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Is there anything more disappointing than stumbling upon a treasure map that ultimately leads to...nothing of any real value? And yet, businesses that over-emphasize the use of advanced search engine optimization (SEO) tactics to the detriment of their content strategy run the risk of doing just that.

On the other hand, companies that stress content strategy without bolstering their technical SEO efforts make the opposite marketing mistake; they are, in effect, burying marketing "treasure" (i.e. great content) in the vast sands of the internet wasteland without bothering to create a keyword map.

For search engine success, make sure you do not treat SEO and content strategy as two distinct and separate marketing disciplines. While it's certainly possible to do so, it's not a winning SEO content marketing strategy for building long-term customer engagement.

Your SEO strategy should inform your content strategy. Similarly, your onsite content strategy should be tailored to your keyword research. Consequently, great content targeted to specific keywords and arranged in a topic cluster can help your brand rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).

We was like peas and carrots.

SEO and content strategy tactics can helpfully be compared to a keyword treasure map that leads to buried marketing treasure. SEO and content strategy go together like peas and carrots. Peanut butter and jelly. Pick whatever metaphor works for you; the point is that you'll need both to succeed.

As you look to begin content marketing or raise the profile of your existing enterprise, keep the following critical SEO content practices in mind. Refer to them often as you strategize, hire, acquire, reboot, conduct your keyword research, and reconfigure your content plan.

1. Zero In on Your Target Audience

The old axiom certainly proves true in the world of content strategy. "If you aim at nothing in particular, you're sure to hit it."

When engaging in online marketing, you absolutely must know who you are trying to reach. If you attempt to reach everyone with your existing content, you are increasingly unlikely to use the right keyword strategy or engage with anyone.

Do your keyword homework. The time you spend on your SEO content strategy will pay dividends later on.

Build a handful of buyer personas to guide the efforts of your writers, website developers, and marketers as they optimize your SEO strategy to hit your keyword sweet spots.

2. Pick Topics Based on Your Expertise

Avoid the SEO content strategy mistake of trying to appeal to everyone with a wide array of marketing information.

If you're like most companies, your business operates in a specific niche. As a result, you will want your SEO content strategy to remain solidly in your lane. Start asking others if you struggle to identify what makes your business special. As part of your content strategy, pay particular attention to the inquiries that routinely come your way via social media or other channels.

Many business owners are tempted to hold back a bit at this stage in the SEO content strategy. The operational (though faulty) logic is to reserve your best bits for paying customers.

However, living in a world where people consult a Google search result to answer everyday issues, this is a shortsighted content strategy. According to the Content Marketing Institute, it's been clearly shown that companies who consistently put out reliable content marketing information without paywalls tend to build up social media followers and, ultimately, customers.

3. Choose Your Keywords Carefully

Keyword research is the "secret sauce" that separates a successful content marketing strategy from one that's solidly mediocre. This is the second step at which taking the time to conduct research will be most helpful. If your content strategy focuses on a keyword that's too broad, larger corporations are likely going to bury your content marketing efforts.

Long tail keywords can be key to a winning strategy as you seek to reach a specific target audience. A long tail relevant keyword typically consists of three to five words. This keyword strategy helps your content marketing cut through the noise and yield targeted search results more likely to result in a conversion. At the end of the day you want to be targeting the keywords that your audience is searching.

4. Create Content To Build Topical Authority

Now that you are clear on your target audience, areas of expertise, and marketing keyword, you're ready to begin producing new content.

Every decision of your content strategist should be driven by the audience research you conducted in Step One. Your content marketing needs to show up wherever your people already are, not where you expect them to travel. 

Stick with what you know best and create the content that your brand should be known for. You'll struggle to rank for your target keywords if you don't have a strong web of content on your site around your key topics.

In addition, your content strategy should be tightly bound up with search intent. Are people looking to purchase when searching your target keyword? Or are they looking to get information and education on a subject? In other words, focus your content on what your users need when searching that keyword. If you are trying to rank a product page when people are looking for educational guides when searching that keyword, you likely won't see the progress you're hoping for.

5. Link, Interlink, and Backlink

If you've published high quality content, especially content that solves problems, you can reasonably expect other people to begin linking to your site. Good content is its own advertisement, though initially you might want to augment your visibility with Google Ads or some other paid content marketer service. Backlinks suggest to search engines that you are a leader in your field. This, in turn, will help boost your domain authority and your rank on a Google SERP.

You will want to interlink these pieces within your website as you produce value-laden how-to guides, white papers, instructional videos, and more. Then you can start link outreach efforts and see if you can get other authoritative sites to link back to your content. You may even start ranking for your target keywords with your rankable content. The point is that relevant keyword linking practices is a strategy that will pay off in the long run.

