key words versus query: what is the difference?

Key words versus query : what is the difference?

This topic comes up quite a bit within the search industry, and is actually rather irritating in my mind.  The reason,  at least in my minds eye,  is that those who are asking this question have no clue as to the meaning of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and even less understanding of the terms #IPSEO  #OPSEO   (edited and added new term) #OLSEO

First I do believe we need to clarify what exactly is SEO or Search Engine Optimisation, as there are so many different definitions for Search Engine Optimisation, with many being worded specifically so that a certain biased view is highlighted.  this leaves many people confused, as they do not get exposed to other ideas, and are stuck with a biased view of what Search Engine Optimization truly is, and what it can achieve.

From my perspective,  I like to think of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) as all the work done by your entire marketing team, as well as all their partners to ensure that your online work is discovered by your intended target market audience,  when they search online for anything related to your products, services or other  online content.

SEO or search engine optimisation has three separate objectives that need to be achieved to be declared successful, and the last objective has two components.  these objectives are

1) your online content must be indexed by a search engine

2) your online content must appear in the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)

3) Your selected target market audience must select your result in the SERP (Search Engine Result Page) then follow through by clicking on your desired CTA (Call To  Action) within your online content.

Failure in any one of these three objectives means that your SEO (search Engine Optimisation) has failed.

SEO is divided into  two main parts, the first is #IPSEO or In Page search Engine Optimisation and the second is #OPSEO or Off Page search engine optimisation, which has a NEW subdivision called #OLSEO

IPSEO is the primary part of your SEO strategy, and is dependent on your target market and the associated target market research, along with topic and key word research.  There are also a host of IPSEO issues that are not connected to keywords in any way, which are also of extreme importance.  These are things like the visual appeal, the navigation structure, in page images, in page audio, in page video, content structure, meta tags and HTML mark up as well as  many others.

OPSEO is all the stuff that happens of page and includes things like but not limited to

relationship building
link building
social media marketing

OLSEO is where you do all the off line stuff like

radio marketing
print media marketing   (news papers, flyers and bill boards)
road shows and Public relations issues

These off line media are the spaces  where you psychologically attack your intended target market in subtle ways to get your keywords stuck within their thinking patterns so that they will use these key words when they formulate their online search queries.  You basically plant semantic seeds in this zone, that will be nurtured and fertilized within the online environment to grow from semantic seeds to become search queries.

Key words are those words that your copy writer and associated staff will use during content creation.

Queries are what an end user of a search engine type into the query box when looking for your online content.

It thus follows that you use keywords and selected topics within the make up and design of your online content, and your intended target market constructs queries (hopefully using your selected keywords|) which they then type into the query box when searching online.

If you have done  your OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimisation a properly, then your intended target market audience will use your selected key words when they construct their query.  


This is an awful lot more difficult than I have alluded to here, and the OPSEO work covers many more areas than I discussed here, but each is in place to ensure that your intended Target use your selected key words when searching, and that search engines understand the intent of your online efforts. 

If you have done your #IPSEO or In Page Search Engine Optimisation properly then the search engine will match a search query to your online content  by understanding the intent of both your online content and your intended  target market audience when they are looking for your content.

Key words are used by the design staff during the page creation process, and queries are used by your intended target market audience to surface your online content.

Queries are constructed using what ever words are in your target markets current thought processes, so your OPSEO or Off page Search Engine Optimisation and the related OLSEO or Off Line Search Engine Optimisation, must in some way influence the thinking patterns and thought processes of your intended target market audience to be successful. 

Your IPSEO  must  cater to the search engines algorithms,  and influence the semantic footprint of your online content to reflect the intent of your online content in the most appropriate way to search engines 

Your OPSEO must cater for both search engines and your intended target market. Your OPSEO must influence the thinking patterns of your intended target market to ensure that they will use your key words in search queries.  Your OPSEO must also allow search engines to interpret and act on the intent of your online content as well as the meaning and related semantics of your online content.

Your OLSEO must impact on the thinking processes and thought patterns of your intended target audience and influence this group to use your selected key words as search queries.

What is OPSEO, and why should you care?

OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimisation is the true driver of impressive Search Engine Results Pages more commonly referred to as  SERP's

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is divided into two separate parts, the first is #IPSEO or In Page search Engine Optimisation and the second is  #OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimisation.  

IPSEO is all the coding and HTML work, as well as the related image issues,  copy writing stuff  and other issues that are found directly within the page.

OPSEO is all the other stuff that happens off of the page in question, and included a wide variety of different issues, most of which are not easily interpreted as being directly related to a search engine in any way.

