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Yet, what
does SEO

SEO in 2019

Short answer

Weighting of thematic clusters of ranking factors in Google based on survey responses by 128 SEO professionals

  1. Backlinks, i.e. domain authority: 20.94%
  2. Page level backlinks: 19.15%
  3. Page level keywords & content: 14.94%
  4. Keyword-agnostic metrics, e.g. page load speed: 9.8%
  5. Domain-level brand fetures, i.e. PR
  6. Bahavioral metrics, e.g. time on site
  7. Social metrics
  8. Domain level keyword match
by brian dean

Long answer 205 factors

  1. Domain Age.
  2. Keyword Appears in Top Level Domain.
  3. Keyword As First Word in Domain.
  4. Domain registration length.
  5. Keyword in Subdomain Name.
  6. Domain History.
  7. Exact Match Domain.
  8. Public vs. Private WhoIs.
  9. Penalized WhoIs Owner.
  10. Country TLD extension.
  11. Keyword in Title Tag.
  12. Title Tag Starts with Keyword.
  13. Keyword in Description Tag.
  14. Keyword Appears in H1 Tag.
  15. Keyword is Most Frequently Used Phrase in Document.
  16. Content Length.
  17. Keyword Density.
  18. Latent Semantic Indexing Keywords in Content (LSI).
  19. LSI Keywords in Title and Description Tags.
  20. Page Loading Speed via HTML.
  21. Duplicate Content.
  22. Rel=Canonical.
  23. Page Loading Speed via Chrome.
  24. Image Optimization.
  25. Recency of Content Updates.
  26. Magnitude of Content Updates.
  27. Historical Updates Page Updates.
  28. Keyword Prominence.
  29. Keyword in H2, H3 Tags.
  30. Keyword Word Order.
  31. Outbound Link Quality.
  32. Outbound Link Theme.
  33. Grammar and Spelling.
  34. Syndicated Content.
  35. Helpful Supplementary Content.
  36. Number of Outbound Links.
  37. Multimedia.
  38. Number of Internal Links Pointing to Page.
  39. Quality of Internal Links Pointing to Page.
  40. Broken Links.
  41. Reading Level.
  42. Affiliate Links.
  43. HTML errors/W3C validation.
  44. Page Host’s Domain Authority.
  45. Page’s PageRank.
  46. URL Length.
  47. URL Path.
  48. Human Editors.
  49. Page Category.
  50. WordPress Tags.
  51. Keyword in URL.
  52. URL String.
  53. References and Sources.
  54. Bullets and Numbered Lists.
  55. Priority of Page in Sitemap.
  56. Too Many Outbound Links.
  57. Quantity of Other Keywords Page Ranks For.
  58. Page Age.
  59. User Friendly Layout.
  60. Parked Domains.
  61. Useful Content.
  62. Content Provides Value and Unique Insights.
  63. Contact Us Page.
  64. Domain Trust/TrustRank.
  65. Site Architecture.
  66. Site Updates.
  67. Number of Pages.
  68. Presence of Sitemap.
  69. Site Uptime.
  70. Server Location.
  71. SSL Certificate.
  72. Terms of Service and Privacy Pages.
  73. Duplicate Meta Information On-Site.
  74. Breadcrumb Navigation.
  75. Mobile Optimized.
  76. YouTube.
  77. Site Usability.
  78. Use of Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools.
  79. User reviews/Site reputation.
  80. Linking Domain Age.
  81. # of Linking Root Domains.
  82. # of Links from Separate C-Class IPs.
  83. # of Linking Pages.
  84. Alt Tag (for Image Links).
  85. Links from .edu or .gov Domains.
  86. Authority of Linking Page.
  87. Authority of Linking Domain.
  88. Links From Competitors.
  89. Social Shares of Referring Page.
  90. Links from Bad Neighborhoods.
  91. Guest Posts.
  92. Links to Homepage Domain that Page Sits On.
  93. Nofollow Links
  94. Diversity of Link Types
