An Introduction To

By

Simon WhartonManaging Director

PushON is an Online Marketing agency dedicated to

promoting and improving the website visibility of NW

companies by enabling the people who are looking for the

types of products and services you provide, to find your

website quickly and easily.

Who are we?

Leon Best must sign for Forest!

It’s about influence

Who uses the Internet?

• The average age of UK internet users is on the rise, thanks to the

growing online presence of the over-55s, or 'silver surfers' (Neilsen)

• The destinations with the oldest average visitor age were mainly familiar

high street brands, including John Lewis, TUI, Nationwide and M&S

• The internet is becoming increasingly indispensable for women, with

over two thirds (66.1%) saying their lives would be disrupted if they had

to go without the web for a week. [Source: Burst Media, July 2007]

• UK internet users are split almost equally between males (51.5%) and

females (48.5%).

• Largest demographic group online is 35-44 age group, accounting for

23.5% of visits in April/May 2007. Silver Surfers, the over – 55s,

accounted for 22% of visits. [Source: Hitwise]

Some random stats:

An ever growing catalogue of all the websites and pages they can find on the internet

The main search engines in the UK are:

•Google: www.google.co.uk

•Live (MSN/Microsoft): www.live.co.uk

•Ask: uk.ask.com

•Yahoo: uk.search.yahoo.com

What are Search Engines?

Search Engine Market Share (UK):

In simple terms, search engines match a word or phrase submitted as a search term against their log of uses of that word or phrase on websites that they know about.

For simple words or phrases, there may be several million results

The more complex the query, the less the amount of results and the more precise the answer, the easier to rank

How do Search Engines Work?

Term Volume of Pages (Google)

Contract 292,000,000

Business Contract 19,500,000

Business Contract Template 212,000

Results for ContractStore

Term Position in Google

Contract 3 (usually 2)

Business Contract 1

Business Contract Template 1, 2 and 4 (via blog for now)

•More complex terms are easier to rank for•More complex terms are generally lower traffic, higher conversion•It’s probably not worth competing with Wikipedia right now•Authority sites are gold dust•Dominating key term results is possible via use of various resources

Many criteria including:•Inbound links

•Quality (Authority)

•Volume

•Age of domain

•Anchor text in links

•Frequency of change of content

•Text appearing on the site

•Ability to index the site

•Density of terms

•Quality and focus of code

Relevance!http://www.seomoz.org/article/google-historical-data-patent

How Do Search Engines Rank Sites?

Various factors with various weighting

Meta data:• Meta Title Tag

• Meta Description

• Meta Keywords

URL Composition:• Meaningless: http://www.manchester.gov.uk/site/scripts/documents.php?categoryID=100002

• Meaningful(ish): http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/manchester_united/s/

1034070_reds_draw_arsenal

Tidy Code• W3C Compliance (http://www.w3.org/)

• Data Structures

On Site Factors:

Example Results

Title Tag and Meta Description

Copywriting

Write for people first

Research what you want to rank for

There are ways to add emphasis:

• Headlines

• Sub headlines

• Sensible repetition and derivatives of search terms

• Labelling of images

Links

Links are like votes. Citations

Not all links are created equal

Authority sites include:• The Open Directory Project (http://www.dmoz.org/)

• The Beeb (http://www.bbc.co.uk/)

• Government (http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/index.htm)

Context is important•Links from the same subject area are understood

Enable the Conversation

Allowing people to talk to you

• Commenting

•Submission of content of various forms

Bookmarking

Sentiment and Social Media

• Universal Search

• Local Search

• News

• RSS

• Rich Media

How is Search Changing?

Universal Search:

Local Search

• Increased relevant traffic

• Increased relevant transactions

• Increased ROI on marketing budget

• Increased feedback from customers

• Increased brand presence and awareness

• Increased “business benefit” from online investment (website)

• Increased revenue driven via the web

News Search

• Google acquisition of Feedburner

• Customisation of content

• Permission marketing (Incorporation of AdWords)

• Relevance

RSS

• Google Acquisition of YouTube

• Universal Search

• Taking content to the consumer

• Tagging content with search in mind

• Quality isn’t always an issue where timliness can compensate

• Citizen journalists

Rich Media

• Write for people

• Be relevant

• Be timely

• Understand what Search Engines consume

• Educate my assets

• Engage with my audience (UGC!!!)

• Think locally global

• Have breadth and depth of content

• Measure

How do I rank well in search?

Questions and discussion

Simon WhartonManaging Director

t: 0870 757 488m: 07900 224 764

e: simon@pushon.co.uk