John Caldwell |ABC Digital | CreatorSEO Enterprise Ireland - eMarketing Event - Kilkenny - March 2018

1. International SEO
and
Content Clustering
Enterprise Ireland eMarketing Event
Using the Internet to Compete in International Markets
John Caldwell
john@creatorseo.com
061 513267
086 2410295

2. ✓ Physicist & Marketeer
✓ Multi-Nationals & SME’s
- Global Marketing and
Intelligence Teams
✓ Founded CreatorSEO/ABC Digital and
Intelligence Market
✓ Specialise in helping businesses grow
internationally

3. Some of our customers ........

4. • The Search Landscape and how Search Engines Work
• Content Clustering
• International SEO
• PPC versus SEO
• Duplicate Content
• Tips
Areas covered:

5. Search Engine Optimisation - Introduction

6. Strategy
Meeting a need!
Relevancy &
Engagement

7. 4 Seconds

8. If your not on page 1
of search results
you don’t exist!
Perception is reality

9. Search engines – How they work?

10. What a Search Engine Sees

11. Artificial Intelligence – Machine Learning
RankBrain
Is Google’s name for a
machine-learning artificial
intelligence system used to
help ranking

12. 13
1. You are being watched
2. Google learns from us
3. We create our own social environments
4. It happens invisibly
5. SEO experts use this knowledge!!
Search engines today!!

13. Which? - search engines!

14. … but it is usually enough to focus on the main Search Engines
• Ranking
= 2a+0.7b+12c+9d+2(a-b+d)-1.5e+2f …………..

15. … and let’s not forget

16. Search Pyramid
Social
Link Building
Keyword Research &
Targeting
Accessible Quality Content
Bring all this together with intelligence

17. The search demand curve
Source: SEOMoz
1 2 3-4 4+

18. What is Google looking for?

19. You need to think like Google:
Keyword relationships and
usage – close bonds between
keywords on each page
Date can be important –
most recent content
– if applicablePredict what you are
looking for!
The intent of your search
– information open queries
- location matters

20. Unique content
Google likes unique content
Does your content on a PAGE
meet all the searcher’s
needs?
Are you better at giving the
searcher the information they
need?

21. 23
✓Interprets your query
✓Determines your
search intent
✓Selects which ranking
signals match best
Rank Brain …….
Signals
Key terms
Freshness
Inbound authority
Engagement
Content depth
Related topics
………

22. No one way to DO SEO
- ALL depends on the signals!!!

23. Content Silos/Clustering

24. Normally a MARKETERworks
side by side with a
CODER2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
We All Want!

25. MARKETER and
CODER
Try things till it
works!
What really happens
20112012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

26. 28
Typical Site Organisation
Top / Home Page
Top level categories
Sub categories
Detailed pages

27. A content cluster is
the grouping of
related content
around key terms.
These key terms are
topical grouped on areas
or themes.
These are implemented
on your website / digital
needs

28. 30
Clustered Content Organisation
Top / Home Page
Move all pages up one level
&
Topic Clustering

29. 31
Clustered Content Organisation

30. 32
Make it easy for the search engines -
content clusters
Google in particular want to have a
good understanding of your website’s
content.
- what your promoting
- how it is structured
- layout of content
Optimise within a cluster!!!
Relevant Content organisation!
Traffic
SEO / User Experience
Content Silos
If you want to rank think of sections
rather than just a page.

31. 34
Content Example – Google.co.uk ranking
Term 1 Term 2 Term 3 Term 4 Term 5
Ranking before process >500 201 306 432 >500
Implemented Silos & taxonomy 145 61 114 92 345
Relevancy - meta / content 86 39 51 44 74
LinkedIn engagement 52 30 64 37 49
Consistency – links / language 48 27 31 33 37
New relevant content (daily) 3 4 2 5 11

32. 35
Think like Google!
Content - Authority - Authenticity - Trust

33. Some key tools
mysiteperformance.com

34. Marketing - Google Alerts & Google News & Google Publisher

35. Internationalisation
Google.ie,Google.co.uk,Google.de,Google.fr……

36. Trading internationally
• Common situations:
• one country, several languages
• one language, several countries

37. Trading internationally
• What can be done?
• domains by country?
• main domain and subdirectories per language?
• sub domains?
• Geo targeting on Google

38. Trading internationally
• Best option domains by country
• creatorseo.com
• creatorseo.fr
• creatorseo.de
• but
• complicated to manage and coordinate
• one CMS for all or one per domain?

