Event Promotion & SEO How to attract record crowds through search. George Freitag SEO Strategist for Portent, Inc. @number1george
Nov 29, 2014
Event Promotion & SEO How to attract record crowds through search.
George Freitag SEO Strategist for Portent, Inc.
@number1george
bit.ly/bpt-seo
Event Promotion & SEO 101 How to Attract Record Crowds
About me.
(Illustration by @flashmurphy)
2.5 Years at Portent 6 Years Web Consulting 1000+ Businesses Various internal and external trainings
About me.
About Portent. We are a leading integrated internet marketing agency set in Seattle, serving world-wide clients We are 55+ strong Founded in 1996 (pre-Google) We rally around the definition of “Portent”: the forecast of something big on the horizon
With 18 years in the industry you can trust our expertise.
Gree$ngs from the #smithtower
What is SEO?
Event Promotion & SEO 101 How to Attract Record Crowds
SEO is getting more relevant traffic to your website from search engines.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 How to Attract Record Crowds
• Showing up higher in search results
• Showing up more often in search results
• Showing up better in search results
Ways to get more traffic from search engines.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 How to Attract Record Crowds
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Online.
1. Be Online. �
• If you have a website, it should be there
• If you don’t, it should be somewhere
• Just be online; anywhere
Have a webpage for your Event.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Online.
11
z Have a page online.
12
z Or have a whole site online.
13
z Just have a permanent spot.
14
z Make a page devoted to your event.
15
z If you don’t have your own site, make one somewhere else.
• Make sure that search engines can get to your page.
Be Findable.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Online.
17
z Search engines can’t use this.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Online.
You need to be able to get to the page with the mouse.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Online.
Event Page
Category Page (click!)
Homepage (click!)
(Like this.)
19
z Copy/paste text to test.
20
z Use Categories on Ticket and Event Submission Sites
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Useful.
2. Be Useful.�
At least these:
• Event name
• Event Date
• Event Location
• Description
• Links to outside sources
Include Important Information.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Useful.
23
z Useful information like this.
Event name
Date & Time
24
z Describe your event.
Search engines see duplicated content as useless and spammy. The description on your page needs to be different than descriptions on other sites.
Be Unique.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Useful.
26
z Including other event sites.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Useful.
27
z Have a call to action.
Like this.
Brown Paper Tickets already has these set up for you!
Call to Action.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Useful.
29
z Link to Brown Paper Tickets.
30
z Image link to Brown Paper Tickets.
31
z How to link to Brown Paper Tickets.
Click “Linking”
32
z Links to Brown Paper Tickets.
Links
Linking Code
Image Code
33
z Embed ticket widget.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Relevant.
3. Be Relevant.�
What I mean by “relevant”
• Know what topics people are looking for related to your event
• Know what terms people use when looking for events like yours
• Know what terms people use to get to your site
Be Relevant.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Relevant.
36
z Best research tool ever.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Relevant.
37
z Autosuggest (Don’t Hit Enter)
38
z Google Suggestions.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Relevant.
39
z Ubersuggest (ubersuggest.com)
40
z Ubersuggest (ubersuggest.com)
41
z tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/
• Use this term 10,000 times
• Create 10,000 pages with this term
• Rename your event
What NOT to do.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Relevant.
Twice as many people search for “cooking class” than “cooking course”, so maybe I
should use that.
Think keyTOPICSnot keyWORDS
z (You’re gonna need this.)
z Google Webmaster Tools.
Log in to Google Account
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Relevant.
z Google Webmaster Tools.
Verify Account
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Relevant.
z Google Webmaster Tools.
If you have Google Analytics installed you can just use that.
z Google Webmaster Tools.
See if you’re in trouble
Submit
XML
Sitemap Search Queries
z Google Webmaster Tools.
See terms people use to get to your site.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Relevant.
z Google Webmaster Tools.
See the pages they’re getting to.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Relevant.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Popular.
4. Be Popular.�
• Search engines want to show results they know people like
Be Popular?
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Popular.
• Links to your page
• Links to your site
• Mentions online
• Shares
Be Popular?
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Popular.
55
z Obvs.
56
z Newspapers.
57
z Magazines.
58
z City Calendars.
59
z Tourism sites.
60
z Networking sites.
61
z Get as niche as you can.
62
z Or as regional as you can.
63
z Find your community.
64
z Make sharing as easy as you can.
Share icons
z Make sharing as easy as you can.
(or like
this)
66
Promote it on your own site.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Popular.
67
z Write your own blog post.
68
Write lots of blog posts.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Popular.
Get others to talk about you.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Popular.
• Talk to local bloggers
• Write about specific parts of your event
• Highlight presenters and performers so they’ll share your posts
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Pretty. 5. Be
Pretty.�
71
z Pretty search results.
72
z Pretty social shares.
73
z Title tag & Meta description
Title tag:
• 50-65 characters
• Direct impact on ranking
Pretty Title Tags.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Pretty.
Meta Description:
• 155ish characters
• NO direct impact on ranking
• Ad copy to get people to click on your result
Pretty Meta Descriptions.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Pretty.
76
z portent.com/serp-preview-tool
77
z Use Images.
