ConvergeSouth15: Organic Search 101

1© 2014 MERKLE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. CONFIDENTIAL
Presented by:
Lauren Polinsky
Associate Director, Merkle, Inc.
@laurenpolinsky
www.linkedin.com/in/lpolinsky
@merklecrm
www.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

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

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 12,100
Sweet 16 ideas 70 12,100
16th 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 videos
5. 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

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