The need for SEO optimisation is increasing. As consumers use the internet for almost everything and the market becomes highly competitive, even the most traditional businesses understand that they need to accelerate the shift to digital. SEO optimisation is considered one of the most effective and cost-effective methods to understand and reach customers to stay relevant and gain revenue.
Many companies all across the world know (or think they know) that they need SEO to grow barn awareness and improve visibility. However, using SEO in your marketing strategy delivers a vast range of benefits. While some businesses still avoid investing in quality SEO optimisation, Let’s explore key reasons why you need to consider this step in your marketing:
Organic Search is the Top Source of Website Traffic
Organic search is an essential part of most businesses’ website performance. It is also a crucial element of the buyer funnel and getting users to the stage when they are ready to buy your products or services. Today Google owns the lion’s share of the search market in contrast to its closest competitors like Yahoo, Yandex, and many, many others.
Even though you may think that other platforms don’t contribute to a brand’s visibility, the truth is that Google owns a considerable portion of the overall user search market. Google is the leader in the industry, and it is a valuable point to consider.
Read more: Why Your Business Needs SEO Optimization
We know that there are many reasons to focus on SEO from a commercial standpoint.
Working on your company’s SEO can help raise the quality of your website, your brand reputation, and your conversions.
But what about the impact on your team?
Having a good SEO strategy in place can actually benefit your company in other ways.
Colleagues’ jobs can be made easier.
They may be equipped with new skills.
It may even help prove the worth of their work.
How SEO Can Positively Impact Other Marketing Channels
There are many important ways in which SEO can impact other marketing channels.
But let’s take a look at how it can help those teams meet their personal and team goals.
Collaboration
A good SEO strategy will never be in isolation from other marketing channels.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, for instance, goes hand-in-hand with SEO. Both channels’ leads need to talk to each other, or there’s going to be a financial impact.
The benefits go beyond money saving, though. SEO is a far-reaching specialism.
We need input on many other teams’ work: brand marketing, CRM, and paid media, to name a few. Through this, SEO can help to unify projects.
Read more: Why Everyone In Your Business Wins With SEO
“We’re currently experiencing longer than usual delays in the Search Console performance report. This only affects reporting, not crawling, indexing, or ranking of websites,” said the Google Search Central Twitter account on the morning of Tuesday, September 21. “We’ll update here once this issue is resolved. Thanks for your patience!”
Many SEOs have noticed the change in their Search Console reports this morning and have taken to social media to ask if they’re the only ones seeing the issue. “Is there a GSC bug? Apologies if I am late to the party here, but the last day we even have partial data available is the 18th?” asked Tessa Bonacci Nadik, Director of SEO Product at Cox Automotive.
She’s not alone. Other SEOS say September 18 was their last day of data. Aleyda Solis reported that her last day of data was September 17.
We’ll continue to update this piece as we know more.
Why we care. If your data isn’t updated, don’t worry just yet. The glitch will likely be fixed soon, but make sure to inform your clients and adjust your weekly reporting to ensure no misunderstandings or data mistakes. If you’re using the Search Console API, it’s also likely you will see 404s until the glitch is remedied. Google assured SEOs that the glitch isn’t affecting how sites are seen or indexed, just how the data is being relayed back to them. It’s also a good reminder to go into Search Console regularly to check your data and not just rely solely on tools that may pull the data into automated reports.
Read more: SEOs experiencing delays in data on Search Console performance reports
You know what negative SEO is (and isn’t). You know how to audit your site to determine if you’ve been hit. You know how to protect yourself to limit your exposure. Now it is time to discuss how to defend yourself against an ongoing negative SEO campaign.
Who is attacking you?
There are a variety of ways to unmask the people targeting you and your site with a negative SEO attack. Some depend on the type of attack you’re experiencing. No matter how they are coming at you, you will need to collect some information in order to shut them down.
Let’s look at common attack methods and see how we can turn the tables and use what they’re doing to us — against them.
Inbound links
Using your favorite link analysis tool, you will need to segment the links you expect to have (your old links) to the new ones you believe are coming from an attack. This step is very easy to oversimplify because link scoring varies significantly, depending on your philosophy of links, risk tolerance and which tool you use to score links. The end result of this step is a list of links you think are part of an attack.
Check to see if the links being used against you are related or follow similar footprints:
- Are you seeing a lot of links from low-quality blogs, scraper sites, bookmarking sites, wikis or directories?
- Did a large number of new inbound links pop up at the same time?
- Are a lot of your new links coming from the same IP address or countries?
- Are the new links using the same anchors over and over?
This massive influx of inbound links can be the work of an individual or group using spam software. Spam software tends to leave some telltale traces, such as a high number of links using the same anchors or a concentration of links from a single specific footprint. An example of this might be links inserted in footers like this: “Powered by phpBB © 2000.”
If you were to look at your backlinks in your favorite link analysis tool, you might not immediately notice specific patterns or certain types of links. Look for unusual patterns such as adult and pharma anchor text phrases in new links, or a high volume of links you cannot attribute to any of your marketing activities. These types of links may indicate a negative SEO attack implemented by someone using a spam tool, or possibly someone using a network of sites.
Read more: How to defend yourself against an ongoing negative SEO campaign
I’m a nerd who loves analytics. I’m also stingy and hate paying monthly for SaaS marketing tools. Fortunately, Google provides all the tools I need to succeed as a marketer without paying a dime or signing up for a free trial.
Below, I share how you can take what Google gives you to create a search engine optimization content strategy and market your business through content on your website.
Google Autocomplete Feature
Nothing gets our creative SEO content strategy juices flowing like Google autocomplete. This tool uses search predictions to suggest what other people are searching for based on the terms you are typing. In other words, it’s a search marketer’s dream. Begin by going to Google.com and typing out the main keywords associated with your product or service. Immediately you should begin seeing the top search predictions based on what other people are searching for.
For example, let’s take “dog food.” Autocomplete will suggest five search queries that are your starting point for an SEO content strategy. Examples: Dog food container. Dog food brands. Dog food coupons.
Take Google autocomplete one step further by typing in every letter of the alphabet after your main keywords. “Dog food a” produces queries like “dog food allergies” and “dog food analysis.” “Dog food b” produces suggestions like “dog food bowl” and “dog food brands.” Make a long list of all the autocomplete suggestions that make sense for your product or service. Spin these keywords into content ideas like “Five Tasty Dog Food Brands That Puppies Love.” Then, get to creating the content.
This search prediction tool uncovers long-tail keywords in an efficient and creative way. It’s a wonderful method to kick off any SEO content creation strategy.
Read more: Use What Google Gives You To Create A Successful SEO Content Strategy