39. Trading internationally (option chosen by most businesses)
• Directories by country/language
• creatorseo.com/us/
• creatorseo.com/fr/
• creatorseo.com/de/
• One language, several countries
• creatorseo.com/es/
• mycompany.com/es-pu/ (Peru)
• mycompany.com/es-mx/ (Mexico)

40. Trading internationally
• Sub-domains or Domain name alias
• us.creatorseo.com
• fr.creatorseo.com
• de.creatorseo.com
• Search Engines consider subdomains almost a completely different
entity than their domain
• they don’t inherit most of the domain's relevancy
• … but are a more integrated approach than having a number of
unrelated domain names
X

41. Trading internationally
A new domain starts with
ZERO domain authority

42. The Price of SEO – rule of thumb values
X is the price of design and development of the base website
• Optimise the entire site and rank key terms
on the first page
• Low competition
• Medium competition
• High competition
• Above plus rank in a number of regions
These times and values are based on the site owner dedicating a moderate amount of time on the content generation
1 to 5X – 3 to more than 12 months
3 to 7X – 6 to more than 18 months
5 to 11X – 12 to more than 36 months
5 to … nX – more than 18 months
• Get the basics in place 0.5 to 1X – 1 to 3 months
• Optimise key landing pages and 1 to 3X – 3 to 6 months
rank key terms on the first page on Google

43. Competition

44. Competition ---- Perception is Reality
• On-line competition may not be your traditional competition
• Different competitors in different regions
SEO is about beating your competition in the targeted geographies

45. Audience
• Know your audience
• Cultural
• In Mediterranean counties
- Internet use is driven more by social factors rather than anything else,
• where Nordic countries rely on the internet for more pragmatic, functional purposes.
• Language
• What are they searching for?

46. Keyword
Avg. Monthly
Searches World
wide(exact match
only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches US (exact
match only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches UK (exact
match only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches Canada
(exact match only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches Germany
(exact match only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches France
(exact match only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches China
(exact match only)
Avg. Monthly
Searches India
(exact match only)
hotels in dublin 49,500 1,900 18,100 390 590 110 10 90
dublin hotels 33,100 3,600 18,100 880 480 140 10 70
hotels dublin 18,100 590 6,600 170 1,000 390 10 10
hotel dublin 14,800 260 2,400 110 2,400 3,600 10 10
And that’s just English!

47. PPC versus SEO

48. PPC versus “Organic” SEO
Pay-Per-Click “Organic” SEO
✓ results in 1-2 days
✓ easier for a novice or one
with little knowledge of SEO
✓ ability to turn on and off at
any moment and easily
updated!
✓ results take months
✓ requires ongoing learning
and experience to achieve
results
✓ very difficult to control flow
of traffic

49. PPC versus “Organic” SEO
Pay-Per-Click “Organic” SEO
✓ generally more costly per
visitor and per conversion
✓ fewer impressions and
exposure
✓ easier to compete in highly
competitive market space
(but it will cost you!)
✓ generally more cost-effective,
does not penalize for more
traffic
✓ SERPs are more popular than
sponsored ads
✓ very difficult to compete in
highly competitive market
space

50. PPC versus “Organic” SEO
Pay-Per-Click “Organic” SEO
✓ Ability to generate exposure
on related sites (AdSense)
✓ ability to target “local”
markets
✓ better for short-term and
high-margin campaigns
✓ ability to generate exposure
on related websites and
directories
✓ more difficult to target local
markets
✓ better for long-term and
lower margin campaigns

51. Which one?
• You shouldn't be limited to SEO or PPC.
• Integration is the best approach. Each has different strengths and weaknesses.

