An ongoing project is the search engine optimisation of an online shoe shop - North Shoes, who are specialists in Clarks & Startrite Childrens Shoes.

A relatively recent arrival into selling online - yet with a shop history stretching all the way back to 1876 - the business owner is smart enough to realise they're not going to rank #1 for "buy shoes" at this stage (indeed, if ever).  Yet this doesn't mean that they can't benefit from search engine optimisation at the outset - both from traffic & sales.

Almost every market, no matter the subject, has around half the searches concentrated into <50 main keywords/phrases - usually 1 or 2 word combinations of generic terms.  For shoes, it's keywords like "Clarks" and "Mens Shoes".

The opportunity for people selling online is to target the other 50% of searches - searches by people who know what they want, who'll type into Google a much more specific search, such as "Clarks Bugtastic Khaki leather boys shoe".

With a well thought-through set-up of the eCommerce system & an easy-to-follow methodology for putting new products onto the online shop, these searches (which aren't overly competitive) can be targeted effectively & used to generate a lot of traffic - traffic which is more likely to buy.  Anyone with a specific idea of what they want is often a hot prospect.

The process we went through follows the Willson Web design approach:

- understand business objectives & agree SEO objectives
- research keywords & competition
- optimise main pages & set up the CMS to automatically optimise product pages
- put together an ongoing link building strategy

Objectives:

As a specialist supplier & fitter, as opposed to one chasing volume, we agreed to that SEO should deliver buying traffic from visitors looking for higher margin, lower volume brands

Research:

Looking at competition for relevant keywords for brands in stock, as well as relevant categories (eg Mens Shoes, Boys Shoes etc), we worked out what was achieveable in the first 12 months - in essence, targeting lower & mid-volume keywords

On Page optimisation:

We optimised the Home, Category & Brand pages according to our realistic assessment of the keywords / phrases we could rank for - we figure that 10% of the 10,000 searches for a particular category is always better than 0% of 100,000 searches

Content Management Set Up:

Working alongside the web developer, we put in place a way of ensuring that, when a product is entered onto the system, the product pages are automatically optimised.  This is the key part of eCommerce optimsation - ensuring the product title goes into the page URL, the main title & the Image Alternative text.  We also automated a meta description that encouraged searchers to click through - highlighting selling points like Free Shipping.

Product Addition to the Shop:

With the system set up, staff putting stock online simply need to make sure they name the product well.  Previously, staff were using the shoe reference number.  Now, they use:

Brand + Product Name + Colour + Type
eg
Clarks Dune Puzzle Navy Combi, Boys First Sandal

This optimises the product page itself for very specific searches, and also helps optimise the parent pages where the product also show (Boys First Shoes, Boys Sandals, Boys Shoes & Clarks)

We also arranged for a feed of the shop's products to be listed via Google Base - an excellent opportunity to "jump the queue" for search engine rankings by appearing in Google's "shopping results", now more often mixed in with traditional search results.

Ongoing linking strategy:

The most important element of search engine optimisation is creating quality links to your site.  With North Shoes, we made sure we applied to quality directories (such as DMOZ.org) and specialist shoe directories.

We then made sure that other marketing efforts, such as their local PR, included a concerted effort to get links when stories are being placed in newspapers & magazines - local papers have relatively strong websites, and getting that strength passed on via links is a great opportunity.

This is combined with an ongoing effort to get links through existing relationships with suppliers (such as the shoe brands) and contacts, both within the shoe industry & in related markets.

Results:

We made sure that the Google Analytics tracking was upgraded to track sales, as well as the standard site visits.  As a result, we can now see:

- 50% of the site's traffic is from unpaid search
- 65% of the site's revenue is from unpaid search

And the benefit of the new system set up and staff training on how to add products in a SEO-friendly way means that, as the site is updated & Google finds new pages, the sites visibility for the 50% of searches that are hotter sales prospects, will continue to increase.

Labels: search-engine-optimisation

I've recently been doing SEO work with an Inclinometer and Spirit Level Vial manufacturer, Level Developments.  A successful & growing business that has clients ranging from the small specialist to global blue-chip, they have ambitions to further establish themselves as a global specialist for their industry.

As with all SEO projects I do, we started at the beginning with a visit to the factory to understand better the business & its objectives.  That understanding helped me to do relevant research, and for the company & I to agree relevant objectives; targeting; changes to make; and how we measure the effect.

