hi european marketing meeting

Miko CoffeyIndependent Web & Social Software Consultant

www.usingmyhead.com

What is all this SEO stuff,

and whyshould I care?

TextSEO =

Search Engine Optimization

Yahoo Baidu Bing Ask AOL Other Google

Search Engine =Source: Market Share

85.15%

6.33%

3.34%

3.22%

0.65%

0.40%

0.91% = Others

Global Search Engine Market Share - October 2010

Optimization =

TextSEO

SEO

= mostly just common sense

WAIT!First:

why should I care?

What does this really have to do

with hostels?

Internet penetration by country

Roughly 1/3age 16-54use it on a

daily basis

Source: Universal McCann

Only 21% of travellers go directly to a brand-specific web site when booking accommodation

Source: PEW / New Media Trend Watch

Where do the rest go?

Your customers & the Web

Source: GMI / Media Screen survey

• 74% of consumers use a search engine when researching and/or purchasing travel products or services online

• 82% name Google as their preferred source for researching travel products and services

There are over 3 billion searches performed on Google

every day

Source: ComScore

Over 2.2 million of these searches contain the word

hostel or hostels

Source: Google Keyword Tool

auberge(s) = Over 142,000 just 1 example of other languages...

2.2 million...

more than the entire populationof Mexico City

searching for hostels on Google each day

You will be...

Convinced yet?

SEO

= mostly just common sense

Easy as pie?

Key

Pie I have eaten

Pie I have not yet eaten

Text

Text

My name is Sally,and I make pies.

Where can I get a delicious cherry pie?

Sally

Help!

SearchResults 1-10

SearchResults 11-20

Results 21 +

Page 1 Page 2

All other pages

...

4.37%of clicks

All other pages combined:

89.7%of clicks

5.93%of clicks

Source: SEOMoz / Rand Fishkin

Text+ =Search

Results 1-10

Page 1

???

???= 2 things

• What you put on your web page

• Who else is linking to that web page, and how

= SEO

➡ On-page SEO

➡ Off-page SEO

TextWhat you put on your web page

( On-page SEO )

How Google works

• Google (ro)bot:Computer code that ‘crawls’ around the web, jumping from link to link

• Reports back on what it finds to the Google ‘brain’

• Google ‘brain’ uses this to decide how to rank pages in results

* dramatic simplification!

*

I like it when you make it easy to tell what your web page is about.

Cherry Pies-------------------------------------------- cherry pie. ------------------------------------ buy cherry pie online. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

www.sallys.com/cherry-pie

Order Gourmet Cherry Pie Online - Sally’s Pies

I am just a simple robot, so I can’t see images. I like text.

Cherry Pies-------------------------------------------- cherry pie. ------------------------------------ buy cherry pie online. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

image name = cherry-pie.jpgimage alt = “Sally’s cherry pie”

Nice one.Thanks!

Thanks from us visually-impaired

users, too!

I am sure this is some kind of fancy animation that you spent

loads of money on.I still can’t see it.

Flash =FAIL

whoosh!

We can’t see it either.Boo!

Huh? I am confused.

Cherry Pies

-------------------------------------------- cherry pie. ------------------------------------ buy cherry pie online. ----------------------------------------------------------

www.sallys.com/cherry-pie.htm?ref=2387

Cherry Pies

-------------------------------------------- cherry pie. ------------------------------------ buy cherry pie online. ----------------------------------------------------------

www.sallys.com/cherry-pie.htm

Beware of duplicate content

Oh come on. That page makes no

sense.

Beware of keyword ‘stuffing’

Cherry PiesCherry pie pies pies of cherry cherry pies cherry pie. Hot cherry pie pies of cherry buy cherry pie online. Get cherry pies buy cherry pies cherry pie delivery. Pies pie pie pie and more pie for pie-lovers and pie-heads.

www.sallys.com/cherry-pie-cherries-pies-pie

Cherry pie, pies, pies of cherry, cherries pie

Don’t waste my time.

What is a keyword?

A phrase that your potential customers might put into Google in

order to find your web page.

What is a keyword?

• highly relevant• specific to that page• fairly popular (number of searches)• ideally not too competitive

^GOOD

A phrase that you have researched and found it to be:

Keyword research tactics

Keyword # searches in last 30 days

Difficulty / competition

pie 7.5 million 86.39%

cherry pie 90,500 50.99%

cherry pie online 140 44%

adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-difficulty/

Things I look for...

Cherry Pies-------------------------------------------- cherry pie. ------------------------------------ buy cherry pie online. ----------------------------------------------------------

www.sallys.com/cherry-pie

Gourmet Cherry Pie Online - Sally’s homemade pie delivery

#2 : Keywords in URL

#1 : Keywords in page title

#3 : Decent amount of keywords in page content

#4 : Keywords in image alt tag

Another tip...

