Catalogue Exchange Leeds 2010 – Round Up

On the 10^th of March Renee Heath and I attended the Catalogue Exchange 2010 seminar How to Improve Your Website on a Shoestring at the Novotel in Leeds. Renee was there to speak about both on and offsite SEO  and I was there to pick up any technical SEO questions that may have arisen. Other speakers on the day included James Clarke from TA Design who spoke about how to write good website copy and gave general copywriting advice and Dan Croxen-John from Applied Web Analytics covered analytics, usability and split testing.

Here is a list of the companies in attendance on the day:

Straight
Bella Di Notte
Bettys
CSS
Direct Golf
Northern Parrots
Lights 4 Fun
TTS
Pondkeeper

After registration and quick introductions the day kicked off at 9:30 with Renee’s presentation which was about on and offsite SEO. Topics covered for onsite SEO included a breakdown of the common terminology used in this area and an overview of the ranking factors that determine the quality of a page or website. This was split into 13 key areas weighted by importance to give companies an idea of what to tackle first when optimising their site.

The offsite SEO section started out with how to develop a list of relevant keywords for your business and which of these words you would target based upon search volumes, margins, seasonality and budget. Renee then moved on to talk about the many aspects of link building and developing an ongoing strategy. Such things as how to assess your current position, analysing your competitor’s backlink profile, anchor text and the link title attribute are all important factors in link building and how incorporating this information into your own strategy is vital to the success of your offsite SEO strategy.

After a short coffee break it was over to James Clarke who was there to talk about all aspects of website copywriting. He started by giving five rules for copy, theses were:

• Site architecture matters
• You should be able to skim read copy and still get the point
• Use simple clear words
• Keep copy consistent
• Curb your enthusiasm

James then went on to discuss varying design rules for copy such as legibility and using bold and underlined wording to attract attention as well as the importance and benefits of brand positioning. He also raised some great points regarding the differences between creative and commercial writing and how best to put your copy into a marketing context.

After lunch Dan Coxen-John was up next with a very interesting presentation around analytics and usability.  He began by outlining the four ways to increase a company’s online sales; these would be the main topics he would be discussing:

• Landing page optimisation
• Focusing on mini-conversions
• Boosting online customer lifetime values
• Low cost usability testing

Dan went on to explain the best ways to make improvements to the above areas through analysing analytical data, looking at user metrics and using split and multi-variant testing to optimise landing pages and other areas of your site.

To wrap the day up there was a series of website challenges with the attendees being split into groups to put into practice what they had learned throughout the day. The groups were given a website and had to assess all of the aspects discussed during the seminar and come up with ideas of how best to go about improving SEO, design, usability and conversions with the team who came up with the best ideas receiving a wonderful prize!

All in all it was a very productive day, everyone who spoke brought some great information to the table and raised some great points with the feedback received from the attendees being incredibly positive. The attendees took away a wealth of information about small and even larger changes they could make to their websites, how big their impact would be and how best to prioritise them.