ConvergeSouth15: Organic Search 101

1© 2014 MERKLE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. CONFIDENTIAL

SEO: What You Need to KnowPresented by:Lauren PolinskyAssociate Director, Merkle, Inc.

@laurenpolinskywww.linkedin.com/in/lpolinsky

@merklecrmwww.linkedin.com/company/merkle

2© 2015 MERKLE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

SEO: What You Need to Know

• What is SEO?• How Search Engines Work• Details About Ranking Factors

– On Page– Off Page

© 2015 MERKLE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

WHAT IS SEO?


Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of improving and promoting a web

site in order to increase the number of visitors the site receives from search

engines.- Moz.com

What is SEO?


Paid Search (PPC)

Local Search

Organic Search

Google Cards

Image Search


• Click Through Rate (CTR) is "the percentage of impressions that resulted in a click for a website” (via Google Webmaster Tools)

• The Top 5 Google Results represent 75% of total clicks• CTR is highest for brand search results in the #1 position

Position Placement is Important


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HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK


1. Search engine spiders crawl the web and gather pages, storing them within their index (database)

2. When a Search is done, the Engine sorts through its index, finding all pages or URL’s that are relevant to the search query

3. Relevant results from the Engines index are displayed on the Search Engine Results Page in order of Most to Least relevant, using a proprietary algorithm

How Search Engines Work

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THE RANKING FACTORS

The Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors

http://searchengineland.com/introducing-the-periodic-table-of-seo-ranking-factors-77181


• Content, HTML, Information Architecture

• Controlled by a Webmaster• Algorithm considers positive and

negative elements such as:• Content that contains too many

mentions of a keyword• Use of bullets, italics, and

bold font styles• Pages that have more ad space

than unique content• How fast the page loads, both

desktop & mobile experiences

On Page SEO Ranking Factors


• Including: Links, Social, Trust, and Personal

• Elements are not directly controllable by a Webmaster but can be influenced by Webmasters

• Positive & Negative elements can affect SERP Visibility:

• Buying links on other sites to point to your website

• Lack of presence/engagement on social networks

• Consistency of Name, Address, Phone (NAP) citations

Off Page Ranking Factors


ON PAGE SEO FACTORS


• Page Content is the most important ranking factor for any webpage

• Quality Content engages its readers, improves User Experience (UX) metrics such as Time on Page, Bounces, Time on Site and Pages Consumed per visit

• High bounce rates are a negative signal that shows engines your content is not relevant to the query

• Target a single topic on each webpage

• Publish content regularly, make updates to existing content as necessary

Content Optimization


Target Body Content to a Single Topic

Monitor ranking to ensure visibility on subject matter phrases….

Keyword Rank Vol.

Sweet 16 party ideas 75 12,100Sweet 16 ideas 70 12,10016th birthday party ideas 55 1,900

sweet 16 party ideas on a budget 10 590

What to do for my 16th birthday 74 140

https://tentotwenty.com/sweet-16-birthday-on-a-budget/

Word Clouds can highlight the main keywords used in on-page content….


• Title Tag: Keywords in title tags impact the organic algorithm the most, after page content

• Keep it short, simple• Use sentences whenever possible• Place the keywords near the front

• Meta Description: Used as “advertising” to increase CTRs

• Uses 155 characters or less• Includes keywords and synonyms

• Heading Tags: Organize on page content• Use only one H1 tag per page• Organize body content

Important HTML to Optimize


• Search engines do not view webpages like searchers do

1. Use HTML as much as possible, and always for the most important content

2. Use ALT attributes to describe the content of the image

3. Supplement the experience with Flash, JS, and AJAX

4. Include transcripts for all videos5. Hyphens in URLs help engines

separate keywords

Site Architecture and URL Structure

How Searchers See Websites

How Search Engines See

Websites


OFF PAGE SEO FACTORS


• Leading SEOs agree that Link Metrics were seen as the most important Ranking Factors

INTERNAL & EXTERNAL• Internal – A link on your

domain that points to a page on your domain

• External – A link on a different domain that points to your domain

FOLLOW & NO FOLLOW• No Follow – do not pass “link

juice” • Follow – do pass “link juice”

Importance of Links


• A link pointing to your site is seen as a “vote” for your site

• All links are not created equal• Links from high quality sites pass

more “Link Juice” than links from low quality sites

• Google requires press release links to be “nofollow”

• One High Quality link is much more valuable than 100 low quality links

External Links: Quality & Quantity


• Search engines have access to all publicly available data on social networks

• Facebook & Bing share private data• Google incorporates G+ information• Twitter shares to all search engines

• Keywords used alongside engaging content on social networks can increase high-qualifying traffic

• Social network shares and likes for URLs signal content popularity

• Shares are built around specific URLs, but the sum of efforts leads to Brand Relevancy

• Social allows for continual and spontaneous engagement

Social Networking

https://moz.com/search-ranking-factors/correlations

Thank you


SEO: What You Need to Know

Lauren Polinsky, Associate Director, Merkle

ConvergeSouth15: Organic Search 101

Education