Smx Sydney | Marketing magazine

One of the biggest questions often asked of an SEO Agency is Why is my site not ranking?. One of the many elements is the content, but what does that mean for you? At SMX Sydney earlier this year, there was a Copywriting for search presentation by Chris Thomas head of Melbourne-SEO firm RESEO.

So the first question often asked, is if you should write for people or for search engine rankings? It can be possible to satisfy both requirements with smart planning, structure and quality content. This post seeks to expand some of the points covered in Chris’s presentation with a fictitious example of a tennis equipment store with an expanding sports holiday side business and how a web marketing agency can help.

So the first point is to make sure you research your topics to understand that there is a demand for what you are going to produce and that there is interest in the topic.

For a tennis business running a WordPress blog, there isnt any point taking the time to write a blog topic on a general topic such as racquet types or court services or picking a complex topic outside of the businesses expertise such as tennis ball material density. Lets say our fictitious owner is a Wimbledon fan and makes the trip each year and has recently started a side business selling tennis holiday packages with a local travel agent. They have contacted their local web marketing agency to find out how content writing can help grow their presence online and potential market.

Based on the owners experience, a web marketing agency has advised to focus on a blog around Wimbledon as this makes it easy for the owner to create relevant content and they understand the industry.

The owner has spoken with their web marketing agency who have advised to include a few relevant keywords that target tennis holidays. They have also advised that a majority of the interest for Wimbledon is UK-based and their competition will be as well.

Travel to Wimbledon,
Wimbledon hotels, and
Wimbledon tickets.

It is possible that the owner can work with the local travel agent to write up some great detailed reviews on hotels, travel options and ticket packages. These topics should typically be targeting around one to three phrases for each page/article and each article has to be unique and relevant to the Wimbledon blog.

The other important element to consider is how this Wimbledon content relates to the blog and the overall web strategies. Travel is a very competitive industry so how would the owner compete with large websites like Webjet.com and Wotif.com?

The best way is to make this Wimbledon blog/website a niche or authority on this topic would be to expand the content on the topic. This includes ensuring that based on the audience the articles need to be readable, compelling and interesting. In Chriss presentation he advised that marketers need to ensure there is a significant amount of text content with around 250 to 500 words per topic.

Another important element is fresh content for search engines and as the event is only held once per year a continual production of new content each month needs to be in place. Recently, USA Today had detailed coverage on Wimbledon’s new retractable roof. Since a popular newspaper has written an article on the retractable roof it is likely people are now searching for more information. There should be enough for at least three blog articles on this topic:

Review of the new Wimbledon retractable roof comparison to last year,
Past games affected/delayed by playing without a retractable roof weather, and
Past structural changes to Wimbledon stadium history.

There is also a general interest around past games, winner profiles and even weather patterns. This is another area of content for the blog that can be added each month to increase the sites authority on the topic of Wimbledon.

Since the owners business revolves around tennis equipment the owner should also look at writing up several articles around past Wimbledon winners. They can examine equipment choices with lots of specific details, images and even video of product in use. If the owner has the resources it will be useful to expand their articles by also offer reviews of the equipment choice by of the rising star players that maybe the next Roger Federer.

These product articles help to build the authority of the website and are also useful for building trust and credibility.

One of the important points that Chris also outlined in his presentation is that there is a need to consider hiring a copywriting professional to assist. These professionals can help with directly producing conversational articles often within hours of receiving a request.

Quality keyword research is critical in ensuring relevant articles are being written as part of the overall web strategy.

So game, set, match – content is the winner!

As many people are aware, Barry Smyth and his team from Search Strategies recently held the annual Search Marketing Expo in Sydney.

This was one of the first events I had attended since the economy really started to take affect on marketing/advertising agencies and Im really glad I did as there was lots to take away. For those who missed out, Ive summarised the take-home messages from each day below.

Day one

The keynote speech was presented by Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz, which I was running late for so I ended up checking out of the exhibition hall as it is sometimes better to have a good look around while things are quite.

