With Will out of the office for a week or so, I was let out to attend a sales meeting. In the normal course of events Will does our sales meetings and I stay in the office looking after the troops.
At sales meetings Will likes to talk in terms of the following diagram, which he normally scribbles on a scrap of paper. I think it is quite a nice way of explaining the SEO process to non-SEO people.
The following diagram seemed to help in my meeting this morning, and given Will is out of the office and hasn't already written this blog post I thought I'd steal his diagram and take the credit ;-)
The aim of the diagram is to explain what we see as three factors that you need before you will rank in the search engines. The factors are closely related to each other, and if you are weak in any of the factors then you are unlikely to rank well in any of the search engines.
Technical Issues
The first key element to ranking well is to ensure that there aren't any technical barriers stopping the search engine spiders from reading and understanding your site. A large percentage of small businesses we see have some sort of an issue that is either stopping the site from ranking at all or at the very least is making it very hard work.
The issue with small businesses is that they just don't have the domain weight to make up for technical issues. Bigger businesses can get away with a lot more, but technical issues to a small business with very little trust render them practically invisible. I'm talking in terms of people who don't even rank for branded searches.
Landing pages, iframes, session IDs, text in images... I'm sure you all have your own horror stories to share.
Did you hear the one about the major UK retailer that had a robots.txt disallowing the search engines from every page of their website?
On-Page or Content Issues
If you don't talk in terms of things that people actually search for then you are going to struggle to rank well. Keyword research is often hard to sell to people that don't "get" it. We have found people who are price sensitive and try to get by without keyword research often fall into the nightmare client bucket. Keyword research gives you insights that you can't get any other way. Experience can often paper over these cracks, but if you can instill in people from an early stage the importance of knowing the best language to use on a website then your job becomes a whole lot easier.
Here we are not only talking in terms of keywords but the information architecture of your site. I'm going to use this opportunity to continue my campaign. I honestly believe that most SEO issues come as a result of a poor information architecture. Eric Enge over at Search Engine Land talks about how information architecture is crucial to SEO.
This is obviously related to technical issues. If the search engines can't spider your page or read your content then it doesn't matter what content you have on the site because it isn't going to help... Yes, Mr. Flash Website, I'm looking at you.
This relationship is the difference between having a website passing semantic information to the search engines and a website talking in the right language that has decided the best way to make something look like a header can't possibly be to use the header tags. One of the things I love about SEO is that the majority of suggestions given to improve "optimization" also improve your website to users. The last thing I want to do is to start the "Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines" argument again, but I've found SEO done well often aligns users and search engines more than people admit.
Trust
Otherwise known as links...
What most non-SEO people don't realize is that links can help you to rank in the search engines *shock*. I still find it amazing how few people understand the web. I've spoken to numerous people writing regularly on blogs that haven't grasped the basic concepts of the internet. Obviously I live and breathe the web, but it still shocks me how little people understand about the search engines.
Many a time I'll talk in terms of SEO being like online PR, and what you need to do is to get people online talking about you. People grasp that, and then talk in terms on linking out to other people.
I know All That Already
Of course, this isn't the only way to sell SEO, and I'm by no means an expert at it. I have found the above a useful way to start a conversation with someone who doesn't grasp the work that is involved. Personally, I find a diagram (even an abstract one) helps to clarify things for me. None of this is advanced SEO, but often SEO is about doing the simple things right, and being able to communicate with your potential clients.
I'm sure you all have your own ways of explaining SEO to a potential client, so I'll open up the floor and get your input.
Thanks for this Duncan - I'm sure I'll be scribbling it on napkins and fag packets for people soon.
I like the similarity to the requirements for fire: fuel (good content), oxygen (technical requirements) and ignition (links / trust).
I have always considered technical issues very important. I have argued this with some Top SEO's, because I've asked them about Tech knowledge an SEO should have, they've always replied that an SEO doesn't need technical knowledge... What? I have even asked Rand to write a PRO guide about:
"Tech issues an SEO must deal with and how to handle them". I'm giving you the name Rand.
Do you guys know of a good book that covers this subject? Thanks.
It's stuff like this I would love to see people blog more about. I'm sick of all those "How to do SEO" "my 10 best linkbuilding techniques" etc etc etc blog posts. I've read it all a gazillion times before and their not bringing anything new to the table.
