UnlockData have traditionally relied on pay per click (PPC) advertising to drive traffic to their website but realizing its vulnerability to factors outside their control approached Distinctly Digital to establish a presence in the natural search engine listings. That was only 8 months ago but since then over 85% of the keywords targeted are in Google’s top ten ranking positions despite being outside the top 100 prior to the campaign.

Brief

Our brief was to establish UnlockData in the natural search engine listings and reduce their reliance on traffic from paid search (PPC) campaigns. Due to PPC campaigns UnlockData were already running, they had already identified keyphrases that drove both traffic and sales to their website; these were to be the focus of the SEO campaign.

Strategy and Execution

• Optimisation of key onsite factors such as page titles and URLS
• Creation of new product specific pages that enabled optimisation of a larger number of keywords
• Ongoing competitor analysis to identify important backlink partners in the telecommunications sector
• Implementation of Google Analytics tracking software so increases in traffic could be measured and user journey’s monitored and improved
• Link building campaign focusing on attaining deep links with keyphrase rich anchor texts
• Creation and optimisation of videos to provide backlinks and increase user interaction

Results
Despite the campaign being in its infancy, the results have been extremely satisfactory:

• 85% of targeted keywords are now on the first page of Google.co.uk
• 100% of targeted keywords in the top 20 results of Google.co.uk
• Unpaid search engine traffic has doubled (Month 1/Month
• Unpaid search engine traffic is now responsible for 15% of all traffic to the website (6% month one )

These impressive results have recently lead UnlockData to expand the scope of the campaign to focus on a wider variety of keyphrase such as those relating to different mobile phone manufactures.

Click here to visit Unlockdata.co.uk

This post discusses ways of using business network LinkedIn to help grow and promote your business and hopefully pick up a few sales off the back of it. Remember that it takes time to establish credibility and trust in any networking situation and due to its faceless nature this can take longer to build online than in person so patience is key.

So here are 5 tips for getting the most out of LinkedIn:

Display your expertise –Use it to tell clients or prospects about all the experience you have your sector. Think of it as an online CV and use it to assure people that they are in safe hands when working with you.

Research –LinkedIn is great for researching companies who you may be working with or employees you may be thinking of employing. It’s possible that there may be differences between a CV you receive and the candidates LinkedIn profile.

Use it to get a backlink – Every LinkedIn profile can contain up to 3 links to other websites. Make sure 1 of them links to your website and it will help to improve your offsite SEO.
Use it to stay connected – Business cards are great but how many do you lose or misplace? After you attend a networking meeting, go home, look up any new connections up and connect. This way you will be permanently connected and no longer reliant on keeping a business card safe.

Share your knowledge – Every industry has related groups on LinkedIn where members can ask questions to each other and answer questions from other members. Sign up to groups related to your business and set aside 30 minutes a week to login and answer questions posted by other members. This will help establish yourself as authoritative figure in your sector, increasing the chances of a contact referring business to you.

If you’re proud of it then promote it! – Include a link to your LinkedIn profile in your email signature or even your business card. This will help build your network of connections and also show to people that you are an open and honest character.

We hope you’ll follow us on Twitter and keep us up-to-date with what you’re interested in, thinking about or planning for the future.

Distinctly Digital can also be found at www.facebook.com/distinctlydigital, we look forward to seeing you there soon!

Brief
The brief from our client Keepers Kit – one of the UKs leading goalkeeping equipment suppliers – was a simple one; improve natural search engine rankings for a number of important keyphrases and deliver an increase in volume of unpaid search engine traffic to the site.

Strategy and Execution

• Extensive optimization of onsite factors
• Vastly increased the number of internal links throughout the site to aid search engine spiders and inform search engines of the key landing pages
• In depth competitor analysis to identify important backlink partners in the sports retail niche
• Link building campaign focusing on attaining deep links with keyphrase rich anchor texts
• Provided SEO training to the Keepers Kit staff so they are able to perform basic optimization for any new products

Results

The KeepersKit.com SEO campaign is still under way with a further raft of changes planned for 2010. Results are therefore in there early stages but already include:

• All targeted keywords are now on the first page of Google
• Average search engine ranking position of keyphrases targeted has improved from 45 to 7
• Natural search engine traffic has increased by over 240% (December 2008/2009)

1) Competition
At the beginning of the internet, when keywords became common place, there were less websites around, and this meant a lot less competition. Deciding the basis of website optimisation was relatively straightforward; you found the broadest words relating to your subject, the ones that would drive the most traffic. These would became your keywords.

This has all changed, most generic keyword ranking positions are already occupied by a website with years of backlinks to protect its position. This is why beginners have to focus on keyphrases; slightly longer variants of a keyword, maybe 2 or 3 keywords combined. They are often more specific to a niche, and this combined with lower competition, increases the chances of ranking well and attracting traffic.

