SEO: Understanding the Concepts

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, refers to the process of affecting the visibility of a website or web page in a search engine’s unpaid results (also known as “organic", "natural”, or “earned” results).  

The SERP, or Search Engine Results page, is what is seen after entering a specific query/search from within a search engine.  In Google the SERP typically consists of:

• The Query
• PPC or Advertising Results
• SEO or the organic search results
• Shopping results and Knowledge Graph Card (if applicable)

How does Google and other search engines know what content to show?

• Your location (found by using your IP address)
• How you searched, including phrasing and what device you are using
• Previous search and browsing history
• Related information collected and categorized via a graph database (e.g. Google’s Knowledge Graph database project)

So how do brands and companies maximize their SERP presence?

• SEO (pure search rankings)
• Paid Search (such as AdWords and AdSense)
• Social Media sharing and participation
• Optimizing Images for Google Image search
• For retail specifically, Google Shopping or “Google for Retail” 

On-Page vs Off-Page SEO:

• On-Page SEO refers to the process of optimizing different parts of your website that affect search engine ranking. Examples of this include:
  • HTML Meta Title, Meta Description and H1 tags (most CMS’s will give you the ability to add in meta descriptions or tags.)
  • URL structure (does the URL have keywords built in?)
  • Page load speed
  • Alt text
  • Internal linking to other pages on your website

• Off-Page (or Technical) SEO focuses on increasing the authority of your site by utilizing links from other sites. Examples of off-page SEO use include:
  • Creating content that people want to link to
  • Social media shares that generate additional links
  • Linking to your own site when guest blogging on sites related to your own

But how do you measure success in SEO?  Using Google Analytics we can look at the following to get a gauge of how SEO is influencing a site (positively and negatively):

1. Organic search traffic - % change month-to-month and/or year-to-year
2. Organic search landing pages
3. Organic search engagement metrics
4. Google Analytics GOALS – e.g. how many form fills are happening from organic search traffic and which pages (and, are they the correct pages?)