Can you buy 
SEO-success? The most important differences between success and failure in practice.

1. Can you buy
SEO-success?
The most important
differences between
success and failure in
practice.
27. Oktober 2011
Hanns Kronenberg
1

2. Personal information
• Hanns Kronenberg
Study of Business Economics with an emphasis on Marketing & Statistics
at the Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster
1996 – 2000 Productmanagement and Business Development for TV-
platforms (RTL-Group, Deutsche Telekom)
2000 – 2007 Productmanagement, Business Development and SEO for
Internet-platforms (Tomorrow Focus, muenchen.de, meinestadt.de)
2007–2011 independent SEO-consultant
Since 2011 Head of Product Management SISTRIX
2

3. Content
1. SEO: Dream and Reality
2. The propper understanding of SEO
3. Inertia and Force
4. The right setup for successful SEO
3

4. SEO: Dream and Reality
4

5. seobook.de survey: The world’s greatest SEO-mistakes
(Top 8 worst On-Page mistakes)
Source: http://www.seo-book.de/allgemein/auswertung-die-grosten-seo-fehler-der-welt, 26. Oktober 2011, n=93)
The most harmful On-Page
SEO-mistakes as per survey
5

6. seobook.de survey: The world’s greatest SEO-mistakes
(Top 8 worst Off-Page mistakes)
Source: http://www.seo-book.de/allgemein/auswertung-die-grosten-seo-fehler-der-welt, 26. Oktober 2011, n=73)
The most harmful Off-Page
SEO-mistakes as per survey
6

7. The real question
is this:
Why do so many
websites make the
same mistakes,
even though good
SEOs know them?
7

8. Why do these
mistakes show
up even for
websites that
have a SEO-
consultant or
inhouse-SEO?
8

9. Are there just not
enough good
SEOs out there?
9

10. The typical SEO-
mistakes are
symptoms but
not the actual
reason for a lack
of SEO-success
10

11. The main reason for a lack of SEO-success is a
faulty understanding of SEO within the company
11

12. „Men willingly
believe what they
wish.“
Gaius Julius Caesar
12

13. Would you
believe the
following?
„Get slim:
Get your beach
body in just six
weeks!“
13

14. Would you
believe the
following?
„Finally full, dense
hair! Rapidly fight
hair loss“
14

15. Then please do not trust in adds such as this!
Promising you “peace of mind” for a fixed fee
15

16. Peace of mind???
Does not sound as if someone wants to be
successful!
Then please do not trust in adds such as this!
Promising you “peace of mind” for a fixed fee
15

17. Many businesses
will just quiet their
conscience: “Of
course we do
SEO. We hired
an outside
agency.
16

18. „If fools went not to market, bad ware would
not be sold.“
English proverb
17

19. The proper understanding of SEO
18

20. Can Seo-success be bought?
19

21. 1) What is SEO?
Can Seo-success be bought?
19

22. 1) What is SEO?
Can Seo-success be bought?
2) What is success?
19

23. 1) What is SEO?
3) How do you define
“buy”?
Can Seo-success be bought?
2) What is success?
19

24. 1. What is SEO?
The sum of all measures taken, in order to increase
the profitability of a website by purposefully
increasing the visitors to that website through the
organic results on the result’s pages of
searchengines
20

25. 1. What is SEO?
Content Quality Load-Times
Informationarchitecture (IA) Linkbuilding
Usability Technical SEO Conversion
Snippet-Optimization Universal Search
Keywordselection Social Media etc.
21

26. SEO has a cross-
departmental
function and will
touch upon many
different parts of
the company
22

27. 2. What is success?
For Brand-websites:
Becoming the long-term
SEO-Brand-leader
for a certain segment or a
specific niche
Please note:
There are also successful SEO-strategies designed for
a short-term profit-maximization, though these are
usually not a good fit for brand-websites.
23

28. SEO-success means top-rankings for a
number of relevant keywords
24

29. 3. How do you
define “buy” ?
Outsourcing:
Having (all) of your SEO-
work done by a thrid-party
contractor like an SEO-
agency or a webdesigner
25

30. Common problems when
outsourcing all of your SEO
lack of involvement of all the relevant departments
insufficient implementation of SEO-measures
the quality can only be influenced indirectly
dependence on third-party contractors
loss of internal know-how
26

31. Just install a
SEO!
SEO is not an “accessory”, that you
can just have installed
27

32. SEO is not magic and does not use
secret tricks
28

33. Just like Fitness, SEO-success can only
be achieved through active participation
29

34. YouTube Video (click me)
SEO-success is teamwork, Heart’s
blood, as well as constant and hard
work
30

35. Inertia and Force
31

36. To get better rankings, you need to
change old methods of operation
32

37. To achieve change, you first need to
overcome a companies’ inertia
33

38. Law of Inertia:
Inertia is the tendency of an object to
resist a change in motion, as long as no
outside force is exerted. The larger the
inert mass of an object, the less this
object is affected in its movement by an
outside force.
34

39. The difference between Seo-
success and -failure is often the
relationship of force to inertia
35

40. David versus Goliath
This is the simple reason why (small)
internet-businesses often win against
(large) offline-companies
36

41. 4. The right setup for
successful SEO
37

42. 9 steps
38

43. 1. SEO-Expert
(competence promoter)
inhouse-SEO and/or
external SEO-consultant
specialist knowledge
regularly available
clever, motivated,
responsible, willing to learn
39

44. 2. Top-Manager
(power promoter)
top-management or business
unit manager
overcoming of barriers either
hierarchically (with orders) or
through the market (with
incentives)
understands SEO
40

45. 3. Inclusion of everyone involved
41

46. 4. SEO-controlling
Controlling for success, tracking and analyzing of key-values
Benchmarking and analyzing the competition
42

47. 5. Goals
ambitious but realistic
Let successful
competitors act as a
guide to you
43

48. 6. Budget
allocate sufficient funds
to be able to reach the
goals that are set
use cost-benefit
evaluations to analyse
measures and justify
your budgets
44

49. 7. Heart’s blood
You will need a lot
this makes the
difference between a
small and a large
success
45

50. 8. External
Consultants
chose those external
consultants that will add
momentum to the
company, not those
that will keep it static
reserve parts of the
budgets for specialists
and second opinions
46

51. 9. Calculate risks
do not try to be smarter
than Google
for brand-websites, try
to make Google’s goals
your own (return the
best results for your
users)
47

52. The rest will come to you naturally
48

53. Blog: www.sistrix.com/blog/
Twitter: @HannsKronenberg
E-Mail: h.kronenberg@sistrix.com
49