How to dominate any market through SEO
Objectives
Understand that while tactics vary from market to market, the overall SEO strategy is always the same
How to understand your market
How to shortcut the SERPs
How to identify the links you need
The importance of brands and personal relationships – the forgotten side of SEO
The Shortcuts?
Got budget?
Buy the results!
Keywords and domains can be an easy win
Tailgate existing brands
Be Evil?
Buy common platforms to monetise direct off your competitors
All well and good, but…
Buying keyword domains, existing performers or platform costs serious
The longcuts…
Understanding the link landscape in your industry
Developing a strategy to match, then better
Watching the methods you use to fulfil that strategy
Building a brand
Link Landscape: anchor text
What’s the industry like?
What are YOU like?
Link landscape: brand
Do people link to you with your brand rather with anchor text?
What are search volumes like for brands?
Google REWARDS brands
Link landscape: geography
Locality is important to Google
Going national or worldwide?
Spam can be seen in big numbers of links from India and China
Link landscape: authority
Who gets news coverage? Why?
Can you work with institutions or charities?
Industry figureheads (buy me a drink!)
Sponsorship of events
Link Monitoring
PR check on old links – see bad links quickly and pull them
Re-monitor industry landscape
Keep your own calendar of renewals
Which keywords work?
Take AdWords impression data
Check your clickthroughs against positions
Deepen your coverage
Build for page 2 terms
When you know position CTRs and volumes – you can refine your priorities
Give your visitors what they want
Google wants what your customers want – CONTENT
Links are the prop that support your content
Keep it fresh &unique
Guides, how-to’s, researched content and opinion
Improve your feedback to Google
Google check bounce rates
Google run A/B tests on results
Invest in the quality of your site to give good signals to users
Experiment with page titles for CTR
Personal Relationships
Keep in touch with suppliers
Look out for ‘new brooms’
Building a Brand: why?
Brands can’t be touched – Google HAS to show them
Don’t focus on narrow head terms for SEO
Build communities, loyalty and reputation
Building a brand: PR
Contacts, contacts, contacts
What, genuinely, do you bring that’s unique to the market?
Supported by SEO
Building a brand: SEO
Spread domain name and brand links into your profile
Linkbait to raise awareness
Co-citation to your natural coverage
Headline keywords will build a brand over time