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
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SEO: What You Need to Know
• What is SEO?• How Search Engines Work• Details About Ranking Factors
– On Page– Off Page
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WHAT IS SEO?
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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?
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Paid Search (PPC)
Local Search
Organic Search
Google Cards
Image Search
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• 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
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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
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• 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
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• 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
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ON PAGE SEO FACTORS
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• 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
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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….
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• 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
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• 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
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OFF PAGE SEO FACTORS
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• 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
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• 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
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• 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
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SEO: What You Need to Know
Lauren Polinsky, Associate Director, Merkle
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