The SEO Success Pyramid
By Matt McGee on Jan 8, 2008 in MY BEST POSTS, SEO
John Wooden, the greatest basketball coach ever, never talked to his teams about winning. He talked to them about preparation and about the process of becoming a great team.
Wooden’s philosophy on coaching (and life) is summed up in the “Pyramid of Success,” which beats the tail off all that Self-Help Guru junk you see peddled in books, on blogs, on daytime chat shows, and on late night TV. I was lucky to hear Coach Wooden speak about the Pyramid of Success while I was a student at Pepperdine University; to this day, it’s one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard. (Seriously, if you don’t know what his Pyramid of Success is, visit CoachJohnWooden.com.)
What’s all this have to do with SEO and online marketing? Well, the best SEOs don’t talk to their clients about rankings; they talk about the process of making great web sites that earn traffic and convert visitors into customers. They talk about the process of creating great content that attracts links like bees to honey.
I would never compare myself to John Wooden, but I do like teaching others about online marketing. So, with that in mind, and inspired by the great coach, here is the….
SEO Success Pyramid
click to download high-quality, printable JPG (1.7mb)
What’s It All Mean?
Commitment: Every successful project I’ve ever worked on has involved a client whose team is enthusiastic and engaged. Whether you’re big or small, one uninterested department or person can sabotage everything.
Planning: Success in any pursuit begins with setting goals and developing a plan to achieve them — detailing the strategies and tactics you’ll use, the people and resources needed, and so forth. Search marketing is no different.
Product/Service: Although you can fool some people into buying crap for a while, real long-term success involves a product or service that people want or need. There’s no substitute for quality.
Education/Information: You’re a business owner; you don’t need to become an SEO expert. But you’ll succeed faster if you have access to great information. And as fast as the search marketing industry changes, ongoing access to intelligent information is critical.
Patience: True, there are exceptions every now and then, but for the vast majority of companies big or small, search marketing is a process that takes time to implement correctly. There are no short cuts, no quick fixes. Success almost always takes many months, if not a year or more.
Design & Usability: Yes, there are some ugly sites that make lots of money; but there are more that don’t. Your best bet is to have a web site that’s attractive and easy to use. Get out of your customers’ way and let them do what they came to your site to do.
Keyword Research: If you target the wrong keywords, you’re doomed to fail. You’ve heard that a million times, I hope. More than that, you also need to know what to do with your keywords.
Analytics: How will you know you’re successful if you have no way of measuring what you’ve done? Measure, analyze, adjust strategies and tactics as needed.
Tools: Having access to appropriate SEO tools can give you an advantage over the competition. Of course, more important than the tools is knowing how to interpret the data they provide.
Crawlability: A search engine cannot index pages that its spider cannot crawl. Be careful with the Flash movies, the complicated DHTML and javascript, the robots.txt file, etc. Here are 5 common crawlability mistakes you need to know about.
Content: This can take many forms: a blog, articles, videos, a FAQ page, or even user-generated content like product/service reviews. When you get this one right, you’ll have an easier time getting…
Links: Your great content isn’t going to rank well without links, preferably from relevant, quality sites. I brain-dumped (almost) everything I know about links early last year.
Social/Local Findability: Let me explain this since I might be inventing a new term. Social Media Marketing and Local Search are musts. The size and scope of your company may dictate which you emphasize more, but neither should be ignored. Local SEO is a must for most small businesses, but social media can work, too. Bigger companies that target an audience more than a location will find social media offers a lot of opportunities. In either case, the goal is findability. You want customers to be able to find you as easily as possible.
Reputation Management: It’s imperative to know what people are saying about your company. This isn’t just for Big Business, either: An old client of mine runs the only roller skating rink in our area, yet is probably losing business because they have a couple negative reviews on a certain Local Search site. Given the growing influence of user reviews, knowing how to manage your reputation is a must.
Trust: In my first post of 2007, I said trust is the No. 1 factor, and nothing has changed since then. Trusted domains are powerful domains. When you have trust, from users and search engines, you’re on the way to search marketing success.
As you climb the pyramid, you’ll find buzz/word-of-mouth marketing or maybe community helping you along. To a large degree, these are two sides of the same coin. It’s the people factor, the human element that often separates the winners and losers in search marketing. Get people talking positively about you, whether it be one-to-one conversation among friends or in the larger setting of an online community, and you’ll climb the pyramid that much faster.
If you enjoyed this article, please subscribe to my feed and share it on your favorite social/bookmarking site. Thanks!
Translations
The SEO Success Pyramid has been translated into the following languages:
- What I’ve Learned About the SEO Success Pyramid
I've now presented the SEO Success Pyramid to two different audiences, and each time I've learned something new about it.... - Community: The Human Element of SEO Success
Small businesses rely on word-of-mouth marketing; I've never found one that didn't. Some rely on it more than others, but... - 5 Common Crawlability Mistakes That Kill Your SEO Success
In my opinion, the nuts-and-bolts of SEO can generally be boiled down to three primary parts: Crawlability, Content, and Links.... - SES New York: Linkbaiting & Viral Success
Linkbaiting & Viral Success Chris Boggs, Avenue A/Razorfish Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz Jennifer Laycock, Search Engine Guide Cameron Olthuis, ACS Rand...
