My presentation from BrightonSEO - July 2010. Case studies focusing on considering an integrated appproach and looking beyond traditional SEO.

1. Considering your project strategy

2. Annabel Hodges (@searchPanda)
Search marketing & Analytics panda
(like a monkey only cooler)
Advocate of integrated traffic generation strategies
Lover of multilingual projects
SEO Director at Manning Gottlieb‐OMD
Follow me: @searchPanda

3. THE CLIENTS THE AGENCY
 Search is not necessarily a
priority
 You will butt heads with almost
all other teams within the
agency – design, tech etc.
 You are often brought into a
wider project at a late stage

4. What should you be asking at the start of a project?

5. Don’t ask how best to implement
your SEO strategy.
Ask if a SEO strategy is the best
strategy to implement.

6. When a traditional SEO strategy was not the right route

7. Channel 4 Education
Sites

8. The brief
SEO campaign for existing Channel 4 Education sites – targeting
teachers
• Want to improve rankings for teacher resource related keywords
• Successful and search engine visible in teenage market
• Don’t want to scare those teenagers away but do want to make it clear these
sites are also a teaching resource
SO:
How to optimise each individual website without scaring off
the teenagers?!

9. The Project Research
 Keyword Research – what do we target?
 Current state of SERPS
 Focus groups
 Neighbourhood research
 Identify content distribution and/or link
building potential
 Identify sites that could rank for resource
related keywords above our own

10. The Findings
What do teachers look for?
‐ Subject‐specific teacher resources
Do they look for resources or resources sites?
‐ They tend to look for resources, only TES is a recognised go‐
to site
Are they finding our sites?
‐ Yes and No
‐ Sites often present but teachers don’t understand they are
also teacher resource tools

11. The Proposed Solution
Combined Process
 Part Content Distribution
 Part SEO (and second‐hand SEO)
 Improved production process for future
projects

12. The Content
Distribution

13. Blogs / Social Media

14. Resource Pages for
SEO
• Search AND Social
• Link back to project
resources page from
teacher resources site
• Explains clearly how
the site can be used

15. The SERPs

16. Joined up search &
social
The Big The Small
The Social Search

17. Future Production
Process

18. Results
• Engaged 50+ sites and identified 22 ‘key’ players
• Distributed content from an initial 9 projects across these sites
• Increased visibility on search engines via Teacher Resources sites :
• Top 5 results for 8 of those projects on resource specific keywords
• Significantly increased referral traffic from education resource sites
to individual project sites.
• Increase in brand name searches/direct traffic

20. The brief
Two‐part:
 Build a micro‐site for New Look to encourage interactivity with audience
 SEO Campaign for keyterms where the brand is not currently visible
• Not visible for keyterms relating to celebrity, shop openings, collection launches, trends
etc.
• There was a gap in the market online within the 15‐25 age group, the most internet savvy
prospective consumers
SO
How to build & optimise a micro site ‐ targeting a younger
audience?

21. The Project Research
Weighing up the Options
 Site Build + SEO considerations
 Keyword Research
 Focus groups
 How do we optimise this site? What are we trying to rank for?
 Researching current offerings: How does New Look currently
use SEO and social media?
 What kind of content should we be looking to create to focus on
teenage market?
 What can we create with the budget we have?

22. The Solution
New Look TV

23. SEO meets Social Media
• 100% Hosted on Youtube
• Presented by YOU
• Competition to find presenters – UGC uploaded content
• Celeb & fashion/collections specials
• Search rankings focusing on video‐friendly key terms – increase chance of
views

24. Natural conversation
starter
 That old ‘creating conversations’ adage is true
Not only does the
audience comment
on the content.
The presenter has a
chance to respond in
kind.

25. Joining up the
conversations
Link to main site
Recent Tweets
Call to Upload
Social Media
Buttons

26. Joining up the
conversations
Setting up
competitions using
Youtube material to
encourage people to
go to the site.
Promoting them
across all platforms –
e.g. Facebook

27. The SERPs

28. Some Stats
 Top 10 all‐time most subscribed sponsor
channel
 Top 50 all‐time most viewed sponsor channel
 500,000+ YouTube video views
 130,000+ Facebook community
 Best Retail Campaign – 2010 Revolution
Awards
 Appearing in universal search results for all
key terms related to celebrity and collection
reviews – where the main site does not.

29. Some thoughts
• Ideal world = Budget + SEO + Build + IA +UX + Social etc
• Reality = get the best traffic to the best place in the best way possible
(WITHIN CONSTRAINTS)
• SEO is more than keywords and links – think integration
• Pure SEO projects are not always the solution
• Focus on your project goals not on your SEO goals

30. The downside to UGC