Top SEO Companies – What They Do: Explained

Search engine optimization (SEO) now includes social media and has morphed into search optimization.

Introduction to SEO Terms and What Top SEO Companies Do Differently

I just read an article by Tommy Landry at Return on Now that gives a great overview of search engine optimization (SEO).  However, most of my clients and audience are small to medium cap companies and are not in the search optimization business.  For your benefit I explain some of the terms and trends in the article and then re-post it.

The linked article further down in this blog article was written and published by Tommy Landry all rights reserved.  I am simply passing along great information and adding some explanation.  The target audience for this article are all organizations and managers who want to better understand the latest ever changing trends in and terms in search optimization.

Search Engine Optimization – SEO Terms:  Explained

The following contains a list of terms that online marketers should know.  However, if it is too much information and you simply want free advice you can contact me at (click on the link below to go directly to the Augur Contact page):

Augur Marketing Contact Page

Direct Line Telephone – Augur Marketing:

Richard Lewis – 571-201-5272

SEO –

SEO is short for search engine optimization or search engine optimizer.

Search engine optimization is a methodology of strategies, techniques and tactics used to increase the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine (SERP) — including Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines.

SEO helps to ensure that a site is accessible to a search engine and improves the chances that the site will be found by the search engine.

It is common practice for Internet users to not click through pages and pages of search results, so where a site ranks in a search is essential for directing more traffic toward the site. The higher a website naturally ranks in organic results of a search, the greater the chance that that site will be visited by a user.

-Webopedia

White Hat SEO –

In search engine optimization (SEO) terminology, White Hat SEO refers to the usage of SEO strategies, techniques and tactics that focus on a human audience opposed to search engines and completely follows search engine rules and policies. For example, a Web site that is SEO optimized, yet focuses on relevancy and organic ranking is considered to be optimized using White Hat SEO practices. Some examples of White Hat SEO techniques include using keywords and keyword analysis, backlinking, link building to improvelink popularity, and writing content for human readers White Hat SEO is more frequently used by those who intend to make a long-term investment on their Web site. Also called Ethical SEO.

-Webopedia

Black Hat SEO –

In search engine optimization (SEO) terminology, Black Hat SEO refers to the use of aggressive SEO strategies, techniques and tactics that focus only on search engines and not a human audience, and usually does not obey search engines rules. Some examples of Black Hat SEO techniques includekeyword stuffing, invisible text and doorway pages. Black Hat SEO is more frequently used by those who are looking for a quick financial return on their Web site, rather than a long-term investment on their Web site. Black Hat SEO can possibly result in your Web site being banned from a search engine, however since the focus is usually on quick high return business models, most experts who use Black Hat SEO tactics consider being banned from search engines a somewhat irrelevant risk. Black Hat SEO may also be referred to as Unethical SEO or just  spamdexing, as spamdexing is a typical frequently used Black Hat SEO practice.

-Webopedia

Metrics –

Metrics are simply measurement.  All marketing campaigns need to be measured for constant improvement and to determine how successful they are in comparison to the stated business goals of the campaign.  Online metrics can include number of views, number of link clicks, rise in search engine ranking, and importantly to many campaigns is the conversion rate to actual sales.  Other metrics measurement can include walk ins to a brick and mortar location and / or coupons turned in.

Panda –

Google Panda is a change to Google‘s search results ranking algorithm that was first released in 23 February 2011. The change aimed to lower the rank of “low-quality sites” or “thin sites”,^[1]and return higher-quality sites near the top of the search results. CNET reported a surge in the rankings of news websites and social networking sites, and a drop in rankings for sites containing large amounts of advertising.^[2] This change reportedly affected the rankings of almost 12 percent of all search results.^[3] Soon after the Panda rollout, many websites, including Google’s webmaster forum, became filled with complaints of scrapers/copyright infringers getting better rankings than sites with original content. At one point, Google publicly asked for data points^[4] to help detect scrapers better. Google’s Panda has received several updates since the original rollout in February 2011, and the effect went global in April 2011. To help affected publishers, Google published an advisory on its blog,^[5] thus giving some direction for self-evaluation of a website’s quality. Google has provided a list of 23 bullet points on its blog answering the question of “What counts as a high-quality site?” that is supposed to help webmasters “step into Google’s mindset”.^[6]

-Wikipedia

Penguin –

Google Penguin is a code name^[1] for a Google algorithm update that was first announced on April 24, 2012. The update is aimed at decreasing search engine rankings of websites that violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines^[2] by using now declared black-hat SEO techniques, such as keyword stuffing,^[3] cloaking,^[4] participating in link schemes,^[5] deliberate creation of duplicate content,^[6] and others. Google was specifically introduced penguin for the “Over-optimized Websites” in order to rank lower or penalize a website from their search engine.

-Wikipedia

SERP –

A search engine results Page (SERP) is the listing of results returned by a search engine in response to a keyword query. The results normally include a list of items with titles, a reference to the full version, and a short description showing where the keywords have matched content within the page. A SERP may refer to a single page of links returned, or to the set of all links returned for a search query.

-Wikipedia

Organic Searches –

Organic search results are listings on search engine results pages that appear because of their relevance to the search terms, as opposed to their being advertisements. In contrast, non-organic search results may include pay per click advertising.

The Google, Yahoo!, and Bing search engines combine advertising and search results on their search results pages. In each case, the ads are designed to look similar to the search results, though differ in formatting enough for readers to make distinctions between organic results and ads, such as their background colour and/or placement on the page. Further, the appearance of the ads on all major search engines is so similar to the genuine search results that a large majority of search engine users cannot effectively distinguish between them.^[1]

Because so few ordinary users (38% according to Pew Research Center) realized that many of the highest placed “results” on search engine results pages were actually ads, it became important within the search engine optimization industry to distinguish between the two types of content. As the perspective among general users was that all the results were in fact “results”, the qualifier “organic” was invented to distinguish the real search results from the ads. The term was first used by Internet theorist John Kilroy in a 2004 article on paid search marketing. Because the distinction is important (and because the word “organic” has many metaphorical uses) the term is now in widespread use within the search engine optimization and web marketing industry. It is, as of July 2009, now in common currency outside the specialist web marketing industry, being used frequently by Google (throughout the Google Analytics site, for instance).

Google claims that their users click (organic) search results more often than ads, which has led them to rebut the research cited above. A Google study in 2012 found that 81% of ad impressions and 66% of ad clicks happen when there is no associated organic search result on the first page.^[2]

-Wikipedia

HQ Blog –

The acronym stands for high quality blog.  These types of blog articles are search engine optimized and are used to increase online rankings and visibility.

Click on the link below to watch a very short video on the importance of search optimization.

Very Short Video – SEO

Linked SEO Article

Link to the Article by Tommy Landry at Return on Now.

This article was written by Richard Lewis at Augur Marketing.  Richard has 15 years of organizational experience and founded Augur in 2009.  Mr. Lewis graduated from James Madison University and lives in the DC Metro area.