36 Comment(s)
By davidmihm on Jan 8, 2008 | Reply
Awesome. Truly boils everything down to essentials, and I love the fact that you talk about the five “bottom” components. So many businesses expect to start on the next level up.
My only gripe is that the title narrows the focus too much. I think this model applies to so many things BEYOND SEO. If you’ve built up a lot of links in topical communities and gained trust among users and customers, you’ve built a business model that can succeed independently of Search Engines.
By pratt on Jan 8, 2008 | Reply
Matt, this is really awesome. I printed out the diagram and have it on my wall. Great stuff.
By Todd Mintz on Jan 8, 2008 | Reply
Best. Matt. McGee. Post. Ever.
By Matt McGee on Jan 8, 2008 | Reply
I thought that putting the SEO label on this might not be the best idea, but decided to do it because I’ve been saying for some time now that we need to expand our definition of what SEO is. I know when I “do SEO’ with clients, only a portion of the effort deals with traditional, on-page stuff. To me, what’s in the pyramid is what I consider SEO to be in 2008.
In any case, thank you all for the great feedback. It’s always cool to see your time and effort appreciated!
By Peter on Jan 9, 2008 | Reply
Thanks Matt - I was in the middle of drafting an email to a prospective client on how we could help her with her website when your post popped-up in my feed reader.
Now I’m going to completely change the email - and the approach I take when dealing with other potential clients.
By jssdds on Jan 9, 2008 | Reply
Matt,
Maybe it is something I’m missing… but I read your seo pyramid and wanted to make contact with you and could not find any way to do so other than to leave a comment.
I don’t mind registering… so that’s not an issue… it’s just that the pyramid talks about … usability… findability, etc. and here I am unable to make easy use of the site to find and contact you. When I tried to click and find you I was taken to WebMarketing . com… and under nowhere on the site do I see that you are affiliated with it….
Anyway, I am very interested in working with you as I have talked to a number of people/companies that have fallen short of understanding or outlining all of the things you share in your pyramid. I am amazed that the easiest way to get in contact with you from a post like this is to leave a comment…. please drop me an email at jssdds (at) msn dot com… thanks
By S.I. on Jan 12, 2008 | Reply
great article on a great blog, thanks
& what a good illustration. we wont even mind plugging another SEO Company to have that on the wall
By jdeuling on Jan 12, 2008 | Reply
2 years ago I started with SEO. For my own ’smallbusiness’. I did it all by myself. Trial and error. This pyramid contains a lot of elements I discovered myself. If you are starting with SEO just learn to be patient…and get some help…
By Matt McGee on Jan 14, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for the great feedback on this, gang. I’m glad to see that it’s being received so well and filling a need for people. What else can you ask for?
By F.S. on Jan 16, 2008 | Reply
Matt, Impressive. What more is there to say.
I would like to join your mailing list if you have one. Please advise how I can.
By Neil on Jan 17, 2008 | Reply
Only just found the site - feel like I’ve just discovered the holy grail! Fantastic Resource. Thanks
By Matt McGee on Jan 18, 2008 | Reply
Thanks again for all the kind words.
@F.S. — no mailing list, but please do subscribe to the RSS feed.
@Neil — you’ve put a big smile on my face. Thank you!
By S.D. on Jan 28, 2008 | Reply
Great, well thought out article. Some “bricks” of the pyramid should be bigger than others (that would only complicate the drawing, wouldn’t it?), but all in all, we’re all gonna have to touch on one of those points at some point in time.
By Buntu on Jan 30, 2008 | Reply
1. There should be word “Traffic” along with “Social/Local Findability”
2. Analytics should be above “Crawability”, “Content”, “Links” since these three helps to generate “Traffic” and once “Traffic” is generated, “Analytics” come into picture. The word “Analytics” mentioned in the bottom second line should be replaced with “competition analysis”.
By Anup on May 19, 2008 | Reply
Hi Matt,
Very impressive! I think that trust is really the critical element and it starts with the offering. To build trust, we need to get into the mind of our visitors and create moments of magic for them, all along the pyramid.
By S.F. on May 22, 2008 | Reply
I found this post via one of your more recent posts. I truly am impressed by this post. It is very usefull for me explaining SEO importance to my clients.
By Annie on May 24, 2008 | Reply
Matt, excellent post. It is nice to see it broken down into Laymans terms. You don’t realize how much goes into SEO and SEM until you break it down. Also helps justify some of the cost that can be charged by good, reputable SEOs.