6. Commit to Ongoing Improvement

Search engines are constantly crawling the internet and updating their SERPs according to the latest data they can collect. As a result, a keyword that worked great as part of your content strategy just two weeks ago may already be starting to slip a bit. This is where your SEO audit comes into play.

Make sure you consistently monitor your Google Analytics and social media platforms. Similarly, collect empirical marketing data ahead of your decision-making. Dive into what is working and what isn’t for your content marketing by looking at what content is driving traffic in Google Search Console or some other SEO tool that suits your needs. You might even share your search engine data with an SEO agency and have them provide additional marketing insights.

Analytics, search engines, marketing statistics, and spreadsheets might not be "your thing," and that's OK. However, you owe it to your company's future marketing success to ensure that someone you trust is combing through the piles of search engine data to identify current trends. In a time crunch, it might be tempting to leave outdated videos on your site or hold off on retooling a page with a high bounce rate. In those moments, remind yourself of your marketing strategy. Recall how you felt when you were led to information on the web that wasted your time.

Wrapping Up

Every business, large or small, thrives by providing valuable products and services at a competitive price point. Along the way, you refine and sharpen your niche-specific expertise. When that expertise fuels content ideas and you share it freely, you kindle potential customer gratitude. In today's world of eCommerce and SEO content, successful businesses are learning the value of reliability. Trust and appreciation are vital for gaining the attention of search engines and (ultimately) making sales.

Your content strategy will probably need a tune-up every so often. However, the time you invest in SEO content marketing is well worthwhile.

Regardless of your niche, there's almost certainly a way to leverage your knowledge and insights. You can create quality content that cuts through all the search engine clutter and results in SEO success. If you are struggling in the digital marketing space or need help balancing your content strategy or other SEO services, don't go it alone! Feel free to schedule a time to chat with one of our subject matter experts.

In a world where traditional marketing can feel gimmicky and forced, authenticity is key. By now you’ve likely heard of thought leadership, you may have even been tasked with creating a strategy, but what is it? Thought leadership is about educating your audience, focusing on their needs, and establishing yourself as a reliable source of knowledge.

It has evolved as a strategy for building a business and brand awareness as well as a personal brand. Being a thought leader means your views are trusted, and you get to be the go-to person or subject matter expert in your respective field.

With information constantly flooding the Internet, providing resources that are actually relevant and contain the information audiences need can set you apart and put you top of mind for consumers. You want to start your thought leadership strategy by looking inward at your own values and ideals, rather than outward where you’ll likely end up repeating current trends.

With that said, why is it important and how do you implement a successful thought leadership strategy? What are the benefits that come from this type of strategy? Keep reading.

What is a thought leadership strategy?

Thought leadership can be difficult to understand, as it means something different to a variety of people. As a strategy, it’s a scalable way to influence people outside of your organization, and it’s key for building a strong brand. According to Semrush, “Thought leadership is the delivery of authentic and genuine content that uses the expertise, insight, and experience of the author, with the goal of sharing that wisdom with others.”

As part of a content marketing strategy, thought leadership focuses more on information that establishes your company as an expert in your field rather than selling products or services. You can leverage your company’s knowledge. In short, the goal is to answer questions that those in your target audience are asking.

Rather than educating buyers on what you want them to know; thought leadership focuses on sharing information that audience members gain value from knowing. It helps to ask whether or not your content focuses on messages you want to send or information that is useful for clients to hear. If you provide helpful information, your target audience will turn to you when they need help finding a product, service, or answers, and you can be the one they think of first. When done well, thought leadership is a key component of an inbound marketing strategy.

What resources do you need to implement a thought leadership strategy?

While some thought leaders create and distribute content on their own, your organization can benefit from a team focused on improving your thought leadership strategy. If you have the resources to hire in house, here are some common skill sets to look for:

Strategist: Basically someone who can align thought leadership with other business strategies. Somebody who can align content or think how it affects the bigger picture and your overall content marketing strategy. Also someone that can be the quarterback for keeping track of all the content and how it all aligns with each other.

Content Creators/Editors: Sometimes you can find someone that is both a content writer and editor, but ones that are amazing at both are somewhat unicorns. A keen editorial sense is a rare skill. These creative people are fantastic at finding a new angle on popular topics. Sometimes you have to hire both a content creator and an editor then scale up, depending how big your company is.

PR/Media/Blog Relationship Manager: People are switching jobs in media all the time so it’s hard to maintain relationships. Having someone that is consistently focused on managing these connections is invaluable. They have to focus on staying in touch, rather than traditional public relations cold pitching. A good intern could make a cold call. This manager isn’t just someone that can maintain relationships with publications because these days brands that you partner with need a more personal approach.

