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The four foundations of SEO Theory

Posted by Michael Martinez on March 16, 2007 in SEO Theory

What is “SEO theory”? In our white paper on the topic I define SEO Theory as “the study of techniques and methodologies intended to affect or improve the visibility of Web documents in search engine results.” The discipline can be broken down into four categories:

Content Optimization Theory - What makes a Web page more relevant for a query? What makes a Web page more relevant for many queries? What makes a Web page more trustworthy? What makes a Web page more appealing to a search engine? These are the types of questions that content optimization theory should address.

Search Results Optimization Theory - Most SEOs don’t spend much time actually analyzing search results pages, but you should understand why a search engine puts anything on the results page. You should also understand how you can organize a site search results page. It’s not just about giving the user a useful page of results; it’s also about presenting the information in such a way as to maximize the value that the user associates with those results.

Brand Search Optimization Theory - How do you position a brand in search results? Most people limit their brand search optimization to deciding between Organic, PPC, or both and what resources to devote to either. But it goes well beyond choosing one of those three options. You need to think about how your brand appears in other pages’ search results. Creating visibility or harnessing the power of search visibility through third-party page content is an undervalued area of SEO Theory.

Link Optimization Theory - Most SEOs don’t know much about how to actually optimize links. They build links, they bait links, they manage links. Link optimization looks at where the links go, who carries the links, how the links are structured, etc. You do a lot of this by instinct. But how much do you know that really enables you to do it by design? The difference between an SEO who understands link optimization and an SEO who doesn’t is quite simple: the former has more control over linkage, the latter takes whatever links he can get.

Content optimization has fallen out of favor with SEOs. It requires more effort and thought than link building. It’s actually fundamental to link baiting, but link baiting requires a different type of content optimization. Link baiting may, in fact, restore content optimization to its former glory but we’ll have to wait a little longer.

Classic content optimization — the stuff that makes search engines pick up their pointy ears and take notice of a Web page — looks at internal navigation, topic organization, and cross-promotion between intrasite pages. Content optimization theory delves into what creates value in a page, both for the user and for the search engine. Ideally, whatever creates value for a user should also create value for a search engine but that isn’t always the case. Search engines have to be more mechanical, and people who practice content optimization run the risk of becoming cookie-cutter page designers. They practice what some people call “formulaic SEO”.

When it comes to understanding search results pages, most people don’t spend much time looking at the actual pages. They look at the listings but not the pages. You have to back up and look at the big picture. Why, for example, does one query generate advertising but another, similar query generates none? Why does a search engine use a DMOZ or Yahoo! directory description in one query but grab text from the page for another (similar) query?

The search engine is not the only entity responsible for determining how a search results page looks. You can help shape that page by including a relevant meta description tag, using the robots meta tag to disallow use of DMOZ and Yahoo! descriptions, and by selecting compelling title text and page URL text. The URL begins with the domain name; in most cases the URL is longer than the domain name. But most people waste time trying to pick “the right domain name”.

You choose the domain name for the purpose of building brand value. A search optimization specialist should understand the brand behind the content before launching an optimization campaign. Is the brand the product, the service, the company, or the person behind them all? Is Bill Gates the brand or Microsoft? Is Microsoft the brand or Windows? Is Windows the brand or Office?

Every brand encompasses a family of smaller brands. How do you position those brands in search results? Will any of the brands help promote a parent brand? Will the brands be separate from the parent? Is the brand namespace equally competitive on all major search engines? How does the brand look on meta search engines? Does the brand fit better with one search engine’s audience than others? If you cannot answer these questions you are not optimizing a brand for search.

Brand search optimization is not reputation management. Reputation management is something else altogether. When you are promoting a brand, you have to create value for that brand. You may have to create value through other people’s content. You may choose to create value through other people’s content. How do you do that?

Link optimization is almost as underutilized as content optimization. Link optimization has nothing to do with PageRank. he PageRank behind a link may be divided between 100 links or given completely to one link. It may be reallocated every day, every hour. PageRank doesn’t help you in any way when you are optimizing links.

Link optimization looks at factors that actually determine whether a link works. Links need to pass value but you have to define that value. For example, there are some Javascript links that I would take in a heartbeat. So would you. Do you know what they are? Your answer doesn’t have to agree with mine. You just need to have an answer you believe, so long as you understand what types of Javascript links would be helpful to you.

Link optimization doesn’t always look at search engines, but there is considerable overlap between link optimization and search engine optimization. Link optimization looks well beyond the stuff you find on other people’s blogs and in SEO forums about “link building” and “link baiting”.

And I’m not going to tell you what that is. I’m not the keeper of the Holy Hand Grenade of Link Optimization. It will be better for you if you stop and think, maybe once or twice a week, about links without assuming they should pass PageRank or anchor text.

If all you can associate with link value is PageRank or anchor text, you don’t know enough about links to understand how to optimize them.

If your content optimization consists of picking text for title and meta tags, you don’t know enough about content optimization to use it.

If your brand optimization consists of identifying keywords, you don’t know enough about brand optimization to help Pizza Hut hit number 1 for “pizza”.

In short, if your SEO theory consists only of the standard advice that you’ll find in SEO blogs and forums, you don’t have any SEO theory. SEO theory isn’t the application of techniques. SEO theory isn’t a checklist of things to do or things not to do. SEO theory is the study of optimization techniques and methodologies.

To delve into SEO theory, you have to think about why things are the way they are. You have to think about how any one thing can be beneficial in more than the ways you believe it can be beneficial. If you know 3 ways that links help, you delve into SEO theory when you look for a 4th benefit. If you know 3 things you can do to optimize a Web page, you delve into SEO theory when you look for a 4th thing to do.

SEO theory is not concerned with which trick works better. SEO theory is concerned with what works, what doesn’t work. SEO theory does not rely upon numbers in toolbars. SEO theory creates its own measurements of value.

SEO theory ignores the conventional SEO wisdom and asks, “Is that all there is? Is there nothing more?”