MKTG

SEO Basics

A few terms that will help understand SEO are as follows: Landing Page - the page a business wants a user to land in when entering the business's website. Title Tag - the title as it appears within the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). This title is clickable for the user to get to the Landing Page. H1 - The Header - usually the first main line of text that appears on the Landing Page. URL (Uniform Resource Locator) - the "web address" of a page as it is directly displayed within your browser (e.g., https://www.burgerhut.com/locations/local-restaurant-123). Content - the words/images on any webpage. Keywords - the words or query that users type into search engines. Impressions - the number of times a business's listing is presented to users within all SERPs. Impressions can be provided on a daily basis or monthly. Click-Through-Rate (CTR) - the rate at which users click on the business's listing when they are presented with the Title Tag in SERP. Before digging into SEO it is important to have an understanding of the search engines themselves including; how a search engine works, why SEO is so important to a website, and the current landscape of the search engine industry

black hat

Black Hat SEO refers to strategies that instead of improving the quality of a website, are designed to trick Search Engines into believing they are of higher quality than they actually are, or that they are relevant for keywords that have nothing to do with their website's content

Link-Building

Link building is the process of attempting to generate more inbound links to your website. Since one of the most important ranking factors in Google's ranking algorithm is the number and quality of inbound links, increasing the number of inbound links can help to drastically increase your website's ranking. There are a number of different approaches to generating additional links to your website, including writing "link-bait" articles, hosting guest bloggers to add content, putting products or content out for peer review, and requesting links from friends and other industry professionals you have relationships with. "Link-bait" articles are meant to be attention grabbing in an attempt to create genuine interest in the content and cause other content producers to link to it. "Link-bait" articles can vary from breaking news and controversial topics to humorous content. By creating quality articles with genuinely interesting or engaging content the hope is to naturally generate quality links from across the web. It should be noted however, that due to the unpredictable nature of content going viral, successfully creating a "Link-bait" article is typically a difficult task. When executing a link building campaign, it is important to focus on seeking quality inbound links, and avoiding paying for links or generating them through spam-like content (such as commenting on a blog post with a link to your own website). This is covered in more detail in White Hat vs. Black Hat SEO later. The process of link building is often difficult and takes a significant amount of time, as it is beyond the control of the website. Therefore, a link building campaign takes significantly more time than on-page updates, and there are no guarantees a link-building campaign will achieve the desired results.

Social Media - Media Sharing

Media sharing sites allow users to upload and distribute multimedia content like photos and videos. Instagram YouTube Instagram and YouTube examples are provided below. Flickr (This is an online photo album. Organizations can use it to upload and share photos.) Photobucket (This is an online photo album. Organizations can use it to upload and share photos.) Snapchat (This is a mobile phone platform designed so that users can post up to 10-second photos or videos that will disappear after they have been viewed. Few businesses are utilizing this platform as it is designed primarily for personal/social use.) Facebook

SEO Strategies - On-Page Factors

On page factors refers to the content on a website itself. These on-page factors revolve around the HTML markup of your website that the search engines are scanning. Based on how your website organizes and structures it's content, Google makes some assumptions about your website and how relevant it is to certain keywords. Some important examples of HTML include; page titles, header content, placement of targeted keywords, and correct tagging of images and other media content with "alt" tags, which describe the content of this media in text format so that search engines understand the media's content While proper HTML structure and markup of your website is important, the most crucial concept in SEO is, "Content is King". This follows from the primary goal of a search engine to serve a user the most relevant content to their search. A correctly designed website with the entire correct HTML markup, will still fail to rank well if it provides no or little useable content. Conversely, a website that doesn't have the greatest structure and HTML markup but provides high quality useable content still has a chance to rank for its targeted keywords. However, a website with quality content and poor HTML markup is likely to be out-ranked by another website with both quality HTML and content, which is why quality website structure is important regardless of how good a website's content is. One important cautionary note when creating content is to try and avoid exact duplication of content across multiple pages. Duplicate content makes it difficult for a search engine to decide which versions they should include or exclude from their index. It is also difficult for a search engine to decide which pages or versions of the content that they should attribute several off-page factors to. As a result, while strictly speaking duplicate content doesn't incur a penalty it is also generally not considered optimized content. Other important On-Page factors include mobile responsiveness and website load speed. With the growing prevalence of mobile devices and mobile search, Google and other search engines have introduced penalties to websites that are not mobile friendly. Additionally, with the increase in speed, and the corresponding decrease in the amount of time a user is willing to wait for a webpage to load, webpages that load slowly incur a similar penalty. These two factors are examples that show search engines are rewarding quality overall user experience with a website rather than just the website's content.

