature user-generated content like a forums typically do this.
• Your content has small regional variations with similar content in a single language. For example, you might have English-language content targeted to the US, GB, and Ireland.
• Your site content is fully translated.
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Internationalization#3 – hreflang – ways of implementation
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Internationalization#3 – hreflang – the effect
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Internationalization#3 – hreflang – the effect
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Internationalization#4 – Hosting location
• Doesn’t really matter, especially if you ‘re on the cloud• Google deploys crawlers from USA only
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Internationalization#4 – Hosting location
Advanced link building
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Advanced link building#1 – Whitehat is the new Blackhat
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Advanced link building#1 – Whitehat is the new Blackhat
• Constantly check your anchor text distribution• Check page-level anchor text distribution too
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Advanced link building#1 – Whitehat is the new Blackhat
Natural anchor text distribution:
• Branded terms• Generic anchor texts (e.g. click here)• Naked URLs• Titles
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Advanced link building#2 – Link relevancy
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Advanced link building#2 – Link relevancy
Andre Weyhner, ex-Googler, in an interview said:
“Getting a link from a high PR page used to always be valuable, today it’s more the relevance of the site’s theme in regards to yours, relevance is the new PR."
Tool: http://www.linkresearchtools.com/
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Advanced link building#3 – Link diversity
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Advanced link building#3 – Link diversity
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Advanced link building#4 – Reverse engineer
• Get lists of referring domains of competitors
• Sort them by Pagerank and Authority
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Advanced link building#4 – Linkbait content
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Advanced link building#4 – Linkbait content
• Outdated content - While some niches have mostly evergreen content (e.g. dating), most are changing all the time.
• WOW Factor – increase the number of items in aggregation / series articles (e.g. 100 ideas for home registration)
• Design – find content that ranks well from early 2000 and attack it via the design
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Advanced link building#5 – Spread your content
• Social media• Aggregators / curators• Outreach• Guestposts
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Advanced link building#6 – Broken link building
Broken link building is a link building tactic where a marketer contacts a webmaster who has a broken link on his/her site and recommends one or more alternatives that include his/her target site.
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Advanced link building#6 – Broken link building
Locate broken links:• http://brokenlinkindex.com/• http://domainhunterplus.com/
Reach the webmasters:• Link Research Tools Contact Finder• BuzzStream.com
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Advanced link building#7 – Unlinked brand / product mentions
Find content that your product is being mentioned without link, and gently ask for a link
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Advanced link building#8 – Understand what PR people do and create stories
PR people craft stories around people, companies and data
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What you should expect?
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What you should expect
• Long-term results• Low acquisition cost versus other channels• Stability, as long as you follow the guidelines
