Advanced SEO Flashcards
What is the fundamental benefit of SEO?
Increasing rankings on the SERP
What is the foundation of all online marketing, not just SEO?
Keywords
What does keyword research tell you about searches?
- ) Behavior
- ) Intent
- ) Activity of searchers
What is the benefit of being on the first page of the SERP (top 10 results)?
Increased visibility/impressions
Which delivers customers with a higher lifetime value - social or organic search?
- Customers from organic search has a 54% higher lifetime value than those froms social
- Customers from search tend to spend more
Is the use of a search engine an active or passive process?
Active - customer actively searching for a solution (social is just people responding to push messages that they are interested in - not actively looking for it)
What are micro-moments?
Intent-rich moments when people turn to a device to know, go, do, buy
What is an algorithm?
A mathematical computation of multiple variables - helps to ascribe importance or relevance to a large volume of information
Where do users input their search query (keywords) on a search engine?
Search bar
What is a referral?
The source of the channel that brought the user/visitor to your platform
Which are the primary elements of a SERP snippet?
- ) Page title
- ) Meta description
- ) URL
Does personalization affect rankings?
Yes. Can’t stay number one consistently because a variety of factors play into rankings, including personalization/localization.
Do rankings matter?
No. Not if they do not lead to sales (ultimate conversions - however you define it - leads, sales, views/engagement, etc.)
What can impact ROI of your marketing campaigns?
- ) Volatility of market
- ) Choice of tactics
- ) External marketing
- ) Ongoing marketing and measurement
What are the three goals you should try to achieve with SEO in a phased manner?
- ) Goal 1: Increase website visibility
- ) Goal 2: Increase sales, leads, engagement
- ) Goal 3: Achieve ROI
How are organic results delivered?
Determined by the search engine algorithm
What do the terms ‘how to’ or ‘how do i’ trigger in the search engine?
Videos - Google owns YouTube, so most of the videos on the SERP will be YouTube videos. Try to serve instructional videos that will answer the user’s query so that they can keep them on the SERP.
How does the search engine algorith determine which videos to show?
- ) Relevancy
- ) Age of the video
- ) Ratings by viewers
- ) Number of times video has been viewed
How do recipes appear on the SERP
- ) See recipe details
- ) See ratings for the recipe
- ) See a picture of the recipe (if available)
Do SERP results change with the latest information/updates?
Yes
How do local search results get delivered?
Based on searcher’s location
Are business listings in the search engine free?
Yes - business just needs to claim the listing and develop additional content
How many characters can you have in a Page Title?
55 characters
What happens if you do not build a meta description tag for a webpage?
The description is automatically pulled in by Google
Do the title tag and page title (headline) always match?
No. When building a website, you can enter a page title tag. The purpose is to have the page title appear on SERP and browser tab.
What are the primary factors of on-page SEO?
- ) Keyword optimization for body copy
- ) Keyword in URL
- ) Insert a page title tag
- ) Insert a meta description tag
- ) Insert header 1 and 2 tags
- ) Alt text for images
What are search engines trying to achieve on the SERP?
- ) Deliver relevant results
- ) Answer user questions on the SERP page as much as possible
- ) Grab user attention by bolding words
- ) Deliver results in a consistent manner (no matter search query/keywords)
- ) Provide users with a good experience by displaying webpages that have high usability
Do search results need to display the keywords (items in bold) in the same order as what was inputted?
No - may not be in same order and all keywords may not appear (can still rank for similar words and concepts)
What is the source of information used in the search engine snippet?
The content in the source page
Does the page title always appear as inputted in the source code?
No - can appear with hypens, commas, multiple keywords, etc.
What is the search engine index?
Where they store their copies of all websites crawled. Search engines copy webpages, PDFs, files, documents, images etc
What is spidering?
How search engines update their index.
A spider is a software program that follows links on webpages to new webpages/documents
What are other names for spiders?
- ) Bots
- ) Crawlers
- ) Indexing
What is the best way for search engines to find your brand new website?
- By providing a link to new website in an existing website
What happens if a bot can not crawl your website or a webpage on the website?
It will not get index and therefore will not appear on the SERP (even if domain name is used).
What 5 human factors are considered by the search engine algorithm?
- ) Intent
- ) Judgement
- ) Credibility
- ) Structure
- ) Accessibility
What 6 factors does the search engine algorithm look for to rank?
- ) Keywords (words used on site and how they relate to each other)
- ) Page content (relevancy of overall content)
- ) Relevance (will it address user query)
- ) Page Layout - how does the website present information and how is content structured
- ) Importance - How often is the website linked to
- ) Authority - Who else cites the website/page as a resource
What are semantic keywords?
Keywords that are similar to the main keyword or interchangeable (considered the same so no effect on rankings)
What is the difference between importance and authority in Google’s search algorithm?
Importance - how many times people are linking to your website
Authority - who is linking to your website as a resource
Why is keyword research important?
Tells you intent
- ) Keywords that they are using (so can build content using the words they use)
- ) Identify patterns/associations of searchers (e.g., questions, references, brand associations, etc.)
- ) Helps you understand how searches move along the search path (getting deeper into the funnel)
What are the 7 types of keywords that you should have on your keyword list?
- ) Product associated
- ) Brand associated
- ) Big picture keywords
- ) Buying cycle related keyowrds
- ) Long tail keywords
- ) Questions
- ) Secondary phrases (related, but not specific, terms)
What type of keyword should you enter first into a keyword research tool - broad or narrow?
Start broad to see the universe; Not all keywords will be relevant
What is the keyword popularity index?
