Entries Categorised as 'Marketing'

Large Website SEO – Part 1

November 30th, 2010 · No Comments · SEO

I have talked before about how large organisations have problems in creating and implementing an SEO strategy in my blog post Can Large Organisations do SEO? This was in part written out of my own experiences, but also as a means by which to start talking about issues of search engine optimisation around large online properties, not that there is any correlation of course. So here goes, my thoughts on the problems of SEO for large websites.

What is a Large Website?

Indeed, you might ask yourself this very question. I personally would put it at hundreds of thousands of pages, if not millions, but an SEO pal of mine put the number as low as 1,000+ pages. In reality though, there is no hard and fast rule, and the issues surrounding “large” websites have less to do with size and more to do with diverging content needs.

The core issue that defines all, is that not all the hosted content or individual online properties are relevant to one another, and therefore, by proxy, not focused on the same target audience or market. This basic problem is one which will define your actions at the highest level, and cascade down from there.

The SEO Problems

So we know what the core identifier is for large websites and the main problem surrounding SEO on larger websites, but what are the more ingrained issues surrounding optimsation? Why is it so hard to create keyword and phrase relevance, whether you are running a popular brand or a popular service?

As highlighted, not all content you host is the same or focused on the same audience.
User generated content and actions pollute or skew the relevance of terms for content on the site.
Dynamically generated pages create duplicate content without little or no unique optimisation.
Content is often thin or not original, which means poor quality pages that may look like link farms.
These issues compound the fact that short tail keywords face stiffer competition whilst making it harder to achieve top placement for a broad library of researched and selected terms.
Beyond the technicalities, it is hard to engender best SEO practice within a large, multi-department team, and to manage expectations of results.

Of course each of these issues will not be a symptom of SEO problems for every single website, but any or all of them might apply. So how do we go about dealing with these issues more generally? How can we ensure that all content is being optimised in as easily manageable a means as possible, and how can we ensure that this is being done to achieve long term goals?

A High-Level SEO Plan

To try and overcome these issues you need to look at the following broad action items:

Identify core content areas and their associated market or audience.
Create bespoke keyword strategies for defined areas involving traditional SEO techniques.
Initially optimise for longtail keywords and phrases, and build up from there.
Do the basics right, making sure best practice is followed from the outset.
Identify SEO quick wins and start implementing them. Identify the most important traffic driving pages, and optimise those first.
Take full advantage of what your size offers in terms of in and outbound links.
Integrate Social Media Optimisation (SMO) to enhance your SEO efficiency.
Keep content fresh, avoid dormancy, and make user interactivity as simple as possible.
Make your website responsive worldwide. Optimise at a technical level as well as a content level.
Set a baseline. Understand where you are at, and set easy to achieve goals, with realistic time lines.
Create a strategy of education for management and content producers, as well as coders.
Track results and keep management informed of progress and make sure your goals are always realistic.
Be prepared to make the necessary changes to your goals as you go along.

High Level Conclusions

So there you have it, 20+ points that you might want to think about in terms of getting going with your broad action plan in tackling the problems of SEO for large websites, but how do you deal with this at a more technical level? Well this will be the subject of my second part to this series, which I look forward to publishing shortly. In the meantime you can ponder the reality that is the problem of SEO for large web sites.

Design, Marketing & The Web – Roundup

March 31st, 2010 · No Comments · Link Roundup, Web Design

Here are some interesting links that I have come across in the past week and definitely worth a read or keeping up-to-date with:

First up on the link roll is CX Partners‘ blog post on the Myth of the Page Fold. It an interesting look at the theory of the page fold and why, in their opinion it doesn’t matter. They base this opinion and user testing and also take you through some thoughts on what inhibits page readers from actually scrolling.

Second up is a great SEO-related blog by Malcolm Coles. I hesitate to call him a guru, but his blog clearly and very honestly covers the search engine optimisation niche, and providing opinion, reviews and interesting related info.

