Presentation: How I got 20,000 visitors per month from SEO – Tom Casano

This is the presentation deck presented at the New York E-Commerce Meetup on August 9, 2017:

How I Got 20k+ visitors/month from SEO

 

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How I got 20,000 visitors per month from SEO

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SEO Core Competencies

  • link-earning
  • outreach
  • keyword research, grouping, and mapping
  • on-page optimization
  • technical site audits
  • strategy
  • content planning
  • content marketing
  • digital PR

What I will talk about today…

  1. SEO as a Marketing Channel: Why SEO?
  2. My Story + Failures
  3. What Drives Results
  4. Take Action
  5. SEO for eCommerce
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Part 1

SEO as a Marketing Channel: Why SEO?

SEO

  • People Find You
  • Interest
  • Paying Customer
  • More Sales
  • Business Growth
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Want to Find Something

  • Search on Google
  • Click on a Search Result
    • Become a Customer today
    • Become a Customer in the future
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Website Visitor Today, Customer Tomorrow

Lead Nurturing

  • capture email address (e.g. lead magnet or newsletter)
  • fill out a form (lead generation)
  • retargeting
    • Facebook
    • Google Ads
    • YouTube
  • brand awareness (remembers you)

Why SEO?

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1. Inbound

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2. Qualified

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3. Stable & Consistent

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4. ROI

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Monthly Recurring Traffic

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Monthly Recurring Revenue

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Life Coach Spotter 2013

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Life Coach Spotter Today

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Lessons Learned

“Build it and they will come” does not work!

Plenty of Optimization Tactics to…

get 0 Results

  • image alt text
  • ratio of follow and nofollow backlinks
  • ratio of text to HTML
  • image file names
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Plenty of Optimization Tactics to…

get 0 Results

  • blog commenting
  • forums
  • directories
  • broken link building

Plenty of Optimization Tactics to…

get 0 Results

  • link reclamation
  • great content
  • roundups
  • press release
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The problem: Google’s Algorithm is a Secret

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How should we rank higher?

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Google Algorithm Updates: Panda, Penguin, Pigeon, Hummingbird

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What should we do?

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Ranking Algorithm is a Black Box

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Experiment Driven SEO

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Part 3

 

What Drives Results

We learn from Failure not from success

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What’s the Secret to Move the Needle?

What’s the Secret to Move the Needle?

 

844% Growth

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381% Growth in Organic Traffic in just 5 Months

A Multi-Strategy white hat approach

What (I Believe) Created the Most Impact:

  1. Comprehensive content guides
  2. link-earning campaigns
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73,647 Words of optimized content

Investment: $10,000+

I tested 8 strategies…

  1. infographic campaigns
  2. comprehensive content guides
  3. answering journalist requests
  4. collaborative placements
  5. blogger outreach
  6. resource page inclusion
  7. strategic relationship building
  8. guest posting
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A 538% Increase in organic traffic in just two months with the most trusted links on the web

 

The Results: 538% increase in organic traffic

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10 Science backed ways to be happier right now

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  1. Referring Domains
  2. Content
  3. Optimization

1. Referring Domains

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Definition

referring domain:

a website that links to your website

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Attributes of Referring Domains

  1. quantity
  2. domain authority
  3. trust flow
  4. relevance
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Solution = OUTREACH

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2. Content

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how to articles

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80 Million Blog Post are Created every Month

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Don’t write Blog Posts, they don’t work

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Write 10,000+ word articles with sub-sections

High-Quality, In-Depth

  • long (3,000-12,000 words long)
  • very well-written
  • useful, helpful, and answers common questions
  • authorative
  • actionable
  • unique
  • engaging
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Don’t just write about anything!

3. Optimization

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To Optimize Properly, You Need…

  1. keyword research
  2. keyword grouping
  3. content planning + keyword mapping
  4. on-page optimization
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[bath] + [toys] + ?

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extensive keyword research list

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keyword mapping

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  1. Referring Domains
  2. Content
  3. Optimization

Part 4:

 

Take Action

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Referring Domains =

 

Awesome Content + Email Outreach

Content =

 

Awesome, In-Depth Writing

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Optimization =

 

Keyword Research + Content Planning

Part 5:

 

SEO for eCommerce

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Tip #1: Find Uncompetitive Keywords

Tip #1: Find Uncompetitive Keywords

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Tip #1: Find Uncompetitive Keywords

Find Long-Tail Keywords

Tip #2: Optimize Your Category & Product Pages

Simplify your product title tags into a templated format and add purchase intent keywords (buy/online)

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Tip #3: Write New Product Descriptions

Product descriptions can be:

  • too thin (<20 words)
  • copied from manufacturer (duplicate content)

Tip #3: Write New Product Descriptions

This Amazon product page for a Kitchenart mixer boasts 2,109 words… and that’s not even counting the reviews at the bottom of the page (which add another 500+ words)

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Tip #3: Write New Product Descriptions

Use a Format:

  1. H2 Header with Product Name + Secondary Keywords
  2. Introductory paragraph (approx 50 words)
  3. Bullet point list of features
  4. Closing paragraph (approx 50 words)
  5. Product video (if available)

Tip #3: Write New Product Descriptions

Use a Format:

  1. H2 Header with Product Name + Secondary Keywords
  2. Introductory paragraph (approx 50 words)
  3. Bullet point list of features
  4. Closing paragraph (approx 50 words)
  5. Product video (if available)
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Tip #4: Use Product Review Schema

Using the schema.org product review format will show product reviews on the Google Search Results Page

Tip #5: Beware of Duplicate Content

Avoid copying content and getting penalized for the duplicate content

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Tip #5: Beware of Duplicate Content

Check for duplicate content through Google or Copyscape

Tip #5: Beware of Duplicate Content

Solutions:

  • Use the “rel canonical” tag
  • Configure URL Parameters (Google Search Console)
  • Add a Noindex, Follow Meta Robots Tag
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Go big or go home,

Final Thought:

SEO is an Investment in growth

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