Mark Blackhurst LL.B Hons Joint Founder / Director.

Started the SEO and Digital Agency with my Brother Justin Blackhurst in the first week of 2010.

• Five Years later Turnover in UK £2.3 million • Exponentially growing offices in a number of European and International Offices.

• 400 hundred UK SEO Clients

• Now have actual Offices - Manchester/Dublin/Melbourne/Stockholm/Milan/Miami

SEO and how did DigitalNext get here ?

BACKGROUND TO OUR START IN INTERNATIONAL SEO

HOBBY TO BUSINESS – LITERALLY FROM PARENTS HOUSE REALISED THE INTERNET LEVELLED THE PLAYING FIELD OF BUSINESS.

USED TRANSFERABLE SKILLS PICKED UP FROM UNI AND BUSINESS WE LAUNCHED OUR SEO SKILLS ONTO THE UK MARKET.

REALISED SMALL COMPANIES COULD DOMINATE LARGE ENTITIES ONLINE…………..

2009 /2010 MANY SEO COMPANIES OUT THERE BUT VERY UNETHICAL IN APPROACH.

• SAW THE GAP IN THE MARKET AFTER PROVING OUR SKILLS AND OTHER SEO AGENCIES FAILURES.

• SKILLS DEVELOPED IN BUILDING CONFIGURING AND PERFORMING SEO ON SITES MADE THEM GENERATE INBOUND ENQUIRIES AND TRAFFIC, SOMETHING I THOUGHT WAS INCREDIBLE.

• LITERALLY READ BOOK AFTER BOOK ABOUT SEO. (Ask me after the talk )

• STUDIED EVERY COMPANY WORTH A MENTION AND THEIR TECHNIQUES FOR A YEAR BEFORE LAUNCHING.

Show of hands please …….

Before I go further can I ask the following questions ? Please show your hands

1. Who in here relies in some way on their website to bring them inbound enquiries or for enquiries and sales ?

2. Who in here would like to gain more enquiries or rank for keywords on Google above their competitor ?

SEO AND How did we get here ?

First International Client

www.888.com multi sites Keywords Online casino / Online casinos – met at Internet world in London Earls Court we started to work with them on some of the worlds most difficult to rank keywords - based in Isreal.

We then started to gain clients as far away as Brazil / USA / Sweden.

As time went on our contacts and skills developed further so carrying our skills on foreign websites actually led to even stronger results as we were already very successful in the UK which is for me the hardest market to crack in SEO as it is the most saturated.

International SEO was a Natural progression – and with help of a friend who is a well renowned interpreter with huge contacts and high skill levels we then made him part of our company.

The abilities of our new linguistics department opened up our scope for growth to literally any language in the World.

1. Do you have the domain – Make sure you have the GTLD e.g. .de, .fr, .com.au etc, these will always rank well in these countries.

2. Are you native – Google and human users will avoid your service if you clearly not native. E.g. launching a website in Germany, and having the content in English will not being you any business or rankings. (yes people do this J )

3. Are you local – if you are moving to another English speaking market, then make sure your content is still tailored for that market, localised spellings, phrases and references work well.

4. Local Address – If you’re on the ground in that market, make sure you have your address on the website, if not, list were the head office is but don’t make it a primary contact method5. Local phone numbers – regular users don’t want to phone a different country to do business, make sure your phone numbers are localised even if the people answering are not.6. Use Localised Emails – Set up the relevant emails so when people send or receive emails, then they have the relevant country extension.7. Link between countries – have a country selector on the website to show people you are active in multiple countries. Google like this and it adds credibility to the human user experience as well.8. Make sure your prices are native – Another no brainer but this does happen. If you move markets, your website has to have the native currency. IF a german website launces in the UK with prices in Euro, google wouldn’t rank it, and if I did manage to land on the site, I wouldn’t buy in the wrong currency.

International SEO tips

2.5 years ago

MIX OF SALES | FEBRUARY 2014 – ALL FIGURES IN £,000’S

157

13

14

SEO Web dev PPC

AFTER ACQUISITION OF JUST SEARCH

MIX OF SALES | AS OF TODAY – ALL FIGURES IN £,000’S

92.5

30

22

17

24

8 5 4

SEO Web dev PPC Content, social & PR AustraliaIreland Golden Pages Italy

A FULLY INTEGRATED SERVICE

GROWTH IN WEB DEV | ALL FIGURES IN £,000’S

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2014 Sales in £,000's

GROWTH IN CONTENT, SOCIAL & PR | ALL FIGURES IN £,000’S

GROWTH IN AUSTRALIA | ALL FIGURES IN £,000’S

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2014 Sales in £,000's

GROWTH IN GOLDEN PAGES | ALL FIGURES IN £,000’S

GROWTH IN PPC | ALL FIGURES IN £,000’S

GROWTH IN ITALY | ALL FIGURES IN £,000’S

GROWTH IN IRELAND | ALL FIGURES IN £,000’S

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COSTS | ALL FIGURES IN £,000’S

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2014 Costs

BUGDGET FOR NOV ‘15 | ALL FIGURES IN £,000’S

AUSTRALIA

£40K+£16K GROWTH

IRELAND

£25K+£17K GROWTH

GOLDEN PAGES

£15K+£10K GROWTH

ITALY

£10K+£6K GROWTH

SEO

£100K+£7.5K GROWTH

WEB DEV

£50K+£20K GROWTH

PPC

£40K+£18K GROWTH

CONTENT, SOCIAL& PR

£30K+£13K GROWTH

A FULLY INTEGRATED SERVICE