By Todd on May 25, 2008 | Reply
Excellent post, nice illustration of the many facets of an effective SEO / Branding campaign.
Other elements I found, that likely fit in the bricks for startup ventures are:
Genre Selection / Research
I am not sure Reputation Management fits for all businesses.
By Karl Steinmann on May 26, 2008 | Reply
As a young man, I was lucky enough to spend several summers in a row at John Wooden’s basketball camp. I would have preferred the Lakers Youth Camp, but alas…
That being said, John Wooden’s philosophy as a man, not just as a basketball coach, was always about serving others, over delivering and persisting. He took great interest in those around him, cared about what happened to people and looked for the good in others when it would have been far easier to find fault. As far as I know, these qualities still define him. He is as well loved today as he always was, if not more so.
I actually got a few pointers and a pat on the back from the great man himself, and as a 12 year old kid and aspiring pro-basketball player, I can assure you it meant A LOT to me.
Strangely, it took your article here to make me consciously and suddenly realize how important those same “basketball” lessons are in life and on the web. They were such formative and powerful lessons that I think I inculcated them into my very being without even being consciously aware of it.
Anyway, great article Matt! I have Spunn you, Dugg you and I’m going to mention this article in my business blog. Keep up the great work!
Finally, (shameless plug to follow), I blog on the Lakers/NBA at my site, for any SEO fanatics and basketball fan(atic)s like myself!
By Matt McGee on May 31, 2008 | Reply
Karl et al, thank you again for the generous comments. I’m glad people continue to enjoy and value this post and the SEO Success Pyramid!
By div on Jun 10, 2008 | Reply
Wow, now this is a realy nice article. I am new into SEO and this pyramid is just so exciting for me. All of this is realy interesting I´ll read trough it once more when i have a clear head I think.
Regards
By Jed on Jun 16, 2008 | Reply
Excellent resource, thankyou. I am wondering if you might be able to break other components of online marketing into similar pyramids to publish, and this model really serves to help build the correct pillars for a successful campaign, and I would imagine we could apply it to SEM as well?
By Zombie on Jun 17, 2008 | Reply
That’s actually a really creative pyramid, and pretty accurate.
I love the way it summarizes and builds. I might need to use this in a post because it really lays out basic SEO for someone who is new to the field.
By W.D. on Jun 26, 2008 | Reply
This is really cool. I’m going to definitely print this out and hand it out around here. This is the holy grail of SEO. Cheers!
By Jordan on Jul 1, 2008 | Reply
Matt, I printed this out for all my co-workers. A brilliant piece of work.
By Scott Gostyla on Jul 2, 2008 | Reply
Great diagram. I don’t know much about SEO, but have a friend that helps with a few projects. I get lost listening to him sometimes. I like this though. Diagrams like really help give the “big picture”
By BJ Wright on Jul 3, 2008 | Reply
Excellent resource, its just goes to show how much effort really goes into a well played out SEO strategy! It doesn’t happen over night, for this reason people are more slow to coming around to understanding all the benefits.
By Donace on Jul 7, 2008 | Reply
I have recently just started working on SEO properly and researching and this post indeed has helped me alot and actually winged me to subscribe to your blog!
Great content man, also how would i go about grabbing a copy of the pyramid?
By Matt McGee on Jul 7, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for all the nice comments in the last month or so, sorry for not acknowledging earlier.
@Donace — right under the image in the post, there’s a link for the hi-res, printable version. Click that and you’ll have a copy of it for printing or offline reference. Thx!
By Tim on Jul 14, 2008 | Reply
“He talked to them about preparation and about the process of becoming a great team.” What a great quote. I really think that a lot of SEOs get lost here, including me from time to time. It is really about building the best website in your category. If you get too caught up in rankings you can end up going about the entire process wrong, and missing some other great accomplishments that you can achieve along the way.
By George on Jul 21, 2008 | Reply
Well written post. The reputation management is huge right now, and often overlooked by too many companies.
By G.R.D. on Aug 14, 2008 | Reply
Very nice post. I think Local Search is too often overlooked. I get a ton of calls from my google local listing.
By George Cleanthous on Aug 29, 2008 | Reply
Hi Matt,
Being a fellow SEO myself I think it is great that someone took the time to do this! I’ve always had an this concept in my mind as I “do SEO” for clients, and this really defines it well for those new starters or SEOs who need a push in the right direction.
Great Work!
George
By Eva White on Sep 1, 2008 | Reply
Very nice article. I am feeling bad that the article was written on Jan 08 and I have got my hands on it in sept 08, wish I would have read it earlier. I have bookmarked it for future reference.
By Alice on Sep 4, 2008 | Reply
This hit a nerve for me. This was very up-front. Too many people, do not realize what’s involved in starting an online business.
By Goran Web on Sep 22, 2008 | Reply
Hi Matt.
The diagram is brilliant, hope you dont mind I have saved it to show the guys in the office, just makes sense, thanks Goran