Michael Cottam
Freelance SEO Consultant
OzTech, Inc.
6 June 2019
Online Marketing
It’s everything
SEM
Search Engine Marketing –
means both paid search and
organic search
PPC
Pay Per Click, what most paid
search is made up of
SEO
Search Engine Optimization –
also known as “organic
search”
SMM
Social Media Marketing –
could be paid or unpaid;
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,
LinkedIn, Instagram
• Does buying Adwords Ads help you rank in organic search?
• Nope…it’s a myth
• But being on the page twice CAN improve your CTR
• What about social media buzz? Does that help you rank?
• Google says no
• Google lies
•
It’s pretty clear that Google is monitoring “buzz” on a
few platforms (probably Facebook and Twitter) and
action there impacts rankings
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
What
determines
whether
a 3-pack
appears at all?
Click history!
Some directories
with pages about
the topic in that city
Some businesses
that are actually IN
that city
• Must have a verified Google My Business listing
• https://business.google.com/manage/
• Used to be called Google Places for Business
Three/four key areas Google looks at:
• consistent name, address, phone # (NAP)
• Google My Business data exactly matches Facebook,
FourSquare, CitySearch, Yelp, etc.
• links to your website
• from other websites…the stronger the better!
• number & sentiment of reviews
•MAYBE user engagement metrics
Google wants to see lots of confirmation that the
phone number they’re going to give a user (or the
address) is correct
• Google looks foolish if Yelp has your new
address and Google Maps sends you to your old
location
If they think they might have the wrong info,
you’re not going to be showing up in the 3-pack
https://moz.com/local
“Check Listing”
It appears that it’s links to the domain overall that
matter
• this is a little different from regular organic ranking, where links to
the specific PAGE matter
• one really strong link can make all the difference!
Use the Moz Toolbar for Chrome:
https://moz.com/products/pro/seo-toolbar
• Newspapers