Research

The company already has a very search-engine friendly website - including well structured pages and URLs - and a healthy Google PageRank.  Nonetheless, research showed that:

a) in the various niches for Spirit Levels & Inclinometers, there's a big difference in search volume between singular (eg "Inclinometer" = 50,000 searches / month) and plural ("Inclinometers" = 5,000 searches / month)
b) different search terminology is used by "outsiders" - potential customers who don't know the acronyms & short-hand names used within the industry

Objectives

Spending time with the business owner made it clear where their priorities lie - priorities which weren't reflected in the structure or targeting of the website as it stood (the downside of being a successful business means more time doing the work, less time to look after the website)

Targeting

We agreed to change the targeting priorities of the website:

a) on a business level, to the industry niche that's become more profitable, with more growth potential
b) on an SEO level, to the higher volume search volume keywords

Changes

At a site level, we updated the HTML structure to put the content higher in the page order. At a page level, we produced a summary of proposed changes to:

- page URL
- page title
- page headings
- Image URLs & alternative text
- link text, for the main navigation & in body copy

We also updated the meta descriptions, to encourage more click throughs.  We discussed the changes to make sure we were maintaining the meaning of each page, and agreed updates to make for each.

Measurement

This is important on two levels - to learn what's working (or isn't), so that we can replicate / change; and to prove the work is good...!

To this end, we installed Google Analytics - and rather than the standard page-by-page installation, we're using jQuery to handle it, because:

- many contacts from the website are via email rather than contact form - using jQuery allows us to attach Events to email clicks & track which keywords are driving them
- there are many PDFs on the site, as this is a technical industry where specification is key & users want something to download & study offline, so jQuery attaches Events to downloads, and we can track what products are generating most interest

Further analysis of Google Analytics has also shown us:

- which countries are underperforming relative to expectations (high bounce rates, low contact rates, low conversion rates) - so we've been planning how to address these
- which pages have high exit rates - so we've been strengthening call-to-action & retention where necessary

Next Steps

With the site now as optimised as it can be (for the company's current objectives), we're concentrating on the key SEO factor - link building.  Together with the business, we're following a structured plan for link building with relevant directories on a country-by-country level; suppliers; customers; and forums

It's a great example of how a business with a proactive attitude to growth can get engaged with SEO and reap the rewards.

Labels: search-engine-optimisation

This is a regular series of SEO tips that anyone can use to improve the ranking of their website. It's designed for those with a little time - and less money - to dedicate to getting more business through search engines.

#3 - On Page Optimisation

OK, if you've followed the series to date, that means you've:

- done your keyword research
- prioritised which keywords / phrases to target, and allocated them to pages on your website
- recorded the current <title>, <meta type='description'>, <h1> (and other headings) and text within general <p> HTML elements

So now it's time to make sure your HTML is structured & populated with keywords, in a way that clearly tells the search engines what your page is about.  I'm assuming here that you know basic HTML (if you don't, it's easy to learn - start by looking here: http://www.w3.org/2002/03/tutorials.html#webdesign_htmlcss)

1) Look for the <title> element in the <head> section of your page.  Change this to feature your main keyword / phrases.

Additional tip: place your keywords at the beginning of the <title>, and keep it succinct (under 65 characters, less if possible)

Good <title> = Widgets | Buy UK Widgets Online
Bad <title> = Homepage for OurCompanyName, we sell many varieties of popular Widgets here

2) Look for the <meta type="description" content="xxxxx'> element, again in the page <head>.  Change this to a phrase (under 200 characters long), that would convince someone to click through to your site.

This is because the meta description doesn't influence your ranking - but it's what the search engines often show in their listings.  So for the meta description, think "click through".

3) Within the <body> section of your page, look for the <h1> heading element.  If you don't have one, add it in.  If you have more than one, change all subsequent versions to another heading type (eg <h2> or <h3>)

Again, use the main keyword / phrase here, and keep it succinct.

Good <h1> = Buy UK Widgets Online here
Bad <h1> = Welcome to our website

4) Check through the rest of your page's headings & paragraph text, and work in your priority keyword / phrase, plus overalapping phrases, throughout the text.

Remember that your website's fundamental objective is to communicate with people, not search engines - don't make the copy sound clunky, repeat the keyword / phrase to often, or make it sound unnatural.

5) Make sure any links you have on your page, either to other pages on your site, or other websites, don't contain your main keyword / phrase.  This effectively says to the search engines, "there's a better place on the web for this keyword", which is the opposite of what you're trying to achieve.

6) Have pages on your site link to other pages, using the keyword they are targeting.

Eg: Page 1 is targeting Widgets.  Page 2 is targeting Blimps.

Have a link on Page 1, pointing to Page 2, with the text of the link containing "Blimps".
On Page 2, have a link to Page 1, using the word "Widgets" as the link text.

Do this for all the pages you have included in your Keyword Prioritisation & Allocation.

Next time, I'll go through the off-page things you can do, to improve your ranking in the search engines.

