Best Practice Guide: Search Engine Optimisation

June 10

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BEST PRACTICE GUIDE

Expert advice and guidance on business-to-business search engine optimisation

SEARCH ENGINEOPTIMISATION

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYOrder your copy today on 0207 438 1379

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SECTION 1 Introduction to SEO ..........................................................................81.1 Search engine optimisation ..............................................................................................8

1.2 The UK search engine market ..........................................................................................8

1.3 Why use search engine marketing?....................................................................................9

1.4 SEO’s place in the Internet marketing mix ......................................................................10

1.5 How search engines work................................................................................................10

SECTION 2 Technical SEO – The foundation of SEO........................................142.1 Site architecture ............................................................................................................14

2.2 URL structure ................................................................................................................14

2.3 Canonicalisation ............................................................................................................15

2.4 Sitemap..........................................................................................................................18

2.5 Geotargeting – hosting and domain ................................................................................19

2.6 Technical toolbox............................................................................................................21

SECTION 3 On-page SEO ..................................................................................223.1 Keyword and competitor research ..................................................................................22

3.2 Conducting competitor research......................................................................................23

3.3 Organising your research ................................................................................................24

3.4 Keyword research tools ..................................................................................................26

3.5 Writing content with the search engines in mind..............................................................26

3.6 Keyword mapping ..........................................................................................................26

3.7 Current most important areas for content optimisation ..................................................27

3.8 Anchor text optimisation of internal linking ....................................................................30

Best Practice Guide: Search Engine Optimisation © B2B Marketing 2010 1

Contents

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CONTENTS Best practice guide: Retention & Loyalty www.b2bm.biz

SECTION 4 Off-page SEO ..................................................................................314.1 The PageRank algorithm ................................................................................................31

4.2 TrustRank ......................................................................................................................32

4.3 Future importance of links ............................................................................................32

4.4 Link development ..........................................................................................................33

4.5 Evaluating link equity and carrying out link analysis…....................................................33

4.6 Link generation methods ................................................................................................34

4.7 Online public relations ....................................................................................................34

4.8 Link bating ....................................................................................................................35

4.9 Social media marketing as part of link development ......................................................35

4.10 Link analysis tools ........................................................................................................36

4.11 Why link analysis is important ......................................................................................36

SECTION 5 Universal search ............................................................................385.1 Optimising image content for universal search ................................................................38

5.2 Optimising video content for universal search ..................................................................39

SECTION 6 Google Places ................................................................................406.1 Creating a local business listing ......................................................................................40

6.2 Optimising your local listing ............................................................................................41

6.3 Data citations ................................................................................................................42

SECTION 7 Web analytics..................................................................................437.1 Free and paid platforms ................................................................................................43

7.2 Importance of analytics when doing SEO ......................................................................43

7.3 Setting up Google Analytics ............................................................................................44

7.4 Tracking the right metrics in analytics ............................................................................46

APPENDIX i. Outsourcing SEO services ..............................................................................................47

ii. Unethical SEO practices ................................................................................................48

iii. Future changes in SEO ..................................................................................................49

GLOSSARY Glossary of search terms ......................................................................................................50


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2B Marketing is the comprehensive information resource for business-to-businessmarketers. Its mission is to provide practitioners with the information they needto perform better and achieve more, whatever sector of the B2B space they are

operating in.

Launched in 2004 as B2B Marketing magazine, it has since evolved into a multi-facetedresource, delivering a broad range of content in a variety of different forms and formats.

Its key products are:

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For more information on any of these products or services go to www.b2bm.biz or call 020 7438 1373

Verve Search is a small, but highly passionate team dedicated to all aspects of SEO andsocial media marketing. Verve believes that SEO is not just a technical discipline but asocial discipline, understanding people and their behaviour online is key as well asunderstanding of the technical areas of the search engines algorithm. Its ethos is ineducating our clients, not pulling the wool over their eyes. SEO is known as being a bit ofa ‘black art’ and Verve Search’s mission is to de-mystify it.

About B2B Marketing

About Verve Search

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INTRODUCTION Executive summary www.b2bm.biz

Section 1: Introduction to SEOSEO (search engine optimisation) is the process of moderating a website so that it isdisplayed prominently within a search engine’s free organic listings. In the UK, Google is theoverwhelmingly dominant player, with rivals such as Yahoo and Bing holding very smallmarket shares.

