SES London Day 1 keyword research training by Bill Hunt

After having spent an entire day at a fantastic SES London conference opening today I decided to look back at yesterday's training session will Bill Hunt, ex IBM search guru and head of SEO and relate what I thought were some very good and valid pointers with regards to understanding keywords for both paid and organic search and how these two relate.

Apologies for the brief pointers but it's pretty late and if i don't write this post now I'll never do it.

The moral or message that i really want to get across is that you need to identify keyword opportunities and what you are spending trying to rank or convert these opportunities.

So its a closely debatable topic and one that paid department and organic departments often debate internally. The problem is its not a debate it's a discussion that needs to be had.

If I rank 1st organically and I'm bidding on the same keyword is it really necessary?

- if you are ranking for both paid and organic you need to get people to recognise that both are same company. Otherwise you compete with your own rankings.
- 53% click on first organization listing
- 81% of paid listing don't have organic rankings
- 90% of users for travel are using mobile

What this has to do with the topic at hand, no fucking clue but the stats are cool.

IDEAS

- Segment by intent or interest
- Segment by content type
- Segment by device

KEYWORD SEARCH

Google keyword tool is not enough to do the research data you need to use multiple tools. Raventools have a great bit of software that pulls from everything.

WORK OUT

Cost of missed SEO.
Cost of paid search.
How much would it cost to get x number of clicks on paid vs seo and which is more profitable for you.

KEYWORD RESEARCH!!!

Use google suggest.
Über suggest.org great tool.
Identity seo and paid keyword terms.

Start by asking questions when doing your keyword research;

Make a list of products, services and categories
What do people search for when finding your products
When you search for your own site what do you search

With B2B searches - add the word strategy cause thats what management searches for.

identifying missed keyword opportunities;
Total, inspiration, discovery, design, purchase, relationship(5 phases of the buy cycle)

GOOGLE COMING OUT WITH NEW VERSION OF SERCH API! This is for all those seo agencies out there.


It is imperative that you separate landing pages based on the phase of the search cycle that they are in:

Learn, shop, buy, get, use...
Research, buy or returning...

Live person is a brilliant way to find what people are searching for by asking them what their jobs are. This would work really well for insurance.

NB : SALES PITCH
identity how many keywords you should be ranking for.
Give top 10 competitors.
Identify opportunities
Show them % of traffic being missed
Revenue that they are missing out on

BACKLINK TIP Match up "organic keywords" to social media tracking. Find website back link opportunity. Using social media to help identify what people are searching for in your industry and then use that in Adwords.

Facebook knowledge graph tool is available to find people's interests.

As I said this post was pointers from the conference so not the best English but hopefully useful.

From SES I'm out!D

3 New SEO Ideas for Businesses

Is your Business Ready for the Latest Search Trends?


In layman’s terms, search engine optimization (SEO) is the process by which websites rank in the search engines when users type in a certain keyword. It takes different SEO strategies for “crawlers” to catalog and index your site; and usually, these strategies include quality content and link building. But, this is about to change with the introduction of the latest strategy that has been going on around in the SEO world.


These new innovative SEO strategies combine creative marketing and advertising with SEO and online branding. This approach is a combination of the traditional SEO strategies (i.e. On-site SEO and link building) and modern tactics to grow a company’s online presence. Link building and on-site techniques are not enough anymore to have your site on top of the ranks anymore. By adding these latest trends on the latest search landscape; local SEO, press releases and online reputation management, your brand is in good position as far as Rankings are concerned.

Google + Local SEO 

With the merging of these two services, Google is putting an emphasis of Search importance in to local and social. Meaning, if you are a local business, people should be familiar about your venture and must have experience something about your offline efforts. This will slam businesses who are trying to manipulate search by having  different websites that are not real businesses and built for sear crawlers only.

Google Plus combined with local listings allow businesses get prime exposure on SERPs. These tools also allow users to review and rate services of local businesses around their area to reward companies who are providing best services and slam businesses who are doing poor in servicing their customers.

Online Public Relations

Online public relations means more options for the company which may include online charitable competitions to finding the right material for a press article. This is very vital because it adds creative elements to link building techniques as well as generating good press positioning for the company or website. A good example is creating an online invitation for a fun run whilst promoting a sports-related website or other charitable efforts that a company have.

