This document provides answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) about SEO, helping you understand key concepts and practices. Additionally, it defines commonly used SEO terms to further aid your comprehension.
FAQs
A list of frequently asked SEO-related questions that are gathered from communication with clients or have surfaced through your own research.
To find FAQs for a certain Category click the Category column title to sort by Category.
To find the most recently updated FAQs sort by Date Updated.
Question | Answer | Category | Status | Date Updated | |
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| 1 | What is the difference between HTML sitemaps and XML sitemaps? | XML sitemap is a file that lists the primary web pages of a site for search engines to crawl and evaluate for ranking. It also helps search engines understand the site’s structure. HTML sitemaps are generally designed for users (not crawlers and bots). HTML sitemaps list every subpage of the website, which are often found in the website’s footer for user visibility. | SITEMAP | COMPLETE |
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| 2 | Can we give customers access to our Google properties (Analytics, Search Console, Tag Manager, etc.)? | No, we cannot grant customers access to our Google properties. However, customers can create their own GTM and Analytics codes that we can implement alongside our own. By doing so, they can track the same data we are collecting and using for their SEO campaigns. Reference this resource for GTM terminology and how to help customers set up GA/GTM codes: /wiki/spaces/DSCS/pages/3937501799 | ANALYTICS | COMPLETE |
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| 3 | How important is the URL structure of a webpage? Does it need to be Search Engine Friendly to gain higher rankings? | While clear and concise URLs are the most readable for both humans and search engines, it is one of over 200 ranking factors that search engines use to evaluate a website. Depending on the context, having optimized URLs can be slightly beneficial in competitive searches against massively authoritative websites. For example, trying to rank for "nike shoes for sale" in the midst of Nike, Amazon, and other well-known vendors. However, beyond that marginal benefit, optimized SEF URLs by themselves will not lead to top rankings. In short, the impact a SEF URL has on SEO performance is minimal. There is no concrete evidence to suggest that optimized URLs generate high rankings. What does offer greater value for rankings is quality on-page optimization. Examples SEF: Non-SEF: | URLS | COMPLETE |
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| 4 | How soon can a website reach the front page of search results? | With SEO there’s no such thing as a guarantee. It takes time for search engines to crawl and index sites and for the work that we do to begin to make an impact on rankings. Typically you will begin to see some positive movement in ranks in the first couple months as search engines begin to associate the pages that we have optimized with the keywords we were targeting. | RANK | COMPLETE |
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| 5 | Why do we need a list of a client's competitors? | Looking at your competitors provides us with more data so that we can better gauge how your SEO campaign is performing and progressing. We also look to your competitors to see how they are ranking and for what search terms or keywords which gives us a better idea of the audience in your geography. Additionally, of course we would love to see your site ranking above your competitors so we do also reference their campaign to see where there is opportunity for your site to outrank. | COMPETITORS | COMPLETE |
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| 6 | Can we rank for a target location 5 hours away? What about ranking for the entire nation? | Target Locations 4+ Hours Away With SEO being a localized marketing strategy, we tend to work within about an hour to two-hour driving radius. That said, once we have established a solid ranking authority in your immediate local areas, we can absolutely begin to push out that radius and focus on further away locations, however the results are not always as reliably effective due to the distance. Nation SEO focuses on improving your organic rankings in your local area. The best strategy is to start out local and then as we continue to make progress in your local area, we can continue to push our radius out further. Google and search engines know where your dealership is located and there is no such thing as tricking it into thinking you’re located somewhere that you’re not. So for example, if you’re trying to target California but you’re located in Texas, Google is going to provide users searching for keywords related to your inventory in California with generally California results because Google is always trying to give users the best possible search results and in this situation if there is a dealership down the road from the user vs. a dealership a few states away from the user, Google is going to typically suggest that dealership that is down the road. That said, there has been some success with targeting statewide searches a bit further out and that is something we can definitely explore down the line but we absolutely want to focus on your local area within about an hour to two hours drive first as we start your campaign. | RANK | COMPLETE |
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| 7 | The report says XX keyword is ranked number 1 in search results, but appears on the 2nd page when I search? | Our reporting tools are average ranking over the course of the month - a lot of times search results are customized for the person searching based upon search history Search engines aren’t stable, they are constantly changing. We set our rankings based upon mobile rankings, if they’re searching on a desktop these results could differ. | RANK | COMPLETE |