Cherry Pies

-------------------------------------------- cherry pie. ------------------------------------ buy cherry pie online. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Order Gourmet Cherry Pie Online - Sally’s Pies

results listing:

Order Gourmet Cherry Pie Online - Sally’s PiesOrder Sally’s world-famous cherry pie online. Hand-baked from fresh ingredients & guaranteed to be delivered to you within 24 hours.

Google doesn’t really pay that much attention to this description

but your customers do!Make sure it’s ENTICING to click.

Sally’s Gourmet Pie DeliveryHomemade pie in these flavors:• Deluxe cherry pie• Amazing apple pie• Perfect pumpkin pie

Order pie online now

Why choose Sally’s homemade gourmet pies? ...

Sally’sMy name is Sally, and I make pies.

results listing: results listing:

Homemade Gourmet Pies DeliveredOrder Sally’s world-famous cherry pie, amazing apple pie or pumpkin pie online. Hand-baked & delivered within 24 hours.

On-Page SEO

BEFORE AFTER

That was pretty easy! What next?

???= 2 things

• What you put on your web page

• Who else is linking to that web page, and how

= SEO

➡ On-page SEO

➡ Off-page SEO

= 20% weight• What you put on your web page

• Who else is linking to that web page, and how = 80% weight

Links are key to improving Google position

Text

Who else is linking to your web page, and how

( Off-page SEO )

Sally’s gourmet pies are ace.

For tasty pie, Sally hand-bakes the best.

We know pie, and Sally’s pie is good.

Like cherry pie? Try Sally’s gourmet pies.

Pie Reviews

Pie Loversʼ Forum

NatʼlPie

Assoc

Pie Blog

Sally’s Gourmet PiesHand-baked pie in these flavors:• Deluxe cherry pie• Amazing apple pie• Perfect pumpkin pie

Order your pie online

Why choose Sally’s hand-baked gourmet pies? ...

Every link from a relevant website to yours =

1 vote of confidence in Google

1 vote

1 vote

1 vote

1 vote

What matters in a link

1. Diversity of websites linking (not all from the same website)

2. Popularity / importance of who is sending the link

3. Link is text (not image!) and what words are used

4. Spam signals(trust, paid links, hosting, etc)

* dramatic simplification!

*

I can’t see images

Source: Rand Fishkin

How to get linksNatural Link Attraction

www.sallys.com

Cool!

My readers are going to love this!

I’ve got to share that.

That’s impressive!

How to get linksPress & Media Coverage

www.sallys.comwww.newspaper.com

www.magazine.com

www.industry-mag.com

How to get linksEmbedded Links

www.sallys.comBob’s Pie Blog

Profile aboutSally’s Pies

Sallys.com

How to get links‘Link bait’ / Viral Content

www.sallys.com

OMG!

Shocking!

I’ve got to Tweet that!

Flippin’ amazing!!

HOT NEWS:

How Britney Spears’ 100% pie diet made her Michael

Jackson crazy

How to get linksThe NA Network

How to get links:

NA Network

The NA Network

• Together we can generate a lot of power, but we all need to work together to do so

• NA SEO Link Strategy aims to boost Google rank for hihostels.com AND your own NA website

Which is better for you?

0 results on Page 1

1 result on Page 1

2 results on Page 1

... and so on ...

less than 20% chance of getting the customer

4x more likely to get the customer

8x more likely to get the customer

=

=

=

12% !

BUT:

• You have only 1 NA website. How can you get more than 1 result?

• You need hihostels.com to appear on Page 1 to double your chances of being seen

Example: Google.com Page 1 for hostels in Amsterdam

8 out of 10= competitors

Example: Google.com Page 1 for hostels in Amsterdam

8 out of 10= competitors

92 hostels

50 hostels

Example: Google.com Page 1 for hostels in Amsterdam

0% chance

1% chance

2% chance

Ugh!That’s no good!

How can we improve that?

Ideal scenario:

100% chanceof getting the booking

Ideal scenario:

100% chanceof getting the booking

Our SEO Link Strategy for NAs

Bronze Level: Add a Link

Silver Level: Add a Page (or paragraph)

Gold Level: Add a Section

• Get the hihostels.com page for your top city onto Page 1

• Get your own NA site onto Page 1

• Occupy more than 1 position on Page 1

• Get onto Page 1 in different Googles (google.fr , google.de , google.es etc)

3 levels:

Do all 3 = maximum Google exposure

HI International Office cannot do it

alone: we need your help

Text

Miko Coffeywww.usingmyhead.com

miko@usingmyhead.com

SEO is

marvelous!

Presentation slides:www.slideshare.net/mikocoffey

password: hihostels

with thanks to Rand Fishkin www.seomoz.org