CHRISTINE YEE

Content Marketing. Writing. Social Media. SEO. Digital PR

I was brought on by a company called FusionZONE Automotive to broaden the scope of their existing SEO practices. FusionZONE specializes in the development of responsive websites for car dealerships. However, they also provide additional offerings such as SEO, social media and digital PR. 

Much of their existing SEO results were being achieved through technical optimizations. The company wanted to go beyond  their current level of the on-site page factors that they had been implementing, such as content quality, H1/H2 headers, SEO title and primary keyword usage within the url. However, the area of off-site SEO (e.g. backlinks) was missing from their offering set. FusionZONE was interested in aligning their services with the latest trends in SEO.

Side Note: In the past, SEO was highly contingent on the number of backlinks pointing to a site. However, because this was being used to manipulate search algorithms, Google started penalizing poor quality backlinks through their Panda update.  Now, it is more essential for brands to create top quality content in order to generate authentic forms of signals which demonstrate that their online presence truly meets the demands of users.

Google is ultimately designed to meet (informational) demand with the right supply. They have a vested interest to do so since the success of their ads depends on getting people to use Google, and not other search engines.Therefore, site  features and design alone are oftentimes insufficient for achieving long term search exposure. Content and user experience must be developed to produce a solid sense that the site offers exactly what users are hoping to find. And there must also be tangible indicators in the form of quality backlinks and even social signals which communicate this message to Google. 

While at FusionZONE, I worked on introducing new practices for long term SEO success, while creating specific, trackable processes for executing upon these strategies. 

Safe Backlinking System

Google continues to rely on backlinking as a signal for understanding the quality of a site page as well as it's value and  usefulness to users. The quality of the link source is essential for achieving the benefits of backlinking strategies and avoiding penalties.

A Natural Backlinking Profile of Do-Follow and No-Follow Links

Furthermore, whether the links are do-follow or no-follow, also matters. Do-follow links impart direct SEO benefits. However, it is important to include no-follow links for a more natural looking backlink profile. No-follow links also help to alert search engines of content that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. 

Using Social Sites -  Simple Tools For Big Objectives

 I identified respectable social sharing/curation sites to be used as sources of safe backlinks. Although the following list may strike some as being simple and unsophisticated solutions, their value cannot be underestimated. Using these sites, a backlinking campaign would benefit from high domain and page authority sources that are known to be reputable. 

• Blogger ( A Google product which is crawled very frequently by the search engine). Offers do-follow, direct links
• Tumblr - Offers do-follow, direct links
• Google Plus (Another Google product which has been known to index new content rather quickly)
• Pinterest
• Flickr
• Slideshare

Due to their popularity, these sites are also crawled more frequently by search engines. This is important for getting links discovered in a more timely fashion. 

Quality, Crawlable Descriptions

One thing to note is that these sites care strongly about quality user experiences. Therefore, posting urls and cursory text is insufficient for having the links actually be noticed.  

 I made it a point to small amounts of time to create original short snippets of thoughtful, informative and engaging content as a prime (searchable) context for the links to be placed. 

The orignal hand created descriptions created could then be repurposed into additional content for future use, with the help of high quality spinning software (that utilizes artificial intelligence to reproduce natural human language patterns). 

One rule to remember when it comes to backlinks is that the harder it is to attain, the more valuable it is. While it might be easier to simply add the url into a field, a simple well crafted description does add greater value to the process. 

 Simple Process For Indexing Backlinks

Simply posting a backlink is just the first step. It is important for the posted link to be indexed in search engines. I maintained a tracking spreadsheet for all the inbound links created from the six sites listed above.

This included meticulous records of the dates posted. And this system also included a column for checking their index status. The process involved inputting the backlink urlinto the Google search field to see if it was indexed. If not,  a notification would say that the results could not be found.

When analyzing the backlinking results of the different social sites mentioned earlier, I found that Blogger's content was the quickest to be indexed out of the set. Therefore, part of the follow up process for indexing links would involve using this blog site to create content which included the backlink. 

Alternatively, it is known that pinging tools and social bookmarking tools do exist for this purpose. However,  the results are not always guaranteed. 

Writer Guidelines For Richer Content

Quality content is not a "nice to have" in SEO. It's a must have. Google loves authoritative content and penalizes thin content. The primary job of it's algorithms is to help users find the best answers to their search queries. Therefore, superficial, word-filling content will not suffice. Furthermore, studies have shown a rather strong correlation between content length and actual ranking performance. 

One of the key challenges for the writing team was to continuously meet deadlines for numerous assignments. The strong emphasis on timeliness compromised the quality of information being offered.  The writers did not have time to gather the facts they needed for the most optimal content. However, as Google compares content to others within the same niche, it was important to strike the right balance between quality and quantity.

So the question became, how can the team create better, more informative content in a time efficient manner. 