EO Strategies - On-Page Factors - HTML components

On-page HTML components are directly under the control of the website, and can be updated as desired. Since these components are under the direct control of the website and are easily updatable, they are often the first components updated in an SEO campaign. The following is a list of some of the most important on-page HTML components, which should always include the keywords being targeted by that webpage. These are basic HTML components, and rather than highlight the exact HTML of how to implement them, we will discuss what they are and how they appear to both users and search engines. Webpage Domain: The webpage's domain is the website's "root" upon which all of its pages are listed. In the below screenshot The University of Memphis domain name is "memphis.edu". Domain name is one of the strongest ranking factors for a website as it highlights the website's overall content or brand. Webpage URL:Much like the title tag of a page, the page's URL (www.memphis.edu/mba)is often a strong indicator of the content of the page and is a factor in many ranking algorithms. Title Tag: A webpage's title tag appears in the browser tab above the website's URL and is one of the clearest indications of a page's topic. For the example shown below, The University of Memphis MBA programs page has a title tag "MBA Programs", which indicates it is about MBA programs.

SEO Strategies - Keyword Selection

Once you understand the overall goal of your website, the next step is to determine which keywords you want to target (Remember search is done by users based on keywords). Since a website cannot be everything to everyone, you must decide upon which search terms you wish to get high rankings on. Searchers use keywords based on their interests. By determining upfront which keywords you want to optimize on, you can match your goals with the user's interests. For example, if your goal is to provide information on a specific item, you would target shorter search phrase. If your goal was to sell an item, you would target longer keyword phrase. This is so because users tend to use shorter search phrases to research a topic and longer keyword phrases when they intend to purchase or interact directly with the search results. When choosing which keywords to target, you will need to go beyond attempting to understand the searcher's intent. Understanding the search volume and competitiveness of your selected keywords is important too. Targeting keywords with very little search volume is likely to be ineffective because if you achieve a high ranking for the targeted keyword, not enough people are searching for it for you to achieve the desired results. On the other hand, choosing a very popular search term is likely to lead you towards a highly competitive environment in which it is very difficult to achieve your desired rankings. Typically, there is a direct correlation between the volume of a search term, and the competitiveness to rank for that search term. As more users search for a given search term, more websites will attempt to rank for those terms. The goal, therefore, is to select terms that are likely to achieve your desired conversion (or result) that have a sufficient level of search volume, without having too much competition. There are a number of tools on the web that can help you determine the search volume and competitiveness of selected keywords. One of the most helpful tools is the Google Keyword planner. Planner tool allows you to: See what terms people use for searching in a particular category. For example, do people use technician or exterminator when looking for a pest control solution. See how many times they search using a term (frequency). This gives the website optimizer and idea of how many people can be driven to visit the website. See the time periods, e.g., winter summer, spring or fall, in which they're searching. Outputs of the Google planner tool may look like this:

