SEO (Search Engine Optimization) are tactics you employ to get search engines to like your website more. These can be changes to your site, or things happening off your site (such as a business listing or a link on the NY Times to your website) that helps your website gain authority on the internet.
Our PPC efforts in search create a very effective feedback loop for SEO efforts as well. In addition some SEO efforts can also Reduce PPC Cost creating compounding improvements. SEO is by no means simple and is frequently oversimplified and misunderstood. Many shady SEO providers take advantage of the confusion and literally sell snake oil. In an effort to improve understanding we have divided up the SEO for a client across these 4 elements - 2 front-end elements: SEO Website structure and SEO Content and 2 back-end elements: SEO Technology and Backlinks
While it's tempting to dive into SEO with an all-out approach, it's not always the most effective strategy. Some tasks hold more significance than others, so finding the right balance in prioritizing website optimizations is crucial. The priority grid below helps us categorize tasks based on their energy investment and return: high energy-high return, low energy-high return, low energy-low return, and high energy-low return. This allows us to focus on what will yield the best results while efficiently managing our efforts.
(Titles, H1, Meta Tags, Image ALT tags) - this type of work is typically a 1 time project to fix/adjust the structure of the site. This should not be confused with Structured Data (another SEO tactic that better feeds Search Engines key data points within your website - which is especially important for eCommerce). Read our article for a dep dive: 
SEO: Website Keyword Structure
The content in a website should have a strong use of keywords (as explained above) but not all content ages well over time. Old content with bad data (incorrect phone numbers, broken links to other pages and external sites) are considered bad 'Internet Hygiene' and easily detectable by Google. In addition to keeping the content accurate new content is also valuable.
Creating a continuous flow of new content on the site (typically in the form of blog articles). Similar to the SEO Website Structure, each new article would require an SEO review before it is published to the website. Refer to Blog Content Strategy for a deep dive on content ideas and how to get the most out of blog articles you write.
If your website content is what you say about yourself, listings, reviews and backlinks are reflections of what the internet is saying about you. Each listing, Review and Backlink is a signal about your website - some signals are more important than others and because there several review sites, listings sites and content sites you should be aware of the tools to manage each one.
Local SEO is an additional layer of your SEO Basics with the effort to get your business to show more prominently in the map section of a Google search and on Google Maps. This is most relevant for businesses that service their clients in their local area. This includes businesses like Dentists, Lawyers, Plumbers, Hotels and Restaurants.
Some tactics include Reviews and Listings.
There are literally hundreds of Business Listings Services - too many for any business to manually update so our Listing Services provides this feature in Market Pulse. Each Business listing is an opportunity for a backlink to the client's website. By using a listing service a business can expect high accuracy and to be present in more listings.
It is surprising how strong of an effect reviews can have on one's Local SEO. Not only are discerning people using reviews more to learn about the sentiment of a business but Google uses Reviews on your Google Business profile to determine PageRank thereby effecting the volume of organic traffic a business may receive.
The best type of backlinks are from major news sources. It is very difficult to get featured on sites like the Washington Post and the New York Times, but the potential from at least local and trade specific periodicals when you send out a well written and timely Press Release.
As mentioned before Business Listings are a great source, but you may also hear questions about 'Link building' services. This process is also very effective and should be part of an overall SEO strategy. To get the best picture, read more on our article called: Backlinks that work
Website Speed, Secure Certificates, image compression, protocols, voice search and many more are other items considered as SEO Technology. SEO efforts are slow to move over time (think months) so a good SEO Technology plan should also monitor a website's PageRank by keyword over time and look at any changes over several month's time range. This would also include checking the website status in Google Search Console.
TLM offers multiple bundles that provide a comprehensive marketing strategy - in addition to PPC they includes Internet Hygiene' issues, keyword management, and backlinks. Each Marketing Bundle is been proven to keep high quality PageRank over time.