SEO Expert: Since SEO is such a massive part of how people find thought leadership, having someone on your team that makes sure the site is set up well and manages aspects like keyword research, intent research, and has the relationship to get natural placements to compliment the PR efforts above is necessary. If you have both PR related placements happening at the same time as SEO placements then you can really move the needle on your thought leadership.

The elements above are important if you are building your own team. If you want this taken care of by an agency, then they should have all the above covered. You don’t have to have them take over everything though. If it’s a good agency they will look to compliment your efforts and fill in gaps. Book a call with a Relevance strategist here, and they can help you identify the best resources for your company.

thought leadership strategy roles

Launching a Thought Leadership Strategy

The first step with any strategy is defining your goals. You have to establish why you’re pursuing thought leadership in the first place, and you should make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons. Effective thought leadership strategies build trust and share new ideas.

An effective strategy also requires bold content. If you or someone on your team is an expert in their field, they can’t be timid in their perspective. Media is full of articles and interviews where individuals avoid being portrayed as biased one way or another. If you take a stand and are confident on a subject matter, people will see you as a thought leader and come to you for your expertise.

Once you’ve determined your goals and embraced your values, you want to create content to push out ideas and ideally get others thinking. Review existing thought leadership within your company to make sure you stay consistent and authentic. If previous ideas don’t align with your business’s current values, address that. As much as you appreciate honesty and transparency, so do consumers and your clients.

Most thought leadership content consists of articles or blogs, but video content, presentations, and research are other options you could consider, like a webinar or whitepaper. Different information benefits from different presentation formats. If your thought leadership area of expertise focuses on artistic concepts, visual formats will likely prove beneficial. However, if your ideas can be expressed relatively easily in words, articles and blogs are accessible and work well to spread information.

Remember once you’ve created a thought leadership piece, you need to distribute it to a wider audience. As great as your information is, it can’t make an impact without reaching other people. Promoting on your own website and social media channels is a great place to start, but you also have to direct people to your owned media before they’ll read that content.

This distribution stage is where those resources mentioned earlier, specifically a relationship manager, come in handy. Utilizing relationships with publications and different media outlets can help you get your message across to more people. Pitch your ideas to journalists, offer to be a guest speaker for related events, collaborate with other thought leaders who share your values. If you have the budget, you can also consider paid promotions and sponsorships.

Thought leadership is about engagement and creating a conversation, so once you’ve distributed content, make sure you check how it’s received. If additional topics come up as consumers respond, be there to answer questions and offer new ideas. Part of being a thought leader is providing your audience with your perspective. Measure your engagement. As with any strategy, it’s important to see if the steps you took successfully met your initial goals.

If your goals are met, keep looking for ways to improve and continue offering unique perspectives and valuable insights. If your ideas were not well received, reevaluate your goals and strategy. It may be useful to talk with other thought leaders or reach out to industry experts.

What Executives Should You Include in A Thought Leadership Strategy?

When deciding who to include in your thought leadership strategy consider who aligns with your company values, has innovative ideas, impactful knowledge, and is willing to publicly share their thoughts. Aside from asking those foundational questions, it’s important to take into consideration a couple aspects:

1. Do these executives have time to spare for these initiatives?

If they are too busy, they will be unresponsive, and it can be like pulling teeth to get their thoughts down. While you can look at their schedules to try to judge if they have capacity, it’s usually best to ask people directly whether they have time for these plans.

2. Does the executive seem to cooperate, and are they easy to work with?

Time is one barrier, but so is the executive that is so controlling you can never get approval or every word published will be picked apart. When executives function as thought leaders that needs to be their number one priority. Nit-picking every comma and colon is a job for an editor, and strategists should be allowed to focus on the big picture.

Benefits of Thought Leadership

Thought leadership can help you increase your brand positioning, enhance your market visibility, and improve brand loyalty. Delivering authentic and genuine content can also boost your brand credibility and authority. Incidentally, it can also strengthen your SEO profile.

The thought leadership approach is typically considered effective when an organization earns loyalty from consumers, that encourages them to advocate for a company to the people in their social circles. This often stems from a shared value, not simply a product or service the business provides. This action can ignite a chain of positive reactions.

SEO

While it isn’t an SEO strategy, thought leadership can often unintentionally generate backlinks and increase shares and mentions. It’s clear that Google and other search engines are rewarding real thought leaders rather than the SEO hacks of old. While you have to earn these days, it is an amazing opportunity for companies to lead their industry in the long-term. If you are successful with your thought leadership and align it with the right SEO strategies, it will show up in the right places and bring revenue in the door.

PR

Contributors and journalists don’t have the same time on their hands they used to. Newspapers and other publications are often working with smaller budgets. Nowadays, they are searching around for existing articles to source. If you are viewed as a thought leader in your industry, then you can consistently get free press, and it’s a compounding effect that can consistently grow. Being able to offer quotes and provide information for articles will continue to help you be seen as an expert in your wheelhouse.