  95. “Sponsored Links” Or Other Words Around Link
  96. Contextual Links.
  97. Excessive 301 Redirects to Page.
  98. Backlink Anchor Text.
  99. Internal Link Anchor Text.
  100. Link Title Attribution.
  101. Country TLD of Referring Domain.
  102. Link Location In Content.
  103. Link Location on Page.
  104. Linking Domain Relevancy.
  105. Page Level Relevancy.
  106. Text Around Link Sentiment.
  107. Keyword in Title.
  108. Positive Link Velocity.
  109. Negative Link Velocity.
  110. Links from “Hub” Pages.
  111. Link from Authority Sites.
  112. Linked to as Wikipedia Source.
  113. Co-Occurrences.
  114. Backlink Age.
  115. Links from Real Sites vs. Splogs.
  116. Natural Link Profile.
  117. Reciprocal Links.
  118. User Generated Content Links
  119. Links from 301.
  120. Schema.org Microformats.
  121. DMOZ Listed.
  122. TrustRank of Linking Site.
  123. Number of Outbound Links on Page.
  124. Forum Profile Links.
  125. Word Count of Linking Content.
  126. Quality of Linking Content.
  127. Sitewide Links.
  128. Organic Click Through Rate for a Keyword.
  129. Organic CTR for All Keywords.
  130. Bounce Rate.
  131. Direct Traffic.
  132. Repeat Traffic.
  133. Blocked Sites.
  134. Chrome Bookmarks.
  135. Google Toolbar Data.
  136. Number of Comments.
  137. Dwell Time.
  138. Query Deserves Freshness.
  139. Query Deserves Diversity.
  140. User Browsing History.
  141. User Search History.
  142. Geo Targeting.
  143. Safe Search.
  144. Google+ Circles.
  145. DMCA Complaints.
  146. Domain Diversity.
  147. Transactional Searches.
  148. Local Searches.
  149. Google News Box.
  150. Big Brand Preference.
  151. Shopping Results.
  152. Image Results.
  153. Easter Egg Results.
  154. Single Site Results for Brands.
  155. Number of Tweets.
  156. Authority of Twitter Users Accounts.
  157. Number of Facebook Likes.
  158. Facebook Shares.
  159. Authority of Facebook User Accounts.
  160. Pinterest Pins.
  161. Votes on Social Sharing Sites.
  162. Number of Google+1’s.
  163. Authority of Google+ User Accounts.
  164. Known Authorship.
  165. Social Signal Relevancy.
  166. Site Level Social Signals.
  167. Brand Name Anchor Text.
  168. Branded Searches.
  169. Site Has Facebook Page and Likes.
  170. Site has Twitter Profile with Followers.
  171. Official Linkedin Company Page.
  172. Employees Listed at Linkedin.
  173. Legitimacy of Social Media Accounts.
  174. Brand Mentions on News Sites.
  175. Co-Citations.
  176. Number of RSS Subscribers.
  177. Brick and Mortar Location With Google+ Local Listing.
  178. Website is Tax Paying Business.
  179. Panda Penalty.
  180. Links to Bad Neighborhoods.
  181. Redirects.
  182. Popups or Distracting Ads.
  183. Site Over-Optimization.
  184. Page Over-Optimization.
  185. Ads Above the Fold.
  186. Hiding Affiliate Links.
  187. Affiliate Sites.
  188. Autogenerated Content.
  189. Excess PageRank Sculpting.
  190. IP Address Flagged as Spam.
  191. Meta Tag Spamming.
  192. Unnatural Influx of Links.
  193. Penguin Penalty.
  194. Link Profile with High % of Low Quality Links.
  195. Linking Domain Relevancy.
  196. Unnatural Links Warning.
  197. Links from the Same Class C IP.
  198. “Poison” Anchor Text.
  199. Manual Penalty.
  200. Selling Links.
  201. Google Sandbox.
  202. Google Dance.
  203. Disavow Tool.
  204. Reconsideration Request.
  205. Temporary Link Schemes.

