CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Everyday SEO

When ‘Net professionals and digital Web workers think about and discuss the nuances of search engine optimization it is safe to say that opinions vary.

The practice of SEO has been seen as somewhat of a dark art by some and by others as a shining virtual beacon on the Internet business landscape - the salvation for the woes of a brands poor performing digital properties and ‘Net presence. As in most things, the truth often lays somewhere in between.

At its purest and most simple, search engine optimization can be defined as both a creative and often highly technical practice in which a website’s placement on popular search engines is influenced by the quality and quantity of various factors. It is these “factors” and elements which are “optimized” (developed, adjusted, improved, removed, modified, and analyzed) and which ultimately determine and influence the digital success of enterprise brands and individual products at popular search engines including Google and Bing (among others).

SEO is, of course, about optimizing websites so they rank competitively (“highly”, as in, on the first page of results) on search engines, but far more importantly, it is about improving the broader Web presence of a business - and increasingly the user experience itself -so that enterprises (companies like yours and mine) are seen as relevant to, and favorable for, a prospective or current user/client’s query (the terms and phrases, or “keywords”, that an audience uses when seeking out a company’s products, services or information) when using one of those popular resources for information discovery or entertainment.

+ SEM or SEO?

As in most industries there are many acronyms and abbreviations that workers must become familiar with and the same holds true on the business-related Web. One of the more common points of confusion among those just starting out is the difference between SEO (search engine optimization as you already know) and SEM (search engine marketing). SEM is the practice of promoting a brand’s digital presence through any available means provided by the search engine (including search-based advertising), while SEO refers exclusively to the practice of influencing the position of a website in the unpaid (also known as natural or organic) listings. Think of SEO as a subset of SEM. As most Web consultants will tell you, the most successful brands employ a balanced effort using both paid advertising (SEM) and SEO (along with other channels including social media and email marketing) to accomplish their objectives.

That was somewhat of a long-winded definition of search engine optimization so let’s try and simplify, and in the process clarify, what we are really about to engage in and the specific type of initiatives we are about to undertake. SEO is about building a website presence and maintaining a reputation online that results in being awarded or assigned a position on the search results pages (one that will ultimately be favorable to and for our objectives).

As previously mentioned, search engine optimization requires a balance between the technical and the creative. Enterprises which understand this very fundamental reality and develop internal teams with workflows and processes to address it are those who, on the whole, experience the greatest level of success.

And in the nearly twenty years of being around the practice of SEO, I have never, ever seen a website rank in a competitive position (routinely considered as those on the first page of results, if not the first few positions) without a strict adherence to this essential digital philosophy (or at least not for long).

+ SEO BASICS: What is an Algorithm?

An algorithm is a process or set of rules that are followed by a computer in performing calculations or other problem-solving operations. Think of an algorithm as a recipe which outlines steps required to produce a final product (in the case of a recipe, for example, the result is – hopefully - a plate full of delicious food). Algorithms have many practical applications and are used behind the scenes in several ways including searching through and sorting information in the case of search engines. Algorithms are essentially just math equations that provide instructions on how to perform some task. Search engines have their own closely guarded algorithms which they use to determine the best result for each query. Google’s PageRank algorithm, for example, assigns an integer value between 0 and 10 to a webpage using the linking structure (specifically the number of citations directed/pointing toward a page). Search engines actually use several different algorithms in tandem which can be quite complex in order to deliver the best possible results to end users.

In the future, SEO will continue to require the aforementioned focus on “content” and “connections” but also demand a great deal of familiarity with and prowess in the technical and creative aspects of digital business operations as well in order to generate a return from these marketing related initiatives. Today’s Web users have certain expectations from their own digital experience, of course, and as a result, it is an absolutely necessary responsibility in the practice of SEO today to ensure a continuously consistent experience across channels. As you may very well know, the practice of SEO has its detractors – and sometimes the opinions and viewpoints of the most vocal opponents are based on very good reasons (and, often, experiences).

The State of SEO Today

When I first heard the acronym “SEO” in a staff meeting nearly two decades ago, I was doubtful about the efficacy of the practice and even more so about the immense benefit that was promised (as I, and all logical thinkers tend to be about most things initially). SEO simply sounded too good to be true (you never get the whole story from a salesperson/consultant, right?) but it surprisingly did manage to live up to the hype in many, many unique and interesting ways.