52. Duplicate Content

53. Duplicate Content and Languages
• Google and Bing have clearly said to keep one language on one URL.
- Proxied content
- Content served by a cookie
- Side-by-side translations
Can be very problematic for search engines to index a page in more than one language.
You want
1 URL = 1 language

54. Duplicate Content and Language Flags
• Hreflang tags are intended to ensure the correct localised page is seen by Google
• You can have multi-country targeted content in the same language.
- You need to combine hreflang tags + some localisation!

55. Ways to avoid Duplicate Content
• Use Hreflang tags
• Localised keyword optimisation
• Have local content … maybe testimonials
• Name, Address, Phone, Currencies, Google Business profile
• Localised HTML sitemaps
• Localised navigation and home page features that cater to specific audiences
• Localised images that resonate with the audience
• Obtain links from local links

56. Design and UX

57. Basic requirements for any website
A web site is a bit like an advert!
• Clear purpose
• Easy to use / intuitive
• High impact
- you have only 4 seconds to impress!
• Optimised for visitors
• Target audience
• Easily found by the target audience
• Content must be dynamic and interesting

58. Speed

59. UX
• 50% of smartphone users said if they were unhappy with their experience on a
mobile site or an app, they would be less likely to buy products or services from
that company in the future.
• SEO content must give a good UX
• GDPR

60. 5. Processing of Customer Data.
5.1. Controller and Processor. If the Data Protection Legislation applies to the processing of Customer Data, then as between the parties, the parties acknowledge and agree that: (a)
Customer is the controller of Customer Data under the Agreement; (b) Google is a processor of such data; (c) Customer will comply with its obligations as a controller under the Data
Protection Legislation; and (d) Google will comply with its obligations as a processor under the Agreement. If under the Data Protection Legislation a Customer Affiliate is considered the
controller (either alone or jointly with the Customer) with respect to certain Customer Data, Customer represents and warrants to Google that Customer is authorized (i) to give the
Instructions to Google and otherwise act on behalf of such Customer Affiliate in relation to such Customer Data as described in this Data Processing Amendment, and (ii) to bind the
Customer Affiliate to the terms of this Data Processing Amendment.
5.2. Scope of Processing. As from the Full Activation Date (at the latest), Google will only process Customer Data in accordance with the Instructions, and will not process Customer Data
for any other purpose.
5.3. Processing Restrictions. Notwithstanding any other term of the Agreement, Google will not process Customer Data for Advertising purposes or serve Advertising in the Services.
5.4. Additional Products. Customer acknowledges that if it installs, uses, or enables Additional Products, the Services may allow such Additional Products to access Customer Data as
required for the interoperation of those Additional Products with the Services. This Data Processing Amendment does not apply to the processing of data transmitted to or from such
Additional Products. Customer can enable or disable Additional Products. Customer is not required to use Additional Products in order to use the Services.
6.1. Security Measures. Google will take and implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect Customer Data against accidental or unlawful destruction or
accidental loss or alteration or unauthorized disclosure or access or other unauthorized processing, as detailed in Appendix 2 (the “Security Measures”). Google may update or modify the
Security Measures from time to time provided that such updates and modifications do not result in the degradation of the overall security of the Services. Customer agrees that it is solely
responsible for its use of the Services, including securing its account authentication credentials, and that Google has no obligation to protect Customer Data that Customer elects to store
or transfer outside of Google’s and its Subprocessors’ systems (e.g., offline or on-premise storage).
6.2. Security Compliance by Google Staff. Google will take appropriate steps to ensure compliance with the Security Measures by its employees, contractors and Subprocessors to the
extent applicable to their scope of performance.
GDPR Disclaimer
Thank you for listening!

61. john@creatorseo.com
John Caldwell
john@creatorseo.com
061 513267/ 01 5313061
086 2410295