PREPARED BY LOCATION3 MEDIAEDITION: SEPTEMBER 2012

AN INTRODUCTION TO SEO

WHAT IS SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATIONTHE BASICS

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” listings on search engines. All major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing have such results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. Payment isn’t involved, as it is with paid search ads.

What this short 3.5 minute video on Search Engine Optimization, what it is and why we do it

WHAT IS SEO?

Content provided by http://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-seo

WHICH ARE THE ORGANIC LISTINGS IN GOOGLE?

WHICH ARE THE ORGANIC LISTINGS IN A GOOGLE LOCALIZED SEARCH?What is a local search?Localized search is when the user is searching for something within a specific area, such as a restaurant, plumber or auto repair shop.

Sometimes the searcher will use the location word in the query, such as “pizza restaurants denver” and sometimes they will just search “pizza restaurants.” In the later, the search engines understand that there was local intent with the search and serve localized results like you see here on the right

Local organic results

Local organic results

Local Maps results(click link above to see all Maps results)

THE WORLD OF SEO

SEO

Improve Traffic MetricsBrowse Rate, Time On Site, Etc.

Compete In Vertical ResultsLocal/Maps, Video, Blogs, News, Images

Diversify Link/Traffic ResourcesNatural Links, Strong Anchor Text, Link Location

Add + Improve ContentVirality, Sharing, Topic Relevance, Keyword Targeting

Target The Right KeywordsHigh Volume, Low Competition, Strong ROI

Incent User-Generated ContentContributes to SEO/Social Signals and Long Tail

Optimize Social SignalsIncrease Followers/Friends, Tweets/Shares/+1’s/Votes,

Engagement on Social Platforms

Grow Brand AwarenessPress, Source Diversity, Social Mentions

Improve AccessibilityNo Errors, Good Redirects, Load Speed

There are four major groups of SEO ranking factors

• On The Page Ranking Factors• Off The Page Ranking Factors• Violations• Blocking

Factors Work In CombinationNo single SEO factor will guarantee search engine rankings. Having a great HTML title won’t help if a page has low quality content. Having many links won’t help if they are low quality links. But having several positive factors can increase the odds of success. As for negative factors, they obviously can worsen the odds

WHAT FACTORS PLAY INTO WHETHER OR NOT A WEBSITE WILL RANK IN GOOGLE?

Content provided by http://searchengineland.com/guide/seo/types-of-search-engine-ranking-factors

On The Page FactorsOn The Page search ranking factors are those that are entirely within the publisher’s own control. What type of content do you publish? Are you providing important HTML clues that help search engines with determining relevancy? How does your site architecture help or hinder search engines?

NOTE: This is where we typically start with any new SEO campaign, and continue building on throughout it’s entirety

WHAT ARE THE ON PAGE FACTORS?

Content provided by http://searchengineland.com/guide/seo/types-of-search-engine-ranking-factors

EXAMPLE OF PAGE ELEMENTS WE OPTIMIZE1. Header Tags (H1, H2, etc)

2. Internal linking

3. Keyword in copy

4. Title tag

5. META description

6. URL

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22

3

4

5

http://touchofelements.com/albuquerque6

Off The Page FactorsOff The Page ranking factors are those that publishers cannot directly control. Search engines use these because they learned long ago publisher signals alone don’t help relevancy. Some publishers will try to make themselves seem more relevant than they are, for example.

More important, with billions of web pages to sort through, looking only at on-the-page clues isn’t enough. More signals are needed to better estimate what are the best pages for any particular search.

NOTE: Links and social signals are the main elements of off page factors that we deal with on behalf of our clients

WHAT ARE THE OFF PAGE FACTORS?

Content provided by http://searchengineland.com/guide/seo/types-of-search-engine-ranking-factors

ViolationsMake no mistake. Search engines want people to perform SEO. They provide help directly about SEO techniques and encourage this, because good SEO can improve their listings.

However, there are some techniques that they deem “spam” or “black hat,” acts that if you do could results in your pages getting a ranking penalty or worse, being banned from the search engines entirely.

NOTE: Violations effect our SEO campaigns in that we avoid using on-page or off-page tactics that could incur them for our clients.

WHAT ARE VIOLATIONS?

Content provided by http://searchengineland.com/guide/seo/types-of-search-engine-ranking-factors

BlockingBlocking is a new class of ranking signal. This is where searchers themselves may decide they don’t like pages from a particular web site, even if those web sites don’t violate any traditional spam rules.

Blocking has a big impact on what the individual who blocks sees, but it also has an impact on what every searcher sees.

NOTE: At Location3, we do not deal with blocking for our clients

WHAT IS BLOCKING?

Content provided by http://searchengineland.com/guide/seo/types-of-search-engine-ranking-factors

Content provided by http://searchengineland.com/seotable

Here is a more detailed look at all of the most important factors that go into organic search engine ranking, in order of their priority.

INTRO TO LOCATION3 SEO PROCESSESA HIGH LEVEL SUMMARY

While there are always three main areas to effective SEO (website, content & links), no two implementations of these strategies are exactly alike. A deep dive discovery during the first one – two months of the campaign will allow us the ability to make the best strategic decisions for our client’s brand and website. We will cover these three areas throughout this process:

1. Brand2. Target Market3. Website

PHASE 1:THE VALUE OF DISCOVERY

TECHNICAL WEBSITE AUDITThe technical audit is meant to prepare the website for its best ranking potential for keyword groups targeted throughout the content. The first 1-2 months of a new SEO campaign will begin with a technical audit where we evaluate the following elements and provide a final report and recommendations to our clients

CrawlabilityURL depthOverall website structureHTTP header statusCanonicalizationNavigation

Site speedSitemapsRobots.txt Schema / microdataInternal linking

Selecting the right keywords is one of if not the most important step to SEO. Unlike paid search where you can bid for many thousands of keywords, in SEO a single page of content may only target a few.