This conference was smaller than some of the international versions but this presented an advantage in that it was easier to choose just between the two streams. The first stream focused around Search Engine Bootcamp with a mostly entry-level focus, but it was also suitable for a refresher course for most attendees. The other obvious advantage was the access to the international speakers and the opportunity to have a decent talk with the presenters.

Bootcamp sessions

The morning was a great refresher around web design and SEO basics presented by industry veteran Bruce Clay. After the lunch break, the sessions moved into keyword research, link building and copy writing for search. The final session around Bootcamp moved towards the paid elements of search on the topics of ad copy, management and landing pages.

SEO sessions

The second stream was more involved and focused around moderate/advanced SEO techniques. As SMX does very well, they start of the day easier and as the audience warms up and the caffeine kicks in the topics tougher.

The early morning sessions dealt with key areas of maps/local search and what’s in store for mobile search and video optimisation. I have already written a post based around the topic of video optimisation and viral video. After the lunch break, the sessions moved into more advanced topics around best practice links and URLs. It seems that spam is still a secondary issue to getting number one in search results for many clients who typically engage a SEO agency.

The last sessions of the day covered CSS, flash, bots and international SEO. These topics were great as it dealt with best practice techniques for business while still getting the results for your business. CSS seems to be one of the best ways to control visual elements within a website and offers increased levels of usability for existing websites without rebuilding the whole site. International SEO was provided a number of ideas about how your multinational competitors might be trying to steal your local market share and how you can fight back by growing yours.

Day two

The opening keynote speech was presented in a very entertaining manner by Bill Tancer the GM of Global Research for Hitwise. He talked about how Australian users typically use Google for more navigational queries and how your parents maybe searching differently for the same site. He advised that many of the topics he discussed were featured in more detail in his book Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why it Matters. It would appear that many of the important key points covered at SMX Sydney were consistent over time just the leading players changed.

The streams topics were more diverse on the second day as with most SMX events there were more intermediate/advanced sessions. The sessions covered a number of diverse topics: SME, conversion, social media, paid search and webmasters.

Conversion session

SME presented a number of great hints and tips for working with SMEs and also how they have different needs, budgets and goals. The co-current stream was focused around conversion tracking leads/sales and conversion optimisation increased ROI. This was one of the most important session for businesses as it dealt with decreased market share and how you can still grow your business in this environment.

Social media session

The social media stream presented some heated discussions and divided the audience and presenters on a few points. What is suitable for one companies objective using social media may not be suitable for another.

While the topic of social media, Twitter and online negative sentiment was yet to receive any coverage over branding issues such as Amazon Fail. The conference hall was also filled with laptops running Twitter clients such as TweetDeck.

Paid search session

This stream was covered by Mark Tull from Hot Goanna on how not understanding AdWords quality score can mean business is over bidding on AdWords keywords.

The final paid search sessions dealt with larger corporate/enterprise clients who typically require complex bid management systems to deal with tens of thousands of keywords. While not everyone finds these solutions useful, some organisations find PPC Management systems a comfort factor.

Spam session

This stream focused around helping your webmaster deal with spam and how to deal with being penalised (blacklisted) by search engines. It was a good discussion with the panel highlighting that many clients expect results even if it means breaking rules imposed by search engines.

Conference overview

Overall the conference was great, it was smaller than most but the speakers invited took time to speak with attendees. Most of the panel members had to be almost dragged off the stage because they were so involved in answering and engaging with the audience. The team at Search Strategies made a good selection in speakers and it was rare to hear anyone disappointed with any session.

Exhibition room

The exhibition room was a little crowded at times, so it made sense to visit companies for more private chats during the sessions. One of the bigger disappointments was that no search engine companies were present at the conference. While they had sent representatives for presentations sessions it wasn’t the same as if they had an exhibition stand where they could answer questions and build relationships with business.

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Game, set, content match!