get found
DESCRIPTION
An introduction to the premise of inbound marketing for small businesses and startups.TRANSCRIPT
Get Found! Content & Op*miza*on Strategies for Startups
Devin Concannon
What’s Inbound You Ask? Inbound Marke*ng is concept originated by the marke*ng so?ware company Hubspot Focuses on earning your customers aCen*on, in contrast to “outbound” marke*ng, where you “beg, buy, or borrow your way in” Inbound marke*ng focused organiza*ons experience a cost per lead 61% lower than outbound marke*ng-‐dominated organiza*ons
More on Inbound Marke*ng's growing prevalence: hCp://www.seomoz.org/blog/inbound-‐marke*ng-‐is-‐taking-‐off
The Way People Buy Things is Changing
Realiza*on of a Need
Inves*gate Op*ons
Get Recommenda*ons Read Reviews
Look at all Possible Informa*on
Make a Purchase!
Before we dive into Inbound, lets talk Design Where are you sending your visitors and poten*al customers? Does your site design ins*ll trust, convey your message, and ul*mately push people towards your desired business outcome (ie conversion)?
Good Design is a Barrier to Entry
Why invest time and resources in promoting a site that’s not doing it’s job?
Conversion Optimization Fundamentals Image via Oli Gardner of Unbounce: hCp://unbounce.com/landing-‐pages/landing-‐page-‐rehab/
• Videos • Strong
direc*onal cues • Strong calls to
ac*on • Complimentary
imagery • Social proof (ie
reviews, tes*monials, social media)
• Ad message matches upstream source
A Page Built to Convert
Images, Social Proof
Descrip*ve headline
Prominent, Above the Fold Conversion Form
Social Sharing
Strong Call to Ac*on
The Bottom Line: Make Things Easy On Your Customers The golden rule to web design is the simpler you make things to understand and use, the more likely people are to do them
A fantas*c resource for common sense web design and usability: www.amazon.com/Dont-‐Make-‐Me-‐ Think-‐Usability/dp/0321344758
A/B Testing: Always Be Testing! • Something in your design can always be improved • A/B tes*ng, also known as split tes*ng, is a simple way to test changes to your page against the current design and determine which ones produce posi*ve results
Google’s Free A/B Testing Tool
Google’s Website Op*mizer is a free A/B tes*ng tool that will allow you to test different design changes via the addi*on of html tags to your targeted test pages
• Determine a scalable schedule of tes*ng and s*ck to it
• You should have at least one test going at all *mes
• There’s no such thing as a bad result; constant learning
• Read the Unbounce Blog for great CRO *ps
There are a mul*tude of free tools and services provided by search engines that EVERY site should be using
Google Webmaster Tools -‐ Verified site owners can see informa*on about how Google crawls, indexes and ranks your site
Bing Webmaster Tools – Similar to Google’s tool with slight difference in depth and quality of informa*on
Google Analy*cs – A free enterprise class analy*cs plaoorm. Will tell you almost everything you need to know about site traffic and user engagement
We’re almost to the good stuff, but first…
Let’s do some work
Google Webmaster Tools
Bing Webmaster Tools
Google Analy*cs
So what’s this SEO Optimization stuff I keep hearing about? A brief overview of SEO, how search engines work, the Google Algorithm, etc
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a web site or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.
- Wikipedia.org
Organic (SEO) vs. Paid (PPC)
Where do people really click?
90% of Clicks
10% of Clicks
In Pursuit of the Algorithm What factors influence Google’s rankings?