In the same vain, Planet Anarky by George Rosier, also provides useful insight into the world of web design and the process therein to get the job done. He frequently reviews sites, and details a range of information on the likes of effective display advertising.

The Web Usability Blog is another great resource for, as you guessed, Web Usability. Articles and topics that they cover includes SEO aspects and making the most use out of meta descriptions, titles and other elements in your web pages, but also talk about usability, and building web pages, debunking theories and cementing others.

Whilst on usability, back on my favourite topic of the iPhone and mis-guided app dev for it, Marked Lines has a great post of masses of iPhone-friendly websites. I say iPhone because they are clearly optimised for that screen size, but they still provide good lead on some great ideas for mobile friendly websites as a whole. The article entitled 45 Web Design Inspirations for the iPhone is at least worth a look in.

Almost perfectly slotting in after is the piece on quality, an interview with Tim Armstrong, AOL’s CEO, on Contagious Magazine and entitled Quality Emphasis Late (And Integral). For those of us who do care about needs based output, rather than simply pushing a project out the door based on tight deadlines, then its worth a read. Quality should always trump everything else!

Following on is Seb Chan’s ridiculously expansive blog post on how he and the rest of the Powerhouse Museum tech team launched the web presence for their successful Building the 80s exhibition, the post is entitled: Building the 80s – a multichannel longitudinal exhibition web presence.

On an interesting and more light-hearted note is OK Trends, the official blog of OK Cupid, the free dating web site. They take a wry look at peoples use of the site, as well as trending. Blog posts such as The 4 Big Myths of the Profile Picture and The Democrats are Doomed or How A Big Tent Can Be Too Big make for interesting and useful consumption.

And to finish up this dandy round of mixed up bed-fellows, Swiss Miss, a lady out of Brooklyn NYC who does an amazing job of collecting posts on a plethora of incredible topics and items. I love the blog and found so much good material on it, both to learn from and to make my own commentary on. Forthcoming soon will be one on the post, Why You Can’t Work at Work. As an aside, congrats to her on blogging and giving birth, at almost the same time!

Quick SEO Success. Is It Possible?

February 9th, 2010 · 1 Comment · SEO, Web Design

Until recently I always imagined that good SEO took time to turn around and achieve real results, but based on my output for a friend over the last 3 or more weeks I think I have to turn this notion on its head.

So, you ask yourself: “Is it really possible to get your site well ranked in Google within a very short time?”

Until today I would have told you no, but based on the experience I am about to describe, I think it is clear and simple that you can. And that with the right approach and attitude to the process you can get what you want and need. So here is how I went about getting Jensen Headshots (www.jensenheadshots.co.uk) up to the front of Google for our initial choice of keywords and phrases.

Setting Up A Domain

About a month ago, whilst preparing to setup my friend’s new site, I decided to register a new .co.uk domain for a couple of years and a .com for 1 year which is redirected to the .co.uk. I did this primarily because the web site was for a business in the London, and so best to focus on the UK region, whilst I registered the .com because people don’t always remember the domain as a .co.uk and so it’s a redirect that makes life a lot simpler for them.

In terms of the choice of the domain, it involved making it unique for the business, and including at least 1 target keyword, in this case ‘Headshots’. I could have added more, but felt this would have made the site seem too service specific, and less relevant across the board to a slew of potential customers. Beyond this, there was no special decision making. The default registration period for a .co.uk is 2 years and 1 year for a .com so I made no special choice to register them beyond those time frames.

Setting Up The Web Site / Page

The primary aim, was to set up a page that could draw potential customers, hook them, and induce them to call and book a headshot photo session. In order to ensure maximum exposure for the desired keywords and terms based on research using the Google External Keywords tool, I started building the single page from the top down.