 Off Page Search engine Optimisation is very poorly understood, and when Google introduced the Hummingbird algorithm in August / September 2013 things got even more confusing because they introduced a whole new range of OPSEOVI (Off Page Search Engine Optimization Value Indicators) ,  where the STFOPSEOVI (Semantic Trust Factor Off Page Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) were totally ignored in the beginning because we as online marketers did not realise the value that Google and other search engines placed on these very sneaky and ultra devious new range of Search Engine Optimization Value Indicators

When Google attempted to force all authors to make use of the *REL = AUTHOR* tag within their online work we as marketing folks did not understand the value that they had attached to this, and many simply ignored this, and quite a large percentage of folks out there were very anti the FORCED MOVE,  and refused to take part in this exercise.  This along with the fact that the G+ or Google Plus Social media network was also not taking off as many folks thought is should,  set the Google authorship program back a lot more than most folks realise.

Google was forced to take other measures to calculate and measure topical author authority, and its connections to the value of specific online content.  These were the early days during which many of the new algorithms defining topical author authority and relevant publisher authority as #OPSEOVI (Off Page Search Engine Optimization Value Indicators)  were developed and tested.  Today Author authority and publisher values are used extensively within many different algorithms that focus on the issues around social media signals and SMSEOVI ( Social Media Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators)

Author value on its own is worth didly squat (NADER ZERO) just as publisher value on its own is worthless    That being said these two values of Author value and publisher value are two of the most importnat issues when dealing with all web pages, blog posts and social media posts within both the IPSEO (In Page Search Engine Optimisation)  and the OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation) calculations, that form  the core value indicators for each and every social media search engine optimization value indicator that is algorithmically calculated and later used in other search related algorithms.

One needs to remember that Google currently uses in excess of 250 different variables in their many different algorithms that calculate and then  make use of a vast host of different SEOVI (Search engine Optimisation Value Indicators) to match a search query to a SERP (Search Engine Results Page).

Page rank, site rank and domain rank are three of the most critical SEOVI (Search engine Optimisation Value Indicators) that need to be understood when it comes to author and publisher issues, as these three variables are all different and each has an impact on the other two within their calculations, that are done through feed back loops that run until a stable value for each is established, using extreme mathematics that use calculus and derivative limits, where author values and publisher values are also part of the equations.

Domain rank is for the whole domain.  Site rank is for the actual site, which may be  a sub web, a sub domain or the actual domain itself, depending on how your web master has set things up. Page rank is the ranking value for the specific page in question.  Here one needs to remeber that every blog post is deemed to be a stand alone web page,  and every social media post is also deemed to be a stand alone web page with its own URL (Uniform Resource locator or web page name)

This applies to all social media posts including Facebook posts, twitter posts, Google plus posts, Pinterest pins, Instagram posts, linked in posts and any other social media platform that you can think of..  The page rank, . site rank and domain rank all have a big influence on your other Search Engine Optimisation variables, where once again the mathematics involves a means to calculate limits through integrated and derivative methods within the calculus world.

Every single OPSEOVI (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicator) is generated by an author,  or a publisher, and as such carries the semantic relevance attached to that specific author or publisher or both, as determined by the search engine during the information evaluation stages, where the online information is evaluated and worked on to set up the preliminary stages of setting values for secondary  SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) which will be used by the next stage search algorithms, to calculate and store a new set of SEOVI that will be used to match a search query to a set of results in the form of a SERP (Search Engine results Page) in subsequent algorithm activities.

How you as an author use the social media, other web sites or blogs to link to the information that you want found within the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) is carefully evaluated and studied by the search engines, where a host of different things are evaluated during the OPSEO process and include but are not limited to questions like:

who you are
what do you normaly write about within the social media (all platforms)
is your social media post, blog post or other web page on topic when compared to
     the information that you are linking to
     the in image meta data of any images within your online content
    other related posts that you have made linking to the same domain, the same site or the same page
how often do you post within this specific social media platform.
how often do you post on other social media platforms
Do you comment on posts in this social media platform, and if so how often
do you comment on posts in other social media platforms, and if so how often
do you post to any blogs
    are these blogs related to each other semantically
   are these blogs related to your post in any way at all
   does this specific post contain relevant semantically linked content

There are so many more questions that are addressed and answered,  then these answers are used in  extreme mathematical equations to determine the relevant SEOVI  for this stage, and the values that will be pushed through to other algorithms that will check and compare these results for quality and correctness before storing the values for future use in the next stages of the search process.