Recruiting

People want to work for the companies they believe are the best and treat employees well. Thought leadership can be used to nurture recruits and connect on a human level. If a leader of a company uses thought leadership to promote their way of thinking and core values that will likely attract like-minded people to join their team and their audience base.

Paid advertising

Take a moment to think about this: If you see a company showing up in a search result as a leader in the space are you more likely to click on their ad? Absolutely. Also, if you click on the ad and go on their site and engage in the content, are you more likely to spend? Definitely. Companies that have higher trust scores and thought leadership convert well on paid campaigns.

Sales

In B2B thought leadership is a massive asset. Your sales people can send articles where your leaders are quoted. One of my favorite magic tricks is for a sales person to ask a potential customer to search in their phone and see that there’s an article from your site ranking for the keyword they type in. Thought leadership shows potential clients that you are an industry leader.

marketing strategy

Specific Niches of Thought Leadership

Thought leadership can be slightly different in different verticals, but here are common niches that use thought leadership as a consistent strategy. Really every niche should be investing in thought leadership since it builds trust and can enjoy the benefits listed above, but here are a couple examples:

Finance

Thought leadership is consistently used as a strategy to differentiate from competitors, and this is no less true amongst financial services. There are opportunities for financial services firms that can equip their clients with the insightful, well-supported, and timely content. Finance is a unique industry for thought leadership because those generating new ideas here can influence investing choices, guide clients through uncertain financial times, and use specific content to outshine competitors by gaining trust.

Technology

As technology is continuously seeing advancements and the digital world we live in evolves, leaders in the technology industry can’t simply recycle what others are saying. Technology influences every other industry, as companies turn to tech to understand emerging trends. So original ideas are crucial. Identifying and articulating new ideas in technology influences consumer’s trust, which is especially important in tech, as consumers consider the security of their personal information and how to avoid cyber attacks.

Marketing

Going back to the problem of being too gimmicky, the marketing industry can be especially guilty. Marketing is all about ensuring your organization stands out, so it makes sense that fighting the herd-mentality through thought leadership positively influences this sector. The content you publish can elevate your brand in the eyes of your target audience. Additionally, genuine thought leadership can drive traffic to your site, convert leads, and build brand authority.

Healthcare

Similar to tech, healthcare is an industry that is constantly seeing updates and information is always changing. Consumers often feel confused and intimidated in these types of spaces, so there are many benefits that come from making yourself a trusted resource. Utilizing thought leadership in healthcare can be difficult, as professional standards and expectations for credibility are high. However, if you can be successful, you’ll see returns.

B2B vs. B2C

Thought leaders influence the marketing world from idea generation to purchasing power. In fact, it can even generate business. According to a 2021 LinkedIn-Edelman report, more than half of company decision makers say thought leadership provides proof that an organization genuinely understands their specific business challenges. This trust, in turn, often converts to sales.

B2B Thought Leadership

In the B2B marketplace, if your brand has nothing to say, it often means you’ve lost the race. You likely didn’t even make it to the line up. Since a lot of B2B sales are based on trust, to be considered, you have to broadcast your knowledge. Buyers conduct a larger percentage of their research on a company before they reach out, so it’s important your message reflects well. There are a lot of opportunities to spend big dollar amounts in the B2B world, so people want to work with the best and people that they feel are experts.

B2C Thought Leadership

Is a bit more qualitative initially because you are focused around building a brand from which people will want to buy their product. However, it can make a massive difference on sales conversions, SEO results, and PR opportunities, so it’s important to make some level of investment.

Ready for Next Steps?

When you’re just starting your journey with thought leadership, it can be a lot to consider, and it may even seem overwhelming. Gathering information to learn more about thought leadership is a great way to prepare to create your own strategy. Remember to be genuine and recognize the resources you have available within yourself and within your business. Big ideas can have a big impact. If you’re ready to get started putting this information into action, download your free simple thought leadership template here!

Prospective customers simply are not finding your product or service by using their smartphones to search. Worse, your competitors seem to have a crack SEO team at work. They've cornered the search engine market using keywords that strike at the heart of your business model. This is intolerable, of course, because you’re the best at what you do! Countless potential customers are being led horribly astray.

Deep breath. Awareness of a problem has taken hold. This is the necessary first step.

You’ve already taken the steps of committing to the process of improving your online performance through learning more about SEO, digital PR, geotagging, the primary types of keywords, website analytics, and more. However, as you began digging into the details, it became clear that no one person can possibly accomplish everything needed to improve — and retain — higher rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs). You ultimately arrive at the realization that you need to hire more staff.