78
z Really Pretty Search Results.
• Events Markup
• Lists event info right in search results
• (Only works in Google)
• 20-30% increase in CTR
Really Pretty Search Results.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Pretty.
http://searchengineland.com/how-to-get-a-30-increase-in-ctr-with-structured-markup-105830
Get ready for some coding stuff.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Pretty.
81
z Event Markup in Google.
<h3 itemprop="name">Event Planning and SEO with Brown Paper Tickets</h3>!<p><img itemprop="image" class="image float left" src="http://professionalgeorge.org/images/bpt-pic.png" alt="Event Planning and SEO with Brown Paper Tickets"/>!<p itemprop="location" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Place"><strong>Where:</strong><br/>!<span itemprop="name">Brown Paper Tickets Community Events Space</span><br/>!<span itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">!<span itemprop="streetAddress">309 N 36th St</span> (2nd Floor)<br/>!<span itemprop="addressLocality">Seattle</span>!
82
z Event Markup.
83
z Option 1: Tag in Webmaster Tools.
Data Highlighter
84
z
Start Highlighting
Tagging in Google Webmaster Tools.
85
z Tagging in Google Webmaster Tools.
Enter URL and add
type
86
z Tagging in Google Webmaster Tools.
Highlight
data
See tagged data
87
z Tagging in Google Webmaster Tools.
Check all pages you want to tag
88
z Tagging in Google Webmaster Tools.
Publishes
immediately!
89
z Option 2: Mark it up yourself.
90
z Data Markup Helper.
91
z Data Markup Helper.
Tag it up just like before
92
z Data Markup Helper.
Hit “Generate HTML” and copy/paste code
Event Tag in GWT Pros
• Easy to use • No coding • Immediate
Event Tag in GWT Cons
• Manual • Only goes to Google • Easily breaks
Event Tagging in GWT.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Pretty.
Event Markup Pros
• Scales well • Supported by all search
engines
Event Markup Cons
• Slower to publish • Requires coding
resources
Event Markup in HTML.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Pretty.
95
Musicians Markup: Google might be doing this for all events in the future.
Twittercard Markup
• Gives you a bigger tweet
• Let’s you highlight image
• Links to your Twitter handle regardless of who tweets
• Lets you customize title, image, description
Pretty Tweets.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Pretty.
<!-- Twitter Card data -->!<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary">!<meta name="twitter:site" content="@number1george">!<meta name="twitter:title" content="Page Title">!<meta name="twitter:description" content="Page description less than 200 characters">!<meta name="twitter:creator" content="@Portent">!<-- Twitter Summary card images must be at least 120x120px -->!<meta name="twitter:image" content="http://www.example.com/image.jpg">!
97
z Twittercard Markup.
98
This…
99
… vs. this
100
2nd Link
101
z You need to be approved in Card Validator.
Twittercard Markup • 36% increase in clicks • 41% increase in retweets
• 48% increase in favorites
• 31% increase in visits • 33% increase in visitor-
to-lead conversion rate
• 55% increase in leads
Pretty Tweets.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Pretty.
http://www.shopify.com/blog/12915741-everything-you-need-to-know-about-twitter-cards-for-ecommerce
Open Graph Markup • Lets you customize title,
image, description
• Gives you control over display
Pretty Social Shares.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Pretty.
104
Facebook without Markup.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Pretty.
105
Facebook with Markup.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Pretty.
106
180% increase in Interactions.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Pretty.
http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/2149-photos-are-still-king-on-facebook
107
Open Graph works in LinkedIn.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Pretty.
108
Open Graph works in Google+.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Pretty.
109
Open Graph works in Pinterest.
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Pretty.
<!-- Open Graph data -->!<meta property="og:title" content="Title Here" />!<meta property="og:type" content="article" />!<meta property="og:url" content="http://www.example.com/" />!<meta property="og:image" content="http://example.com/image.jpg" />!<meta property="og:description" content="Description Here" /> !<meta property="og:site_name" content="Site Name" />!<meta property="fb:admins" content="Facebook numeric ID" />!
110
z Open Graph markup.
111
z Markup helper – webcodetools.com
112
z WordPress plugins
Check your work! • cards-dev.twitter.com/
validator • developers.facebook.com/
tools/debug • google.com/webmasters/
tools/richsnippets • developers.pinterest.com/
rich_pins/validator/
(bit.ly/bpt-seo)
Event Promotion & SEO 101 Be Pretty.
Event Promotion SEO
Event Promotion & SEO 101 How to Attract Record Crowds
5 Steps for Event Promotion SEO: 1. Be online. 2. Be useful. 3. Be relevant. 4. Be popular. 5. Be pretty.
Event Promotion SEO
Event Promotion & SEO 101 How to Attract Record Crowds
5 Steps for Event Promotion SEO: 1. Have a dedicated page 2. Display useful information 3. Use relevant language 4. Share and be sharable 5. Use markup for better display
Event Promotion & SEO 101 How to Attract Record Crowds
Step 6:�Celebrate!
Event Promotion & SEO 101 How to Attract Record Crowds
George Freitag SEO Strategist portent.com @number1george bit.ly/bpt-seo
Thank �You ��