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| 8 | When can I change my content focus? | Ideally, content focuses should be discussed on monthly reporting calls and made in advance of the month the content is proposed for. Current reporting covers the content plan for the next 3 months. If a customer would like to make a content changes please submit that change via an SEO Support case. | CONTENT | COMPLETE |
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| 9 | Can I change a content request during the month it is planned for? | If we received a content change request during the month it is planned to be written, the SEO and Content teams will attempt to accommodate the request. If we have not already completed the piece we will make the swap for the customer. When the customer asks it is best to answer that we will attempt to swap it for the month, but it has already been written we will schedule the request for the following month. Then work with the SEO team to attempt the swap via an SEO Support case. | CONTENT | COMPLETE |
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| 10 | Will we write customer requests instead of our content plan? | Short version, our content plan is based on keyword research and designed to drive SEO improvement for the customer based on our data analysis. We will absolutely honor customer content requests in place of our current content plan. However, that will likely be at the expense of long-term SEO improvement as the customer request likely will not have the same level of SEO impact. | CONTENT | COMPLETE |
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| 11 | Can we share full keyword lists with customers? | No, we cannot share full keyword lists with customers. The keyword lists reflect our proprietary process and hours of research and cultivation. It’s our secret sauce to running our SEO campaigns and we are therefore not able to share full keyword lists with customers. Additionally, we track potential focus keywords in these lists. Some of which we may never focus on. These keywords will have low rank and convey a potentially inaccurate and negative impression of our SEO campaign progress. If the customer has specific concerns regarding keywords please ask for details and pass them along to SEO via and SEO Support case. We can provide performance context for keywords. Add additional keywords to focus on etc. There is one exception. If a customer is able to co-op their SEO campaign we can share a keyword list, likely focused on just keywords relevant to a single OEM. That said, SEO co-op is extremely rare and this is very unlikely to occur. | KEYWORDS | COMPLETE |
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| 12 | What is the typical content calendar over the course of an SEO campaign? | CONTENT | TO DO | ||
| 13 | Why do we focus on adding content to SRP(filtered inventory list pages) over blog posts? | CONTENT | TO DO | ||
| 14 | Can we add customer requested keywords to our tracking list? | In progress… We can…. but they may not be valuable doesn’t mean we’ll focus on them. | KEYWORDS | TO DO |
FAQs outside SEO Scope
Non-SEO Question | Reason |
Glossary
A list of defined SEO terms that you may encounter.
Term | Definition | Category | Status | Date Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Algorithm | A system for search engines to find web content to that is useful and relevant for users. | SEO BASICS | COMPLETE |
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Black Hat SEO/Techniques | Detrimental practices to improve website rankings that does not align with search engine guidelines. | SEO BASICS | COMPLETE | |
Crawlers/Bots | The programs that search engines use to crawl a website; collecting and evaluating content on the websites. | SEO BASICS | COMPLETE | |
Crawling | The process of search engine bots reading the code of a website to store in an index for relevant keyword searches. (Crawled does not mean it is Indexed or Ranked.) | SEO BASICS | COMPLETE | |
Domain | A website’s address on the internet that is contained in the URL (i.e., | SEO BASICS | COMPLETE | |
Domain Age | How long a domain has existed and been in use, which search engines can examine to determine a website’s credibility and garnered authority. | SEO BASICS | COMPLETE | |
Domain Authority | A score that measures a website’s probability to rank in SERPs for relevant keyword searches. | SEO BASICS | COMPLETE | |
Indexing | The process for search engines to store website data acquired during a crawl of a website to use as reference to relevant keyword searches. (Indexed does not mean it is Ranked). | SEO BASICS | COMPLETE | |
Local SEO | The inclusion of a business' physical location in optimization strategies in order to improve the rankings of the website in the business' local search results. | SEO BASICS | COMPLETE | |
Meta Description | A description of a webpage’s content that is 250-300 characters long (for mobile-friendliness) and gets displayed in search results. It is not viewable on the webpage itself, but exists in the source code of the page.  | SEO BASICS | COMPLETE | |
Metadata | Includes the title tag and meta description; the content that appears in search results as a listing. | SEO BASICS | COMPLETE | |
Mobile-First Indexing | Google’s approach to predominantly evaluate the content from the mobile view/version of a website to assign rankings. | SEO BASICS | COMPLETE | |
Organic Search | Any unpaid marketing content that users can find naturally through searching/browsing. | SEO BASICS | COMPLETE | |
Organic Traffic | Site visitors that enter into a website through unpaid search results. | SEO BASICS | COMPLETE | |
Rank/Rankings | A website’s position/appearance within search results. | SEO BASICS | COMPLETE | |
SEF/Search Engine Friendly URLs | A URL structure that defines a clear path to a webpage by using language that is readable to both users and search engines. An example is non-SEF: | SEO BASICS | COMPLETE | |