Ratio of how much one keyword is popular (searched for) vs others
What are In Anchor and Title (IAAT) Numbers?
Shows the number of websites that are using the keyword in both the title and anchor text.
Optimizing for the keyword in the page title tage and link anchor text means the keyword is highly competitive.
What do Competition Numbers (Index) in the keyword research tool tell you?
How competitive the keyword is. Specifically, how many websites are also optimizing for the same keyword term/phrase.
If a high number = keyword is competitive; if a low number = not as competitive
What is the Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) in the keyword research tool?
The number of monthly searchs compared to the number of competitive websites (a ratio)
> > quick view of the effectiveness of the competition using that keyword and expectations for keyword performance
Is it difficult or easy to rank for a keyword that has less demand and little competition?
Easier. Less popular keywords can help you increase your visibility faster.
Will a keyword research tool provide the top 10 websites ranking for that keyword?
Yes
What are the 3 key inputs that you need to enter into a keyword research tool in order to begin building a keyword list?
- ) Keyword term
- ) Geography that want results for
- ) Timeframe want results for
How often should you perform keyword reseach?
Constantly - market environment is constantly changing and want to be able to capitalize on changes
Do searches conduct only 1 search or many more?
Many - Primary search will lead to secondary searches using different, related keywords to find more answers about the topic
How does the Pareto Principle apply to search?
20% of the searches will be on popular terms and will generate less sales
80% of the searches will be associated searches with less popular, long-tail terms, will genrate more sales because more granular
What is a short-tail keyword?
One or two word keyword term (e.g., car insurance). Broad so get lots of searches; competitive/harder to get visibility unless have budget; searched for in the early stages of a buying cycle
What is a long-tail keyword?
Used in the later-stage of search; user knows a bit more about what they are looking for; 3-5 words long; can be less competitive so can gain high rankings to build momentum and credibility; higher conversion and less cost
Should you group your keywords?
Yes
Can group by TOFU, MOFU, BOFU; brand-associated, product-associated
Are keyword search volumes exact?
No. Is a ratio derived from multiple sources to provide an estimate. Derived using an algorithm.
When you develop your keyword list should you group words by their prefix and suffix?
Yes
Prefix- The words used before the primary keyword
Suffix - The words used after your primary keyword
Helps you understand how searchers are grouping things
What is search volume?
The estimate number of times that users are searching with that keyword term
What is search results?
The number of snippets/webpages that are displayed based on user query (Can sometimes see that search volume is low for a term, but lots of competitors are optimizing for the word - can be an opportunity to optimize for other words that people are actually searching for)
What is the zero moment of truth?
When move from thought to action (to turn to a device for more information) - awareness stage
What is the first moment of truth?
When you move into the consideration stage
What takes place before the zero moment of truth?
Need awareness/a stimuli that peaks initial interest and leads to a search
What is the second moment of truth?
When have the experience/purchase
What is the ultimate moment of truth?
When move into advocacy stage and want a shared experience
How do keywords help you understand which moment of truth the searcher may be in?
Words can show a pattern indicating if they are in awareness, consideration, purchase or advocacy
Is it best to group keywords by intent?
Yes. Use the micro-moments (I want to know, I want to go, I want to buy, I want to do) for the groupings
> > Group is a question-based format
Can you group keywords in lots of different ways? If yes, name a few examples.
Yes. Because helps reveal searcher intent/motivation by grouping keywords in different ways.
Can group by:
- ) Intent
- ) Visitor needs from a content consumption standpoint
- ) Location/geography
4) Brand/business focus - ) Product
- ) Prefix and Suffix
- ) Popularity
- ) Competition & Business Application (how they will use)
Need to match the keyword to a relevant webpage
What should a keyword plan include?
- ) Keyword
- ) Search volume (estimated, monthly)
- ) # of search results
- ) Keyword type (brand, product, etc.)
- ) Trend (consistent, goes up or goes down)
- ) Keyword difficulty (KEI)
- ) Relevant webpages to link to on website
What should your H2 tag convey/represent?
Benefit statement
Should you create a plan for on-page SEO?
Yes. Should include:
- ) Page Name
- ) URL Structure
- ) Page Title
- ) Meta Description
- ) H1 (most important header tag)
- ) H2 (benefits statement)
- ) Keywords
- ) Related Pages
Is the entrance metric in Google Analytics unique?
No. It is not unique. Is all of the people who entered the website on a specific webpage.
What are unique pageviews?
Number of unique visitors that saw/visited a particular webpage
What is Average Time on Page?
Indicates the amount of time a user spent on a particular page before leaving to go elsewhere. This information is a proxy for engagement - high average time on page means engaged and low = not engaged
What is the exit rate?
The percentage of people who exit the website from a particular page. Is not a great indicator of user behavior.
What is bounce rate?
The percentage of people who navigate away from the page they landed on immediately without taking any action on the page.
What are the two primary types of metrics that you should measure with search?
- ) Business results (sales, revenue, leads, etc.) - most important way to determine the value of your search marketing activities
- ) Engagement (likes/shares/comments, video views, downloads, etc) - engaged visitors are more likely to convert
What are 2 examples of poor ways to measure search results?
- ) Rankings
- ) Amount of traffic generated from search
Both provide limied understanding of how search is contributing to business performance
What are goals in Google Analytics?
Way to measure business results or engagement indicators that can lead to business results (revenue, subscriptions, accounts created, social shares, reviews being read, content being uploaded). Can assign values to each goal. Setup in Admin, View, Goals.
How do you calculate average value of a visitor?
Revenue/# of sessions
How do you calculate Average Per Session value?
Revenue/# of sessions (within a certain timeframe)