It thus follows that ones author value along with the associated semantic trust factors that are connected to you as an individual in the form of your SEMANTIC FOOTPRINT are important issues that need to be well manged and properly understood.  Failure to interpret these issues properly and address issues that have a negative impact on your author and publisher values thus have a negative impact on your OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation) efforts, which will cause all your other online work to feature less prominently within any SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

Now the trick here is to understand the values associated with public and private shares within the social media and how these impact on your OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation)   Private shares are blocked from being included in the search indexing process, and so have a ZERO value to your OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation).  The only place that private shares have any value within Google Plus (G+) is when you are logged in to Google, then your private shares and all your public shares as well as a host of other stuff such as your other Google activities including Gmail,  your Google calendaar, your Google docs and so many other Google related issues are considered.  This includes the issues of all those within your contact lists, your G+ Circles and where you have commented on any private posts as well.

You do need to understand the very big difference between a search in Google while you are logged in and a search in Google when you are logged out.   Many do not know that there is a vast difference, as they are nearly always logged into Google through Gmail, Google Docs or some other Google service..

Now getting back to Off Page Search Engine optimisation......  OPSEO is all the work that your entire marketing team, and their many partners  do, which is both off line and online to promote your online work within the search space.  Many marketers forget that the print media, the radio, television and any other media forms part of their SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) tactics.

  I here you asking what does radio have to do with SEO.... 


Well to answer where RADIO advertising /marketing and the print media  as well as other off line marketing tactics fit  into the SEO world we need to understand WHAT IS SEO.

SEO or Search engine Optimisation is all the work done by your entire amrketing team, along with all thier partners to ensure that
1) your online work is indexed by a search engine
2) the search engine lists your online content in their SERP's (Search Engine results pages)
3) your selected target market discovers your online content when searching online
4) your desired target market audience actually clicks on the your link in the SEREP's (Search Engine results Pages)
5) your target market selects and acts on a CTA (Call To Action) within the page he / she selected from the SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

So the question arises how do you influence your intended target market audience to type those specific keywords chosen during your target market research and related semantic information into a search box ?

This is done by sneakily using the Television, radio, print media and other offline marketing platforms to use psychological tactics and put these specified key words into your interned target markets thinking patterns,  and talking styles,  to ensure the use of these words and the language that they use in general conversation,  with their family, friends or work colleges within their search query.   This step is the most vital part of any good SEO campaign especially if you are using #HASHTAGMARKETING in any way.

Many online marketers do not use this step, and have very little or in most cases ZERO input into any off line marketing campaign.  This is a very big error, which can be eliminated through the use of a #FUFISM based marketing management style.

So in conclusion #OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimsation is all the off  Page work done by your entire marketing team to ensure that your intended target market uses the correct terminology and semantic terminology when using a search engine to surface your online content within the SERP's, and then select your online content as a result of the relevant search snippet showing within the SERP (Search Engine result Page)

You need to care about your OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimisation, as this is the most appropriate  way that you can influence a search engine to take your online content seriously, and influence a search engine to apply the best snippet that matches a search query, to entice your intended target market to select your online content from the results displayed in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

Below is a list of pages discussing related issues including semantic search.  each of these posts will add some value to your understanding of the issues around OPSEO and what you can do to get better at doing Off Page Search Engine Optimisation.

READ THE COMMENTS IN THESE POSTS

http://www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-marketing/do-social-signals-drive-seo/
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JasonDarrell/posts/PrNxt4xeFn4
https://plus.google.com/+SergioRedondo/posts/56nQK53kTTS
http://www.kayakonlinemarketing.com/blog/does-social-engagement-affect-search-results
https://plus.google.com/+RandyMilanovic/posts/gMH9yFqia4d
https://plus.google.com/+FrankGainsford/posts/VWoJQWPRFEr
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/103079475562443214899
https://plus.google.com/+FrankGainsford/posts/AEe4ePWRziy

Issues around #IPSEO or In page Search Engine Optimisation

I have a collection of infographics discussing  SEO or Search Engine Optimisation at
 https://www.pinterest.com/info4u2use/seo-search-engine-optimisation/

This article adds value to the pin found here https://www.pinterest.com/pin/100275529176554919/ which discusses On Page Search Engine Optimisation.   I prefere the term of In page Search Engine Optimisation so that one can differentiate between IPSEO and OPSEO

#IPSEO or In-Page Search Engine Optimisation is the primary stage of the SEO process which starts with a marketing brief, then flows through product / service / event research into target market and key word research.  The next stage of  the seo process is  #OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimisation,  which is well covered in this article, (http://www.razorsocial.com/blog-promotion/ where the orignal infographic is used.    OPSEO comprises of  the essential online actions of marketing your online content to your intended target market audience through the utilization of OPTE (Other Peoples Time and Effort) as you convince them to share your content to their audiences. OPSEO also covers many other areas such as print media, radio, television if your budget allows, road shows, and any other marketing that you may do within the off line media of all types.