With that realization, you’ve taken the necessary second step — one that is frequently the most challenging. Very likely, the investment required to construct a search engine optimization (SEO) team from scratch seems daunting.

Don't Allow Panic to Make Your Situation Worse

However, you should never undertake building your team in a hurry. Instead, objectively assess your efforts to date. Realistically evaluate the skills you already have on board with existing team members. Commit to starting small and building consistently over time. SEO team success requires that you play the long game.

SMB owners might decide to combine some of the roles listed below. They might hold off hiring in one area to beef up in another. You'll want to set up something suited to your unique needs. There is no “one size fits all” approach that applies to every niche. Feel free to adapt these broad categories to arrive at a customized solution for your SEO team. Plan to review progress and identify deficits at least once per quarter.

Setting Your SEO Team Up for Success

1. SEO Team Lead

As with any company-wide initiative, the buck ultimately has to stop with someone. Given the constantly shifting terrain of the SEO realm, it’s all too easy for team members to get so far down into their respective rabbit holes that they lose sight of the bigger picture. Perhaps nowhere is the frequency of this common issue easier to get out of hand than during an SEO overhaul.

Whether you call this person the “Chief SEO Executive” or “SEO Top Banana” will be a function of the nature of your business and the overall vibe of your company culture. How you title this position is far less critical than it is that it signals authority. Everyone on your team signs off on the notion that whatever this individual says….goes. Every decision this person makes is final, for better or worse. Full stop.

Ideal characteristics for this role would include a high degree of flexibility, calm demeanor (i.e., not easily agitated), strong communication skills, and the ability to play the long game consistently. This person has a well-defined game plan that includes a unified approach, frequent praise for milestones achieved, and benchmarks that can adapt to changing market conditions.

Ideally, this person also has a strong background in PR and serves as a liaison between the SEO team and PR personnel. As the PR people are working to create positive brand awareness, those efforts are likely to uncover opportunities for back-linking, referral traffic, and building up the authority of your company’s website assets

2. Digital Content Lead

This person is responsible for planning, creating, and regularly updating the Content Creation and Publication calendar. One of the most frequent mistakes that SEO team leadership makes is seriously underestimating just how much legwork is involved in this singular task. After all, the end result is a calendar display that provides a consistent view for all team members. On the surface, it doesn’t seem like much of an end product.

In this case, appearances can be deceiving. The content lead is responsible for interacting with every member of the SEO team, coordinating the production and editing of 100% original content, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of every team member, and (not least) keeping a grip on approved vacation schedules. This person is also well versed in big-picture company objectives and the keywords required to obtain them.

Whoever occupies this position should (ideally) be a direct report to team leadership. These first two positions are frequently combined into one, but in most cases, that is not an ideal structure. If you must start out this way, look to split the two responsibilities at your earliest opportunity.

3. On-Page SEO Specialist

Among marketing specialists, the on-page SEO specialist can perhaps be considered your company’s online content introvert. Of course, they are always looking outward for research and trends to help optimize internal content creation efforts, too. However, the primary focus is creating, tweaking, and constantly fine-tuning company-curated websites, social media channels, videos, and all other publicly available digital media under the direct control of your SEO team.

There is certainly no shortage of sample job descriptions for this position available online. However, key attributes to keep in mind are the ability to work well with content creators to optimize copy, revise landing pages, caption photos, edit videos, conduct research, and bring their insights to bear on pre-existing, current, and future content creation. At times, this person might recommend that precious pieces of digital content be revised beyond recognition…or deleted altogether. As you might well guess, having some diplomacy skills will prove helpful.

4. Off-Page SEO Analyst/Technician

This function is quite similar to that of the on-page SEO team specialist, but the primary focus is consistently outward. This person relies on data-driven reporting — website analytics, sales figures, impartial niche rankings, and so forth. They use these as tools for connecting with external entities that might reasonably have an incentive for creating inbound links. The off-page specialist is particularly interested in boosting the overall credibility of the company. The key concepts for this person are overall content relevance, perceived trustworthiness, and domain authority.

If relationship building, outreach, and link building (see below), can be meaningfully compared to sales, this position can perhaps be analogous to customer service. There is likely to be a great deal of crossover between the on-page and off-page duties, but there are shades of difference in approach, which (again) is why it’s often best to split these responsibilities between staff. Your on-page people are responsible for “baking the world’s greatest cake.” Off-page expertise requires an ability to answer the question, “Why aren’t more people buying?”

5. Relationship Management, Outreach, and Link Building

On the surface, this position sounds a lot like sales, but it’s slightly more than just that. Yes, this position approaches external entities to gauge interest in collaboration, but it does not stop there. Given the fluid nature of online content — what works well one day might quite literally tank the next — this person’s responsibilities don’t end once someone cuts a check. Instead, this person maintains an abiding enthusiasm for the success of clients. They conduct regular research to share with clients to help them stay on top of SERPs and continuously enhance their reputation.