+ SEO BASICS: Everflux

One of the hardest aspects to understand for those looking to obtain search engine traffic is that their efforts are not a one-time affair. Success with SEO is ongoing and should be built into the processes of an organization. In much the same way, search engines continually refine and adjust their efforts and algorithms and the manifestation of that is often see within their search results. The term that has risen for this phenomenon is everflux - or the ever changing positions of websites in the Google search index.

 For years, however, many of those responsible for SEO went under the impression that the search engines would never change and as a result failed to modify or adjust their approach as time went by; they were ultimately unable or unwilling to keep pace with major industry-wide, technical and even cultural developments. These SEO’s were surprised to learn, in fact, that SEO has been an incredibly dynamic practice ever since its inception. With time things did change and evolve in interesting and sometimes curious ways and today the practice of SEO is far more sophisticated and involved (becoming an often highly complex and time consuming process) than ever before.

That can make it a rough go for those companies looking to quickly supplement their website traffic with the “free” visitors provided by search engines, but it is another story entirely for those who remain focused purely on the best practices and the long term benefits of proper SEO and what is offered to those brands, products and service that benefit (in the form of greater awareness, website visits and with any luck, conversions) as a result of such promotions.

What was once considered a typical or a sufficient amount of work (as well as the type of work) for an SEO project has changed, however, and it has changed quite dramatically. Early SEO professionals’ engaged in the best practices of the time such as implementing unique page titles and descriptive meta tags, including relevant keywords as necessary in various locations of their website pages (e.g. within page content), and they sometimes even worked in some anchor text on internal-pointing links and maybe even added an alt tag or two on the website images they used just to round things out. In many instances, that was all that was required and, like virtual magic, a website could be on the search engines in a competitive position in a matter of weeks (if not days).

If you’re not familiar with some of these terms (such as meta tags or anchor text), don’t worry; by the end of SEO 360 you most certainly will be (plus, there is a glossary at the end of the book). Their inclusion is meant only to show or remind those with some experience the simplicity of the practice at one time (even though these tactics are still used and are sometimes important they carry much less weight today).

You have likely heard many success stories relating to SEO from years past, and I can tell you that they are very much true (at least in most cases). One example in my own professional career illustrates simultaneously how basic the practice was many years ago, explains its rise in usage and popularity among such a broad set of business and technical professionals, and just how far the practice of search engine optimization has become over time.

Approached and hired by an independent reseller of a popular housewares brand to optimize their websites, this SEO project was quite representative of the process required to compete in the organic (natural or free) index of popular search engines many years ago. How did it work?

A few keyword-rich domain names were purchased, a few thousand words of content on each page (on small, three-page, brochure-style websites) were developed, some links between those digital properties using appropriate and ‘thoughtful’ anchor text were implemented, and an announcement was sent was through the press release wires. The websites optimized were placing competitively for every target almost overnight - not only on the first page, but in the top three positions for a range of keywords – even over/above the website of the actual brand being promoted by the reseller itself – a website that received millions of branded queries (those using the company’s name) by interested customers each month. The “best practices” of the day were put in play and it worked – like a digital charm.

Things changed over time however (the rankings of these digital properties, if you are curious, eventually fell) and the practice of SEO has become far more sophisticated than nearly anyone could have ever possibly imagined. Today, the buzzword around the SEO office/department tends to be more complex, as in “content-rich, dynamic, authoritative, real-time, mobile-first, social-infused, distributed content hubs.” The state of SEO is obviously now a very a complex one, but one that is as promising and potent as ever – particularly when brands think strategically, invest their resources wisely, and concentrate on factors known over time to influence position.

+ SEO GLOSSARY: Anchor Tag/Text

The text that appears highlighted in a hypertext link and that can be clicked to open the target web page. Anchor text optimization is a common on-site SEO practice.

A good example of this is the anchor tag and anchor text. An Anchor tag is an HTML tag that includes visible words that are hyperlinked (either to other websites or to a website's international pages. There is some debate about the ideal method to construct these tags (use of the target attribute, for example, as well as absolute/relative linking to internal pages), but it has been shown time and again that the use of anchor text, the clickable text of a hyperlink, is definitely an influential factor in ranking.

