ITSEO ZONE-THE DIGITAL AGENCY
                     Search Engine Optimization
ITSEO ZONE- THE DIGITAL AGENCY
July, 15th 2023
WHAT IS SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) – is 
the process of affecting the visibility of 
a website or a web page in a search 
engine's unpaid results - often referred 
to as "natural”, "organic”, or "earned" 
results
THE ANATOMY OF A SERP (Search Engine Results Page)
Keyword / Search Query
Paid Product Listings
Paid Search Results
Organic Search Results
SEARCH USERS PREFER ORGANIC LISTINGS 
94%
ORGANIC 6%
SEARCH CLICKS
PAID SEARCH 
CLICKS
Study of Search Queries 
(1.4 billion+ search)
Source: Nielsen
ORGANIC IS THE MARKET-WIDE
VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER
Telling you what customers want in the moments that matter
Buyers turn to organic Consumers use search engines Smartphone users look for 
at research stage for purchase decisions information, not brands
THE HIGHER YOUR WEB LISTING RANKS, THE MORE 
ORGANIC TRAFFIC IT CAN ACQUIRE  
25%
20%
15% 43% 
of searchers click on the top 3 
Organic SERP Rankings 
10%
5%
0%
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Search Rank Position
Organic Click-Through-Rate
HOW 0DOES S2EO WORK?
HOW DO SEARCH ENGINES WORK?
Step 1: Step 2: Step 3: 
Crawl Links and Web Sites Index and Cache Web Pages Apply Ranking Algorithm
Search engine bots crawl through the As bots find pages on the web, they Once a search engine has built up its 
World Wide Web to find new websites decide whether or not they want to index, it will rank the pages according 
based on the text on the website or include that web page within their to the relevancy to the search keyword 
links to websites index based on their own set of criteria and serve up the best results on SERP
GOOGLE ALGORITHM CHANGES MANY TIMES 
100% SECURE SEARCH   2013
In an effort to protect internet users privacy Google 
removed traffic data insights on a keyword level
PANDA AND PENGUIN UPDATES   2015
Poor quality content, duplicate content and bad backlink 
profiles penalized websites in the SERPs
HUMMINGBIRD REMODEL   2017
Google algorithm includes “meaning technology” 
to better understand user intent; better content = 
better rankings
GOOGLE CAROUSEL AND RANK BRAIN   2017
SERP update that highlights websites in a new features 
top page carousel; this new layout impacts visibility and 
CTR. Rank Brain is a query refinement tool based on AI
SERP LAYOUT EVOLVES TO MEET SEARCH USERS’ 
NEEDS IN THOSE MICRO-MOMENTS 
10 Blue Links Highly Contextual
3 KEYS TO HIGHER SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS
Higher Search 
Code Engine Rankings 
Create a cleanly 
coded, search engine 
friendly website
Community Content
Be found on the web, Produce great 
promote your great content
content
CODE - SEARCH ENGINES READ, THEY DON’T SEE 
“XYZ”, Just 
Best page for 
what I was 
query “XYZ”
looking for 
Search 
Engine Bot
CODE - ON-PAGE OPTIMIZATION: TITLE 
TAGS 
Why is it important? 
Title is the most important on-page ranking factor and 
is the main text that describes an online document.
What it looks like in the source code:
Recommendation
• Use rich keyword phrases that best describe the web 
page
• Make them unique for each page and use a strong 
CTA (Call to Action) based on buyer intent
• Try to keep them around 55-65 characters long
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CODE - ON-PAGE OPTIMIZATION: HEADER TAGS 
What is it?
On-page HTML tags are located within the body copy 
that identify the most important text on the page. The H1 
is the headline of the page. There are 6 header tags, 
ranging from H1 (the most important) to H6 (least 
important).
What it looks like in the source code:
Recommendation
• Use H1 only once per page
• Make sure the H1 is keyword rich and unique
• You can use H2 and H3 tags multiple times, but keep 
them unique from page to page
• Keep header tags in order
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CODE - ON-PAGE OPTIMIZATION: META DESCRIPTION
What is it?
A description of what your web page is about. It will also 
show up as the page summary on the SERP.
Why is it important?
An engaging and descriptive meta description will attract 
more clicks when your pages shows up in search results. 
Think of it as a mini ad.
Recommendation
• Include strong call-to-actions
• Make sure keyword is included early in the first line
• Make them unique for each page
• Try to keep them around 120-150 characters long
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CONTENT - KEYWORD RESEARCH FACTORS
RELEVANCE SEARCH VOLUME USER INTENT Competition 
(Difficulty to rank higher) 
• Is your content and • High search volume • Is the customer looking • Long tail terms offer 
website addressing a indicates higher potential to purchase, learn, or lower search volume, 
need for this keyword? visits, but may also be entertained? but higher relevance; 
• Would a customer indicate higher ambiguity head terms offer higher 
expect to land on your (for example “holidays” potential visits, but 
site after searching for vs “luxury holidays in lower relevance
this keyword? Maldives”) • Head terms: High 
competition
• Long tail: Low 
competition
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CONTENT - INTERNAL LINKS 
What is it?
Internal links are links that go from one page on a domain to 
a different page on the same domain. They are commonly 
used in main navigation within a site.
Internal links are often useful for several reasons:
• To allow users navigate a website
• To help establish information hierarchy for the given website
• To help spread link equity across a website
• To use as a ”soft conversion” CTA for top-of-the-funnel 
content 
Keyword Reporting
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CONTENT - ANCHOR TEXT 
What is it?
Anchor text is the visible text on a page that can be 
clicked on and links to another page. In the example to the 
left, the login page has is an internal link to another 
section on the BrightEdge site. The anchor text that can 
be seen, “Content Performance”. 
What it looks like:
The anchor text comes after the link in the source code. 
Keyword Reporting
Keyword Reporting
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COMMUNITY - PROMOTE YOUR GOOD CONTENT
Work doesn’t stop when you hit “Publish.” Make sure to include promotional and cross-promotional efforts in 
your Content Strategy
Use following channels to amplify your 
content:
• Link Building
• Social Media
• Public Relations
• Offline Media (TV, Radio, etc.)
• Paid Advertising
• Events posters or leave-behinds (QR code) 
• Printed collateral (QR code) 
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COMMUNITY - WHAT IS LINK BUILDING?
Link building is an ongoing iterative process where you build shareable, informative content and promote relevant 
content to the list of high-quality source domains through backlinks and social channels.
Why is this important?
Link building is an important area of SEO, as it influences a site’s 
domain authority. Higher domain authority correlates to higher ranking. 
Higher volumes of high quality backlinks leads to higher domain 
authority.
Recommendation
Focus on a natural, well-diversified, relevancy-based link building 
strategy to strengthen your profile.  
Tactics should primarily be focused around acquiring links from high-
quality domains - for example, a domain with a homepage that has a 
PageRank of 3+, or a domain with a Majestic Trust Flow of 20+. 
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COMMUNITY - WHAT ARE BACKLINKS?
Without links, search 
Backlinks point back to your site from an external engines might never find 
site. They are considered to be “online currency”, this page
getting a backlink is equivalent to receiving a vote 
of confidence 
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