We are proud to announce that Verve Search was approached to write the “SEO Best Practise guide” for B2B Marketing Magazine this year. After a lengthy writing and editing process, ample amount of blood, sweat and tears (all included in the price) we are happy to say that the SEO Best Practise Guide is now finished – all 55 pages of it. Phew.

We can offer you the exclusive chance of a sneak preview HERE + in addition we can also offer you a discount of £20 as a pre-publication offer if you order the guide before 31st July (2010 of course)…The totlal cost of the guide is £130 (£150 post 31st July)

When we set about writing this guide we decided that we were going to share as much as possible, this guide gives you an insight into exactly how we (at Verve Search) carry out Search Engine Optimsiation. From keyword research and mapping to link development. We have also chosen to cover aspects such as optimising Video content and how to make the most out of Google Local (now called Google Places). Unlike most SEO guides out there this guide is NOT a promotional piece for our company but a genuine attempt in helping YOU the reader to understand and learn more about all aspects of SEO. Explained in plain English wihtout baffling techy speak to confuse you, we really do believe this guide is educational and useful.

EDIT: If you attend the “B2B Marketing SEO Seminar” on the 8th July you can get the ‘SEO Best Practise Guide’ for 1/2 PRICE!

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SEO Best Practise Guide Contents:

SECTION 1: Introduction to SEO

1.1 Search engine optimisation
1.2 The UK search engine market
1.3 Why use search engine marketing?
1.4 SEO’s place in the Internet marketing mix
1.5 How search engines work

SECTION 2: Technical SEO – The foundation of SEO

2.1 Site architecture
2.2 URL structure
2.3 Canonicalisation
2.4 Sitemap
2.5 Geo-targeting – hosting and domain
2.6 Technical toolbox

SECTION 3: On-page SEO

3.1 Keyword and competitor research
3.2 Conducting competitor research
3.3 Organising your research
3.4 Keyword research tools
3.5 Writing content with the search engines in mind
3.6 Keyword mapping
3.7 Current most important areas for content optimisation
3.8 Anchor text optimisation of internal linking

SECTION 4: Off-page SEO

4.1 The PageRank algorithm
4.2 TrustRank
4.3 Future importance of links
4.4 Link development
4.5 Evaluating link equity and carrying out link analysis
4.6 Link generation methods
4.7 Online public relations
4.8 Link baiting
4.9 Social media marketing as part of link development
4.10 Link analysis tools
4.11 Why link analysis is important

SECTION 5: Universal search

5.1 Optimising image content for universal search
5.2 Optimising video content for universal search

SECTION 6: Google places

6.1 Creating a local business listing
6.2 Optimising your local listing
6.3 Data citations

SECTION 7: Web analytics

7.1 Free and paid platforms
7.2 Importance of analytics when doing SEO
7.3 Setting up Google Analytics
7.4 Tracking the right metrics in analytics

APPENDIX i. Outsourcing SEO services

ii. Unethical SEO practices
iii. Future changes in SEO

GLOSSARY
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Happy reading…and please feel free to feedback what you thought of the guide! To request the guide please GO HERE and submit your details or email dominic.rookeallden[AT]b2bm.biz

This month (I believe it was on the 2nd of June) I was speaking at a seminar for B2B Marketing Events on ‘Content Marketing’, I covered the aspect of content marketing relating to SEO and link development. Here’s a short video with interviews of he speakers of the event (including myself ranting on at the end there):

After recently attending the SES 2010 conference I have finally found the time to upload my blogpost on Brian Eisenberg session on How to Increase Conversion Rates. It was a great session by Brian and I hope you take as much from the tips as I did.

Everyone loves a secret. Some people keep secrets, others like to gossip. Similar to the latter I couldn’t hold this one in any longer, so unlike most secrets here is one that can really benefit you. You ready? Ok, come closer…

Did you know the average conversion rate of a website is 3%

Even after all the vast increased capabilities of technology, design and analytics in the last 10 years it still hasn’t improved. Why? Read below and see.

1.    Communicate UVPs/UCPs (unique value propositions & unique campaign propositions)
Online users on average decide whether they want to purchase your product or service within 7 seconds so ensure you communicate your UVP/UCP simply and effectively

2.    Persuasive and Relevant Offers
In the B2C environment messages like ‘Free Shipping’ has a very small cost but a massive impact on conversion rates, surprisingly even scrapping a few £’s. For the B2B environment, consider ‘Free Trials’ as a persuasive offer.

3.    Reinforce Offers Sitewide
Surprising how many websites reinforce offers across the website except for the most important page – the checkout. Jacob Nielson said “Don’t make them think”, if you make them question whether they missed a stage and do not qualify for the offer then you are going to lose a sale. Customers make a decision on every click.

4.    They Maintain Scent
The term and concept ‘scent’ was discovered by Xerox in the late 90s. It essentially details the clues that a website can give to ensure users follow the right path. This includes imagery and colours as they can be visual clues that separate ages are connected. It is important not to focus on one page but the whole journey.