What Win-Win Relationship Building 'Looks Like'

There’s a terrific scene toward the end of the 1996 film Jerry McGuire. The title character authentically celebrates a significant victory for one of his sports clients. Across the field, another client who signed with a competing firm wonders why his agent never shows that level of enthusiasm. Separating quick sales from abiding interest marks the dividing line between sales and ongoing support. Staff in this position work for your company, yes. However, they are constantly on the prowl for opportunities that might benefit the external entities with whom they interact.

This position requires a deep understanding of the need to bring win-win propositions to the table week after week. The relationship management employee must maintain a keen awareness of what the on-page and off-page specialists do. They must understand how it can be leveraged to their client’s advantage. They must be able to speak to both highly knowledgeable SEO customers and those who need it boiled down to the most superficial level. This person must be able to explain how inbound links are most likely to come about, what can be done to boost online reputation, and more.

At the level of the SMB, relationship building might translate into better working relationships with suppliers, other businesses, customers, nonprofits, and local, state, and federal governments. In short, this person seeks to position your company such that other entities want to be associated with it, both online and in real life.

6. Technical SEO Team Support

Depending on the size of your business, you may start out with your web hosting and maintenance services being outsourced. Most SMBs do begin their online adventures precisely like that, and many choose to keep it that way. This might be perfectly acceptable in your situation and you, therefore, see no need to hire any professional “web nerds.”

Fair enough, but keep in mind that whenever you outsource anything, you enter into a queue. The level of priority you represent to that company will be in direct proportion to how sizable your account is as compared to others. Suppose that service provider has clients whose monthly recurring revenue (MRR) dwarfs that of your company. It’s not hard to guess who is going to get faster turnaround times on service requests. This sort of prioritization is to be expected, so patience may be needed.

Having a technical person or team just down the hall from your office can make all the difference in the world when it comes to the need to update the website core, scan for plugin conflicts and promulgate desired mark-up practices for both on-page and off-page SEO teams.

These people need to not only be highly conversant in what works best for SEO now, but they are also forward-looking. Suppose you’ve ever had a hosting provider send you an urgent email. They urgently inform you that you must update your site structure immediately. In that case, you know full well the value of getting advance notice. Forward-thinking does not throw your entire company into panic mode.

Play the Long Game with Your SEO Team Members

As mentioned at the beginning, there is no hard-and-fast rule for how to construct an SEO team that will meaningfully contribute to your company’s success. You can probably expect at least a certain amount of trial and error as you move forward. Copying what works for one company in your niche usually doesn’t work, either. Your unique selling proposition should be different from your competitors, so your strategy should differentiate, not blur, distinctions.

Of course, the sky’s the limit when it comes to conquering the digital realm and owning the industry you occupy through the use of custom SEO. What you probably do not want to do is hire a bunch of people only to turn around and let many or most of them go six months later. The impact of such a move will be devastating to the morale of the team members who remain.

If the staffing budget represents an initial stumbling block, better to combine a few of the roles listed above into one as a solid starting point. Just maintain ongoing awareness that it's easy to overwhelm you digital PR team. Many times burnout can creep up on even your most energetic team members without their realizing it. Be ready to add staff as need dictates, before your people begin to lose their energy and excitement.

The best SEO professionals in the world have stopped using the trial and error method for generating traffic to the sites of their clients. They already know the SEO tricks that work and what doesn’t work through deep research, which is why hiring a seo agency can be helpful.

But we can all learn from their smart strategies and gain a reasonably good understanding of SEO before we go on to the hiring stage. The SEO tricks are nothing more than a logical series of methods that sync together to drive more traffic to your website. Today, SEO is more about creating a brand presence, awareness, and brand voice online. You can start with a brilliant logo, complete with branded content on a responsive website design, and optimize it for search engines. However, it can't go further than that if you are looking for results with more leads, more customers, and more opportunities to upsell other services and products. 

That's why we are here to help. Let’s take a look at these marketing hacks professionals use to increase the sustainability of their brands online. 

Change the Way You Write Blogs

Up until a few years ago, the correct way for a company to do blogging was simple. All you had to do was a blog on a regular, consistent basis and add a few key phrases. But this oversimplified method of blogging soon resulted in a plethora of unread content being distributed all over the web, and most of this content wasn’t particularly useful to anyone.

Today, blogging algorithms look for more than keywords. Experts recognize that blogging has to be meaningful if search engines are going to pay attention. If a blog isn’t entertaining, helpful, or interesting, it will almost certainly fall by the wayside—and drag your website ranking down with it. Here’s what professional marketers are doing today.