Labels: search-engine-optimisation, SEO-tips, tutorial

This is  a regular series of SEO tips that anyone can use to improve the ranking of their website. It's designed for those with a little time - and less money - to dedicate to getting more business through search engines.

#2 -  Prioritisation & Allocation of keywords to pages

So, you've done your research and know what keywords & phrases are relevant to your business.  You also have an idea of how competitive it is for each one.  Now you can look at your own site, and decide which keywords you can target with which pages.

1) Open a new excel spreadsheet.  Create a separate worksheet for each page on your site (if it's a large site, concentrate on the pages with the most PageRank), and name it accordingly.

2)  For each page, look at the theme of the page & its content.  Then go through your list of keywords that your targeting, pick out the ones that fit with the page theme and allocate them to your page.  Have a list of Primary & Secondary priority keywords for each page, 2-3 Primary & 2-3 Secondary.  If you're targeting longer phrases, just have 1 or 2 for each.

Additional Tip: Your homepage will almost always be the strongest on your site, in the search engines' eyes (use the PageRank toolbar - linked to in the previous post - to check).  Use your Homepage to target the highest volume keywords & phrases - the most competitive ones - and other pages to target lower volume, less competed keywords.

You now have a spreadsheet with worksheets for each page in your site, with targeted keywords allocated to all your pages.  Now you'll want to record "baseline information", from which you'll track ranking changes and page alterations - the cornerstone of any optimisation is testing and learning, so you can do more of what works (and make sure you don't repeat the less successful changes).

4) Go through each worksheet, making a dated record of your current rankings for keywords, and note which page ranks for it at the moment (if any)

5) Make a note of the key HTML elements on each page:

- the page's URL
- the page's <title>
- the page's <meta type="description">
- your main <h1> heading
- your page's copy (copy & paste the page's text into the spreadsheet), including any words or phrases that are in bold or italics
- the alternative text for each image
- the text that other pages use to link to this page (either in the navigation or copy)

You should now have a spreadsheet that looks something like this:


And now you'll be ready to start optimising your website - next time, I'll go through the simple on-page changes you should make to optimise your site.

Labels: search-engine-optimisation, SEO-tips, tutorial

This is going to be a regular series of SEO tips that anyone can use to improve the ranking of their website. It's designed for those with a little time - and less money - to dedicate to getting more business through search engines.

#1 - Targeting.

There's no point optimising your site, until you know what you want to optimise it for.

Spend an hour looking at the words people search for, in relation to your business:

1) Use Google's AdWords keyword tool at
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

2) Make sure you've selected "English, United Kingdom" and unchecked the "use synonyms" box. Choose the "descriptive keywords or phrases" option and in the box to the right, put in the obvious keywords for your business - eg for a solicitor, "solicitor", "solicitors", "solicitors in [location]"


3) Download each run into excel - both the related and suggested lists.


4) Look through the list, pick out additional keywords & phrases that strike you as relevant - and put them into the keyword box again, so that you're discovering more words related to your business. Again, download the resulting related & suggested lists of keywords.

Additional Tip: make sure you use location variants of your main keywords; single & plural variants; and action verb variants, eg "buy...", "find...", "sell..."

5) Keep going round until you're happy you've got a comprehensive range of keywords & phrases.

6) Copy & paste all your downloaded words into one excel sheet, and use the "de-dupe" funtion to remove duplicates:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HA010346261033.aspx

7) Sort the list by volume, and go down the list deleting the ones you think aren't relevant.

8) Go onto Google, and do a search for the terms you're left with - noting the PageRank of pages in the top 10 (this isn't the be-all of ranking, but it does give you an idea of what you're up against). Compare this with the PageRank of your own website (http://toolbar.google.com/ can show PageRank), and get an idea of where you can compete - for example, if you have a PageRank of 3, it's not worth targeting a search where the top 10 results are all PageRank 5+.

9) You're then left with a list, in order of search volume, of the keywords & phrases you've got the chance of ranking for..

Next time, I'll go through the simple optimisation steps that uses this targeting.

Labels: search-engine-optimisation, SEO-tips, tutorial

Unique, quality content on your site is important for Search Engine Optimisation - it gets you links, which are the most important factor in good search engine ranking. Here's a quick example to show what I mean:

A couple of months back, The Apprentice UK was in its final weeks. Everyone was talking, writing, blogging & Twittering about it.

The Guardian has a popular TV blog, where they blog live throughout the programme, commenting / laughing at / being amazed by the antics. I'd been experimenting with a map that plots live Twitter comments on a map (the final version was used for a client's site - Musically).

So I set up a version to track people Twittering about The Apprentice, put it up on my personal website & sent an email to the Guardian blogger, telling them they were welcome to let Guardian readers know about it.

The blogger put up a link to the new web page on the Guardian's website. The Guardian site is very popular, and has a high PageRank (9).