The shares to the social media audience of others is where the search engines start to gather the semantic trust factors and semantic footprints of those who interact with your post, where the engagement issues play a very important aspect.  These engagements with your online content in the form of social media signals such as face book likes and shares, Google plus PLUS ONES, comments  and shares, twitter posts and re-tweets as well as many others all add to the trust factor #SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators)

This article talks of ON Page SEO, but I like to talk of it as In page SEO so that it can be differentiated from Off Page SEO.    using the terminology of #IPSEO and #OPSEO allows to explain the differences and why each of these two SEO sectors are important and how they interact with each other, as they both target the same target market audience, but serve very different functions within the #FUFISM based marketing philosophy.

FUFISM or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social media  is a marketing philosophy where the social media is used to promote the OPSEO factors of your online content in a very well managed and properly co-ordinated manner so as to leverage the most powerful SERP"s (Search Engine Results Pages)

The off line space is very critical to your SEO process, though many SEO professionals will beg to differ and say that the off line space has naught to do with SEO   Search engine Optimisation is actually very dependent on the off line space to be of any functionality at all, as this is the space where you do the physiological work of getting the desired search terminology into the thinking patterns and thought processes of your intended target market, through news paper articles, radio discussions, bill boards, flyers  and any other means at your disposal that can be accommodated by your budget.

Without some prodding and pushing of your desired search terms within the offline space where your intended target audience lives, plays or works, how would you induce or perhaps even trick your desired target market audience to use your selected keywords, topics and hash-tags within the online search environment?  It is vitally important that online marketers understand this, as this gives them the tools that they need during their target market research, so that they may then use the data obtained during the target market research phase to develop well thought through  topics and related criteria which will then be fed into the keyword research stage of your SEO process.   It thus follows that your online marketing must be aligned with and work closely together with your off line marketing to ensure that your intended target market audience used the correct terminology and associated sentence structures within the efforts to find your online content in online search.

Copywriters and other content creators thus need to work very closely with the IPSEO team, to ensure that their content fits the many different criteria for the in page search engine optimisation process, ranging from using the correct syntax, the correct terminolgy, the correct image visualization aspects, the correct audio aspects, the correct colours and so many other issues that would impact on the intended target market  audience firstly discovering the page in search, and then  opening your link within the SERP's and then following through and completing the first part of the conversion process by clicking on one of your selected CTA's (Call To Action) within the content that has been discovered through search, or actually consuming the content as desired.

The biggest issue that needs to be addressed here is the *BOUNCE RATE* as this is used in very complicated calculations to determine the trust factors as associated with, the page in question, the author and other contributors, as well as  the publisher of the content in question.  The bounce rate is not a signal on its own, but is a factor that is used to generate trust signals, so you do need to ensure that the trust signals associated with your content are addressed during the SEO process.  Bounce rate is one of the minor factors, but it can influence many other areas, so your target market research must be of high quality, to ensure that only properly qualified searchers would use the search terms,  syntax and language structure in their online queries, as you do not want to generate any false positives that result in your target audience leaving your page early.  keyword and target market matching are thus critical issues during the keyword research stages, where you need to ensure that your target market is narrowed down  to only properly qualified groups.

The impact of copy writing on your SEO and SERP's

This blog post discusses some of the very many issues associated with your copy writing and getting Good SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) due to the associated #SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) that reach out from your in-page copy writing into your #OPSEO  (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation) through Good well manged social media marketing of your online content.  

The semantic foot print associated with your #FUFISM based marketing is the primary driver of the many semantically linked SEOVI (Search Engine Optimization Value Indicators) that benefit significantly from ensuring that your online content gets the necessary social media attention  as well as the required link building and associated relationship building attention.

This post came about due to a comment that I left on a post by +Michael Q Todd   which you can find here  

Copy writing is a very serious issue and needs to be done with your intended target audience in mind.

Your content should be laid out and written for your intended target audience and not a search engine. This does not mean that you should ignore the search engine, but that the interests of your intended target audience should come first, with user friendly in-page navigation and links (Call To Action Statements) to in-page book marks as well as off page points where the conversation and topics may be expanded further.

The SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) issues associated with copy writing are very complicated and need to be approached from a #FUFISM  perspective. The issues listed below need to be in place to assist the copy writer in laying out the content as well as putting the content into the correct perspective so that your *TOPIC TARGETING*  and related key word research can be used in the correct context for maximum impact, through the use of in-page book marks, as well as off page links that expand specific in-page topics, and keep the end user (your viewer) engaged and topic focused.