This stuff is new. It's a great post. Keep bringing more stuff like this. How do you converse with clients? How do you keep a client? How do you tell bad clients from good clients? How do you convince clients to pay $10 000 for a service they don't even understand? Do they really need to understand it? What do they need to understand?
Someone should start a blog about this stuff. I would love it! A blog about running a SEO business.
Just one of the many blogs I discoverd using a search engine. :)
https://www.toprankblog.com/2006/09/andy-beal-on-running-a-seo-sem-agency/
Hey Kenneth,
I would love to see that as well. Wil from Distilled wrote a great post last month about how to grow your SEO firm. I agree that it would be great to have more day to day, in the trenches type of posts. Not that there haven't been any. There have several great posts about how to avoid legal issues and other "non-technical" SEO information. I just agree that more of them would be a good thing and well received.
Cheers,
Ed
I found my way to explain SEO was to explain the internet in terms of a big library - and how you found books in a library.
a) Technical - is the book hardback/paperback/crisp packb) Formating - if all the books are stacked with the spines vertically then you have to tilt your head sideways to search for a title - it hurts!c) Content - great pictures and writing make for a great book that you'll read again and recomend.d) Bibliography's in books let you see who that writer trusted and used - all about linking see!
If you spent time at university writing dissertations there's conventions for writing books and essays - just as there are for SEO(ish) - and most managers/marketers/people who ask about SEO are familiar with those concepts..
not sure how good its to sell seo but i work client side :)
edit: silly chrome messing up my post formating..
Thanks for the post, Duncan! Great insight. One of the ways I explain link authority to potential clients is to use a job interview analogy. I ask them to pretend they are searching for a job in their current field. Let's say that field is banking. I ask them who they would approach for a reference. They usually say a VP or other executive they know at a major bank or financial institution. I then ask why they chose VP's and other executives. Of course they respond that these people are respected authorities in their industry. This, of course, is the lead in to talking about the strength of relevant, authoritive links in SEO. After that I talk compare authoritive blogs to middle managers who don't have as much power, but talk with a lot of people and can help with connections and job hookups. They usually talk about job they have picked up thanks to good ol' Tom, the middle manager who golfs with everybody in town. Not a powerhouse, but popular and well liked. Lastly, I compare gossipy people to spam/link farms and we have a discussion about how you would never want a gossip hound to try to talk about you on the street when looking for a job. I've found when you get the clients to talk about familiar concepts they "get it" earlier. They also have a little bit of fun talking about people who have helped them get jobs in the past and how that relates to SEO in my analogy. It may sounds kind of cheesy, but I've found it to work pretty well for people that need some help. Oh, almost forgot. I refer to web citations as background checks in my job hunt analogy. Cheers!
What is SEO? It's connecting the information you have on your site with what search engines and users expect to find there. Consistency, in conjunction with Simplicity, is key.
exactly, its connecting the information of your site of what users look in search engines. in simple you can tell it as is optimizing your website’s most appropriate search term / keyword in the search engine to attain a top position in the major search engines and receive massive traffic.
I not only got shocked about how little *normal* people know about the web - I also got shocked about how the web made my language change. I tried to explain to a friend of mine how important it is to have backlinks in order to rank well and how spiders crawl the web.
And now imagine all the English words "rank", "backlinks", "spiders" and "crawl" in one German sentence.
If you saw his face, you'd know for sure that he'll never ask me again what I'm doing when I'm 'occupied' :-)
So much of what we do can seem like voodoo to the uninformed client and if we don't take the time to educate our clients, then they're more likely to be taken advantage of buy those snake oil sales people out there.
I'm doing inhouse for a company that was set back by over a year and very significantly financially damaged by an investment they put into SEO with a company who felt like meta tags and table-based layouts were the way to go for SEO.
Education is really important for every person who touches the website in the organization.
I felt a bit biblical reading this - and played with a metaphor:
SEO is a bit like being Jesus:
You might actually be the son of God (Technical) - and be the one that does all the good things (Content) - but if Barabass gets the crowd pointing to him (Trust/linkjuice) - You lose! don't win.
Does this make Google a modern day Pontius Pilate?
(BTW: Can you do these kinds of metaphors in the US? I don't want to offend anyone.)
Nice and simple overview...thanks.