SEO/Search Engine Optimization | The practice of improving the presence of a website in search results through keyword research, content curation, technical configuration, and site performance tracking and monitoring. The higher up a website appears in search results, the more likely it is to be clicked on by users. SEO provides a non-paid approach to achieving rankings and improving the potential for generating website traffic. | SEO BASICS | COMPLETE | |
SERPs/Search Engine Result Pages | The list of search results that appear when a user types in a search query. | SEO BASICS | COMPLETE | |
External Link | A hyperlink on a website that directs users off that domain and onto a different website. | LINKING | COMPLETE | |
Internal Link | A link on a website that directs users to another webpage on that same domain. | LINKING | COMPLETE | |
Link Hierarchy | A tiered structure of webpages that link together from more authoritative webpages to less authoritative webpages. | LINKING | COMPLETE | |
Link Equity | A level of authority/value that is passed by interlinking relevant webpages to each other. | LINKING | COMPLETE | |
Backlinks | Links that direct to a website from other websites. These can benefit the SEO health of a website but need to be from legitimate/relevant sources in order to create credibility and trustworthiness. | LINKING | COMPLETE | |
Keywords | Words or phrases that a user types into a search engine to find results for. | KEYWORDS | COMPLETE | |
Keyword Stuffing | The detrimental practice of adding an unnecessary amount of keywords and phrases into on-site content. | KEYWORDS | COMPLETE | |
Keyword Cannibalization | When various webpages on a website target the same exact keywords, causing those pages to compete against each other for rankings in search results. | KEYWORDS | COMPLETE | |
Keyword Density/Frequency | The number of times a certain keyword appears on a webpage in relation to the overall word count of the webpage’s content. | KEYWORDS | COMPLETE | |
Search Volume | The number of searches users are performing for a certain keyword within a determined timeframe. | KEYWORDS | COMPLETE | |
Long-tail Keywords | Longer and more specific keyword phrases that may target niche topics or demographics. | KEYWORDS | COMPLETE | |
LSI/Latent Semantic Indexing Keywords | A set of keywords that are conceptually related that search engines use to understand content on a webpage in detail. | KEYWORDS | COMPLETE | |
Keyword Audit | Evaluating the keywords/keyword group on a website or in our tracking and monitoring list to determine their value to the website. This can mean new keywords are added, non-relevant keywords are removed, or certain keywords across a website are updated. | KEYWORDS | COMPLETE | |
Clicks | When a website appears in search results and a user clicks into it. | ANALYTICS | COMPLETE | |
Impressions | The amount of times a website appears in search results. | ANALYTICS | COMPLETE | |
Session | The period of time a user is actively engaged with the website (not measuring how long they spend on-site - i.e., Session Duration). | ANALYTICS | COMPLETE | |
Session Duration | The timeframe of how long a user interacts with the website. | ANALYTICS | COMPLETE | |
Return Visits | Users who have previously visited the website (based on browser cookies) and has initiated another session with the same browser and device. | ANALYTICS | COMPLETE | |
New Visits | Users who have never visited the website before (as determined by the lack of any browser cookies from the new visitor) and now has initiated their first session. | ANALYTICS | COMPLETE | |
Total Visits | The total amount of visits, by new or returning visitors, the website receives within a designated timeframe. | ANALYTICS | COMPLETE | |
Bounce Rate | The percentage of users who enter into a webpage, but immediately back out without any further action. | ANALYTICS | COMPLETE | |
Organic Leads | Users who have reached a website by locating it in search results, as opposed to PPC ads or direct search. | ANALYTICS | COMPLETE | |
CTR/Click-Through Rate | The number of times a user click into a webpage based on the number of times that webpage is shown in search results. | ANALYTICS | COMPLETE | |
Google Analytics | A web analytics tool for gathering data on user interaction while on a client website. | ANALYTICS | COMPLETE | |
Google Search Console | A web performance tool for monitoring, maintaining, and troubleshooting a website’s presence in Google’s search results. | ANALYTICS | COMPLETE | |
Google Tag Manager | A web tag management tool for installing tags on webpages to track and store user actions on a website. | ANALYTICS | COMPLETE | |
Conversion | When a defined goal of a website is accomplished by the visitor. A goal can be defined as a sale, an inquiry email, service request, etc. The more optimized a website is, the more organic traffic it gets, and the more likely users will convert. | ANALYTICS | COMPLETE | |
RM/Rep Mgmt/Reputation Management | A service for aiding a website’s online reputation through requesting customer reviews via email solicitation. | SEO PACKAGE | COMPLETE | |
Local Page | A location-based landing page that targets broad inventory and service keywords, as well as a location (outside of the hometown) for a dealership. A Local page is a location-based webpage that highlights an area OUTSIDE of the dealership’s hometown/physical location. The information on this page talks about the dealership’s inventory and services, as it relates to the location of focus. | SEO PACKAGE | COMPLETE | |
Campaign Plan | A plan of action that determines the goals and direction of a website for the next 7 months. | SEO PACKAGE | COMPLETE | |
Business Directory | An online listing of a business' information, such as hours of operation, address, and phone number (see NAP citation as well). | SEO PACKAGE | COMPLETE | |
NAP Citation | A listing on an online directory that includes the business Name, Address, and Phone number. | SEO PACKAGE | COMPLETE |
Terms outside SEO Scope
A list of requested definitions for terms that do not involve SEO. An SEO team member will update the Reason section.
Non-SEO Term | Reason |
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