1. a document discussing  the purpose aims and objectives of the page in question
2. List of links to related pages that have already been published, along with the documented issues of

• who is the target audience of these pages, as they may be different from the page in question
• documented purpose, aims and objectives of these pages, as they may be very different from the page in question.
• documented key word research and associated demographics of intended target market for these pages as well as for the page in question so that these may be compared and any adjustments made with the connectivity between these pages as well as the social media marketing that would go along with the new page which is being evaluated for copy writing.
• list of page specific topics indicating topic targeted issues  to assist in key word research
• document discussing the sales / marketing funnel, clearly indicating at what point within the cycle the page in question is, as well as the primary landing page of the next step within the sales / marketing funnel.

These notes and associated documentation should later be available to the social media marketing team, so that they do not need to repeat any  research, but can take a little time to evaluate and make sensible use of this data when compiling their posts, and use the same TOPIC TARGETING as well as AUDIENCE TARGETING notes*

You do need to remember that SEO has two very separate components which are interconnected and intertwined in such a way that they are actually one single complex marketing issue.  These are  #IPSEO  (In Page Search Engine Optimisation) and  #OPSEO   (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation)

It is important to note that all social media marketing and link building as well as relationship building are directly connected to the IPSEO (In Page Search Engine Optimization) first, and then become part of the Off Page Search Engine Optimisation (OPSEO)

It is thus evident that the copy writing of a web page or blog post is an awful lot more important than most marketing folks actually realise, as all your social media and related off page marketing are based around the actual copy within the web page in question, and the issue of *TOPIC TARGETING* needs to be well documented and carried through from the copy writing of the IN PAGE CONTENT to the RELATED OPM (Off Page Marketing)   Your Off Page Marketing, also referenced to as OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation) or content marketing in many contexts,  should include but not be limited to :

1) social media posts on all platforms that you choose to use for this particular marketing campaign
2) any blog posts that may be associated with the online marketing of the page in question
3) any marketing of the page in question in classified adds including both online techniques as well as all off  line marketing avenues, which may include, but is definitely not limited to:

•  any news paper advertising,
•  any magazine or other print media advertising 
•  any radio or  audio visual marketing such as YouTube  videos or HOA's (Hangout On Air) that may be associated with this page and related pages within your web site.

Your in page  copy should include  short sentences, with no more than five sentences in any one paragraph,  ensuring that there is adequate paragraph spacing as this is a very important signal that search engines (Google in particular) use as part of their algorithm which evaluates user friendly behavior. User experience within your pages is becoming an increasingly important  #SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicator) and readability is one of the major components here.  Short sentences and paragraph spacing are critical elements within the SEMANTIC SEARCH SPACE as well as user friendliness issues.

Any images that you may use  within the in-page layout should be topic related and contain well thought through in image META DATA such as

• key words list
• image description
• image title
• image alt text
• geo data if applicable
• image creator (photographer)
• publisher data
• other related meta data that may be applicable to these issues.

The META DATA included in your image needs to be well thought through by your graphic design team,  after consultation with the SEO manager, and be made available to the copywriter so as to ensure that  the context of the image is understood by both your target audience as well as the search engine algorithms which will use this meta data along with the associated semantic image issues,  which the search engine may have managed to extract from the image in terms of the new techniques used to identify individual in image entities and other image related semantics

This is also important from a SEMANTIC SEARCH  perspective as the in-image meta data is used along with each sentence, and the context of the paragraph where it is connected,  to form interconnected small key word chains,  that are evaluated by search engines to define and separate the individual entities within each separate sentence,  and then associate these unique identified digital entities with a variety of different entity specific  semantic foot prints.  These different digital entities and associated SEMANTIC FOOTPRINTS include but are not limited to

1. the author's semantic foot print if applicable as defined in the HTML code by the *REL = AUTHOR* tag
2. the registered publisher's semantic foot print as defined in the HTML code of the page through the *REL = PUBLISHER* tag
3. the semantic foot print of any blog as well as all individual blog posts that may be associated with the page in question or linked to this in-page content in some way.
4. the semantic foot print of any person, or identifiable digital entity  who  posts about this page with an embedded link to the page in their social media post, or shares a post that has an embedded link to the page in question.
5. the semantic foot print of any online community, with Google plus communities featuring better than most others,  where this page has an embedded link within a post that points to the web page in question, as well as any person, page or other digital entity who shares any such post.
6. the semantic foot print of any Google plus page which has a post that contains an embedded link to the page in question, as well as any digital entity who shares this post.
7. the semantic foot print of any web site or blog that has an embedded link to the page in question  which has come about as part of your link building efforts in terms of your SEO policies which may be in place.

These associated SEMANTIC FOOT PRINTS all form part and parcel of the SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) which are used by  search engines  in evaluating a search query, which makes them IMPORTANT from an SEO perspective.

Copy writing does not get the credit that it deserves within the SEO community, and the Google Humming bird algorithm needs to be better understood by you and all others who are working on your project. 