If you give back to your community or support good causes, good search Karma is on your way. People will talk about your business and will generate more clients for you. 

Article by Marvin Ortiz - Trafficfundi Phillipines

Link Building for Google.co.za Guide - Part 1

I think I've been working in this industry for too long. When I first started reading BLOGS and doing my research on SEO and how to best optimise your site for Google (in fact my very first search terms was something on the lines of "how to get website visitors to my blogger blog) I read an article that said something on the lines of .... "you know you've been working in SEO for too long when Google updates have made a full 360 degree turn and come back to the point that you started learning about SEO..."

WELL, I'm kinda sad, but happy to say that I think I'm there.

Link Building circle of life

1. Always have a well balanced link strategy (according to every guy who does whitehat seo), this way you'll never have a problem
2. 2008, Competition heats up, people start sharing links with each other (reciprocal links become the thing)
3. 2009, reciprocal links no longer play a big role (Google update)
4. 2009, everyone starts building links using BLOG comments, WORDPRESS and BLOGGER become the biggest sites on the web because of this
6. Directories the biggest thing since sliced cheese.
7. Google slaps directories accepting money from submissions. Probably slapped all directories.
8. 2010 Wordpress and Blogger add "nofollows" to their BLOG comments
9. Social bookmark links, FREE one way links, FREE and easy!!!
10. Google stops relying so heavily on these links unless they actually have a bit of weight behind them
11. Panic stations nobody knows where to get links, so they start paying for them. Indian companies offering free links
12. In fact these companies get so clever they start getting people to pay for subscriptions and you can get as many one way links as you like. FOR FREE. See Build my rank closes it's doors.
13. CIRCLE OF LIFE - if only we had stuck to the well balanced link building strategy, none of these would have affected us and we'd be ok.

Google over the couple of months have released more updates to their search algorithms than God has sheep and it's about time that the experts, especially in South Africa start sharing this information with those out there who are starting off with their first BLOG, website, whatever it is you're trying to do in an attempt to gain traffic for your website.

I am going to skip all the boring juicy bits about, meta data and on-page optimisation, I'll go back to that at some point but let's be honest folks.... RANKING is alot about links. The problem is if you follow the trends and reply to every link builder from New Delhi that says he can get you links for $15 a pop, you're going to end up regretting it at some point..... WELL, this is not to say that these links don't work, but there's a very methodical process to link building that you should follow.

A very famous and well known "link Jesus" actually follows a process of link building. A process that works DARN well or he wouldn't be the guest speaker at every conference on link building.

What's my current issue

I'm pissed off that's it's taken Google so long to figure out who the hell is buying shit quality links and who is not. It's pathetic and it should not be allowed. I do alot of work in the insurance industry and I can tell you now that sites like Carinsurance.co.za should not be ranking 1st for "car insurance". Cheapcarinsurance.co.za should not be ranking 5th for car insurance and so on. Google team, if you want a list let me know...

So in an attempt to share some of my knowledge and input I would like to point out what I believe is a good process or starting point for link building...

This is the end of part 1... stay tuned for more!

Part two...

Starting Your Link Building Process...

The proof of Google is in the Traffic!

Well isn't it?

I've had a couple of emails from some online forums giving me stick about referring to the web / search and SEO as Google. In other words, do you want your website optimized for Google? Is what I asked a client...I was referring to South Africa in general BUT I was slammed and quickly...

WAS I THAT WRONG?

I'll give you some interesting facts about GOOGLE and website traffic in South Africa.

• 90% of the traffic coming to localised South African websites (GOOGLE)
• Bing was starting to generate some traffic, but they removed the localised search portion of their search, so South African sites are now mixed up with GLOBAL sites (ALTERNATIVE, GOOGLE)
• If we combine ALL of South Africa's search engines, directories and social media sites the combined traffic coming into your site is possibly 4%, if that... Meaning (THERE'S ONLY GOOGLE)
• 95% of the analytics software used in South Africa is Google Analytics
• I'd say and this is a guess, 60 - 70% of all online spend on PAID ADS is with (GOOGLE)

Which leads me back to my original saying: The proof of GOOGLE is in the TRAFFIC.
So if you're wanting your website optimized for GOOGLE - YOU know who to call!