I have always tried to follow the 3 cornerstones of SEO that Vanessa Fox wrote about on her blog way back in 2007 and they have helped me greatly. They are Relevance, Discoverability and Crawlability. If you found this article useful I definately recommend giving this a read too as she goes into great detail on each.
https://www.vanessafoxnude.com/2007/07/29/the-power-of-search-
driving-traffic-to-your-blog-a-blogher-recap/
very simple.
i like it.
thanks
Finding ways to explain SEO to some people is incredibly challenging. This is a great way to explain to them not only the value, but how is breaksdown.
(Also helpful in explaining to my mom, what exactly I'm doing at work :P )
I'm not sure I want my mum knowing everything that goes on at work!
Oh my goodness no. That would be an EPIC FAIL. However....getting the "What is it that you do again, honey?" every phone convo does get old after a bit :P
My favorite is when I explain what I do with SEO and PPC, when they say, "So you work for Google?"
I go, "No! Well, sorta. If they didn't exist..."
Analogies to offline world concepts always help when it comes to explaining SEO to non-tech people.
I'm thinking of creating a collection of such SEO analogies based on input from all of you and then place it in a nice PDF or Powerpoint (I'm a graphic designer, I need to pretty up everything) for quick reference when talking to a client.
Hey, why should the frameworks be restricted to the McKinseys of the world, we can do that too (I'm an MBA too, I can't help talking about frameworks and McKinsey, what to do :)).
Any takers?
And if yes, what concepts do you find you need to illustrate most often?
I would love a PM about it when you're done :)
Sure, no probs Kenneth. Do you have a Twitter account, I'll most probably tweet about it; these days most of my interactions seem to happen on Twitter for some reason. I'm twitter.com/limeshot
seobook had a post about seo analogies recently.
Excellent, off to have a read.
"None of this is advanced SEO, but often SEO is about doing the simple things right".
I totally agree with you. It is often pretty amazing to see the improvements on a site ranking just by solving the technical & content issues.
Thanks for the post.
I still get a kick out of it when I'm talking to people about what I do and they think that the top results are because "people are clicking on those sites the most".
Good post Duncan.
HAHA! That is often still the misconception, huh? :) People really do have little or no idea what goes into a site ranking well. I like telling people I do SEO and then getting the "I don't want to admit I don't know what that is..." blank stare.
When someone hears "I'm a doctor..." or "I'm in advertising..." they already have some sort of preconceived notion what that job involves. SEO, on the other hand, is so foreign to people that they haven't a clue. It's kind of fun. :)
If only you could get the letter around the triangle to spell something, or even better start with the letters S.E.O. (S = Structure?)!
That would be cool.. Damn you Will and your rubbish triangle! ;-)
He he... you only say that as he is away.
Love this - I'm always looking for simple ways to explain SEO to clients (and like Kristy - my friends and family),
I'm sure I'll be drawing that triangle on bar napkins / business cards / fag packets for months to come.
So who was the UK store blocking SEs with their robots.txt?
duncan, great post! i will definately incorporate this thinking into my discussions with clients when i try and explain seo. there is a fine line between talking shop and making sure people know what you are talking about. thanks for the info!
First let me say I enjoyed this post, and I know it will be useful for me in the future.
However, sir, that triangle you've drawn and my OCD simply cannot coexist. I've taken the liberty of constructing a slightly improved triangle, and can now continue with my workday:
https://www.cackmedia.com/img/triangle.jpg
Its not perfect, and I messed up the top green circle, but I think you'll find it closer to equilateral than the current incarnation. Feel free to use it if you like - my fellow unstable readers may benefit as well.
The part regarding small business owners lacking the understanding of the importance of keyword research hit particularly close to home! I wrote a post at SEOAly in June regarding that very topic: https://www.seoaly.com/on-page-seo-keyword-research-important-to-small-business/ .
I believe the diagram and breakdown of SEO into three separate components, but emphasizing their relationship to one another is a great way to convey to clients, small business or otherwise, that there is more to SEO than throwing keywords into a META tag.
Good Information got to know the 3 important steps in making a website optimized.
<a href="https://www.anuvatech.com"></a>
Thanks Duncan.
I use this diagram in a sles presentation to day. A year after you posted it.
Tells a lot of how the SEO landscape looks like in Norway
Attended the london SEO Pro seminar oct 09 this week.
Have to say I love your sense of humor.
Love it...great sales analogy. I like to use "Every site needs a little TLC" I use "linking" instead "trust." Thanks for spreading the word about your triangle because it really is simplistically genius.
Wow I have never looked at it like that.