READ MORE HUMMING BIRD  HERE

The Google Humming Bird algorithm was basically a re-write of the entire Google code around semantic issues allowing for the identification of individual digital entities to be understood and compared to real life individual entities such as people, places, artifacts, tools, natural items, man made items and so many more.

The Google Humming Bird Algorithm was introduced so that search could be better implemented with the understanding of which real life entity the end user of a search engine desires to know more about, and how the search engine can identify exactly which  online resource would best satisfy the end users information request.

Online search is indeed a very complicated affair, and you do need to take advice from all quarters, and evaluate which SEO tactics you can implement your self, and which you need assistance with so that you may implement better Search Engine Optimisation policies and procedures to get the best possible SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)


Copy writing thus has a very significant impact on your SERP's from a variety of angles where the semantics identified within the content of your copy writing are extended to other digital entities, and then connected back to your web site, where the impacts can be seen on many different areas including, but not limited to

• your domain rank
• the site rank of individual sub domains
• page rank of individual pages
• author and publisher related metrics
• domain trust factors
• key word and long tail search related metrics
• actual SERP rankings (Search engine Results Pages)

 

This blog post was made to expand on my personal comment in this post by +Michael Q Todd 

IPSEO - Topic targeteting for SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is divided into two major sections the first is #IPSEO or In Page Search Engine Optimisation and the second is #OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimisation.  These two sections are both important, with Off Page Search Engine Optimisation caring more weight than In page Search Engine Optimisation, how ever the In page stuff needs to be done first, and needs to be done correctly and with intent on ensuring that the correct set of key words and related information flow patterns around these selected key words is actually in-place, to suit the purpose, aims and objectives of the page in question.

Key word targeting is not an easy task, as there are so many surrounding issues that need to be considered, and the subject matter needs to be clearly understood along with where in the sales / marketing funnel the page in question is considered to be.  Here questions  around the following issues, amongst many others,   need to be addressed.  You will know what these other issues are once you take the time to document and understand the purpose, aims and objectives of the page in question.

• What is the purpose, aims and objectives of the page in question
• is this a general information page
• is this page near the top of the marketing / sales funnel
• is this page near the bottom end of the sales / marketing funnel
• how many in page CTA's (Call to action) are important for the sales / marketing funnel's next stage
• is this page connected to a Google community (or other social media community) information drive
• what is the theme of the page in question, and where does it sit in the total marketing strategy
• issues that come up during key word research and target market matching
• copy writing  issues connected to target market and keyword matching 
• Who are your target audience, and why is this group considered to be your target audience.
• is this page part of your network building strategy
• is this page part of your link building strategy, and if so how does this fit in with other in-page issues

 Key word targeting is subservient to the issues around topic targeting, which is determined by the purpose, aims and objectives of the page in question along with the marketing / sales funnel stage and related relationship building activities.  When a page has a clearly defined topic then key word selection is an awful lot easier, and copy writing will also be simpler.

Defining a topic for your page is not as easy as one would think, and there are many different issues that come to play, with copy-writing, and the core subject matter as well as the intentions of the page being a very big parts of the long term planning of every page in your site or blog.  Copy writing for a specific topic is an awful lot easier than writing for a whole bunch of different topics that have a similar focus area.

Understanding the intentions of the page in question will help in defining the topic for the page, and that will then define the criteria to be used for your key word selection process.  Topic targeting is not very well understood, as most people within the SEO industry only talk of keyword targeting, but do not inform people of the methods involved in determining the criteria that one has put in place, or *should have put in place* to manage your keyword selection process.  Selecting an appropriate topic that defines the intentions of the page in question is very helpful, and this should be considered when defining the tile of the page within the title tag in the head section.  The title tag in your head section should have a very clear and obvious connection to the topic of the page, as well as the description and key words listed in the meta tags of your page.

Many will tell you that the key words as well as titles and descriptions of your page are not needed in the meta tags of your page. Ignore these people, and use these very powerful #SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) which Google Humming bird uses within their semantic foot print and trust factor evaluations of your web site.  The META TAGS in the head section carry an awful lot more weight than most SEO practitioners will tell you, but many now ignore these powerful SEOVI because they have heard rumors that these tags are dead.

These very powerful meta tags that reside in the *HEAD SECTION* of your HTML 5 CODE should not be sneezed at, and you should be very weary and not easily trust those who tell you that these high level SEOVI are worthless.  They are used in many new places since the Google Humming Bird Algorithm has been introduced.  These SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) that are hidden within the *HEAD SECTION* of your web site or blog are an awful lot more powerful than you think, and they are directly connected to the in-page trust issues, so use them wisely and do not spam or misuse these great opportunities to get deeper penetration within the SERP's (Search Engine Optimisation Results pages)

Using the page title, page description or key words lists within the head section of your web site or blog to spam the search engines, or attempting to mislead the search engines through inappropriate use of these HTML 5 META TAGS will backfire and cause your page, as well as your domain some considerable harm.