2) Cost
As the old adage goes ‘time is money’ and optimisation is no different. What do you think is easier to rank for ‘pizza’ or ‘takeaway pizza Watford’? With the keyphrase (takeaway pizza Watford), there are likely to be at most 2 or 3 competitors targeting it, and in all probability less than that. This should reduce the time taken to optimise for the keyphrases, therefore making the optimisation process a lot more profitable and deliver a better return on investment (ROI)

3) Relevancy
Focusing on keyphrases rather than keywords will establish in your own mind the core activity of your business and where you are most competitive. This is in turn should feed to the rest of your business and help create a really targeted offering that focuses on your customers needs. Keyphrases also tend to drive more targeted traffic, and therefore traffic that is more likely to convert into custom. It’s much better to target ‘pink ballet shoes’ if that’s what you sell, rather than a more generic option such as ‘shoes’

In conclusion, although keyphrases may take slightly longer to research in the short term, they will save you a lot of time over the long term, generating a much more attractive ROI.

Page titles are one of the more important onsite factors in search engine algorithms. They are seen by search engines as a guide to a pages subject so should be keyphrase rich and be specific to the page content. Ideally, every topic within your website should have its own page, enabling you optimise a page for a small set of keyphrases. This is where good information architecture (site layout) will help.
Search engines aim to deliver users with web pages that are directly related to their search term, so the more specific your web pages are to a search term, the more likely you will achieve good rankings.

Body content should also be defined and related to the subject matter. Good copy writing is a skill that will only come with practise so get going! Make sure that your content reads well, and contains numerous mentions of the keyphrases you are targeting, although be careful, don’t make your content unreadable! This will only reduce the quality of your website and search engines will pick up on this and likely penalise your website. Always right for end users and not for search engines, follow this rule and you will be fine.

URLs are an important factor in onsite SEO and should include keyphrases relating to page content. They should be as short as possible, particularly if your site contains many different levels and sub-sections. Characters and therefore keyphrases near the front of URLs are given more importance, so this should be considered when designing the architecture of a site.

Image ALT texts are used as a text equivalent of an image. They are used by the visually impaired to aid navigation and can also be read by search engines. I do not advocate the use of ALT tag keyphrase stuffing, which would greatly hamper usability for the visually impaired, but where possible, ALT text should contain keyphrases.

Headings tags can be used to include keyphrase variations such as pluralisation. They indicate the subject of page sections so are viewed by search engines as important.

All of these above factors are important to onsite optimisation. If time is pressed, I suggest beginning with the page titles and URLs as these are given greatest significance in search engine algorithms but all factors should be considered and optimised if top rankings are to be achieved for the most competitive keyphrases.

Keyphrase management
Keyphrases should be targeted in “quotes”, [brackets] and unquoted. This can help minimise cost per click (CPC) bids as it increases a keyphrases Quality Score. New keyphrases and variations of current keyphrases should be added on a daily basis to ensure as many actual search terms are bid on as possible. This results in lower CPC bids.

Optimising Adverts

All adverts should be subject to constant optimisation. We recommend that each ad group should have two different ads competing against each other. Once you’ve analysed which of the ads is performing more effectively, try and determine why and optimise the other ads using the same techniques. To ensure all adverts are displayed for an equal amount of time make sure you have selected ‘Rotate: Show ads more evenly’ in the Ad delivery section of the advanced campaign settings. This ensures you’re in charge of improving optimisation and not the Google Adwords program

Day-part Targeting

Day-part targeting is the process of setting times to increase/decrease keyphrases bids dependent on the time of day. An example of this would be a pizza delivery business vastly reducing its CPC bids or removing its ads from the network when it’s closed or at a time where people don’t tend to consume pizza, and increasing its bid between 6PM-9PM when people are most likely to search for a pizza delivery company.

Ad Position Management

Having your advert appear at the top position is not always the best strategy. Adverts in position number three often attract a similar click through rate as position one, yet will cost less. If your budget is restricted and you often find that you are spending your entire budget before the end of the day on a regular basis, reduce your cost per click bids and this should mean you can get more clicks for your budget, increasing your exposure!

Negative keyphrases

Negative keyphrases can be used to prevent ads from showing for undesired search terms that may be broadly related to a targeted keyphrase but unlikely to lead to conversion. This reduces wasted spend and will improves click through rate (CTR), which is known to reduce CPC bids as it increases an ad groups Quality Score.

All of these factors and many more are implemented by our PPC specialists when managing client campaigns to make sure they get the best return on their PPC investment. To find out more about our PPC offering please check out our PPC page or submit a enquiry form and a member of our team will be in touch.