Branded3 internet-world-2010

Stand E5050

OFF-SITE SEO STRATEGIESFOR ECOMMERCE WEBSITES

Patrick Altoft

Director of Search, Branded3

Stand E5050

Search Engine Optimisation

• Most people think SEO is about

o Keywords

o Page titles

o Meta tags

o Site structure

• On-site optimisation is enough to rank for uncompetitive

keywords

• When all your competitors sites are well optimised who gets to

be number 1?

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Links are the most important ranking factor• Links are what Google uses to differentiate between similar websites

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Links and PageRank• Since 1998 links have formed the basis of the Google algorithm

• PageRank is a probability distribution used to represent the likelihood that a person

randomly clicking on links will arrive at any particular page.

• The pages that have the most incoming links will have been visited more times and

are deemed more important.

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PageRank ≠ rankings• PageRank is quite inaccurate – a higher PR does not necessarily mean higher

rankings

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Links & Ecommerce

• Millions of links are created every day

• Linkable content is

o News

o Funny pictures

o Videos

o Interesting blog posts

• Ecommerce sites don’t have the same linkability as

other websites

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Competitor analysis• Identify 20 target keywords

• Record domains ranking in top 20 search results for each keyword

• Remove duplicate sites

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Competitor analysis• Export all links to Excel

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Competitor analysis• Repeat for all competitors to create one giant Excel document

• Remove duplicate linking domains

• Sort by Domain Authority or Page Authority

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Competitor analysis• Use filters to find valuable links

o URL contains .ac.uk , .edu , .gov , .nhs

o Anchor text contains target keyword

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Visualising your link profile

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Replicating competitor links

• Think about why each link was given

• Is it a paid link?

• Did the company attend a trade show or event?

• Is it from one of their business partners?

• What are your chances of getting the link?

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Link QA process• Some links are better than others

• If we’re paying for a link is it worth the money?

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Link QA

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Making contact

• Speak to people over the phone

• Send personal emails, one by one, to people who run relevant

websites

• Make sure it doesn’t start with “Dear Webmaster”

• Ask about advertising

• Ask bloggers if they accept guest posts

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Using business relationships for links

• Talk to your suppliers & offer reviews

• Do interviews for industry news sites

• Give discounts to customers in return for links

• Offer to write news articles or guides for websites in

your industry

• Make friends with people who control websites

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Design

• Invest in stunning design

• Design makes a site more linkable

• Improving linkability dramatically increases the efficiency of

your campaign

• Allows the site to be featured in CSS galleries

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Content• People don’t generally link to commercial content

• Informational content attracts lots of free links

• Think about added value

o Guides

o Reviews

o Blog

o News

o Photos

• Good content improves linkability

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Paying for links

• Google is against buying & selling links

• Any links that appear to be paid are likely to be devalued

• This is risky & delivers low ROI

• If you choose to buy links sure they appear 100% natural

• Be wary about using high profile link sellers......

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Don’t become a headline

• Buying links is a risk, do it right or don’t do it at all

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Learning more

• Read Blogstorm.co.uk - UK’s largest blog about SEO with over

10,000 daily readers

• Call in at stand E5050 and ask for some free SEO advice

• Visit our site at Branded3.com

• A copy of the presentation will be posted on Blogstorm.co.uk

next week