SEO Strategies - On-Page Factors - Targeted Landing Pages

One of the more effective strategies for ranking for different keywords is to create separate landing pages for each set of targeted keywords. Often a website's homepage gives an overall view of that website and provides links to the different sections of the website. From the perspective of an SEO campaign, the difficulty of optimizing a homepage for a specific set of keywords, is that the homepage discusses the website in general and is unable to focus on speacific keywords. Even if a homepage can be correctly optimized for the highest priority keywords it is then unable to also be optimized for secondary, but still important keywords. By contrast, a landing page is designed to target one specific set of keywords. These keywords will often be in included in all of the important HTML components of the webpage, and also included several times in the page's main content. The general idea is to focus the targeted keywords onto a specific page so when search engines rank that page, it is deemed highly relevant to the targeted keywords. Since a website can create any number of pages, it is possible to create a separate landing page for each set of targeted keywords. These landing pages each targeted at a specific set of keywords, will then rank better than a website that mixes this content through the website as a whole. A common and effective tactic is to use this approach of separate landing pages to increase traffic from local searches. For example, when designing the website for a restaurant the natural impulse might be to create a single page that lists each of the locations, and dedicate the rest of the website to the menu and upcoming events. However, by creating separate landing pages for each location and properly structuring the HTML elements and content to highlight those locations, the website increases its chances to rank well for search terms when the specific location is included in the search. Another popular approach to creating targeted landing pages is to include a strong call to action. A combination of a targeted landing page and a strong call to action can achieve not only a high SERP ranking, but also better conversion results. For example, creating a targeted landing page to offer customers a "free trial" for a given product will help the page rank for searches for free trials for that product. If the page then contains a strong call to action, prompting visitors to sign up for a free trial, those visitors are much more likely than typical visitors to sign up for the free trial.

Tools For Tracking SEO Results

One of the most important tools to have installed on your website is a system that allows you to track the number of visitors and their engagement with your website. There are a few different tools that specialize in web analytics, but by far the most prominent of these tools is Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a free service provided by Google, that can be installed on your website by copy and pasting a few simple lines of JavaScript code into your website's header or footer, so that it appears on every page of your website. By tracking the number of visitors to your website, and their interactions with it, you have the basic tools to understand and assess where your traffic is coming from, and if a given campaign or keyword is proving to be effective or not. While installing Google Analytics on your website will allow you to monitor the traffic to your website, including the volume of traffic that reaches your website for each keyword, it does not track your keyword rankings or SERP results. Instead, you'll need to setup a separate tool to track your SERPs rankings for your targeted keywords. Unlike the web analytics space, there are a number of different tools that allow you to track your SERP rankings including but by no means limited to SEOmoz, SmartSERP, and RavenTools. These SERP tracking tools all work in a similar fashion by making programmatic queries to search engines with your targeted keywords and then scanning the results to find the first link to your website. By using one of these tools you can easily establish your current SERP rankings, and monitor changes to them throughout the SEO campaign. The true power in analyzing an SEO campaign is the combination of these two tool sets. By monitoring your traffic with Google Analytics, you can tell which keywords are converting or generating the most pageviews per visit. Using your chosen SERP tracking tool, you can monitor your rankings for these keywords. By combining these two pieces of information, you can ensure that your SEO campaign is not only effective in improving your targeted keyword rankings, but also that you are targeting the keywords most in-line with your overall SEO campaign goals. For example, using Google Analytics you may determine that a specific keyword you've been targeting actually has a very low conversion rate, and pageviews per visit despite the fact that according to your SERP tracker this keyword is raising in the rankings. You may decide to stop targeting this keyword since it is not driving the type of traffic you want. On the other hand, you may discover that users searching for keywords you did not think to target are converting at a higher rate than expected. Using a SERP tool to analyze this keyword you may discover low-hanging fruit that with minor adjustments may allow you to achieve significantly improved rankings for your best converting keywords.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is the process by which owners of a website attempt to rank higher in search results. A typical SEO campaign begins with a review of an existing website to determine it's current rankings in the results produced by search engines, Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). This review is done for different keywords on which search may be conducted by users of the website. The website is then examined for its strengths and weakness of its content and structure. Once the baseline of the website has been established, the owner of the website selects a set of keywords for which they wish to improve their rankings. Over time the owner of a Website, or Webmaster, will make updates to the content and structure of their website to highlight these targeted keywords, and in turn increase their rankings. However, not all of a search engine's ranking factors are located in the website itself, so a quality SEO campaign will also include improvements to several off-page factors in addition to Website updates. Since several of the rankings factors are outside of the control of a Webmaster, many relying upon other Webmasters and users, the process implementing an SEO campaign can take several months. SEO should therefore be viewed as a long-term solution to drive additional traffic, rather than as a quick fix.

