Killer Search Marketing Strategies

I had the pleasure of attending a S.E.O and internet marketing seminar today, in a swanky hotel in Victoria, London. Entitled "Killer Search Marketing Strategies for ROI Success". Swanky title huh? Not an area that I particularly focus on, but I felt it might be useful anyway. The subheading "Exploring Innovative strategies and technical Insight to revitalise your search marketing strategy and provide a stronger return on investment". didn't instil much excitement, but it was interesting never-the-less.

I enjoyed the presentation by Arjo Gosh. "Discover how web-site content can increase traffic from search engine listings". He kicked it off with a quote by Larry Page of Google, whose idea and guiding mantra for his search engine was that it " understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want."

I think for the most part he has achieved his vision, but Arjo shared some ideas to help Google fulfil this promise...

• Content adds value to search and the user journey
• Can be used to deep link paid search
• Good content helps natural search visibility
• Content alone does not produce good search results
• Get it right and results will outstrip cost

Getting it right

So how do we get it right? Ken McEwan from MediaCo had some suggestions on the body text:

• The lead statement should be between 150-250 characters (first 2-3 paragraphs)
• Use key-phrases consistently and logically
• Ideal word count: 250-350 words (450-500 possibly)
• Emphasis should be on key phrases, not single words (Some 60% of surfers use three or more keywords)
• Single topic per page
• Best practice is three to five targeted phrases per page

I think the best bit of his advice though was "Writing for readers = Writing for search engines = Higher rankings

On the way home I saw Chris Evans and Paul Gascoigne waiting for a taxi, and Gazza even gave me smile... the highlight of the day though, besides lunch with Simon from Hitwise, was a revelation in S.E.O that I discovered in Charles Wyke-Smith's fantastic book "Stylin' with CSS" on the Tube. Now this is a killer tip. More on this, and other PTA's, PTC's and ROI next time, but remember "Optimisation is not about complicated formulas and algorithms it's about the written word!"