The world of search and marketing is constantly evolving and merging which is why SEOs have got to constantly be aware of how to utilise off page assets online. Universal search has meant that organisations can now index, rank and obtain traffic from a wider channel of sources so it is vital that you are involved in that space.
Paddy Moogan steps up first to talk and makes the point known that he is called Paddy not “Patty” as it says in the SES conference guide. I am sure people won’t forget as his presentation was packed with actionable points and valuable pieces of information.
What are digital assets?
- Look what you have got offline
- Make all your content crawlable
- Making your content bring you traffic
Examples; Videos, podcasts, images,
Why should we care?
Universal search and the integration of vertical silos has meant we have other options than just organic listings to get traffic.
News feeds, images, videos are all channels to obtain more traffic
Only caveat is make sure it’s relevant to your client
Online assets
Never say you don’t have any!
I completely agree, every company has USPs and if you don’t know – talk to staff, read up about the history of the comapny.
Offline assets
Most companies don’t use them…
Our job is to look at what they have got and what can be utilised:
- Emails
- Direct mail
- Press release
- Training videos/manuals
- TV &radio
- Surveys and research
Find ways to make them work for you in online space
What does your SERPS look like?
Every vertical is different…
Don’t just jump on bandwagon and start creating videos if they are not suitable for your industry/audience
Where do your assets fit in?
Go back to your list, prioritise, and optimise….
Most common in SERPS
- Videos
- Images
- News
- Real time
- Shopping
How do you optimise these areas?
Video Results
Optimise YouTube channel
– Use closed caption files
– Use keywords in filename
– Encourage embeds for more backlinks
– Comment on videos for backlinks
– Use the YouTube keyword research tool
Images
– Watermarks your images (branding and awareness)
– Install link in images
Google news
– Multiple authors (bg ranking factor here)
– News sitemap
– Date in the URL (could just be a number)
– Keep asking google news
– Try and break news quickly
Read also about getting Google News in Universal SERPs in Barry’s Post.
PROCESS: How to write and rnk news pieces
- Publish brief “breaking news” article
- Promote immediately to get citations (email, social, RSS)
- Update article with full content
One method which the Times have done which has worked very well is to prefix the keyword in title of all news pieces. For example six nations 2011: Title of Post
Google Shopping
Essential if ecommerce site
– Keep the product feed fresh
– Higher quality images the better
– Encourage customers to leave reviews
– Age of feed matters
– Use category attribute
– Custom attributes to give more data
Rich Snippets
Examples of some areas that you can use rich snippets:
- Reviews
- Events
- People
- Recipes
Google allows you to mark up the following with rich snippets
– Examples:
– Reviews
– Products (US)
– Business
– Events
– People
– Recipes
Getting more from your videos
Link building – I have read this video post and recommend Paddy’s post on Distilled
Transcribe content from video into text. Two services that offer this are:
Odog (?)
SEOmoz
Use emails for content
Q&A
Turn into content for your site
Use presentations as videos
Use camtasia to turn presentations into screenshots
Add to YouTube and optimise
Press Releases
Always get them from your offline PR department
Rewrite title and opening paragraph if PR companies have already sent it through…
Surveys and Research
Audit your offline content for interesting stats and research
Put it into a blogpost or infographic
Audio & Podcasts
– Audio content can be turned into MP3 file
– Create an RSS podcast feed that contains file
– Submit RSS and page where file is hosted to podcast directories
Jim Yu
Jim Yu mainly focuses on real time search, explaining what it is, how we should be treating it and how we should be integrating it into our day to day actitivies.
Real time Impact on SEO
– Recent listings – even with low authority – can infiltrate top positions
Real time presents some new challenges for search engines
– Understanding searches intentions
– Ranking algorithm
Balancing authority, relevancy, recency – all factors that will now alter ranking algorithm.
One issue that Google will have to deal with is balancing opinions/reviews.
QDF – Google’s Answer
QDF stands for “query deserves freshness”
QDF tells the search engine when and how much to increase the importance of recency
Google QDF driven by:
- Search volume
- News coverage
- Blog coverage
- Twitter Facebook pages
Case Study
Brand fell from #1 to #2 because of real time story
40% decrease
Remember you can use PPC as reputation management Insurance
CHECK LIST
Optimise for authority
– On page internal linking
– Build external backlinks
– Use social services on your site to encourage engagement + links
– Build social authority
Create new content optimised for freshness
– Insert news, blogs twitter feeds on pages
– Refresh older pages every few months