5.    Strong First Impression
Every type of advertising needs to create a human connection. It is widely believed that advertising mediums and even human interaction has 8 seconds before you form an opinion.

6.    Appeal to multiple personas/segments
Online users can be placed within 4 individual character types; competitive, spontaneous, methodical, humanistic.

Competitive
-    Price orientated
-    Know what they are looking for

Spontaneous
-    Make quick decisions
-    Look for clickable features

Methodical
-    Most time spent on pages
-    Analyse every detail

Humanistic
-    Look for human elements (reviews)
-    Like images of product/service

7.    They don’t do Slice/Dice Optimisation
The issue is time and resources; you need to look at the opportunity cost of implementing multi variations. The best way to test is for impact not variation and this is best suited to creating hypothesis such as ‘if A changes then would affect will this have on B’.

8.    Leverage Social Commerce
It is important to not only listen but to utilise the voice of the customer. Reviews make HUGE impacts on the conversion rate of websites.

9.    Using Social Voices in Navigation
By adding features such as ‘rating’ in the navigation it allows customers to view honest and peer opinions which is great since 78% of users trust peer reviews.

10.   Use Social Voices in Promotions
Let customer voices shape the content you write. By analysing customer conversations you can review strengths and weaknesses of your brand/product and address these issues in promotional content. Additionally, utilising user generated content in emails works well to increase conversions.

11.    Use Social Voices to Build Credibility
By implementing user generated content you increase your authenticity which will have a direct effect on decreasing bounce rate.

12.    Use Social Voices for Feedback and Research
Jacob Nielson states that “5 people can identify 80% of problems on a website” Ensure you use the free tools or undertake studies to highlight usability issues within your site. If you search Google for “69 free tools” you can find great resources.

13.    Use Persuasive Principles like Scarcity
Utilising persuasive statements such as “until stocks last”, or “for a limited time” can help drive conversions. This is especially important for spontaneous buyer types.

14.    Make Forms Engaging
Just because you managed to get users this far it doesn’t mean you should stop paying attention to the little details. The brand colours and design should be kept consistent so users know they are on the right path.
It is also a strong recommendation that you should you the thank you page as an opportunity to up sell your product or service.

15.    Provide Point of Action Assurances
Ensure that when users enquire they receive an assurance of a time when they will be contacted. Leads are shown to lose effectiveness by 6% after 1 hour delayed response time.

16.   Keep You in the Process
Don’t necessarily take people to the basket once clicked.

17.    Consider Email Preview
Ensure that the message you are trying to portray in emails can be read without downloading images. A large percentage of people with email will disregard emails if they have to download images.

18.    Budget for Experience
Clients will often spend budget on methods which aim to drive traffic to websites yet will debate whether to spend the same amount of time on website testing. Prioritise what is more important, increasing traffic by % or increasing conversions by %

You should build a better customer experience. Amazon run over 400 tests at any given time and are constantly monitoring what changes could positively affect their business.

19.    Utilise a system for Prioritization
When making changes to your website use a simple methods which highlights the ‘impact’ over ‘resources needed’. This will let you assess what changes can be made with relatively small effort and can let you plan further changes with your resources.

20.    They make data driven design decisions
Make educated and informed decisions based on data.

21.    How to execute Rapidly
The key to online is change. Websites need to be flexible and react to changes in the online environment.

5 steps which would help you move forward and see real progress:
1)     Identify problems, identify high bounce and exit rate
2)     Create a to do list
3)     Document your hypothesis
4)     Prioritise your to do list
5)     Start testing

This month, I was profiled in Sage Pay’s Moving Money magazine, which is quite exciting in itself. But in addition to interviewing me they also sent a Photographer; Will Amlot to do the photography to go with the profile.  To be honest, I thought this would be a guy with his camera just quickly snapping a few photos, boy was I wrong, Will and his assistant rocked up with two crates of photography equipment and rigged up in the communal area of our offices. I must admit I quite enjoyed the photo session, and I loved the “oh so forgiving” camera lenses even more. Will was fabulous and made me feel quite at ease. In addition to all the photographs he also did this video interview with me; about setting up my own business and general chat about the search industry. As usual it didn’t take me long to get me ranting about Search and business.

So for anyone that is remotely intrested in my ramblings, here’s the video:

A quick post to welcome our new Verve Search employee; Freya Jones. Freya has been working in Search for 2 years, mostly within Pay Per Click adverising. At Verve Search she will be doing both PPC and SEO and of course also some Social Media. When I interviewed Freya it was clear from the start that she was going to fit in well with the Verve Search team. She has bundles of passion and drive and most importantly; she’s excited about search. In fact, she wrote her first “paper” on Search Engines when she was only 10 years old, how cool is that??!

So from everyone at Verve Search; Welcome Freya, let’s kick some traffic butt!

Follow Freya on Twitter!