FAQ Blogs

Blogs must be helpful, and what better way to help your audience than by answering questions? FAQ blogs can be long-form articles that contain interesting content but are mostly made up of questions & answers.

A 2021 Study showed that 8% of Google queries are questions! Chances are, if someone is asking about anything related to your industry, they’ll land up on your site if you’re the one answering their questions.

Blog Pillar Posts

The blog pillar post concept has been a severely neglected method of blogging, but it’s super effective if done correctly.

The premise is that you write one primary blog for your website and continue to update it on a monthly basis. Adding to and tweaking the same blog month after month is something Google relishes, and this will set your website up as an authority on the topic you’ve written about.

Video & Image Content

If your blogs are void of images and videos, you’re probably not going to be too popular with search engines. Images allow you to link your content in a meaningful way to social media platforms, while videos help you to connect with the ever-large YouTube audience. These connections are essential in broadening your outreach over the web.

Learn Call-To-Action Psychology

Marketing professionals are trained to understand the psychology behind marketing. Although this can take years to learn, you can also implement some basic psychological positives into your call to action processes:

CTA Psychology is a fascinating subject, and you’ll do your SEO a massive favor if you learn it.

The Importance of Research: Measure Twice, Cut Once

The best SEO experts never presume anything. They test, research, and investigate as much as possible before delving into a digital marketing campaign. They strive to learn the buying habits of their target audience and spend a lot of time planning their marketing strategy before executing it.

Taking the time to perform this SEO trick will effectually improve the results of your SEO efforts because it’s always wisest to measure twice and cut once!

Teach Your Audience

Developing free training courses and online tutorials have become a wildly popular lead magnet for those who want to set themselves up as experts in any given industry. As an expert, you will garner the trust of your target audience and consistently direct them to your site, your services, and your offers.

Create Combination Campaigns

Covering all your bases is a good SEO trick to ensure success. If you’re only focusing on one aspect of SEO, you’re missing out on a myriad of others.

It’s also crucial that these aspects be connected to one another. Here’s a checklist you can use to ensure you always combine your marketing efforts:

Putting all of these together is the best way to ensure the best possible outcome for your SEO.

Final Thoughts

SEO has become the cornerstone of online content. If you want to get the most out of your SEO then follow the tips we’ve provided in today’s article. 

Even if your business is small, chances are you have some big competition. And in the digital age, you and your competitors are both vying for visibility, traffic, credibility, and authority online. When you want your business to stand out from your competitors, creating rankable content for SEO that positions you at the top of search engines’ rankings is key.

But when it comes to creating content that ranks, providing helpful information for humans simply isn’t enough. There’s also a great deal of search engine optimization (SEO) strategy involved in the creation of any high-ranking content piece. And if you don’t get the strategy right, chances are you won’t get the results you’re after either.

So what exactly is rankable content and how do you create it? Read on to find out.

What Is Rankable Content?

Rankable content is easily readable, search-engine-optimized content that’s created to rank for a target keyword or keyword phrase. This type of high-quality content also targets a user’s search intent for specific keywords. That means it’s relevant to the user’s “what and why” behind a specific search query and provides valuable and accurate information.

Aside from having target keywords and providing value, rankable content must also be competitive with other content that ranks highly for the same search terms and search intent.

Develop a Customized SEO Strategy

Do you know what your industry’s top-converting keywords are? Do you know your target audience’s search intent for specific keywords? Do you understand how to organize your content so search engines know how to index your site and identify your area of authority?

If you’re unsure of any of these things, you’ll have a tough time creating content that ranks highly in search engines. That’s where a custom SEO strategy comes in.

There are more than 200 factors that determine where a piece of content ranks in search engine results for a specific keyword. Custom SEO planning analyzes what your business is trying to achieve with your content and maps out a strategic plan to help you attain those results.

A custom strategy not only includes on-page SEO, which focuses on on-site content and structure but also off-page and technical SEO. When you get all three elements right, your content starts to move up in search engines’ rankings.

If you’re currently creating the content you think people are looking for, you’re missing the mark. A custom SEO strategy will allow you to craft content that you know users are definitely searching for, which will ensure your content becomes more rankable over time.

Write Valuable, Targeted Content

Long-form content also tends to earn a great deal of backlinks and shares, both of which influence search engine rankings. When crafting rankable content, your overarching goal is to provide the reader with valuable information that’s relevant to a specific search query. Make sure you’re writing content that aligns with the length of content that is currently ranking for your targeted term.

But to create in-depth content that targets a user’s search intent, you must first understand the type of content you’re creating and how that affects its ideal word count. A “how-to” post will naturally require more content than a simple “what is X?” post. The amount of research required to support the content will also determine an optimal length.