Medium long answer

Today less and less black hat seo tactics (i.e. unfair tricks) matter since search engines are getting better and better at ranking the web. Therefore dull sounding User Experience and overall Quality of your product matter the most. If our fullstack marketing team fall in love with a website and its growth opportunities it boils down to certain things then.

A

Content is king more than ever

Standard practices

  1. 01Keyword
    Research.

  2. 02Competitive
    Analysis.

Best practices

  1. 01 Editorial content. We believe no hired copywriter can tell a better story than your good self. You just need a bit of guidance on topics and titles.

  2. 02Tools: calculators, checklists, directories, Q&A services - our dev team is in marketing no less.

  3. 03All sorts of graphics: canvas charts, nice pics and icons from our designers, you name it.

B

On-site optimisation

Standard practices

  1. 01Technical
    analysis.

    1. ACode efficiency.

    2. BPage load time.

    3. CIndexing issues.

    4. DCrawl rank.

  2. 02Website
    fixes.

    1. A404 errors.

    2. BImproper canonicalization.

    3. C301 redirects.

  3. 03Search friendliness
    review.

    1. AKeyword distribution.

    2. BPage/post descriptions.

    3. CMeta tags.

    4. DTitle and alt tags.

    5. EMeta data optimization.

    6. FContent optimization.

    7. GAnd many more…

Best practices

  1. 01Creative internal
    link building.

  2. 02UX and behaviour factors. While page relevancy to user search query definitely affects behavioral factors (time on site, number of pages per session etc.) overall site experience matters no less. That is why we do it all: design, development and marketing.

C

off-site optimisation

Ultimately, it's link building alone, but it comes in so many flavours

  1. 01Via
    paid reviews.

  2. 02Via
    sponsorships.

  3. 03Via guest
    blogging.

  4. 04Via niche
    influencers.

  5. 05Via crowd marketing
    (comments & memes).

Best practices to keep in mind

  1. 01Links should
    drive traffic.

  2. 02No automated link building. Sooner and not later you will be punished for black hat SEO.

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Changelog – pre-ecosystem era

v0.1.8 Hound @ apps.the.gt – b2b prospecting platform

v0.1.8.1 Business directory – content experiment to support b2b prospecting platform.

v0.1.7 White label agency solution, including white label lead generation & link building

v0.1.6 GRIN tech affiliate program is live.

v0.1.5.3 GRIN jobs experiment started

v0.1.5.2 Working on cool in-house lead gen project - Art Director is preparing 100 picks of Business Cards in various niches.

v0.1.5.1 GRIN games emerged

As a web agency we never could and never will be able to escape the urge of building things.
Among million other things we played with an idea of text-based games and the last piece that was missing was the story itself. So via in-house outreach platform we found two established writers that believed in the project and agreed to participate.

Shout out to Richard Abbott who wrote Fraud on Thetis and Eva Pohler who sent us a huge draft we are still reading through.

v0.1.4 GRIN launcher is born.
It is an outreach platform that we use to establish connections with editorial teams.
They say samples of published articles look good but pricing looks even better

At some point we realised that list building, fetching contact details & outreach tech work just as well for b2b lead generation

v0.1.3 Once, we fell in love with ecommerce, because of short feedback cycles on marketing & development efforts.
Today we ship into production inhouse SaaS project - AVOKADO - the web app for learning languages with flash cards.

The year after we built it we realised how long is the road map ahead & what resources we'd need to promote it and decided to put it on hold.

One day as we ship GRIN tech v3.0 into production we'll distrupt the language learning market with Avokado.

We love Wordpress and recently shipped two plugins into open beta for commercial sale.

v0.1.2.2 King The Monk - wordpress plugin to virally grow your email list

v0.1.2.1 Plain Conversions - wordpress plugin to convert your visitors

v0.1.1. Expanded core offering to visual productions

v0.1 It's Autumn 2017 and GRIN tech agency's website is born.
We have it saved for the history.

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