Ensuring that the META TAGS within the HEAD SECTION of your web site reflect the*TOPIC OF YOUR PAGE* is essential for good SERP's and should be done as part of your basic SEO practices that you implement for your site.

Once again taking a #FUFISM based marketing view of things is very helpful, as this will give you the tools and thinking patterns needed to be able to select relevant topics, as well as page titles, page descriptions and related key words to be used in your copy writing. These issues associated with topic selection for your pages are not easy and require quite a bit of input from others in your team.  The topic of your page does need to be brainstormed by your marketing team, after everybody has read the marketing brief which should contain the intentions, purpose aims and objectives of the page in question.


This post has been written around a post by +Cyrus Shepard  of +Moz  Visiting this page will help you expand the ideas generated in this post.


http://moz.com/blog/on-page-topic-seo?utm_source=google_plus&utm_medium=social&utm_content=on_page_topic_targeting&utm_campaign=blog_post

World SEO Education: What Is Off-Page SEO? Off-Page SEO Techniques

 This post below is a good entry level post on off page SEO (Search Engine Optimization) which I would like to expand on.

World SEO Education: What Is Off-Page SEO? Off-Page SEO Techniques : Today my topic of discussion is: Off Page Optimization. I would like to entertain my readers with every minute aspects of SEO and their techniques so that they become self-independent in managing their website traffic and quality.

SEO or Search Engine optimisation is a tricky business with many mis-informed  people proclaiming that SEO is dead, because they do not have a clear understanding of the term SEO and what it means.

SEO or search engine optimisation is the collective work of your entire staff in their attempts to ensure that your pages are found by your intended target market when they use any search engine to find your information.

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is divided into 2 (two) major sectors. The first is in- page  SEO and the second is off page SEO  

IN-PAGE SEO

In-page SEO has two components which are each aimed at different target markets, and have very different purposes, but both are used collectively when doing any off page SEO. It is essential that any SEO practitioner explain this to you in terms that you understand, other wise you will not be very successful in your off page SEO.

The first component of in-page SEO is the stuff contained within the head section of your page, which is written specifically for the Search Engines. This section of your page is not visible to the end user, and contains all the META TAGS and related information including but not limited to

• Page description
• page title
• Keywords list
• author and contributors
• categories and    geographical info
• language and script info  

 The second component of in-page SEO is the body section of the page, which is written specifically for the viewer or end-user of your page. This section contains all the text, images, videos and other visual stuff which the end user will see onscreen when the page is loaded in a browser.  

The body section of the page is used by search engines to determine the aboutness of a page, and the text used here is what the search  Engines  will index in their databases to match to the queries that searchers use when looking for your information. 

Search engines try to match the aboutness of your page to the aboutness of a search query using a wide variety of variables, most of which are contained in the Off-page SEO of your pages.

In short the head section is written for search engines to allow them an opportunity to categorize and define your page, and the body section is written for your viewers , giving them a visual interpretation of your information. Search engines use the visual interpretation and the information in the head section to compile a profile of your page which they will match to a users search through a SEA (Search Engine Algorithm) and display what the search engine perceives to be the closest match of the the search request and all indexed pages in the SERP's (Search Engine Results pages)
 

OFF-PAGE SEO 

Off-page SEO is all the collective marketing of your page by your entire staff, and other sources that are beyond your control and includes but is not limited to the following

•  Internal links with in your web site
• All your social media efforts to get visitors to your web site
• Your blogs and user forums
• Your online marketing with paid adds
• Your link building strategies
• the registration of your web site with search engines and related platforms
• your public relations marketing and related online strategies
• What others have to say about your pages in their respective online platforms which include but is not limited to
• their web sites
• their blogs
• their social media platforms
• peer review sites
• product / services review sites
• news papers online pages
• radio stations online pages
•  your customers discussing your products in their social media post

 The first and most important aspect of SEO is the least understood, and least used component of in-page SEO which is the meta tags in the <head> section of your page. The META TAGS within the head section of your page are used by search engines to evaluate the content of your page and establish a context for the information within the body section of the page. Most end users do not even know that there is a <head> section of your page, and  many people ignore this with some SEO PRACTITIONERS even saying SEO is DEAD, because they have heard that the KEYWORD META TAG is not used in page rank scores.

When doing your off page SEO you need to use the information that your in-page SEO technical team used when  creating the <head> section of your page as well as the <body> section content in meaningful and constructive ways.  This is actualy a lot simpler than it sounds, and you can get the desired information from a number of sources, with the easiest being to use your browsers functionality to see the page source, and copying the contents of the head section to a text document for you to read and understand at your leisure.  

