Search Marketing Exam Notes

• Organic Ranking

  Relevance + Authority = Rank in Organic Results
• Organic Ranking


  • Is this webpage relevant to the searcher's objective?
  • How authoritative is this webpage about this topic?
• Off Page Tactics


  • Establishing Authority
  • Off Page Quality Factors
• Establishing Authority


  • Thought to have an unlimited impact on organic ranking
  • Items that happen outside of control of the brand and website developer
• Off Page Quality Factors

  • Links
  • Anchor text
  • Social media activity
  • Human raters
• Internal Link


  Source page & landing page within the same web site
• External Link


  Link between 2 different web sites
• Inbound Link


  Link from another page to destination page, can be internal or external
• Outbound Link


  Link from source page to another page, can be internal or external
• Inbound links from another site impact ranking
• Hub Pages


  Type of webpage
• Authority Pages


  Type of webpage
• SEO Objective is for selected webpages to become an Authority Page on topics that will be interesting to and attract potential customers
• Contextual Relevancy


  • The information on the source page is related to the topic on the destination page
  • The words around the anchor text of the link on the source page are thematically related to the topic on the destination page
  • Do not have to be identical to the keywords, have to be about the same idea
• Not all inbound links are equal to others
• The Process for Managing Links

  1. Select target landing pages

  2. Measure links on page

  3. Create an excellent site

  4. Promote the new content

  5. Sponsor Events, ask business partners

  6. Collaborate with other creators

  7. Fix broken URLs, use 301 redirects

  8. Judiciously use directories
• What NOT to Do

  • Blog comment spamming
  • Link farms
  • Hidden links
  • Ineffective for SEO
• What to Do


  • Buy paid search ads
  • Links within your own site
  • Links within several sites you control
  • Site wide links
  • Trade links (reciprocal links)
• Sample Link Farm is an example of taking advantage of misspellings
• How Search Engines use Social Signals

  • Shares, likes, favourites, retweets
  • Video views
  • Ratings, reviews by customers
  • Bookmarks
• Human Ratings & Quality Factors

  • Panels of people paid to look for certain elements, work from home, and check out landing page for assigned keywords
  • Focus is on searcher intent
  • Supported by machine learning
• The SEO Process


  1. Keywords

  2. Rank

  3. On page SEO

  4. Off Page SEO
• Google does not rank websites, it ranks web pages
• General pages have a very poor chance of ranking
• Local Search


  Provides results that are relevant to the searcher based on their location
• Google My Business


  You should set this up to optimize your listing by adding contact info, hours of operation, photos, URLs, other data, and respond to reviews
• NAP


  Name, Address, Phone number - very important for local search and needs to be stated consistently across all known references
• Faking it is never a good plan, you should spend time building quality content and promoting it to be valuable to potential customers and rank well in the SERP
• Paid Ads


  Text ads that appear in the SERP, paid for on a cost per click (CPC) or pay per click basis, offered by major search engines
• How Paid Search Works (Google)


  Advertiser sets up paid search account, creates responsive search ad, selects target keyword and bid CPC price, searcher uses target keyword in search query, search engine holds a virtual auction to determine ad ranking and charges advertiser the CPC price if ad is clicked
• How to Set Up Paid Search

  Choose geographic location, choose keywords, select budget and daily maximum bid, create ad, review and activate ad
• Google Text Ads


  Originally 2 Headlines and 1 Descriptive line, then expanded to 3 Headlines and 2 Descriptive Lines, now Responsive Search Ads with up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptive lines
• Google is phasing out Expanded Text Ads in favor of Responsive Search Ads
• Responsive Search Ads


  Let you create an ad that adapts to show more relevant messages to customers, by entering multiple headlines & descriptions and letting Google test different combinations
• Paid search ads go live almost immediately, can cover more keywords than you can optimize for, and have excellent measurement of results
• Paid search ads are sold via auction, with factors like bid, ad relevance, and landing page quality determining ad rank
• Good Paid Search Ads

  • Based on keywords, use concise language, specific about unique selling proposition, very concise, clear call to action, link to relevant landing page
• Search engines have editorial policies about acceptable ad language, format, and symbols
• Microsoft Ads work similarly to Google Ads, helping identify keywords, using auction pricing, and allowing budget limits
• Bid for Keywords


  Advertisers place a 'maximum bid for the click', which along with other factors determines the ad's Ad Rank in the auction