When performing keyword research, we pull the following metrics which we then factor into our selection process:

• Search Volume• Organic and Paid Search Performance Data• Current Organic Ranking• Relevancy • Probability of Success

KEYWORD RESEARCH AND SELECTION

Once we have selected the keyword we want to target, we then want to place those keywords in the appropriate places on the various web pages. It is important to keep a balance between best SEO practices and good user experience. We cannot just change the headline of the page to use our keywords if it’s going to create a confusing user experience. That, in the end, is bad SEO.

These are the on-page elements that we are reviewing and changing when we see fit.

Title tagsURLsMETA dataImagesTextHeadersInternal linking

PHASE 2: WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION

PHASE 3: BACKLINK DEVELOPMENTThe volume, quality and relevancy of backlinks is one of the most important ranking factors. Therefore, we spend a lot of time acquiring those in the best way possible.

• Blogger outreach• Influencer outreach• Optimizing client relationships• Relevant reciprocal linking• Press release optimization• Social syndication• Local directories• Category specific external blogs

This is an area that really sets us apart from much of the competition. Advanced SEO strategies is a catch all for the many ideas beyond the typical website optimization and blogger outreach that we do. Strategies such as building out new pages to target specific search phrases, or re-categorizing the website to better the site architecture. Every client is very unique, and therefore these strategies are created specific to fit their needs and capabilities.

PHASE 4:ADVANCED SEO STRATEGIES

EXAMPLES OF ADVANCED SEO STRATEGIES

FASTSIGNS: Needed to rank for a wide variety of localized product searches

Developed 13 geo + product sub-pages for each location

http://

www.fastsigns.com/metro-houston-tx/business-signs

Stetson: The design of the category and product pages was not set-up for having text content, which we need for organic ranking

Created crawlable pop-up boxes to house content non-intrusive to design. This text could also include links to other pages on the site

EXAMPLES OF ADVANCED SEO STRATEGIES

Westwood: Needed to rank for a variety of search phrases that we could not optimize for on their existing program pages.

Built a resources section where we can build out content specific to the search phrases we wanted, many of which we found performed very well in paid search to

http://www.westwood.edu/resources

Creating and maintaining a blog is also a huge benefit to SEO and one that we recommend to the majority of our clients, including Westwood

http://blog.westwood.edu/

• Daily keyword rankings, averaged for month end report• Branded & non-branded organic visits• Social, mobile and link referring visits• Keyword groups/themes• Organic landing pages• Competitive backlink comparison• Link development details• Social engagements with syndicated content

Full written analysis of campaign results tied into implemented strategies and including next steps

TRACKING, REPORTING & ANALYSIS

Keeping up with and providing updates on industry changes

Providing any and all SEO best practices related to the website

or campaign

Working with internal development teams to implement SEO

recommendations

Answering any SEO-related questions or concerns

Always available for discussions related to or effecting organic

search

Working with other vendors, such as a PR firm or 3rd party

development

Attending company conferences or meetings as your SEO

partner

CONSULTING

SEO VOCABULARYTHE BASICS

• Backlink: Backlinks, also known as incoming links, inbound links, inlinks, and inward links, are incoming links to a website or web page. In basic link terminology, a backlink is any link received by a web node (web page, directory, website, or top level domain) from another web node

• Anchor text: The anchor text, link label, link text, or link title is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. The words contained in the anchor text can determine the ranking that the page will receive by search engines.

• Title tags: A title tag is code in the META data put in the code of a web page, which provides a title for that webpage. The title tag carries a lot of weight in organic ranking because it is the most logical place to concisely describe and label the content within the page

• META description: The META description attribute provides a concise explanation of a web page's content and is often, but not always, displayed on search engine results pages, so it can affect click-through rates. META descriptions do not effect ranking directly

• H1 tag (header tag): Header tags are HTML tags that are used to denote various headlines on a page. The <h1> tag is typically used for the main headline on the page and should only be used once per page. <h2> and <h3> are most often used as sub-headers, such as for individual paragraphs.

BASIC SEO VOCABULARY

• Internal linking: Internal links are hyperlinks that stay within a website, linking one page to another. Internal links help the search engines crawl through the site and discover all the pages you want to index, which is why they are not only important to have, but to also consider the anchor text and placement of the links.

• Branded keywords: Search keywords that contain elements of the client’s brand, insinuating that the searcher was intentionally looking for information pertaining to that particular brand. In most cases, we do not count brand keywords as part of our SEO efforts

• Non-branded (industry) keywords: Non-branded keywords are any keywords that do not contain elements on the brand, insinuating that the searcher was not specifically looking for information pertaining to that brand. These are the keywords we typically target in an SEO campaign

• Non-branded organic visits (NBO visits): Visits coming to a website or web asset from only organic search and that do not contain any elements of the brand. A common metric on all SEO reports.

• Long tail keywords: Keyword phrases that contain typically 4 or more words, resulting in less search volume but also less competition. In most cases, the vast majority of site traffic comes from long tail keyword searches.

• Black hat: Black hat refers to SEO tactics that go against Google’s Terms and Conditions, such as buying backlinks and hiding text on a page for better organic ranking

BASIC SEO VOCABULARY

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An Introduction to SEO

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