Search engines evaluate how link on a website are set up and even consider the contents of the link text in the ranking. For example, if thousands of websites link to my website with the anchor text "SEO 360" then when a consumer uses that query on a search engine they are more likely to find me (particularly if I use that copy on my website (perhaps in the title tag and page copy for example). The same hard and fast rules apply to anchor text as with any other SEO element. It's important for example not to use vague text which describes nothing other than a directive (e.g. "click here") or text that is misleading or which includes too many keywords that are not targeted to the destination page. Remember, you are building an “experience” for the searcher and clarity can, in this regard, result in a deeper connections with consumers.

SEO Foundation

The aim of SEO 360 is to provide a reliable, knowledge-based, experience-driven foundation for the search engine optimization campaigns of brands both large and small; from massive e-commerce merchants, to mid-range publishers as well as the ‘mom-and-pop’ service providers with or without an offline (brick and mortar or physical world) local presence. If you have struggled with search engine optimization in the past, consider how your enterprise currently approaches the three fundamental elements of successful brand marketing campaigns using SEO – relevance, popularity and accessibility – and how successfully your company is concentrating its efforts on building content, establishing relationships and developing for the continuity of experience.

If you’re just getting started, remember these three factors are the foundation to ranking well on the search engines immediately and in the future and they lead directly to those two essentials of success with SEO - content and connections. Let’s take a closer look at what relevance, popularity, and accessibility actually mean in relation to SEO and what they ultimately have to do with ranking (and being positioned competitively) on the search engines results pages.

Relevance is a determination of how closely a particular object (a file, Web page, database record, image, video, etc.) matches the user’s intent as they search for information. Search engines analyze a number of factors and elements to determine relevance but they all primarily have to do with discovering how those assets are aligned with the expectations of users. For example, the search results for a baseball team such as “Chicago Cubs” in the month of January will yield a far different result set than the same query in September or October (one might show more news items about off-season trades and the other scores, reviews or highlights from the season). If search engines can determine what the end-user is actually after, they can present a better set of queries for what is being searched for. Digital assets that are not deemed “relevant” to the user’s query will likely never appear in the search engines at all (which is why optimizing the relevancy of each and every page – as well as the broader virtual experience – is so important).

+ SEO MASTER: Black Hat Techniques

In search engine optimization (SEO) terminology, black hat SEO refers to any type of SEO tactic that does not obey search engines guidelines. While the "rules" put forth by the search engines are often intentionally vague, concentrating efforts on developing content, forging connections with those in good neighborhoods with established audiences, and ensuring a high quality and consistent experience for users (white hat) has long been a better (although slower) approach to success with search engine optimization initiatives.

 To be popular in the digital landscape means that your asset (again, that could a website page, an image, or video) is regarded with favor, approval, or affection by others (this often comes in the form of other websites providing a ‘link’ to your website or website page). Increasing the volume of popularity (the quantity of sites providing citations) as well as by influencing which sites deem your brand or content noteworthy in the digital sense (the quality and authority of those sites), is the single best way to optimize an asset for search engine placement. The issue (really, the problem) with using inbound links as a means to determine search result position is that there are very often attempts by search marketing professionals to manipulate the quantity and quality of digital citations. These individuals engage in a number of practices to artificially inflate the quantity of inbound links – from

purchasing links from authoritative sites to cross linking from their own optimized collection of digital properties. Search engines have, of course, become much better at identifying the traditional approaches to artificial link building (more on that in the chapter on link building) although it has not seemed to stem the tide of attempts.

Accessibility is another area of particular importance. The more challenging it is for search engines and their users to access and interact with a website and its pages, the more failure you will experience as a search engine optimization professional. Make a digital presence easy to approach and interact with, however, and you’ve successfully mastered another crucial component of SEO. While the software that powers the digital presence of many Web destinations do an exceptional job of fostering an accessible environment, success in this realm requires far more than clean code and the avoidance of well- known roadblocks like the use of Flash, JavaScript navigation, or the many other barriers outlined in more detail within Chapter 4.

+ SEO BASICS: Flash

Adobe's Flash authoring tool, once used for the development of most multimedia and interaction content found on the Web. The graphic objects that were created with Flash, however, had some issues when it came to search engine optimization. There were, of course, several security issues. Search engines also had a difficult time indexing the content they found within Flash files - although they got better with time at this task. The biggest problem however was that Flash could not be seen on mobile devices (a variety of reasons for this of course) and as more and more traffic started to come from mobile devices, Flash received less and less use by the Web community. Today, it's almost nonexistent.

