3. WHAT IS SEO?
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
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5. WHICH ARE THE
ORGANIC LISTINGS Local organic results
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.
Local Maps results
(click link above to
Sometimes the searcher will use
see all Maps results)
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
Local organic results
intent with the search and serve
localized results like you see here
on the right
6. THE WORLD OF SEO
Improve Traffic Metrics
Browse Rate, Time On Site, Etc.
Compete In Vertical Results Grow Brand Awareness
Local/Maps, Video, Blogs, News, Images Press, Source Diversity, Social Mentions
Diversify Link/Traffic Resources
Optimize Social Signals
Natural Links, Strong Anchor Text, Link Location
SEO Increase Followers/Friends, Tweets/Shares/+1’s/Votes,
Engagement on Social Platforms
Target The Right Keywords
High Volume, Low Competition, Strong ROI
Improve Accessibility Incent User-Generated Content
No Errors, Good Redirects, Load Speed Contributes to SEO/Social Signals and Long Tail
Add + Improve Content
Virality, Sharing, Topic Relevance, Keyword Targeting
7. WHAT FACTORS PLAY INTO
WHETHER OR NOT A
WEBSITE WILL RANK IN
GOOGLE?
There are four major groups of SEO ranking factors
• On The Page Ranking Factors
• Off The Page Ranking Factors
• Violations
• Blocking
Factors Work In Combination
No 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
Content provided by http://searchengineland.com/guide/seo/types-of-search-engine-
8. WHAT ARE THE ON PAGE
FACTORS?
On The Page Factors
On 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
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9. EXAMPLE OF
PAGE ELEMENTS
WE OPTIMIZE
1. Header Tags (H1, H2, etc) 1
2. Internal linking
3. Keyword in copy
2
4. Title tag
2
5. META description
3
6. URL
4
5
6
http://touchofelements.com/albuquerque
10. WHAT ARE THE OFF PAGE
FACTORS?
Off The Page Factors
Off 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
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11. WHAT ARE VIOLATIONS?
Violations
Make 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.
Content provided by http://searchengineland.com/guide/seo/types-of-search-engine-
12. WHAT IS BLOCKING?
Blocking
Blocking 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
Content provided by http://searchengineland.com/guide/seo/types-of-search-engine-
13. 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.
Content provided by
15. PHASE 1:
THE VALUE OF DISCOVERY
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. Brand
2. Target Market
16. TECHNICAL WEBSITE AUDIT
The 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
Site speed
Crawlability Sitemaps
URL depth Robots.txt
Overall website structure Schema / microdata
HTTP header status Internal linking
Canonicalization
Navigation
17. KEYWORD RESEARCH AND
SELECTION
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
18. PHASE 2: WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION
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 tags
URLs
META data
Images
Text
Headers
Internal linking
19. PHASE 3:
BACKLINK DEVELOPMENT
The 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
20. PHASE 4:
ADVANCED SEO STRATEGIES
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.
21. EXAMPLES OF ADVANCED SEO
STRATEGIES
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
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
22. 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/
23. TRACKING, REPORTING &
ANALYSIS averaged for month end report
• Daily keyword rankings,
• 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
24. CONSULTING
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
26. BASIC SEO VOCABULARY
• 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.
27. 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