I came up with the solution of drafting writer guidelines as a resource for creating information-rich content. I was able to quickly compile necessary facts ( some mandatory and some optional).  And furthermore, I outlined an overall structure with a clear, logical flow that would best help answer questions the questions of regular people. 

The use of pre-made guidelines helped writers quickly access facts and information they needed. Their job became to simply refine the information into a clear, well written final piece. 

Internal Linking and External Linking to Site Pages

It was typical to see the homepages of the dealership sites rank in search engines. However, internal pages struggled to gain more visibility. Thus it became necessary to connect the pages together. The strong page authority of the homepage could then become more evenly distributed throughout the other pages of the site.

Internal links

However, although FusionZONE had been creating content for dealership pages, the company had not yet instilled the process of connecting all the pages together by inserting internal links.

I educated team members, including our staff writers on:

the rationale for inserting internal links

how to create SEO friendly anchor text for these links, using a combination of exact phrase match terms as well as long tail phrases. 

External Links

While it was important to link the pages together, it was also necessary to include external links to high authority sites.  Here are a few reasons why.

• Google recognizes that good sites link to other good sites. And of course, we wanted our clients to be perceived as high quality sites.

• One study was performed on  a set of ten newly developed sites. Half of them had external links, while the other half did not. The sites with the outbound links out performed the other half siginificantly in their rankings.

• External links connect sites to networks of more powerful sites. So linking to a site like Kelly Blue Book would create a connection to this influencer and their hub. Such links emphasize to Google, the niche that a site belongs to. 

• Failing to link to powerful influencer hubs causes a site to be seen by search algorithms as an isolated island, so to speak. And in worst cases, this can even cause sites and their content to be harder for search engines to find. 

The writers wer given the following rule of thumb to apply.  Every page of content on a site was to have:

• a natural number of  links coming in from other pages

• a natural number of links pointing out to other pages on the site

Outreach - For Press And Quality Backlinks

Although social sharing sites serve as a safe source of backlinks, it was still important to acquire other types of  links. Since the dealerships are interested in improveing their local SEO, it became necessary to target  well established authorities within their area. I decided to focus on nearby colleges and local newspapers. 

Colleges

Since .edu domains are particularly powerful, it made sense to reach out to local colleges near the dealerships. For this initiative, I generated outreach letter template requesting that a link be placed to the dealership on any online resources pages. Students could then learn more about the year round college grad rebate program maintained by the dealer. Furthermore, I also requested content opportunities on behalf of the client,  having to do with the topic of business and career advice for aspiring young adults. 

Newspapers

Another outreach target that I felt would benefit the dealership sites included local newspapers. Not only would this serve as a potent source of backlinks, but a publshed article would also index highly on the dealers' (name specific) search engine results page.  Since the Toyota sites were being evaluated and penalized for the presence of "disfavored results" (e.g. competitor dealerships), including a greater number of highly ranked content associated with the dealerships would help push down these undesired results. 

Competitive analysis performed on the backlink profiles of other dealerships showed that many of their inbound links came from minor, lesser known sources.

For the most part, many of these brands were small and lacked recognition or community influence. Thus, outreach to local colleges and newspapers would enable a much stronger competitive edge over other dealerships in their area. 

Automated Backlinking Solution

Although outreach is one way to acquire high valued, content opportunities, it is also possible to automate the process of acquiring backlinks One tip, suggested  by a renowned SEO expert, was to create a free image gallery page. The idea is quite simple.

Free images could be offered to niche bloggers in exchange for a link posted back to the main dealership site. Everyone likes to receive free gifts and offerings. Thus the incentive of free images would present a more compelling reason for an influencer to post a link on behalf of our dealership clients, than the other route of simply asking them to. 

Subdomain Sites

For the Toyota evaluations, FusionZONE was responsible for eliminating disfavored results that appeared  when a user types in the dealership's name. This includes competitor dealerships.

Content published by local colleges and newspapers is indexable and ranks highly. But we still needed more sources. Another strategy that I aimed to implement was the use of subdomain sites. 

Content To Meet User Intent

Subdomains could be quickly generated by the programming team.  I analyzed Google results to see what types of pages Google was indexing. I noticed a rather consistent trend of serving content related to user demand or intent.

It seemed that the search engine anticipates the likely intent of users when they perform a search. Thus, it made sense to provide a stronger body of content which helps meet  this type of demand. 

Demand for Used Cars

Users typically want to find great value deals on quality pre-owned cars. Therefore a subdomain on the subject of used cars ( i.e. what  factors to look for, what to avoid etc.) would have links pointing to the used car inventory of the site.

Demand for Testimonials

Likewise, users would want to know more about the reputation of the dealership. A subdomain on the customer feedback would not only draw attention to positive reviews, but highlight other types of content on how the dealership relates to their customers:

• what goes on during a test drive
• annecdotal details about how the sales staff ensures a quality over all customer experience. 
• "meet the sales staff" section