Those websites and digital assets are then indexed and eventually evaluated for possible inclusion on the search results pages using the aforementioned criteria. Some brands will develop better content (and a better experience) for their business and/or website and have more links/citations (connections) from other digital properties, and search engines will reward those that do with higher placement on their search return lists. When search engine users conduct a “query” (often known as a “search”) – they will find the sites, the very best sites, the engines have in their index for that particular query at that specific time.

That is SEO in a virtual nutshell – Internet marketers, strategists and designers/developers create content and a digital experience for their business or enterprise, and nurture their customer relationships and business connections, and search crawl, evaluate and return the sites discovered based on the value they have been assigned to their search engine users. And by indicating relevance, proving authority (not just popularity) and simply being accessible, achieving a high rank and a competitive position on the search result is easier than you might think. That’s what you’ll find in future chapters of SEO 360 – guidance on how to make all this happen.

Outside of the investment of time (and perhaps some software) there’s no paying for each and every visitor that arrives (like pay-per-click or cost-per-click advertising) when it comes through SEO (and the organic search channel) which is appealing to every cost-conscious business. When brands couple that benefit with an opportunity to leverage their existing creative and technical prowess and expertise, they will find they are on the fast track to success with search engine optimization, and ultimately, a more profitable enterprise in general. All that is required and remaining is some strategy (and virtual sweat, of course) to make it all come together.

Since search engines change and modify the way in which they evaluate websites and digital assets routinely (Google, for example, is known to make hundreds of changes in the course of a year to its algorithm), know that search engine optimization (SEO) is more process-driven than task-driven. That means it needs to be practiced and engaged in company-wide and done so every, single day.

This is Everyday SEO

Pursuing Relevance, Popularity & Accessibility with Content & Connections

Most ‘Net professionals and digital marketers underestimate the incredible importance of the big three elements influencing SEO (as well as the foundational aspects of content and connections), believing there to be a “secret tactic” or “backdoor” to consistently higher rankings on the search engines. As if you could just flip the proverbial switch! In reality, it’s not complicated at all (or at least not as complicated as many make it out to be), and really, is much more straightforward than it seems – it’s about the relevance of your website/pages/assets to the user’s query, the popularity of a website or a specific document based on the number of citations (also known as “links”) it has received across the Web, and just how accessible it is for search engines and the search engines’ users. When SEO’s concentrate their energy and attention in this way, success, while not guaranteed, becomes more likely.

+ SEO MASTER: WHAT IS PAGERANK?

In many ways, the PageRank algorithm took Google from a college-level technology project to the biggest company in the world (there were, of course, a few other factors influencing their success). PageRank essentially counts the number of links pointing to a website as votes – votes indicating another’s validation of a digital asset’s relevance and popularity. Google looks beyond just the volume of these votes, links and citations – and considers the quality of the page that provides the link as well.

Today, relevance and popularity (along with technical matters related to accessibility which will be addressed in a future chapter) are the elements that carry the greatest influence – they almost always have and they likely always will. In fact, a key component of Google’s PageRank (the method used by that search engine in particular to determine a page’s relevance or importance) is to reward (rank higher) those pages with the highest number of citations. Make no mistake – citations (inbound links from third-parties) are what move a website up the results pages. Without a dedicated concentration on the practice of link building, it is unlikely that an SEO initiative will yield any results at all. The practice is so important that an entire chapter has been dedicated to it within SEO 360 (so keep reading!).

SEO 360 also takes great care however (and in some cases will go into great detail) to illustrate and express how to improve both relevance and popularity (as well as the quality or quantity of each) in addition to showing how to reduce and eliminate the technology hurdles which may, perhaps unknowingly, be in place within your own digital presence. These key SEO elements need to work together – one is not more important than another. And again, SEO 360 will address these topics as well in future chapters.

The strategy employed throughout this book and in my career as a search engine optimization professional and Editor-in-Chief of Website Magazine is what I affectionately refer to as “Everyday SEO” – a way in which ‘Net professionals should approach the practice and perform in the digital world. Everyday SEO requires a sharp mind, a creative spirit and a dedication to putting forward the best digital footprint possible. It requires investment (of time and energy) every day, but those that make it will reap the rewards every day in the future.

SEO is far more sophisticated and nuanced than the outside world (and those not directly responsible) imagine, but with an “Everyday SEO” strategy/approach serving as the foundation of your digital marketing campaigns you’ll understand, and have at your disposal, a new way to look at a tactic already proven to drive new business – from the digital realm and in the real world as well, and you’ll be closer to achieving the organizational objectives than ever before.