guide to seo at a glance: rank-factor analysis and how to rank

Guide to SEO at a Glance Ch.1

‘Rank-Factor’ Concepts that Last

Presentation by Julia Ramos

Why SEO is So Confusing

• Nobody knows for sure what Google measures and

incorporates into their algorithm

• Factor-Rank correlation doesn’t mean causation meaning just because correlation studies show that rank correlates with a

factor doesn’t mean that factor is measures for the algorithm, it could be

a side effect of rank, a side effect of another factor incorporated into the

algorithm, or an effectual factor to another factor incorporated into the

algorithm

• Prioritizing actions based on their impact on SEO is

difficult without understanding their impact on factors

that determine rank

Why SEO is So Important

• Traffic Driving = Audience Building

• Audience Building = Opportunity for Building

Brand Awareness

• Audience Building = Opportunity for

Relationship Building

• Audience Building = Opportunity for Driving

Sales


• Keyword Research = Knowing your Audience

• Knowing Your Audience = audience-focused

marketing and design

• Knowing Your Audience = brand awareness,

relationship building, and driving sales


• Rank = Feedback at an entirely audience-

focused level

• Feedback = understanding what works and

doesn’t work for engaging users and

covering popular topics when content

marketing across your webpages

Google’s Goal

• Google wants to give their searchers the

very best content so that they will

continue to use Google’s search engine

• For a searcher The Best Content is: • Relevant to their search

• Useful to them

• Displayed through a great UX (user experience)

What We Can Do With It

• Based on Google’s Goal of providing the

best content to their searchers, we can

speculate on How Rank is Determined

based on: • What is measurable by Google (and indexable)

• What implies content relevance to the search inquiry type

• What implies content appeal to the search audience

• What implies a better UX

• What could effect other factors that apply to the above

criteria (or would effect factors that would effect factors that apply to the

above criteria, and so on and so forth)

Measurable by Google

• Click-Through Rate on SERP across keywords

• HTML: on-page text (words, text length), meta,

styling, title level (H1, H2, H3), attributes used, URL

• Engagement: bounces, clicks, time spent

• Site Structure: Taxonomy/Internal Link

Pathways/Categorization of Content

• External links directing to the page/site including

social, community pages/blogs, industry news

pages, etc. As well as their relevance to the search.

Implies Content Relevance

• HTML On-Page Text:

• Relevant Term occurrence on page*

• Exact keyword occurrence on page • Rule of Thumb: Use language that will appeal to the audience and

that they can relate to, this may or may not be the exact keyword you

are trying to optimize for.

• Topic Association: Using words that are

relevant to the topic which encapsulates keywords that

you wish to optimize content for

Implies Content Appeal and

Better UX

• CTR on SERP for directly or indirectly associated keywords

• Engagement: low bounce, high time spent, many clicks

• Structure-Engagement Association: Historically have certain site structures correlated with

engagement across keywords of a similar topic?

• Structure-CTR Association

• External Linking from pages that imply content appeal

Effected Factors and Their

Effects

• Click-Through Rate

• Effected by: Meta title & description on SERP (the SERP

title and description and the searcher’s first impression of

your page), Rank ( = all other factors), providing Useful

Content on Popular Topics (content appeal and content

relevance)

• Effects: Rank, Rank CTR, Rank External Linking

• Engagement

• Effected by: Site Structure (usability of the categorization of

content), providing Useful Content on Popular Topics

(content appeal and content relevance)


Effected Factors and Their

Effects

• Quality External Linking

• Effected by: Site Structure (usability of the categorization of

content), Social Engagement, Digital Networking, Rank

(when external promoters are searching for content and

your content ranks, they will be more likely to find, explore,

and link to it), providing Useful Content on Popular Topics

(content appeal and content relevance)


• Rank

• Effected by: Site Structure, Social Engagement, Digital

Networking, Rank, Useful Content on Popular Topics

• Effects: CTR, External Linking, Rank, Rank CTR, Rank

External Linking

Guide to SEO at a Glance Ch.2

‘How to Rank’ Concepts that Last

Presentation by Julia Ramos

Why SEO is So Confusing

• Nobody knows for sure what Google measures and

incorporates into their algorithm

• Factor-Rank correlation doesn’t mean causation meaning just because correlation studies show that rank correlates with a

