The Search Agency Unveils h(SEO) to Address Modern Day Search Behavior

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Search Agency, a global online marketing firm and the largest independent U.S. search marketing agency, today announced the launch of h(SEO) for performance-driven online marketers. h(SEO) is a new holistic approach to search engine optimization (SEO) that accounts for today's broad web search landscape, including updated search engine algorithms and growing social engagement on the web. With a growing percentage of search now taking place outside of search engines, effective SEO must consider the intertwined search universe—spanning traditional search sites, social media, review sites, mobile and other niche publishers. The Search Agency's h(SEO) approach drives meaningful results through multi-platform tactics, engaging content strategies, and goal-based analytics to measure, inform and justify ongoing SEO campaigns.

"Search no longer just happens within the engine walls, and marketers need to keep up with the shift or they'll miss the chance to engage with a large portion of their audience," said Grant Simmons, Director, SEO & Social Product at The Search Agency. "Its crucial that we fully understand search intent to drive content development and deployment that will keep audiences engaged and informed, regardless of where they look for information on the web."

h(SEO) optimizes the reach and engagement of brands online by improving brand visibility, user engagement, and optimizing conversions toward goals. The approach addresses the following:

• Relevance – Today, relevance is defined by user intent, necessitating a better understanding of search behavior to ensure that site structure and content development aligns with user goals and search engine indexing methodologies, creating a better overall user search experience.
• Authority – To truly drive authority, marketers must think "beyond the link" and create crucial brand and topic associations, citations, affiliations, connections and mentions within social media, review sites, blogs, vertical publishers and other relevant authority venues.
• Engagement – While SEO gets users to the click, h(SEO) views the post-click experience as critical to deliver user satisfaction and provide signals to both search engines and other users, that user intent was satisfied.
• Analytics – h(SEO) goes beyond traditional SEO analytics by measuring and tracking the metrics that are most important to clients' businesses – including social, onsite engagement, site performance and keyword visibility – and then justifies strategies and tactics based on hard evidence from each campaign.

Schumacher Homes, America's largest custom homebuilder, has implemented The Search Agency's h(SEO) approach, driving greater visibility and customer engagement around the custom homebuilder's products. Within six months of using the h(SEO) approach, the company's flagship site ranked in the top 10 on Google for 80 percent of their top 50 keywords. Additionally, Schumacher Homes received a 76 percent increase in organic traffic year over year.

"Building authority on the web isn't just about link structure anymore, and it's crucial that SEO fill the gap between search behavior and activity elsewhere on the web. The Search Agency understands how search has evolved, and has executed on new strategies to help us reach customers online," said Chris Anderson, CIO of Schumacher Homes. "As a result, Schumacher Homes was able to more effectively target traffic, get people to notice us, and drive a record number of leads on the web."

More information on The Search Agency's h(SEO) product can be found at www.hseo.com.

About The Search Agency
The Search Agency is a global online marketing firm that combines high-tech and high-touch strategies to help clients engage their customers online and measure ROI beyond a reasonable doubt. With a deep-rooted history in paid search and SEO, The Search Agency understands how activity on the web intersects at search, and executes smart digital marketing strategies that drive measurable results across multiple platforms. Services include Paid Search, SEO, Landing Page Optimization, Display Media, Social Media and Comparison Shopping Management, which are strategically leveraged to maximize the efficacy of clients' integrated marketing campaigns. The company is one of the nation's largest and fastest growing search marketing firms – named the largest independent U.S. search marketing agency by Advertising Age and among Deloitte's 2011 Technology Fast 500™. Founded in 2002, The Search Agency has grown to more than 180 employees worldwide with headquarters in Los Angeles, CA, and additional offices in San Francisco, East Greenwich, Baltimore, Tampa, London, Sydney, Toronto and Bangalore. For more information, go to http://www.thesearchagency.com.  

SOURCE The Search Agency