I appreciate the point about user friendly sites being the primary goal and thus a positive effect on a site's SEO. I come from a DR (direct response) background and we always were taught to emphasize the user experience on websites. I believe Matt Cutts emphasizes this point too and also adds that 10 or so years ago the robots didn't function that way but now do.
Good article and the triangle figure is also very informative.
I like the analogy of trust equal links equals PR and having respected people talk about you. That takes it out of the computer world and into terms that anyone can relate to.
Smart image! What a great way to visually show your non-SEO team member what the focus should be on.
Anything and Everything that can help get the main point across is good.
Sometimes the simplest diagram makes the most sense.
Thanks Duncan
Site architecture, links and quality content is the easiest way I've found to explain it to clients.
There's been many a kickoff meeting at the beginning of a site build where the client will ask, so what is SEO? It's kind of funny ... my team all looks at me with that "here-we-go-again_ look, the client looks at me expectantly, and I take a deep breath and start into it ... hoping to not get the client too confused and/or tripped up on my words with 12 sets of eyes all fixated on me (I've only been doing this a year so half the time I feel like I'm talking out of my butt). Man this site rocks. Simplicity=awesome.
Ta for this - I'll be stealing it very soon!
Duncan,
I like the triangle image.
We are actually covering the topics in the same order you did but we aren't using the triangle for visualization. We usually show potential clients these three points using the short comings of their site as the non working example.
Excellent post. One of the very first issues I was struggling with when I found SEOmoz was this one exactly. The client base in our area is VERY uninformed about the web and every day I felt like I was speaking French to them. That frustrates clients as much as it did me. I've found a system similar to this and talk to them about ranking on Google. It's easier in their mind to think they only have to focus on one engine (and they pretty much do). And go through these three issues (though I migh snatch the diagram now). People love diagrams, as I've learned when clients beg for rank reporting after a half hour speech from me explaining that they should be looking at their analytics. Ok, here's your rank report, and here's your SEO diagram. Whatever works.
On another note, maybe our very small company is behind the times as far as pricing SEO goes, but I was surprised to read that you would execute an SEO campaign without doing keyword research, Duncan. A few of our SEO components are optional (we write an extensive backlink guide so that people can educate themselves and continue acquiring links) and we offer optional ongoing SEO, but keyword reasearch is always included in the base price of a project. It must be very frustrating for you if people don't opt for it.
These days we very rarely take on a retained client without first revisiting (or often visiting for the first time!) the keyword research. When we first started we would go with what our clients asked for which is where the experience of nightmare clients came from.
I see. Clients often bring in keyword lists which I have to gently explain to them is a good jumping off point but we will be researching what people are actually searching for. It might once in a while to be easier to rank for simply what people are asking for, but as they don't know the nature of the web, they'll probably ask for something like "wine online." I can see where the nightmare came from.
I like to find out from clients what they think people are searching for. And when we finish keyword research, I always include the phrases they suggested plus many others that one might logically think people are using when in fact they're not.
I've found that it is very helpful and helps make my point to show lots of seemingly relevant search phrases with ZERO search activity over the past 12 months, not just the search phrases that do have activity. No diagram, though, just a boring spreadsheet.
Great article. Thanks for posting Duncan.
This is another interesting article that goes deeper into the meaning of value and content in the web. Thought you might find it interesting. Create True User Value
Quality article. I will be using the triangle to better explain my services to my clients. Great work!
Duncan,
Thanks for the article! I enjoyed it and will be using the triangle thing on my clients from now on!
Cheers!
Does anyone know the name of the major UK retailer that had a robots.txt disallowing the search engines from every page of their website?
I especially like your comparison to PR:
Wondering why this post is categorized under "Technical Issues?" Thinking it should be under "Business Tactics."
Errrm, yeah, would seem an obvious place to put it really. I'll see if I can change it!
I think the technical aspect is often forgotten, I have recently had problems with my hosting company which caused my site to drop out of Google as it was unindexable.
So SEO is a triangular building?
Seriously though, thanks for the simplifcation.
Very nice, Duncan/Will ;-) I like TRUST being an entire third of the triangle...
Of course there's the fourth concept of authority or semantic gravity- which requires both trust (links) and content, but let's not complicate a beautifully simple diagram... :-)
One of the best seo blogs i've read. Google is a big mystery for most of us, but this blog helps to understand it's artificial phychology.
Jaak