A summary of SEO approaches for 2014

Last Friday saw the latest installment in the bi-annually free SEO conference, BrightonSEO. Lots of ideas and content were discussed - far too many to cover in one post - but I thought it was worth putting together a short list of the top 5 cost-effective SEO snippets raised by the speakers.

1. Data for low cost link building

Link building is not just about hiring an agency, producing lots of inane content, or posting back-links from forums. Data is a key instrument in your link baiting toolbox (and it needn't mean big budgets). Use data to find a niche interest, tell a story, back it up with data, and create news. Readily available source suggestions: Surveys - ask a question and use the results to create content Analytics - spot a trend of interest and write about it Freedom of…

A presentation explaining how to plan and optimise automated emails

Created for the International Email Marketing Summit, this free webcast explained the options for creating more relevant automated emails - one of the biggest missed opportunities in Email marketing. I covered: How Automated, Event-triggered or Behavioural emails are surprisingly rare. The 10 options for automated email campaigns. Recommendations to optimise these emails using the CRITICAL framework we use in the Smart Insights 7 Step Guide to Email Marketing. Here is the Slideshare which gives a lot of examples across the different types, but especially Welcome Emails. You can view the talk via the link. Creating more relevant, more responsive more value Event-triggered Emails from Dave Chaffey …

12 tests to review how well digital marketing is managed in an organisation - a presentation hosted by the Chartered Management Institute at Liverpool John Moores University

I was invited to give this talk by Gillian Cosser, principal at the CIM Liverpool Study Centre, so we also had many CIM members at the event too. In the presentation I looked at approaches to managing digital marketing successfully by applying 12 tests to review how a business is managing marketing now and how it can improve it. …

What are the common best practices, are best practices always best?

I was honoured to be asked to give this presentation for Manchester Manchester Metropolitan University Business School to launch the new Faculty of Business and Law, a stunning new £75 million teaching and research headquarters and business hub. An updated, shorter version of the Manchester Business school deck was also presented to students and professionals at Leeds Metropolitan University and to an IDM Network evening in September 2012 which is included at the end of this post.

Leeds Metropolitan University presentation - November 2012

Manchester presentation - September 2012

We're often told to follow "best practices" in our digital marketing. In the talk I explore the value of this and some of the problems. How do we know what…

Presentations on Mobile and Digital Strategy from two On The Edge conferences in 2013

10 Mobile marketing mistakes you can avoid through creating a Mobile Marketing Strategy

In this presentation to On The Edge Digital Marketing, London in October 2013 I covered 10 common mistakes and a 10 step plan to help marketers work through a mobile strategy. I hope these are helpful, see Rob Thurner's Smart Insights guide to developing a digital mobile strategy for more detail. Avoiding the 10 most common mobile marketing mistakes from Dave Chaffey

Global digital strategy

The next two decks are from similar talks by Dave Chaffey in 2013 reviewing 8 key factors to to focus on to help deliver business growth from…

Presented to the Internet Retailing Expo conference in Birmingham

The techniques I recommended in this talk are reviewed for a case study company with their permission. Although the recommendations use a retail example, they apply to other types of business also. Here's a preview of the recommendations: 1. Identify Consumer search behaviours NOT just keyword lists 2. Use a gap analysis to drive performance 3. Improve your brand messages: Communicate your OVP for a smooth customer journey 4. Check the relevance of blended search – here Google Places 5. Don’t forget the second biggest search engine… 6. Evaluate paid search YouTube options 7. Obsess about links 8. Obsess more about content 9. Integrate “added value content” 10. You can always re-engineer your title tags more… 11. Even keyword density analysis can help…something you shouldn’t do? 12. Make the most of your home page and high-level utility pages 13. Get the balance right oncategory and sub-category pages 14. Review…

Presentation downloads

The talks explain 7 Steps for creating an integrated social media strategy based around the Smart Insights Ebook of the same name. You can also download the free social plan summary ebook  featured in the talks.

7 Steps for creating an integrated social media strategy (TFMA 2012 Keynote London and Manchester)

This talk features several examples from Smart Insights Expert commentators I'd like to thank and list here - a bit of a joint effort! Dan Barker shows the importance of Google Plus Pritesh Patel shows how to use Google Analytics to attribute value to social media Marie Page explains how Vets Now use Facebook to engage prospects Dan Bosomworth introduces the RACE content marketing approach Paul Fennemore on the McDonalds Twitter promotion gaff Dave Chaffey summarises the CIM social media benchmark research Tim Watson on the secret weapon that social media experts never mention Here is the presentation,…
Today I'm speaking at the Fusion Marketing Experience in Belgium today and looking forward to talks by Bryan Eisenberg (@TheGrok), Joost de Valk (@yoast) and Jeff Molander (@JeffreyMolander). I'll be liveblogging, first up is @GerryMcGovern...

Gerry McGovern on Top Tasks and the Long Neck

I enjoyed talking with Gerry last night, listening to the methods he uses on studies for companies with huge sites like the BBC, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft. He starts with a theme for today - don’t trust the design of your sites, your customer experiences, to “gut instinct or suits around a table with lattes”. The essence of the method is to identify around 100 main tasks on a site from researching site visitor behaviour by analysing search, analytics and interviews. Usually there’s around 100 and a single page survey is used to get a rating of these. Amazingly, just 4-6 top tasks get 25%…

8 questions to review your acquisition strategy in 2012

This is a new deck with some new examples for a keynote presentation at the Fusion Marketing Experience in Belgium on 2nd December 2011 programmed by the excellent J-P De Clerck. I talk about how to find new customers, especially at a time when there's pressure on budgets. As always, my ideas are informed by the latest data and show practical examples of implementing the ideas. It's structured around these questions to ask about acquisition: Q1. Does your brand have personality + OVP? Q2. Mix = are you investing your time/money wisely? Q3. Is our publishing process effective? Q4. How do we make online campaigns moreengaging? Q5. Is your business “social by design? Q6. Are your practicing “deep SEO”? Q7. Are we siloed or multichannel? Q8. Are you “competing on analytics?” Attracting quality traffic…

Presented to eDialog Europe Aspire conference, November 2011

In this presentation I took a look at what I see as six of the email marketing techniques that will matter most in 2012. In each area I looked at the key questions to ask to review strategies to improve. Plus I also looked at stats of adoption of mobile and social and lots of creative examples of how companies are responding to these challenges, particularly for mobile marketing. 1 Engagement 2 Mobile Email 3 Email contact strategies 4 Channel integration 5 Social-email marketing 6 Email marketing optimisation Email marketing tactics 2012 View more presentations from Dave Chaffey I also recommend taking a look at the other keynote from Dave Wieneke on the future of email marketing and messaging.…