Beginning my code with the Page Title, Meta Tags and Description and from there, thinking about the H1, h2, and associated text-based content for the page I built up a strong association between the page, site and those terms pre-selected. In addition, I worked in the relevant keywords into every aspect of links, images and the semantic markup. Everywhere you look you can see words such as actor, headshot, spotlight, London, etc; all cementing the case for the relevance of the business.

The idea of building a single page web site, almost flew in the face of everything I knew and had already learned about SEO, but it was inevitable, given the stark lack of content, besides existing head shot photos of actors. Ordinarily I would recommend building as complex a sitemap of web pages as possible, but in this case, because of a less than saturated search result returned by Google, it seemed like there was less of need, so the site would likely fare okay in the overall equation.

Letting Google & Everyone Know

Once the page was in place on the web server I went about setting up the domain in my Google Webmaster Tools and ensuring there were the requisite robots.txt and sitemap files in situ. I then went out online, and set up the site on Google Local Business Center and wrote up some reviews on sites like Qype to help reinforce the importance of the site for the selection of keywords, as well as to help draw attention to it with back links that with luck Google robots might follow, and thus place the new site in its index.

Other elements to the SEO process performed at this stage included linking from a couple of my own web sites, more specifically their homepages with keyword based links. beyond this there was precious little to do, but what seemed like be patient. What else could I do really?

Proven Results

All-in-all it took about a week for the site to appear in Google’s index, although this didn’t mean organic traffic was immediately being generated based on the chosen keywords. It took another week or two for that to start happening, which I noticed in Google Analytics. Did I use voodoo? The answer is clearly NO. I just used common sense and good solid web design skills, with a focus and a target in mind. Without that I wouldn’t have been able to achieve the goal required, and I am looking forward to seeing further growth of the site.

Part of what made the project simple and the goal more readily attainable, was the approach that revolved around targeting a very specific geographic region, something I have used to great effect before, and the fact that although popular, the keyword searches only turn up on average tens/hundreds of thousands of results, and only in a few cases, well over 1 million. That being said, the results were by no means a slam dunk or foregone conclusion, you can NEVER pre-judge what Google may or may not do with your site.

The Take Home …

So what can you yourself take home from this experience. I think it proves that based on the business in hand or the topic, it isn’t hard to quickly dominate them, given the right intent and focus on the job. Anyone can come in and trounce the market place and start driving traffic to their site at any time, and understanding how, and what the present incumbents are up to helps with this process too. Using available information to define your decisions is always the best approach.

So what’s next? Well from my perspective, there are additional angles to take full advantage of in the form of free adverts on Craigslist and other city specific forums, as well as ensuring that the site turns up in the Business Listings when searches for the keywords should be a good match. Perhaps you have some ideas of your own!

#followamuseum – More Museum Madness

February 4th, 2010 · No Comments · SEO

I have talked about Jim Richardson (@MuseumMarketing) before in relation to his activities revolving around Sumo Design and the Small Historic Houses of London project, which I described as ‘the relish on top of a perfect sandwich’. Well, needless to say, here I am, about to pour compliments on him and his merry band again.

For those who may have missed it, February 1st was ‘Follow a Museum’ day on Twitter. This was organised single-handedly by Richardson and his cohorts and made some big waves, reaching trending topics in many parts of the world on Twitter.

The real impact is in the process of being assessed and unfortunately, rather than being scientific seems to come down to anecdotal evidence. All the same, it is clear that museums, great and small have benefited, with anything from 10-20-30-40-50 to about about 1000+ during the course of the day. Personally I followed several new museums, and per chance decided to become a member of the Tate on the very same day.

As an informal and private endeavour I am very impressed by everything that has happened and been gained. My hat’s off to Jim and his team, but just imagine the possibilities in the future with more more of a coordinated effort to take the Twitter -sphere by storm.

People obviously hate it when they have culture rammed down their throats, but this is a super way to do the soft sell, and with even more linkage online amongst museums of all sizes, the natural network of followers for all museums will grow organically, which can only be a good thing! It reminds me of what I wrote when talking about the London SHH project, and how those small organisations stand to achieve so much more when united, rather than trying to develop alone. No museum is necessarily in competition with another, and working together is a positive move.