SEO is a critical marketing channel because of the incredible power and importance thatsearch engines hold in supplier selection, which is growing year-on-year. From a standingstart, within 10 years, the Internet has overtaken TV in terms of its importance as amarketing tool, according to figures from the Internet Advertising Bureau.

Pay-per-click (PPC) is the paid-for equivalent to SEO, with results appearing in the right -hand column and at the top of search results. Total annual investment in PPC is fargreater than SEO, even though SEO has been shown to demonstrate significantly higherreturn on investment than PPC. Lack of transparency of SEO techniques has led to it beingwidely regarded as a ‘black art’.

Getting your website ranked highly in SERPs (search engine results pages) for specifickeywords is obviously vital to ensuring that your company gets found – the majority ofsearchers only look at the first results page.

There are three primary areas of optimisation: technical, on-page and off-page. These aredealt with in detail in the next three sections.

Section 2:Technical SEOTechnical optimisation relates to the areas of your website that allow pages to be noticedand indexed by the search engines. This can be categorised into a number of key areas:

• Site architecture: Aligning your site around a coherent and structured plan.

• URL structure: Making sure URLs are search engine friendly.

• Canonlocalisation: Identification of a preferred URL where there are several ways toaccess the same page.

• Sitemaps: This aids the search engines’ understanding of your site and their ability toaccess and index all of the content.

• Geotargeting: Allowing your content to be found by the most relevant audience.

Section 3:On-page SEOOn-page optimisation is what can be done to the pages of a website to maximise itsperformance in search engines for target keywords related to the on-page content.

Effective on-page optimisation requires keyword research and development of a keywordstrategy for your entire website. Keyword research is a complex process that is critical tothe effectiveness of your website.

Competitor research should be carried out in conjunction with keyword research, as it canhelp inform the latter.

Executive summaryINTRODUCTION

“SEO is a critical marketingchannel because of theincredible power andimportance that searchengines hold in supplierselection”


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Content is key to on-page SEO, as is finding the correct keyword density within your copy.However, when creating content SEO must be considered, but you must always rememberthat the primary purpose is for it to be read by people.

The main areas of content that require optimisation are: title tags, meta descriptions,location of primary keywords, keyword usage variation, use of keyword in URL and newcontent.

Internal linking is when you link from one internal page to another; the anchor text you usefor this is a crucial part of internal linking optimisation. Just as links coming from other siteswork as a ‘vote’ to your website, internal linking to pages within your site is also given weightby search engines.

Keyword mapping is a vital part of developing your keyword strategy – it is particularlyimportant if you’re developing a new website.

Section 4:Off-page SEOOff-page optimisation addresses strategic issues that are carried out to generate links.Whilst it can appear simple, it is generally very complex and time-consuming. It is widelybelieved that external links from respected third party sources are critical for off-page SEO,however there are other factors that can impact on this objective.

Google’s PageRank algorithm has less impact on the value of a link compared to whenfirst introduced. Factors such as relevancy, the value of the domain and the anchor text ofthe link are more valuable in today’s environment. Other search engines have their ownversions. TrustRank is an alternative link analysis technique, designed to help separate usefulpages from spam.

There has been, and will continue to be, debate about the relative importance of on and off-page optimisation elements. However, search engines have become more and moredependant on link metrics to an entire domain, rather than just an individual page.

Link building is the practice of creating quality inbound links from authoritative websites,blogs and portals, thus boosting the value of that page to Google for a targeted keyword.It can also be used to generate additional traffic.

When assessing sites for link building, a number of factors should be considered: The ageof the domain; trust of the domain/page; authority of the domain; the number of outboundlinks from that page; relevancy of content and anchor text.

There are two types of link that can be built: one way links or reciprocal links. The formeris judged as better by search engines.

Online PR can be used to syndicate rich content containing links.

Link baiting is a means of generating links through the creation of popular content that siteswant to link to, e.g. humorous content.

Social media is increasingly being recognised as having a role to play in terms of SEO. Theultimate objective should be to generate a clearer insight into the positive and negativeattitudes to your brand and act on the results uncovered in terms of content creation.

Link analysis can help you to understand which links your competitors are using to drivetraffic, and help you understand which areas of your website need improvement. There arevarious link analysis tools that will help you do this.


