What is SEO Marketing?

SEO marketing, more accurately known as search engine marketing, is the act of finding out what people are searching for, and delivering pages which cater for those needs. This sounds simple but encompasses many factors which are explained in this guide.

Keyword research

This is the most essential part of search engine optimisation (SEO) as the wrongly chosen phrases, even at the top of Google, won’t convert into sales for your client.

The first SEO company I worked for (who shall remain nameless) insisted an aromatherapy provider be optimised with the phrase, “smelly scent balls”. I don’t imagine it boosted sales when their results were sandwiched between “I'm afraid to let her smell my balls?” and “I scratch my balls and smell it | Is It Normal?”

This testicular tale illustrates the importance of choosing the correct keywords. Keywords can be gathered from brainstorming, trade journals, keyword research tools (such as Wordtracker and Trellian Keyword Discovery) and pay-per-click (PPC) data, as well as more creative means such as the use of YouTube comments to find related topics.

Short vs. long tail

Short tail terms tend to number a few keywords, and have higher search volumes. These are more likely to be searched by the curious rather than those with commercial intent. Examples include “debt management” and “loan lenders”.

Long tail terms comprise more keywords, and have low competition because they are usually unique. They account for the majority of searches and have a higher conversion rate because the searcher is looking for something specific.

The best search engine marketing is concerned with the short tail but leaves structural space for longer tail conversions. You can’t directly optimise for long tail searches, but you can guide the process by picking highly searched and converting topics, in unique and text heavy formats, such as blogs and user generated content.

Keyword strategy

When you have amassed an adequate amount of phrases, you can use Google's AdWords Keywords Tool to get a rough idea of search volumes. Depending on whether your client wants to target a local area, build up brand, or work on acquiring customers with more specific phrases, is what guides your strategy here. For example, if your keyword strategy is for local searches you can append your phrases with regional modifiers.

The aim here is not to just think about search volumes but also conversion. Are the searches relevant to your site, and will they convert to your goals, be they selling products, encouraging more readers to your blog, or subscribing to a newsletter?

It’s not essential but I find Richard Baxter's SEOgadget Keyword Research particularly helpful here. It compares keywords from existing Google Analytics data, with the number of monthly searches for that particular term. Its use of filters allow you to separate brand searches, and also isolate the terms which combine the highest amount of search queries with the lowest competition. The “low hanging fruit” as it were.

Once your keyword phrases are chosen, manually search for your terms to double-check there are no problems. For example, if someone wanted to be first result for the term “wedding singer” it could be difficult when the top three results are IMDb and Wikipedia entries about the film.

Finally, use Google Insights to make sure you are selecting the most opportune keywords. It graphs global monthly searches from 2004 to the present day. If the graph shows a steep decline, this might not be the best phrase to use in the long term.

Site architecture

Now you should have a list of keywords which are future-proofed and filtered for search volume, relevancy, and conversion. The most efficient way to include them in a site is to logically group your keywords, sort them into categories and sub-categories, and distribute them throughout the site architecture.

This way even in deep site hierarchies, your short tail competitive keywords should be no more than one hop away from the home page, and the longer tail keyword gems are still optimised. If a site does not have sections for relevant phrases and they cannot be retrofitted to similar site categories, it’s best to create new pages and have them professionally copywritten.

In some cases, you may need to give a site a complete overhaul, restructuring the topology to be more search engine friendly. The Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a great starting tool for a more technical site audit.

Page targeting

Target no more than three keywords per page, and make them different enough to avoid your pages competing with each other, known in the industry as keyword cannibalisation. The SEOmoz PRO tools excel here. Their Keyword Difficulty Tool will tell you how competitive your key phrases are, and its accompanying On-Page Report Card analyses how optimised the page is for those particular keywords. The latter should be used more as a roadmap than a gospel guide.

Conversion

Once your keywords are mapped and distributed through the site, you will need to set up conversion goals through an analytics package like Clicky, ClickTale or Google Analytics. The iterative use of A/B testing and multivariate testing should help retain customers and decrease bounce rate for your client. Sadly a full look at this is beyond the remit of this guide, as are the link building strategies you will need for competitive phrases.

Conclusion

In short, SEO is useless unless it provides a tangible return on investment. Search engine marketing involves extensively researching the keywords you will choose, and optimising them in the most appropriate parts of a site’s architecture. If that doesn’t exist you may need to restructure your client’s website. Never target more than three keywords per page, and always focus on pleasing humans rather than algorithms. This will help improve both conversion rate and natural link acquisition.