As part of our series of meet the team, we’re shining the light on the SEO team. We get up close and personal with Chris, our in-house digital marketing and data analyst . Chris tells us why his role is important and some of the reasons why SEO is so vital to digital marketing.
Name:
Specialism:
Technical Support, Data Analysis, Reporting and Research
Why is your specialism important?
Data is a core part of unbiased decision making, my aim is to always help us and our clients make informed decisions with actionable insights.
Tell us about your background and industry experience:
Having worked in marketing and data management for over 30 years I created data management systems capturing millions of responses from digital and non-digital channels ensuring these systems blended clean and interoperable data sets. Along with designing and implementing membership schemes and stock control systems for Welsh Government. I Worked extensively in Market Research, designing telephone interviewing systems (CATI) and reporting and statistical analysis tools and output. I was also a Technical Director responsible for a large team serving a wide range of public and private clients with responsibilities for I.T. infrastructure and software development this has given me a very broad understanding of technology in a commercial environment.
Which clients do you work with:
I work with most of the clients that are managed by the OM team, at a minimum I am responsible for reporting but I also work on Search Engine Optimisation, Technical Website Audits, Technical Issues, Keyword Research, Google Ads Shopping.
Can you tell us any stand out results of projects you have worked on:
Fritz Fryer
An extensive restructure of the entire SKU, keyword and competitor research, re writing all product descriptions, creating custom landing pages, creating long form content, working with developer to maximise SEO potential.
Year on year results (2017 vs 2018)
26.2% increase in revenue
11.3% increase in transactions
13.4% increase in average order value
31.6% increase in organic search
27.5% increase in users
13.0% increase in pageviews
African Conservation Experience
Keyword and competitor research incorporating research across the UK, USA, Canada, Australia for all service ranges. This was a huge exercise and learning curve and we subsequently developed many new techniques because of this project. The client incorporated the findings into the site during a re-launch.
Year on year results (2017 vs 2018)
255% increase in organic search
260.7% increase in users
295.2% increase in pageviews
Ralph & Co
Ralph & Co was a relatively new ecom website so the client needed to quickly improve traffic and visibility. I undertook a full SEO audit and fix of the site along with re writing browser titles and meta descriptions which aligned with some strategic keyword research.
July 2018 v August 2018
220.2% increase in SERP impressions
119.8% increase in SERP clicks
258.7% increase in website users
370.2% increase in website page views
157.66% increase in revenue for July v August
444.3% increase in revenue for July v September
Thomas Lloyd
I worked closely with the developers on the new site (launched December 2017) making sure we incorporated as many SEO maximising features as we could directly into the backend, including structured data, custom landing page flexible content, Google shopping feeds. I also applied some research insights to guide the creation of specific landing pages helping to support increasing traffic and revenue.
Year on year results (2017 vs 2018)
21.9% increase in revenue
13.9% increase in transactions
7.1% increase in average order value
28.4% increase in organic search
28.2% increase in users
15.6% increase in sessions
Creation of custom software to help with analysing internal page competition. Internal page competition occurs when a site has more than one page returned in SERP results for a given query. This is generally acceptable when infrequent and at low volumes, but on occasions this type of split signal can affect rankings and give less than optimal results. Because we could not find a suitable commercial tool to achieve the type of auditing we wanted, I decided to try and create a tool that would do so. We can now analyse substantial quantities of search and query data and build a map of internal page competition by specific queries helping us potentially shape the sites content to try and reduce or avoid this type of competition.
Custom Software to help with competitor research
We use a variety of keyword generation tools but found the process of compiling and segmenting this data into logical and usable elements time consuming. We also wanted to isolate the most important keywords based on a variety of signals not just the more obvious search volume estimates but thing like keyword commonality across a range of competitors, organic keyword difficulty, Google Search Console metrics etc.
To facilitate this, I built a custom tool that automated the blending of these data sets that also scored the keywords in a way that could help in strategic decision making for us and our clients by applying an Opportunity Band and a simple export feature. The tool has the capacity to handle hundreds of competitors and hundreds of thousands of keywords if required (which would be extremely difficult using other methods or commercial equivalents).
What 3 top tips would you give for a client thinking about starting to use your service?
- Search Console! … make sure you have this feature switched on as soon as possible. Start collecting impression and position and click through information, you can use this invaluable info to see where your site needs attention and it also gives you insights into how your visitors are finding your website allowing you to shape your content appropriately.
- Use Googles “Searches related/Also Searched for…” featureThis is a useful way of making sure you are covering more bases with your product titles and content. Google will supply related queries just by scrolling down to the bottom of the SERP.
- Claim your Google My Business listing if you have not already done so. If you have, keep it fresh, post at least once a month, keep the images fresh and push for customer reviews.