Search Engine Optimization

ITSEO ZONE- THE DIGITAL AGENCY

July, 15th 2023
WHAT IS SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) – is

the process of affecting the visibility of
a website or a web page in a search
engine's unpaid results - often referred
to as "natural”, "organic”, or "earned"
results
THE ANATOMY OF A SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

Keyword / Search Query

Paid Product Listings

Paid Search Results

Organic Search Results

SEARCH USERS PREFER ORGANIC LISTINGS

94%
ORGANIC
SEARCH CLICKS
6 %

PAID SEARCH
CLICKS

Study of Search Queries

(1.4 billion+ search)
Source: Nielsen
 ORGANIC IS THE MARKET-WIDE
VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER

Telling you what customers want in the moments that matter

Buyers turn to organic Consumers use search engines Smartphone users look for
at research stage for purchase decisions information, not brands
THE HIGHER YOUR WEB LISTING RANKS, THE MORE
ORGANIC TRAFFIC IT CAN ACQUIRE
25%

20%

43%
Organic Click-Through-Rate

15%
of searchers click on the top 3
Organic SERP Rankings
10%

5%

0%
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Search Rank Position

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HOW DOES SEO WORK?
HOW DO SEARCH ENGINES WORK?
Step 1: Step 2: Step 3:
Crawl Links and Web Sites Index and Cache Web Pages Apply Ranking Algorithm

Search engine bots crawl through the As bots find pages on the web, they Once a search engine has built up its
World Wide Web to find new websites decide whether or not they want to index, it will rank the pages according
based on the text on the website or include that web page within their to the relevancy to the search keyword
links to websites index based on their own set of criteria and serve up the best results on SERP
GOOGLE ALGORITHM CHANGES MANY TIMES

100% SECURE SEARCH 2013

In an effort to protect internet users privacy Google
removed traffic data insights on a keyword level

PANDA AND PENGUIN UPDATES 2015

Poor quality content, duplicate content and bad backlink
profiles penalized websites in the SERPs

HUMMINGBIRD REMODEL 2017

Google algorithm includes “meaning technology”
to better understand user intent; better content =
better rankings

GOOGLE CAROUSEL AND RANK BRAIN 2017

SERP update that highlights websites in a new features
top page carousel; this new layout impacts visibility and
CTR. Rank Brain is a query refinement tool based on AI
SERP LAYOUT EVOLVES TO MEET SEARCH USERS’
NEEDS IN THOSE MICRO-MOMENTS

10 Blue Links Highly Contextual

3 KEYS TO HIGHER SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS

Higher Search
Code
Create a cleanly
Engine Rankings
coded, search engine
friendly website

Community
Be found on the web,
Content
Produce great
promote your great content
content
CODE - SEARCH ENGINES READ, THEY DON’T SEE

“XYZ”, Just
Best page for
what I was
query “XYZ”
looking for

Search
Engine Bot
CODE - ON-PAGE OPTIMIZATION: TITLE TAGS

Why is it important?
Title is the most important on-page ranking factor and
is the main text that describes an online document.

What it looks like in the source code:

Recommendation
• Use rich keyword phrases that best describe the web
page
• Make them unique for each page and use a strong
CTA (Call to Action) based on buyer intent
• Try to keep them around 55-65 characters long

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CODE - ON-PAGE OPTIMIZATION: HEADER TAGS
What is it?
On-page HTML tags are located within the body copy that
identify the most important text on the page. The H1 is
the headline of the page. There are 6 header tags,
ranging from H1 (the most important) to H6 (least
important).

What it looks like in the source code:

Recommendation
• Use H1 only once per page
• Make sure the H1 is keyword rich and unique
• You can use H2 and H3 tags multiple times, but keep
them unique from page to page
• Keep header tags in order

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CODE - ON-PAGE OPTIMIZATION: META DESCRIPTION
What is it?
A description of what your web page is about. It will also
show up as the page summary on the SERP.

Why is it important?
An engaging and descriptive meta description will attract
more clicks when your pages shows up in search results.
Think of it as a mini ad.

Recommendation
• Include strong call-to-actions
• Make sure keyword is included early in the first line
• Make them unique for each page
• Try to keep them around 120-150 characters long

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CONTENT - KEYWORD RESEARCH FACTORS

RELEVANCE SEARCH VOLUME USER INTENT Competition

(Difficulty to rank higher)

• Is your content and • High search volume
website addressing a
need for this keyword?
• Would a customer
expect to land on your
site after searching for
this keyword?
• Is the customer looking
indicates higher potential
visits, but may also
indicate higher ambiguity
(for example “holidays”
vs “luxury holidays in
Maldives”)
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• Long tail terms offer
to purchase, learn, or lower search volume,
be entertained? but higher relevance;
head terms offer higher
potential visits, but
lower relevance
• Head terms: High
competition
• Long tail: Low
competition
CONTENT - INTERNAL LINKS

What is it?
Internal links are links that go from one page on a domain to
a different page on the same domain. They are commonly
used in main navigation within a site.

Internal links are often useful for several reasons:

• To allow users navigate a website
• To help establish information hierarchy for the given website
• To help spread link equity across a website
• To use as a ”soft conversion” CTA for top-of-the-funnel
content

<a href="https://www.brightedge.com/products/s3/keyword-reporting">Keyword Reporting</a>

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CONTENT - ANCHOR TEXT

What is it?
Anchor text is the visible text on a page that can be
clicked on and links to another page. In the example to the
left, the login page has is an internal link to another
section on the BrightEdge site. The anchor text that can
be seen, “Content Performance”.

What it looks like:

The anchor text comes after the link in the source code.

<a href="https://www.brightedge.com/products/s3/keyword-reporting">Keyword Reporting</a>

<a href="https://www.brightedge.com/products/s3/keyword-reporting">Keyword Reporting</a>

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COMMUNITY - PROMOTE YOUR GOOD CONTENT
Work doesn’t stop when you hit “Publish.” Make sure to include promotional and cross-promotional efforts in
your Content Strategy

Use following channels to amplify your

content:
• Link Building
• Social Media
• Public Relations
• Offline Media (TV, Radio, etc.)
• Paid Advertising
• Events posters or leave-behinds (QR code)
• Printed collateral (QR code)

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COMMUNITY - WHAT IS LINK BUILDING?
Link building is an ongoing iterative process where you build shareable, informative content and promote relevant
content to the list of high-quality source domains through backlinks and social channels.

Why is this important?

Link building is an important area of SEO, as it influences a site’s
domain authority. Higher domain authority correlates to higher ranking.
Higher volumes of high quality backlinks leads to higher domain
authority.

Recommendation
Focus on a natural, well-diversified, relevancy-based link building
strategy to strengthen your profile.

Tactics should primarily be focused around acquiring links from high-

quality domains - for example, a domain with a homepage that has a
PageRank of 3+, or a domain with a Majestic Trust Flow of 20+.

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COMMUNITY - WHAT ARE BACKLINKS?

Without links, search

Backlinks point back to your site from an external engines might never find
site. They are considered to be “online currency”, this page
getting a backlink is equivalent to receiving a vote
of confidence

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