sem strategies for a non for profit. british council. david carralon
DESCRIPTION
British Council case study of Simple but effective SEO strategies that work on low cost. Highglights: the need for accessibility and the workarounds to this constraint, the focus on Pagerank distribution, identifying high value pages within a website and how niche directory link building and online PR can effectively leverage the value needed to achieve rankings on a high authority, trusted site.TRANSCRIPT
www.britishcouncil.org | [email protected] | Twitter: @davidcarralon 1
SEM at the British Council
The UK’s International network for cultural relations, education and arts
Cultural relations for the twenty-first century
■Cultural relations is the building of engagement and trust between people of different cultures through the exchange of knowledge and ideas
Cultural relations is about engagement and trust between people of different cultures
What does the British Council do?■ We promote cultural relations in:
■ Arts
■ Education
■ Science
■ Governance
■ English
■ And in two businesses
■ Teaching and Exams
■ Managing contracts
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Click to return to contents
Challenges■ Shrinking marketing
budgets
■ Scarce staff resources
■ Increase pressure from government to raise income
■ Faster implementation
■ Technical constraints
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The British Council Web Network
The Web network : 560 websites
www.britishcouncil.org
.org/greece
.org/portugal
Org/italy
.org/spain
.org/ireland
.org/india
.org/thailand
.org/japan
.org/burma
.org/hongkong
.org/singapore
.org/brasil
.org/france
.org/chile
.org/uruguay
.org/mexico
.org/venezuela
.org/argentina
.org/colombia
.org/jordan
.org/jordan
.org/jordan
.org/jordan
.org/jordan
.org/jordan
.org/czechrepublic
.org/poland
.org/slovakia
.org/hungary
.org/sweden
.org/russia
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project site
Project/Programme
web sites
Europe Asia LATAM MiddleEast East Europe & Russia
Project Websites
Technical SEO Issues
Domain name system
Top Level Domain (TLD) .org +
100 country websites Root level-based
Accessibility (Javascript-based navigation)
Technical problems
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Duplicate content
Editorial Content turns into duplicate content
ContentSource
ContentSource
Oh la, lah, same content in in 80 diff. pages under the
directory structure and without geotargetting via
GWMTs
Indexation problems
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Rusty, old CMSLocalisation via IP addresses not possible■ Our servers are hosted in the UK
■ CDN Akamai uses US-based IP addresses, Swedish and German ones
Website Speed Performance issues
404s
Solutions : Low cost SEO that works
The Brand Our brand is our strength
The Brand
The Brand brings SEO value
Alternative ways to distribute Pagerank
Ultimately you have to achieve the following
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Link off the homepage
www.britishcouncil.org | [email protected] | Twitter: @davidcarralon
Try with low-hanging fruit link-building
www.britishcouncil.org | [email protected] | Twitter: @davidcarralon
You’ll soon be ranking better
www.britishcouncil.org | [email protected] | Twitter: @davidcarralon
Online PR = Effective & Inexpensive Link Building
www.britishcouncil.org | [email protected] | Twitter: @davidcarralon
Online PR = Effective & Inexpensive Link Building
www.britishcouncil.org | [email protected] | Twitter: @davidcarralon
British Council France case study
2005-06
Average monthly site
visits:
45,000
2004-05
Average monthly site
visits:
20,000
2006-07
Average monthly site visits:
60,0002007-08
Average monthly site
visits: 70,000
2008-09
Average monthly site
visits: 95,000www.britishcouncil.org | [email protected] | Twitter: @davidcarralon
Traffic growth matched by Exams registrations
1. website traffic for British
Council France
2. Exams registrations: IELTS,
Cambridge & BULATS
exams
No. Website visits per year
208621253056 285354
603150
785226
938316
0
100000
200000
300000
400000
500000
600000
700000
800000
900000
1000000
FY2003/04 FY2004/05 FY2005/06 FY2006/07 FY2007/08 FY2008/09
7415 7141 6891
10170
13891
17783
-4% -3% 47% 36% 28%
-2000
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
16000
18000
20000
FY2003/04 FY2004/05 FY2005/06 FY2006/07 FY2007/08 FY2008/09
Registrations increases
www.britishcouncil.org | [email protected] | Twitter: @davidcarralon
Spread the word about SEO within the organisation
www.britishcouncil.org | [email protected] | Twitter: @davidcarralon
Deliver Low cost Training
■British Council SEO Guide
■Step by Step Guides
■SEO Videos
■Webinars
■Templates
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Identifying and educating champions■ A personal approach with the champions
■ Get a tool like Basecamp to set up basic SEO Project templates
www.britishcouncil.org | [email protected] | Twitter: @davidcarralon
Give credit to your colleagues
www.britishcouncil.org | [email protected] | Twitter: @davidcarralon
Summary■ Accessibility is a must: Easy spidering of content = more
indexation
■ Harness the potential of your Homepage (PageRank flow)
■ Identify other high link juice Internal pages and link to business–critical pages on your site
■ Not enough to rank? Go and get easy links: eg: local directory links
■ Consider Online PR to complement the above
■ Find allies within your .org that can help you build the case for SEO and give credit!!
www.britishcouncil.org | [email protected] | Twitter: @davidcarralon
Cultural relations for the twenty-first century
www.britishcouncil.org | [email protected] | Twitter: @davidcarralon