Definitions

This document uses the following terms and while you may understand the basic concept, these definitions will provide some context in which they will be used. If you see these words later in the document, hover over them for a brief definition.

Optimization

Websites have a theoretical optimal state in which they represent all possible information about the subject in a crawlable structure. This information should be accessible by a computer while readable by and attractive to a human.

The process of optimization works towards obtaining this state by:

  • Creating human-readable and human-useful content
  • Organizing this content in a logical page structure
  • Augmenting this content through the use of metadata such as

There is an interplay in which website developers present information in new ways, search engine developers learn to parse that information, and develop new features which require less markup on the part of the website developers. This process is teleological and one day search engine optimization will be unnecessary. For now we live in a loop improving our systems toward that state.

Website Networks

Example page on example site: phoenixcontractors.com/barn-construction

Website networks (phoenixcontractors.com, phoenixbuildit.com, arizonabarns.com) comprise sites related by one or more central concept (barn construction).

All sites related to this concept want to signify their relevancy to these concepts. Sites can be related by location (Phoenix), industry (construction), and services including products (barn construction).

Networking these sites through use of textual (simple statement) and hyptertextual (hypertext link) references builds relevancy for all participating sites. (e.g. phoenixbuildersofbuildingsthatarenotbarns.com links to phoenixcontractors.com/barn-construction, and this signifies the second site's relevancy for barn construction [and to a lesser extent signifies relevancy for the linking site])

Relevancy increases because search engines see those sites as participating in a group with increasing authority. However the competitive nature of business poses a roadblock to the referencing process. (e.g. arizonabarns.com has little incentive to donate relevancy to phoenixcontractors.com/barn-construction by linking to it, because that would benefit a 'competitor')

The SEOer should attempt to gain tangentially relevant links, in order to maintain competition while improving the ecosystem. (e.g. phoenixbuildersofbuildingsthatarenotbarns.com passes relevancy on barn construction to phoenixcontractors.com because it doesn't need that relevance, and phoenixcontractors.com would hopefully provide a reciprocal link for a service whose relevancy it doesn't need)

Social Networks

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and blogs all contain units of information called posts. Events in their users' social and cultural spheres inform these posts and posts more relevant to those events seem to proliferate more on social networks. Advertisements seek their own proliferation and therefore seek to imitate posts in their targeted audience's social sphere (i.e. by referencing events and memes in that sphere). The success or "reach" of a social post fluctuates with events and relevancy quickly drops off. That is to say; there is no theoretical optimal point of social engagement. An online marketing agency can only "ride the waves" in the hope of creating highly-engaged posts.

Scrum

A scrum is a brief daily meeting. In the case of this document, scrum will refer to a 15-minute meeting during which team members will discuss a single group of sites in a certain stage.

Client

A person or company under contract or agreement with the executing marketing company.

Customer

A person or company doing business with a client.

Site Group

A site group is a set of sites, under contract with the marketing agency, who are related by criteria chosen by the campaign manager. These sites undergo sprints at the same time, so grouping should be done to minimize repeated work between clients (e.g. plugin development)

Principle Assessment

When evaluating specific items for campaigns (engagement, optimization, &c), the time taken to state the motivating principles behind those actions. We do specific actions because of general principles (e.g. old people want to know health insurance options, so do X for older people). For each action taken during a sprint, answer the questions:

  • What did we do?
  • What was the motivating principle?
  • Do we still believe that principle is valid?
    • If so and what we did worked, how can we do more of it?
    • If so and what we did failed, how can we manifest that principle in a different way?
    • If not, why not? Document that reason.