A ground swell of support has already been gathering pace and plenty of people have been writing about the project online and providing plaudits for it also. Obviously there is much to be learned and improved upon in order to take the idea onwards & upwards, to generate even more interest and benefit for said museums in the future.

Some reviews include Culture 24′s Follow a Museum day eclipses England captain and iPad to become hottest topic on the internet, Musematic’s Follow a Museum Day, and Cybernetik Inkwell’s On Following Followers, With Help from Miss Manners. You can of course follow the exploits of Jim and his crowd with a follow up blog post on Museum Marketing’s own Follow a Museum Day.

Personal Branding a.k.a. Personal Investment

December 31st, 2009 · No Comments · Opinion

Today saw an outbreak of the Personal Branding contagion. In other words a rash of links to articles on the topic were swirling around the Twitter-verse. First 1 link and then another, and before you know it another 20 have passed you by in your tweetstream.

Many a merry blogger touts the benefits of taking control of your online space and making sure that you are on message with who you are and want to be online, but to me that’s a rather 1-dimensional view. Personal branding is more than just being ‘on message’ and being ‘in control’, it’s about wholeheartedly investing in yourself, enjoying what you do and expressing that online and off, though of course that’s always easier said than done!

To my mind it is more than a mere web site or blog, and of course it has to be yours. I perennially ask myself: “Why would I write for a company blog, when I can and should really write my own, in a free and unencumbered fashion?”

Both Last.fm and Stink Digital, for whom I have worked over the last 3, almost 4 years now, have operated blogs, but conditions are always preset on what you can and can’t write, and although I understand the reasoning, I disagree with the unwarranted restrictions.

To me, they simply place a hurdle in front of your potential, which ultimately are for the company’s own benefit. When, in this day and age, your personal time is at a premium, it makes little sense to spend it writing ‘on message’ for your employer when you can unwind, vent, and out pour, as you see fit on your own blog, and ultimately do it with the benefit of promoting yourself.

Above and beyond ‘online’ and the networks you have built, it’s always good to move that personal brand into the real world. Twitter, Facebook et al, all provide you with ways to connect to people, and I don’t mean simply to hawk your wares, but as many a social media maven will tell you, it’s a way to flaunt your personality and build links of real substance, online and off.

By way of example, prior to Christmas, a nice Christmas card with personal message rocked up on my desk at work. It was completely unexpected, and a nice surprise from a Twitter-friend. How did she know my address? Well I suppose it’s not too hard to connect the dots, but more importantly, it leaves a lasting and positive impression and one that only raises her profile in my eyes, much to her credit.

Another great example, and perhaps a decent example for bridging the offline and online worlds. A while back, having completed work on a couple of projects for one of the clients at Stink Digital, said client sent us a box of gorgeous cup cakes, with a cutesy thank you note. Needless to say: “what did we do?” We snapped a pic, and posted it, with a glowing response, on the Stink Digital blog. Kudos to them for garnering positive public feedback!

These two examples show that it is not hard to build a brand around yourself, and to make a personal investment in yourself. It’s your life and if you don’t look out for yourself who will? Keeping up-to-date is like trying to hit a moving target, but it is always good to keep updating the world, because you are always more prepared when you need it to draw on that brand you have invested so much time and energy in already. More importantly, if you don’t invest that time in building a profile, then ‘others’ will do it for you and who knows what ‘they’ will present you as.

Of course, ultimately, everything you do comes back to personal identity, branding and effectively promotion in the form of how you present yourself to the outside world. From the way you dress to the way you talk and think, and how that appears in photos or written form. You should always use the online sphere to reinforce the offline perception of you. It therefore makes sense to stop and think somewhat about each and every step you take, but at the same time you need to also ‘just be yourself’, and whatever you do, just remember, it is always an investment in yourself.