So my webpage has only 1 link in the world - but it's on the Guardian website.

Google just updated their PageRank calculations that show in your browser's toolbar. And as you can see, my webpage - only 2 months old - has a PageRank of 3 thanks to this 1 link:


Just one link from one popular website has given my own website much more PageRank. PageRank in itself doesn't tell us how high a page appears for searches, but it is a sign of Domain Trust & Authority, which themselves are factors in high search visibility.

The lesson here - have a content & link-building strategy:

1. think what you & your business can create for your website, that other people will want to link to. Blog posts, how-to's, fact-files, videos, FAQs - the more interesting and unique the better.

2. find popular / trusted / authority websites, and think how to approach them, so that they'll link to you. A more personalised & tailored approach will work better - think "Dear Dave" rather than "Dear Sir"

With 2-3 hours a month dedicated to content & link-building, your site's search visibility will be much improved.

Labels: online-marketing, search-engine-optimisation

Google does most things well, but its local business listings could be better.

You've probably found recently, when doing a search, that a map & local listings will appear above the usual listings. A lot of businesses have registered, and from a Search Engine Optimisation point of view, I recommend doing so for any business with an actual address - for certain searches, you can usurp well-established businesses who have a traditional page 1 Google ranking.


But it isn't all good news. Google doesn't wait for you to register your business - their systems pull data from online listings like Yell and Thomson Local. This causes problems - locations are sometimes wrong, phone numbers often incorrect.

This week I was asked to help a large local hospital - Google has started showing a map listing at the top of search results, and the phone number shown is for A&E, rather than the general reception. This means everyone's calling A&E, the switchboard is swamped and urgent calls can't get through.

A quick look at Google maps' help forums shows that many hospitals, and businesses, are having this kind of problem. And Google doesn't seem to be doing much to sort any of it out - many cries for help on the help forums go unanswered.

So what can you do?

If your business isn't listed yet - be proactive, create a Google account and create your own listing in Google's Local Business Center.

If your business is listed, but not by you - see if it says "unverified listing". If it does, you're in luck. Create a Google account and go to the Local Business Center, where you can claim the unverified listing and update the details.


Both of these require you to prove you're the business being listed. You get three options - by post, by phone or by SMS. My advice - don't go for By Post, as many people don't receive anything. Many big organisations have difficulty getting the postcard Google send to the right person. SMS is easiest, but this will mean your mobile is shown on the listing.

So go for the automated "by phone" option. Find a quiet time for inward coming calls on your main line, and activate the "call now" feature. With your listing verified, you're free to put in all the details you want.

If the listing isn't claimable, but the details are wrong - try searching other online directories to find where Google is getting the data from. The hospital I helped was incorrectly listed online at ThomsonLocal.

As the organisational challenge of getting Google to physically alter the listing is huge, we also approached ThomsonLocal to update their listing. So, either Google will make the change, or the data it pulls from will update - either way, we're making progress.

In the meantime, some simple changes to the Title element of the homepage gives more prominence to the main reception phone number, to mitigate the problems of the errant map listing.

Labels: online-marketing, search-engine-optimisation

For a small business, it could be difficult to see the value of blogging. There are plenty of other calls on your time - getting out to see clients, doing the day to day work, keeping on top of finances.

So finding half an hour for an interesting and relevant blog post seems a lot.

This week I have been reviewing three of my clients' Search Engine Optimisation progress - one established blogger who imported their blog onto their main site earlier this year; one who started blogging a couple of months ago; and another who gave up blogging pretty quickly last year.

The established blogger now has 100+ extra pages indexed by Google on her site. Non-paid search visits have gone up by just under 5x, and although not getting the same level of conversion to buyers of Paid Search, it's not far off.

The new blogger is already ranking on page 2 of Google for a generic search of their profession, with their blog page, and is already seeing non-paid search traffic coming directly to their blog.

The given-up blogger has fairly flat traffic from non-paid search, even though they've spent a lot of time (and money) getting directory listings.

For businesses in many industries, blogging makes sense for a number of reasons:

1. Reputation - visitors to the site see their expertise in action
2. Activity - visitors see a 'fresh' website from an active business
3. Search Visibility - reaction to industry news & changes often generates new search patterns, and even a relatively new blog page can rank well

In addition, more pages on a site means more internal "link juice" - every page indexed by Google can give other pages a search ranking boost by linking to them, and internal links count, too.

So, if you're a blogger who wonders if it's worth continuing, or a business that thinks "I hear a lot about blogging, should we be doing it?", the answer is usually "yes" - for your online (and offline) reputation, for the user experience of your site visitors, and for generating more potential business through non-paid search traffic.

Labels: online-marketing, search-engine-optimisation