SEO Strategies - Off-Page Factors

The most important off-page factor for SEO is the number and quality of inbound links. An inbound link, which is also referred to as a back link, is a link from a different website to a page on your website. The more a website is linked to by other websites, the more it implies higher quality. Rather than just counting the total number of inbound links to a website though, the search engines attempt to factor in the quality of the link. Quality of a link is determined by the quality of the website it is coming from and the actual text used in the link. For example, a link from a highly ranked domain such as "CNN" is going to carry significantly more weight than a link from a random blogger. And a link with the text "Click Here" only is of less quality than hypertext "nuclear threat has increased." There can be additional off-page factors depending on the type of website that you are hosting. If you are hosting a website for a business with a physical location, it is important to create business pages associated with the search engines. Google has an offering called "Google Business" which allows business owners to supply their name, physical location, and website to Google's directory. Businesses that have registered themselves with a business listing on a system like "Google Business" will typically rank higher than similar businesses without these listings. Having a presence on social media can also help not only improve rankings and trust in your website. For example, if users do a search for your business and they see your business's website along with a Facebook page, Twitter account, and local business listing, it lends credibility to your website. While Google Business and Facebook are good examples of local listings and social media outlets, additional local listings and social media outlets, e.g., Better Business Bureau, Angie's List, may be relevant depending on your website's industry and goals.

SEO Strategies

The process of SEO can be broken into two distinct categories, strategy and tactics. The strategies of SEO are common across almost all websites regardless of the website's industry and its goals, while the tactical implementation of these strategies varies widely. We will discuss three of the primary SEO strategies 1. Keyword Selection, 2. On Page Ranking Factors, and 3. Off Page Ranking Factors. The first step is to make sure you understand the overall goal of your website, and how you will judge the progress and success of your SEO campaign. Are you trying to generate a large volume of traffic and make money off of advertisements? Is it a business website that is attempting to generate more foot traffic, or make online conversions? Is it a website whose goal is to provide quality and educational content to its visitors? Understanding the overall goal of your website will allow you to determine which SEO strategies will provide you with the best results. For example, strategies that would work well for an informational website, will not be nearly as effective for a company that is attempting to generate online sales.

Paid Vs. Organic Search

There are typically two types of search results returned by a search engine when a user enters a query; paid results and organic results. Paid results are advertisements that are paid for by advertisers to search engines. Paid results usually appear above or to the side of the organic results. By contrast organic results are determined by search engines through an algorithm. Advertisers are not allowed to purchase these rankings. By separating paid results from organic results, search engines are able to collect advertising dollars from marketers, while also providing content that users may find most relevant. Separation also lets users know if they are clicking on a link that was generated through natural rankings, or if it is a paid advertisement. SEO focuses on attempting to rank a website higher in the natural or organic search results. In addition to the large volume of traffic that can be gained by tapping into Search Engines, a major benefit is that websites do not need to pay for traffic received through organic search results. The ability to generate long-term traffic without having to pay per visitor is the main reason why marketers pursue SEO so vigorously

Common Search Engine Ranking Factors

While each search engine has its own proprietary algorithm, they are all attempting to return the most relevant results to a user's search. As a result, while there may be differences in how important a given factor is to a particular search engine, there are a number of common factors that are important across all search engines. This allows a website to run a single SEO campaign and achieve improvements across most search engines. Since Google has the largest market share of searches, many SEO campaigns focus on improving rankings in Google, and as a by-product achieve improved results in other engines such as Bing and Yahoo. To examine some of these common factors, we will look into Google's ranking algorithm. While the exact ranking algorithm is proprietary, marketers have been able to determine over 200 different factors they believe to have an impact on a websites' rankings. It is important to note, that these algorithms are continuously in flux as search engines attempt to improve their results, or incorporate changes in technology and the user experience into their algorithms. For example, mobile responsiveness is now a significant factor in ranking results, but when Google was first released in 1998, mobile responsiveness wasn't nearly as important across the web. While there are continuous updates to ranking algorithms, major factors have been identified and most SEO campaigns can focus on the most important attributes.

white hat

White Hat SEO refers to the general practices outlined thus far. White Hat means that a website owner understands the goals of a search engine and attempts to improve the content and structure of their website to genuinely improve their website, and thus achieve a higher ranking in results. White Hat SEO is in-line with guidelines provided by search engines, and follows the rules established by these systems