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“When creating content,SEO must be considered,but you must alwaysremember that the primarypurpose is for it to be readby people”

INTRODUCTION Executive summary


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INTRODUCTION Executive summary www.b2bm.biz

Section 5:Universal searchUniversal search is the merging of listings from different information silos; including news,video, images, local, shopping and book listings. This has opened up new avenues formarketers by enabling them to optimise new channels.

To take advantage of universal search for images, there are a number of key steps that youneed to take. These include using keywords in your image file names; using the ‘alt’ attribute;captions; putting keywords in the image title tag; creating an image sitemap.

To optimise video content, there are also a number of steps: Use keywords in the title; createkeyword rich filenames; incorporate synopses; use a video sitemap; enable ratings; syndicate.

Section 6:Google PlacesGoogle Places was introduced to help users find businesses and services located in the localarea, using IP and geotargeting to deliver the most relevant results. Local listings thereforegive you a second opportunity to be ranked and convert browsers to visitors.

To create a Google Places listing you must first create a Google account. Local listings usea different algorithm to the organic search results, with weighting towards local information.

The following factors should be considered when optimising a local listing: titles, addresses,categories, descriptions, hours and payment and photos.

Data citations – online references made to your company – are central to ranking on GooglePlaces. These differ because they are not always ‘links’ in the conventional sense – referencesfrom major data providers such as your business service or address, give more credibility inGoogle’s eyes to the authenticity of your listing.

Section 7:Web analyticsThere are two types of web analytics platforms available: Free or paid.

Free platforms such as Google Analytics are great for organisations who are taking theirfirst steps in the online world, and are limited in terms of time and budget in how much theycan invest in analytics.

Paid platforms such as WebTrends or Omniture provide additional functionality enablingdeeper visitor insight.

Without analytics, web traffic cannot be tracked, measured or defined, therefore sites cannotbe improved and ROI cannot be calculated.

Typical key performance indicators for analytics are: Conversion rate, search engine visitors,keywords via search engines and bounce rates.

Additional informationi. Outsourcing SEO services

ii. Unethical SEO practices

iii. Future changes in SEO

“Without analytics, webtraffic cannot be tracked,measured or defined,therefore sites cannot beimproved and ROI cannot becalculated”


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Contributors’ biographiesINTRODUCTION

Lisa Myers, CEO and owner, Verve Search LtdLisa Myers is CEO and owner of SEO & social media agency Verve Search. She has 10years' experience in marketing of which five years are in search. Lisa is heavily involved inthe global search community and respected by peers and search engines alike.

Lisa is a regular speaker at industry events worldwide, including: Search Engine Strategies(SES), Search Marketing Expo (SMX), Internet World, SEM Konferansen (Norway), IAB,Search Marketing World, Chinwag and B2B Marketing search events.

She has authored a chapter on search techniques in the book B2B Marketing Experts(published in 2007), written a chapter on SEO in B2B Marketing’s Best Practice SearchMarketing Report (2008), and wrote a regular search column for B2B MarketingMagazine in 2008.

Lisa is also an active blogger in the SEO and social media community and founder of theinternational SEO blog: SEO-Chicks.com. She is also co-founder of the European searchblog Stateofsearch.com. In addition, Lisa contributes to publications on and offline regularly.

Lisa won the ‘B2B Newcomer of the Year’ award at the B2B Marketing Awards 2007. InMay 2008 she won ‘Best Use of Technology by Under 30 Year Old Woman’ at theBlackberry Women & Technology Awards. In 2009, Lisa made the prestigious ‘35 WomenUnder 35’ high achievers list in Management Today co-published by The Times.

[email protected]: 020 8439 1521

Twitter: @lisadmyers

Sam Murray, search manager, Verve Search LtdSam is a search manager of Verve Search, working on several brands on a day-to-day basis.He is in his third year of search marketing and endeavours to continuously progress, due tohis thirst for knowledge and enthusiasm about learning new techniques. He graduated fromUniversity with a BA (Hons) in Marketing in 2007 and showed his early passion for searchmarketing by writing his 10,000 word dissertation on ‘How the growth of search engineshas affected online advertising and marketing’.

Sam has previously co-authored a chapter on search techniques in the 2007 book B2BMarketing Experts. Sam is an active blogger in the SEO and social media community,contributing to the Verve Search blog and is a regular blogger on the European search blogstateofsearch.com.

[email protected]: 020 8439 1521

Twitter: @sammurray


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Best Practice Guide: Search Engine Optimisation