factor doesn’t mean that factor is measures for the algorithm, it could be

a side effect of rank, a side effect of another factor incorporated into the

algorithm, or an effectual factor to another factor incorporated into the

algorithm

• Prioritizing actions based on their impact on SEO is

difficult without understanding their impact on factors

that determine rank


• Traffic Driving = Audience Building

• Audience Building = Opportunity for Building

Brand Awareness

• Audience Building = Opportunity for

Relationship Building

• Audience Building = Opportunity for Driving

Sales


• Keyword Research = Knowing your Audience

• Knowing Your Audience = audience-focused

marketing and design

• Knowing Your Audience = brand awareness,

relationship building, and driving sales


• Rank = Feedback at an entirely audience-

focused level

• Feedback = understanding what works and

doesn’t work for engaging users and

covering popular topics when content

marketing across your webpages

Most Powerful SEO Actions

• Identify and Provide Content Demanded on Popular Topics

• Design in HTML

• Optimize Meta

• Structure and Categorize Content for

Competitive Usability and UX

• Optimize Content Marketing Through Social

Benefits of Keyword Research

• Keyword Selection • Based on popular topic and content type identification

• Identify channels of traffic and individual search audiences

• Monitor success of organic traffic-driving

• Popular Topic Identification

• Identify and Provide Content Demanded on Popular Topics

• Optimize Meta

• Associate Keywords with Topics • Optimizing one or more pages for a topic (rather than a keyword) may

allow your pages to rank higher for more keywords and higher search

volume keywords across your pages

Benefits of Keyword Research

• Audience Definition • Audience-Focused Marketing

• Optimize Meta

• Competitive Comparison and Key Factor

Identification • Identify the Most Successful Competitor Pages based on the

keyword traffic they gain from keywords within topics they rank for

• Review social presence of Most Successful Competitors

• Content Type and Key Factor Identification • Identify factor-patterns and content types across Top-Ranking

Pages for high-priority topics

• Identify factor-patterns and content types across the Most

Successful Competitor Pages

Keyword Research Step 1

Start with a general framework for

brainstorming keywords based on how your

audience would search for related content. Example:

Learning Search

Solution Search

Specific Product Search

How to Use Search


Use a tool like Google Adwords to define

keyword search popularity and to get more

ideas for keywords

As you find relevant keywords with search

popularity, note the top ranking pages for each

keyword and group keywords together that

have the same top ranking pages


Identify popular topics based on the combined

search popularity of the keyword groupings

from the previous step. This combined search

popularity represents topic popularity

flexible shaft coupling (1000)

flexible shaft couplings (320)

flexible shaft coupler (170)

flexible shaft couplers (40)

flexible coupling (4400)

flexible couplings (880)

Topic: Flexible Couplings (6,810)


Based on the shared top-ranking pages across

the keywords for a topic, identify top-ranking

pages and describe their content type as

defined by the previously discussed rank-

factors displayed on the pages

Top-Ranking Page #1 for keywords within Topic A

Content Type: product page with product specifications,

links to a [segment] community/resource page as well as

their Facebook page, further content links are described

and categorized based on the following content

groups….


Identify the Most Successful Competitors and

Competitor Pages as defined by Content Type

based on the pages that rank most often

across topics and keywords

Review the content marketing efforts of the

most successful competitors across social

media, news, blogs, and community sites

relevant to your industry


Associate the successful Content Types with

the Topics they rank highly for

Select the most advantageous Content Types

to focus on based on those that rank most

often across popular topics


Based on audience content demand as found

through previous steps, define individual

audience segments across popular topics

based on identified audience segment interests

and values

Design for SEO Step 1

For each highly competitive content type

demanded (which may be defined by a

selection of factors identified across a number

of top ranking pages of the same general

content type), design a UX competitive page

based on how top competitors for that content

type structure and categorize their content via

taxonomy, internal linking, and categorization

of text content (titling) on the page.


For each highly competitive content type

demanded (which may be defined by a

selection of factors identified across a number

of top ranking pages of the same general

content type), define relevant terms and

consider all keywords within the same topic to

be relevant terms to be considered for inclusion

in the text on the page. Look to industry blogs,

community pages, news sites, and competitor

pages and social media for ideas on relevant

language for your audience.


For each page created, write a meta title and

description that accurately describes the

topic(s) and content type covered based on

identified audience segment interests and

values

Optimizing for Social Tip #1

Optimize content descriptions for the

social platform based on text length,

directness of messaging, and word

focuses that creates the most clicks onto

the content, and secondarily that which

produces the most shares, comments,

and likes.


Create target audiences within the ads

manager across relevant social media

sites that align with the topic audiences

identified in your keyword research, as

well as any other audience profiles you

may have created and want to target


LinkedIn Flexibility:

At the beginning of a new content

marketing campaign, cast your net wide

and message in a lot of different ways.

After a day or two, remessage and

retarget based on the messages and

targeting that performed the best