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We’re going to be live blogging the Think Visibility Conference in Leeds. Format will be more of a brain dump than anything structured. It is what is!
Tom Critchlow – Distilled
Google Local Tips and Tricks
@tomcritchlow
Search for Hotel in London. Not a single organic listing above the fold.
Verified Listings
Single location, go into Google local and upload the vaious bits of data. Photos, opening hours etc. This is the best way if you have enough properties. Good control of data nad is trusted by Google.
When you are talking about many locations Nationwide: Bulk Upload whitelist using excel but these are slightly less trusted than manual upload
Worst approaches are not to claim your data. Data may be obtained by Google from Yelp or Trip Advisor
For multiple languages:
Think of hotels problems as they are relevant on multiple variants of Google (.uk, fr, .es etc):
Separate bulk uploads for each country
Use the country selection drop down in each country
Unique store code for each listing.
Solves 70% of the problems in Google.
Avoid:
Caps in description field (UNESCO or NATO) Google sees it as Spammy (Google local lags behind regular SEO)
Odd phone number formatting: try uploading small btaches of data so you can see what works for each country
Number of Reviews
Number of reviews is more important than quality! At the moment. Quality of website that holds the review is also important.
Qype and Yelp have relationships. Google is algorythmically pulling in reviews from 3rd parties. (microformats and rich data v useful)
Citations
Imagine a Venn Diagram. Big Circle which is links intersects with Mentions of brand which arent linked. Citations spans across all this this space?? Good number of citations is very useful. (lists, directories etc Big opportunity for PR)
Citation opportunities:
Competitor citations via Google
Distance to Centre
Google says it doesnt matter
It does matter
I guess this will change
Categories
Can add up to 5 categories
Use Keywords
Advanced Ranking Factors
User generated mentions (user generated maps?)
Sentiment
Citation Quality
Don’t spam the company name field. Google really cracking down on this Can be a negative ranking
Topics: Organic Search Engine Marketing | 8 Comments »
March 13th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Alun Rowe
Your Brand is more than your URL
Not a search guy, a design guy
What do we mean by brand?
Colours? Font type?
brand values: cheap? expensive? Austere? Cuddly?
Experience
Reputation
We no longer own our own brands. This is impacted by
Word of Mouth (WOM)
Blogs, Twitter, Facebook etc
Communities
Forums, mailing lists, Flickr groups
What can you do? How can you keep your brand pure?
If you cant beat them, join them
Improve your brand
Expose your brand values etc
Use tools like
Bit.ly
Twitter
Vimeo
Linked in etc
Getting Started
DEFINE YR BRAND!
write those brand values down and refer back to them
Determine responsibility with in your or your clients organisation
Who are the decision makers?
Create a presence on each service you use
start engaging
Speak to the people who run the service and be up front with them
Rules of Engagement(For such as Twitter)
Dont just post news items
Put some personality into it. Avoid auto responders
Make responses meaningful
Dont try and be everyones mate
Dont slate the oppostion. It will make you look a bit cheap.
Dont try too hard
Make sure you LISTEN
Be helpful where you can, even if it’s not your product but be passionate about the product when it is appropriate
What Now?
Track what you are saying
Track what the world is saying about you/the client
Dealing with Criticism
Dont REACT (in a kneejerk way!)
Do respond
When the Interenet Attacks
Refer to guidelines
Step back
Dont lie
Create an official response
Hold your hands up and say sorry
Vodaphones response to recent issues is held up as a good and personalised reponse to a cock up
Lots of focus on the personal value that can be generated via using forums
March 13th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Patrick Moogan
Pin Digital
“Getting the Links that Matter”
Link Building Strategy
How to get Difficult Links
Have a plan in place from the start
List your techniques
List your assets
Choose your techniques
Schedule your time
Go and do it!
List EVERY link building technique you know
What gives you an advantage?
Whats unique about the company?
