Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) includes any ethical means that will help a site attain higher organic rankings. In addition to writing great content that is accessible to the search engines, SEO can also involve such diverse disciplines as usability, design, information architecture and public relations.

The promise of free traffic and the trust and recognition that top organic placement can bring to your brand has made SEO a highly competitive field across every industry. Success in SEO takes knowledge and commitment to long-term goals.

Our Approach to SEO

One of Efficient Frontier's greatest strengths is the ability to collect and process data in order to drive strategy development. Our SEO service relies on this strength to deliver effective optimization campaigns based on measurable factors specific to your situation.

Success Measures

A typical engagement begins with establishing goals and setting up a system for measuring progress. Our Account Managers perform discovery interviews with clients to better understand their business and choose the success measures that best apply to their goals, site and business model.

Rankings are one important measure of success that we report on regularly, but there are various other metrics that serve as key performance indicators. These include:

  • Site indexation metrics
  • Number of unique keywords referring organic traffic
  • Number of unique landing pages attracting organic traffic
  • Action tracking (through analytics customization)
  • Changes to link profiles over time

Success measures are essential to demonstrating the value of SEO over time and we will work to implement the tracking measures necessary to provide the reports pertinent to your goals.

Search Engine Friendliness Report

The foundation of a successful SEO strategy is accessible content. Natural rankings are determined by automated processes that require your site's content to be open and accessible to crawlers used by the search engines to index the web. At the start of your campaign, our technical team performs an in-depth site audit to identify problems with the site that hinder its ability to be crawled and indexed by the search engines. This essential first step combines manual page reviews with automated technology that mimics the search engine crawlers to produce a technical "search engine friendliness" report outlining problems on the site and the solutions to address each problem.

Keyword Research

Based on information collected during the discovery interview and from the paid search team, our researchers will develop a keyword portfolio of relevant head and tail terms to track over the life of your campaign. Paid search metrics can often be used to identify the terms most likely to bring high-volume, qualified traffic to the site and over time, synergies between paid search and Search Engine Optimization lead to more robust portfolios for both channels.

Keyword Targeting

Focusing on the keyword portfolio and utilizing information about the site gathered during the audit process, your Optimization Expert will create a keyword targeting map. This process identifies the pages of your site best positioned to earn top rankings for the given keywords. Prioritizing and focusing on these key pages provides a clear roadmap for on-site optimization efforts.

Part of this keyword targeting process is utilizing best practices to optimize pages for the chosen keywords. In addition to addressing the quality of the content, these on-page factors are reviewed:

  • Title/meta tag optimization
  • Keyword usage and weighting
  • Content hierarchy
  • Source code optimization
  • Internal and external linking

Content Development Recommendations

Mapping keywords to your site in the targeting process typically identifies areas for additional content development. Another major source for content ideas comes from competitive link analysis, which identifies the type and nature of content that has been successful in attracting links to your competitors or encouraging user interaction with their site. We will provide content recommendations based on our research and when necessary, author the content ourselves.

Link Audits

The quality and quantity of the links pointing to your site has a huge impact on your natural search rankings. Using tools that provide an accurate view into the link structure of the web, we identify opportunities for link acquisitions. These link acquisition strategies can include building relationships with other sites, content development recommendations aimed at attracting links to your site, and building awareness through social media.

On-Going Implementation

Monthly implementations utilizing the best tactics targeting the campaign's goals form the basis of the on-going optimization campaign. These monthly deliverables include:

  • Recommendations for site changes (page optimizations)
  • Articles, blog posts, or other targeted copy
  • Link building strategies
  • Progress reports on link building efforts
  • Implementation guides (best practices for guiding internal projects)

All monthly deliverables are reviewed with the client and hands-on support for implementing the suggestions is available from our team.

Ethical Standards

Our strategies are based on SEO best practices that have been proven effective on a variety of sites and industries. All of our methods adhere to a strict set of ethical guidelines above those set forth by the major search engines. We guarantee that no method used to optimize your site will violate search engine rules and risk getting your site banned from search results.