Source: hCp://www.seomoz.org/ar*cle/search-‐ranking-‐factors
The Perfectly Optimized Page For the example phrase “chocolate donuts”
• Keyword leads the *tle tag
• Keyword use in the meta descrip*on
• Keyword use in the H1 tag
• Keyword use in copy
• Use of contextually similar terms
• Keyword use in image file name, alt tag
• Short, keyword friendly URL
• Keyword reflected in internal links
Source: hCp://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfec*ng
-‐keyword-‐targe*ng-‐on-‐page-‐op*miza*on
Technical Factors that Affect SEO Search Engine Spiders look at over 40 page characteris*cs • Sub Directories vs. Sub Domains • URL Formasng • Page Load Speed • Dynamic URLs • Redirects • Custom 404 pages • Page Updates • CSS • Java Script • Ajax • Flash • Duplicate Content • HTTP Headers • Robots.txt
Some Scalable SEO Strategies
Determining Your Core Keywords
Crea*ng A Seed List • Begin adding keywords rela*ng to
your business to an Excel document
• Look at compe*tors sites for addi*onal keyword ideas
• Add core terms to Soovle, to get autocomplete sugges*ons from search engines
• Add as many relevant keywords as possible to your seed list
Determining Your Core Keywords
• Take your seed list and run it
through Google Keyword Tool
• Set results to exact match and sort by local monthly searches
• Export the results to CSV and add them to a new tab of your Seed List
• Trim out Global Searches and Compe**on, and you’ll end up with a list similar to right
Trimming your Seed List
• Iden*fy recurring keywords that
aren’t relevant
• Use the text contains… condi*onal formasng to trim the recurring KWs from your list
• Go through and spot check each remaining KW for relevance
Shaping your Content Architecture
• Use condi*onal formasng to
begin grouping similar keywords together
• Color code each KW category and name each according to the unifying theme
• You’ll end up with a rough outline of site content as well as gesng a sense of the SEO opportuni*es
Shaping your Content Architecture • For an exis*ng site, use your sitemap or the Screaming Frog SEO Spider tool to
list out your pages
• Iden*fy exis*ng pages to target with your KW research. Internal links should reflect your targeted keywords when possible
• With unused KW research, perform a content gap analysis • For a new site, use your KW research\areas of business priority to shape
architecture. I like Excel for this…
Building a Copy Deck • Using your site architecture and keyword research, begin wri*ng up your
op*mized on page elements in an easy to use format
• Best prac*ce is between 350-‐500 words per page
• Your copy should be contextual and use your targeted keywords around 3 *mes per page
• Use internal links, bold and header tags, bulleted lists, tables, images, etc. BeCer user experience = beCer results for SEO & conversion
No Copywriter? Automate Your Copy Writing
• For large sites, unique copy
crea*on presents a problem
• This post from BreC Snyder on SEER Interac*ve’s blog describes how to automate the process
• Using Excel formulas you can write bits of copy, add KWs, and generate “uniquish” copy at scale
Source: hCp://www.seerinterac*ve.com/blog/how-‐i-‐wrote-‐500000-‐unique-‐googlebase-‐descrip*ons-‐in-‐2-‐hours
Sizing up the competition • Iden*fy 3-‐5 compe*tors in your
ver*cal to glean compe**ve intelligence
• Look at SEMRush for an idea of paid search presence. Check rankings of your compe*tors sites for your targeted keywords via Rank Checker
• Check backlink profiles via SEOMoz Open Site Explorer. Use this data to help develop your linking strategy and iden*fy link sources
• Take your paid search and organic
rankings data and perform a content gap analysis. This will show areas for you to focus your ini*al efforts on.
• Look at social presence and record the amount of followers, types of content posted. Also any blog they happen to run. All of this data can help inform your efforts.
Be Innovative
• Wrap your HTML in
Schema markup for nice rich snippets
• Create and embed videos on page on a video plaoorm like Wis*a for the most SEO benefit
• Add reviews and user generated content to pages for SEO benefit and the stars in your snippet
• Add Rel=Author verifica*on to your blog for a picture in SERPs
Tracking Your SEO Campaign
Establishing KPIs
Reporting • A?er establishing KPIs, establish
repor*ng to track progress on a weekly/monthly basis
• Create your own report rather than relying just on a report automa*cally generated
• This will allow you to observe trends and changes over *me, year over year data, and the KPIs cri*cal to your site
• My reports typically feature traffic, site performance, ecommerce (where applicable), and link acquisi*on data
Free Tools to Track your Campaign • Use GWT to see impressions,
submit an XML sitemap, inbound link reports, page speed, html errors
• Use Google Analy*cs to track visits, keywords, referral sources, demographic info, etc
• Firefox Rank Checker addon to get an idea of where your keywords are ranking
• Use the SEOMoz Toolbar for instant SEO aCributes for any page
SEO Campaign Tracking Software
• SEOMoz and Raven Tools
provide the most cost effec*ve SEO campaign tracking so?ware @ $99 monthly for a Pro acct
• SEOMoz has great link data, on-‐page analysis, and compe**ve research. It tracks 300 KW rankings
• Raven Tools has excellent social monitoring, integrates with lots of partner data (Moz, SEMRush, GA) and tracks 1000 rankings.
VS
Ongoing Optimizations
Use metrics like keyword traffic, rankings, bounce rate, conversion rate, and onsite search keywords to determine opportuni*es for ongoing op*miza*ons
And I haven’t even touched link building yet…
Questions? More Information? [email protected] @devin_concannon Linkedin Profile
Thanks for Listening!