What web properties do they already have in place that you can make use of
Are there any influential personnel that can be capitalised upon?
Buy Links – noone admits to it but done well, it still works
Any stock/vouchers you can send out for reviews?
Dig into the site for under utilised content.
Factors for choosing link building techniques
Types of links needed?
Timescales to get the links?
Who are the competition?
Does Google perceive you as a brand? If so, you can get away with more creative link
Diferentitae between keyword driven links and brand driven links
What current anchor text do you have?
How much time do you have to deliver the job.
Relevant for agencies
Get the quick wins first in time is limited
Little Time:
Buy Links
Directories
Articles
What is the Competition like?
If its big brands with strong SEO, long tail
If few brands with no market leader, go broad base
Use your assets
Make your USPs clear on the site, eg Green Hosting
Tell people why they should link to you.
Phone calls: get a much better result than sending emails
Direct mails
Dont just ask for a link, comment on their site for a while before looking for the link. Get known
Twitter about potential link targets
Send them traffic from a web asset. Just get noticed before the link request
Be personal, use the persons name
Have a good subject line in an email
Mention something specific that is relevant.
Explain how you can help them.
Appreciate their time.
Look for local links as well. (Google Maps!)
Build a Relationship
They are a real person
respect their time
Even if they say no , respond respectfuly to them
If appropriate send them some link opportunity in the future
More Opportunities
Discount Vouchers
Find Universities (Students love discounts)
Make all your links count with WordPress:
Export all links from Yahoo
Convert it into an RSS feed
Indexing Tool is new and useful
Only non-indexed links will be displayed
Other RSS opportunties follow
When looking for link partners, go to page 10 on Google to start cos they havent been approached yet
Lots more stuff that I missed because there was so much good stuff in this.
March 13th, 2010 at 4:41 pm
Nice write up of Paddy Moogans Think Visibility talk, just noticed your link to the Indexing Tool goes nowhere!
http://indexingtool.com/
Is the url..I am sure he said something about finding links anywhere you can so i am taking his advice..
March 14th, 2010 at 9:41 am
Paul
Thats fixed. You could have even asked for anchor text!
March 15th, 2010 at 11:47 am
[...] Simon Wharton has already shared his notes from the day [...]
March 15th, 2010 at 6:28 pm
Hi Simon,
Firstly thanks for doing the write up in such detail. I noticed that the link to Pin Digital doesn’t seem to be working at the moment?
By the way I’ve published the slide deck on the Pin Digital blog if you want to take a look.
Cheers!
Paddy
March 15th, 2010 at 6:45 pm
Fixed it now. That’s me posting in haste and forgetting my http://
June 8th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
These were the things I felt were worth noting from the event:
Google Local Tips by Tom Critchlow
Uploaded local listings have less trust associated with them, so use the bulk white-list to get the same trust level as manually added and verified listings.
For multiple languages, use separate bulk upload files for each language, using the country drop down for each country.
Number of reviews is more important than the rating – the more the better.
Make use of rich snippets on your site to feed Google local reviews.
Citations (not necessarily links) are a factor in Google Local rankings.
Check where highly ranked Google local competitors have reviews.
Ensure citations are updated (e.g. address details in directories)
Add address details & phone numbers to profiles to feed Google Local – but be consistent with the details.
To see who has reviews in the local area, put * into Google local
Use ‘user created’ maps if you’re a local business to
If you have problems with a muddled up listing (e.g. your address matched to someone elses listing) – Google help engineers will advise.
Categories are very important.
SEO in practice by Judith Lewis (her presentation was fairly basic – introductory SEO and Chocolate samples).
SEO Project Management by Sarah Goodwin
Why bother with project management techniques in SEO?:
- Efficient
- faster
- less stress
- More profitability
Project inception:
Decide what needs doing
In SEO terms:
- Site audit
- Client goals
- Internal goals
If we achieve this…. we will see this ROI
Project monitoring:
check that you really are doing what you said you were going to.