Another good source of this information is your SEO team who will be able to also give you a brief on the aims, objectives, purpose and intent of the page, which will help you in the copy writing of your off page SEO and all related social media posts. When doing any off page SEO be sure to  include the full URL (Uniform Resource Locator) or web address of the page you are marketing, to ensure that search engines give the correct page the SEOV (Search Engine Optimisation Value) that is accrued by your off page SEO efforts.

Remember FUFISM  - (Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media) and ensure that all the role players who are involved in your SEO work together as a unified team with a single goal in mind. That goal should be to increase the return on investment in your web site through the acquisition of targeted visitors to your web site who are qualified through your use of properly targeted SEO which will ensure that your pages are found by your intended target market group and not by the wrong target market groups.

To ensure that your team gets the best results from your off page SEO  you will need to employ the FUFISM philosophy  The FUFISM philosophy is really quite simple and easy to manage, as all your team will be on the same page, and share many marketing insights that would otherwise be kept as departmental secrets . Once you employ the FUFISM philosophy there will be no infighting between departments to see who gets the lions share of the marketing budget and many research areas will  be handled differently, as the information gathered will be shared across departments and not duplicated unnecessarily as they would be when departments are competing against each other for a share of the marketing budget.

What is the true purpose of SEO

The true purpose of SEO (search Engine Optimisation) has some how been hidden from plain view, and now seems to be obscured by the technical jargon thrown around by technical SEO experts.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is a complex task which involves your entire marketing teams efforts that starts with  the Manipulation of "IN-PAGE DATA" to suit your target markets vocabulary and ends with ensuring that search engines understand the complete "Aboutness of your page" so that they are able to match this to the intent of the searcher who is looking for your information which you want your target market to find.

Put bluntly SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is done to ensure that your web pages and related online information  get visitors. So we can happily say that the purpose of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is to ensure that search engines send visitors to your pages.

Problem is how ever that website owners (you) don't  want large numbers of visitors who will be uninterested and bored with what their web site offers, but want qualified visitors who will be entertained, take some action on their pages call to action statements, and tell their friends about the great experience they had.

Good SEO (Search Engine Optinisation) involves your complete marketing team to ensure

1) that your web sites visitors are entertained and have a great experience at your site. This end user satisfaction is fast becoming a primary concern within many SEA's (Search Engine Algorithms) which was never an issue in the past.

2) your in-page navigation structure is user-friendly and easy for search engines to understand in a way that enhances the SE (Search Engine) ability to link the pages aboutness to a searchers intent. This is also becoming a very contentious issue within the SEI (Search Engine Industry)

3) your web site has a good solid back up within your SME (Social Media Efforts) as social signals are becoming increasingly important within all major search engines metrics that are used within their SEA's (Search Engine Algorithms)

4) the copy writing is linguistically correct for the specified   language in the META TAGS within the head section of your page. Good language and the correct syntax is getting a lot more attention within SEA's (search Engine Algorithms) than it did in the past, as this is assisting the search engine to link your pages aboutness to the users intent. Being linguistically correct involves using slang that is indigenous  to your target market, so be careful how you interpret this.

5) the META TAGS in the HEAD section of your pages has all the right segments for your page type and page style. Is the page
                   a) a news page
                   b) a technical info page
                   c) a shopping or e-commerce page
                   d) an educational page

AS search engines learn  about people behavior and thinking patterns within various communities, they integrate this into their algorithms with devious mathematical tricks on the data they have about your pages to link the aboutness of your pages to the intent of the searcher.

It thus follows that SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is no longer just about the technical in page SEO stuff, but must now include many more metrics. Google technical staff within the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) field say that they use more than 200 individual metrics in their SEA (Search Engine Algorithm) and some of the more important ones are listed below.

1. page title in <HEAD>
2. page description in <HEAD>
3. key words tags in <HEAD>
4. other META TAGs in <HEAD>
5. language
6. user friendlyness
7. navigation structure, internal links and out bound links
8. inbound links from out side sources not under your control.
9. Social media signals associated with page, site and communities
10. in-page HTML use, structure and style (image alt tags, link title tags etc)
11. copy content and relevance to other pages in sub-domain as well as complete domain relevance

Once again the true purpose of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is to get search engines to send visitors to your pages.  I hope that you now understand why SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) must be integrated into your company marketing holistically, and why you need a dedicated SEOM (Search Engine Optimisation Manager.)

Once the marketing manager is up to speed with the true purpose of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) in the new online information age, you should not have any difficulty in ensuring that your company appoints a single dedicated person to manage your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to ensure that SEO  related policies and guidelines are in place and functional.