Learn about creating the ultimate SEO toolbelt with Lee Kennedy, Search Director at Coalmarch Productions!
Walk through Awareness, Productivity, and Efficiency tools and processes in this Raleigh SEO Meetup presentation.
5. Not just talking about “black hat” SEO
I’m talking about being a legit business.
http://linksearching.com/top-10-black-hat-seo-tools/
“If you ask me which [tool] is better to create an unlimited
number of trusted backlinks [it’s X]. In 7 days, you can have
tons of backlinks.”
11. Efficiency
=
Spend your time
on only the
most important
tasks.
“Profit Magnifier Definition Means Company Growth Or Performance”
By Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
13. Awareness
Problems you need to solve:
1. How is your website performing?
2. What is your goal for the
campaign?
3. How will you determine
success?
Tools to solve these problems:
1. Google Analytics
2. Search Console
3. Call Tracking Metrics
14. How is your
website
performing?
● ABC’s of GA (Acquisition,
Behavior, Conversion).
● Internalize the health of
your site(s).
Takeaway:
Destroy spam! Add a
hostname include filter.
Tool: Google Search Console
Report: Search Traffic > Search Analytics > Position by Device
15. What is your goal
for the campaign?
Start with the goals of the
business.
Communicate your goals
with the stakeholders.
Takeaway:
Get everyone to participate.
Create a dashboard.
Tool: Google Analytics
Report: Custom Dashboard > “PPC QA”
16. How will you
determine
success?
Set SMART goals.
Measurable + Timely.
Avoid working w/ people
that won’t trust you.
Takeaway:
Your home page should not
get the most organic traffic.
Tool: Google Analytics
Report: Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium > Medium by Landing Page
19. Productivity
Problems you need to solve:
1. How can you streamline project
management?
2. How can you communicate
efficiently?
3. How can you prevent mishaps?
Tools to solve these problems:
1. Basecamp, Asana
2. JIRA, Sortd
3. Slack, Hipchat
20. How can you
streamline project
management?
No more “Where did I put
that?” b/c it’s searchable.
No more context switching.
Takeaway:
Try a few, pick one, and stick
with it.
Tool: Basecamp
Report: Homepage of “Coalmarch Marketing” project
21. How can you
communicate
efficiently?
Chat + file sharing + code
formatting = win!
Great for employees
working from home.
Takeaway:
Make it fun! Share personal
photos, emoji, and gifs.
Tool: Slack
Report: #cats channel
22. How can you
prevent mishaps?
Document all the things!
Follow ups, annotations.
Make checklists, set
reminders.
Takeaway:
If something unfortunate
does happen, get in front of it.
Tool: Sortd Gmail Skin
Report: Homepage with custom lists: “To Do”, “Short Term”, “Long Term”
25. Efficiency
Problems you need to solve:
1. How can you perform
comprehensive research?
2. How can you implement
changes effectively?
3. How can you analyze your
progress?
Tools to solve these problems:
1. SEMRush, SimilarWeb, Majestic,
Open Site Explorer, Screaming
Frog + Excel
2. BuzzStream, BuzzSumo, Buffer,
Hootsuite, MailChimp
3. Moz Pro, Moz Local
26. How can you
perform
comprehensive
research?
Don’t reinvent the wheel for
every SEO campaign.
Leverage your UVPs in
existing, effective ways.
Takeaway:
Find the channel/website
before it becomes popular.
Tool: SimilarWeb
Report: Overview / Referrals Report
27. How can you
perform
comprehensive
research?
Tool: SimilarWeb + Excel
Report: HTML download, sorted by URL
Architecture + schema is
growing in importance.
Get into the Knowledge
Graph, new SERP types.
Takeaway:
Wikidata is Google’s latest KG
storage site. Sign up!
28. How can you
implement
changes
effectively?
Tool: BuzzSumo
Report: Most Shared Report, Article + Infographics + Guest Post Content Types
Improve your content
creation skills.
Build network of sites in
your industry.
Takeaway:
Get the entire team together
for content idea brainstorm.
29. How can you
implement
changes
effectively?
Tool: BuzzStream
Report: Product Tour, Data Collection Preview
Forget about SEO when
building relationships.
The smaller the site, the
more it will mean to them.
Takeaway:
Work as if you will “use” the
relationship in one year.
30. How can you
analyze your
progress?
Tool: Moz Local
Report: Published Listings Overview
The work you do now will
help in 3-12 months.
Use a well-managed PPC
campaign for now!
Takeaway:
Experiment with unfamiliar
inbound channels!
31. How can you
analyze your
progress?
Tool: Moz Pro
Report: Search > Keyword Rankings Overview Report
Don’t just track “big head”
keywords.
Focusing on continuing to
push the flywheel.
Takeaway:
Celebrate your wins, learn
from mistakes.
I’m Lee Kennedy, Search Director at Coalmarch.
Over 5 years in SEO, which is like 8-10 in-house years, so I’ve done a lot of SEO. Going to talk pretty high level b/c of the skill level, but if you have any specific questions, I’d be glad to answer them.
Early on, you could fill your website with keywords and could rank. If that didn’t work, you could email a guy and say “I’ll give you $50 to add a link to the sidebar…”
People started to make serious money, so they started creating tools.
NOT do your job for you. You’re not gonna be this guy on the beach working 4 hours a week.
Xrumer, article spinners, scrapers, etc.
Comic relief?
Worked for a company that had built a link building tool.
No magic formula. They help, they don’t do your job for you. They come and go--like the keyword research tool using the AutoComplete API.
When talking about SEO, I’m really talking about business practices. Some of these tools are just for doing business right.
Awareness, Productivity, Efficiency. Only efficiency is where the real “SEO” tools are.
Angry Gorilla Mechanic--made me happy
What am I working on? Status reports on progress.
How do I cut out wasted time?
Focus on the right thing.
Does everyone have GA set up? Has everyone figured out a solution to ghost spam? Google Tag Assistant
Look at detailed reports--multi channel attribution, search analytics report in search console. Messages from Google (DMCA removal).
Are you tracking conversions? Call Tracking Metrics.
Awareness? Complete an action on the site? Make a purchase?
Avoid working w/ people that won’t trust you or won’t put in some effort themselves.
The point is that establishing a solid level of awareness will help you cover the “On-Site” half of SEO. Read about an ideal site structure, GA setup, etc--don’t stop until that’s in place.
Basecamp, Asana, Trello.
Hipchat, Google Hangouts
Emailing same website owner multiple times. Keeping track of things said on the phone.
SEMRush competitor research.
OSE, Majestic, Ahrefs combination for link research. RavenTools?
WaitButWhy.com
Find the most shared content, find out what performs best.
Term Explorer, Google Keyword Tool, Buffer, Hootsuite, Mailchimp
Import a list of URLs, contact data will be collected. You can then sort by influencer level, website authority, previous contact, personal connection, etc.
Panguin tool, Remov’m
Moz Local--analyzes the most important local listing websites and helps you manage them.
Whitespark
Used to use Advanced Web Ranking for rank tracking. Moz can be used for reporting.
We have built our own reporting based on the GA API. We don’t report on # of links, we don’t focus on rankings, etc. We focus on ROI.