When creating valuable content, you must also consider the content your competitors are publishing. Does your content provide more value? Does it deliver more accurate information? Does it cover subtopics that your competitors’ content doesn’t cover? If you can provide more value related to specific keywords and search queries, you stand an excellent chance of outranking your competition.

Create Scannable Content

Attention spans are short these days. People get scared off by huge blocks of text. Readers want information that’s not only easy to find but also easy to digest and retain. According to studies, over 75% of digital users don’t read online text in its entirety. That means your content must be scannable if you want it to rank.

What’s scannable content? It’s content that’s formatted in a way that allows readers to quickly grasp the major points of your message. Scannable content includes:

Optimize Your Content for More Keywords

When you’re trying to rank for target keywords, you must consider how competitive those keywords are. Only going after high-competition keywords can make ranking tough, especially if you’re competing with very high-authority sites that already have super-strong SEO. That’s where finding high-volume, low-competition keywords that you can also target can be helpful.

Your competitors may not be targeting those keywords, but your target audience is searching for them. So if you target a mix of high- and low-competition keywords and phrases, your content ultimately stands a better chance of moving up through search engine rankings.

Creating rankable content isn’t difficult, but it does require strategy. If you’re unsure how to create an SEO and content marketing strategy that’ll get you the results you’re looking for, Relevance can help.

 

7 Innovations in Search Engine Optimization and Their Application

The search engine optimization industry is constantly making innovations. Likewise, new technologies regularly emerge to help marketers and developers streamline their content creation strategy to achieve better organic search results. As a result, to ensure that your brand stays relevant in search engine results, you'll need an SEO expert to adapt to these fast-changing technologies and the latest trends in online marketing, social media, and more.

Don't get left behind. To reach your potential customer, your search engine marketing plan will need to combine social media, link building, email marketing, keyword research, Google AdWords, backlinks, and (of course) great fresh content. Your targeted audience will find you once you begin to rise in search engine ranking.

Learn to scale your SEO process, use specific keywords, tweak all of your core web vitals, and generate a high-quality search result. Do this by implementing these seven innovations in search engine optimization as a core component of your marketing strategy. There is a lot of trial and error involved with attaining effective SEO and digital marketing success, so plan on that!

1. Mobile-First Indexing for Improved SEO Ranking

Did you know that 50.81% of total global website traffic comes from mobile devices? Search engines, as a result, have begun prioritizing mobile-friendly content.

Smartphone proliferation has grown by leaps and bounds. As a result, more and more users are switching to mobile search rather than using desktops, laptops, or other devices. Your SEO efforts and content marketing will stall out if you're designing and marketing for desktop and ignoring what Google Analytics is trying to tell you.

In response to the dramatic increase in mobile search, Google Search introduced the approach of mobile-first indexing. This approach uses the mobile version of a website to index and rank it in search engine result pages (SERPs). Consequently, Google rolled out its mobile-first indexing for every website. That being so, optimizing websites to be mobile-friendly and cross-device compatible has become more pertinent for marketing than ever.

Google is steadily moving toward indexing only mobile versions of websites rather than desktop versions. If your website is still focused primarily on its desktop index and not optimized for mobile viewing, then it is likely that Google may not index it at all even if your relevant keywords are all top-notch. Obviously, this is likely to significantly affect your search engine rankings and ROI.

The need of the hour is to switch to responsive website design with Google mobile-first indexing, fast loading time, and improved user-friendliness.

Optimize dynamic website content and images to deliver enhanced mobile experiences. Mobile-first indexing can help boost your page rankings and organic traffic and backlinks using a mobile-optimized version of your site.

2. Natural Language Processing: Producing Effective Short-Form Content

Ever since Google rolled out its 2019 Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) algorithm update, Natural Language Processing (NLP) has emerged as a technology innovation powering the SEO industry.

Using NLP, Googles algorithm looks at the context of a word as it appears within a sentence to understand its meaning. This means that Google will no longer rely on particular search terms and phrases to provide the most relevant answers. Rather, they will look into the intent behind the search.

Leveraging BERT, the Google algorithm now understands the context behind every search and then provides appropriate information.

"By trying to understand the 'context' of search queries, and by mining the relationship between stop-words with other words in the query, Google's BERT algorithm pushes the limits of how a traditional search engine understands a user's needs. With Google weighing in on NLP to gain a deeper understanding of user queries, it implies that content-makers who get more specific, relevant, and descriptive with their content and information - including links - in their pages tend to rank higher."

Jaya Kumar Data Scientist, Deep Learning and NLP Specialist

From the perspective of SEO, NLP is important to marketing because creating high-quality, informational content will help make it most relevant to a searcher's intent and not the keywords they are using.

3. SSL Certificate Labeling for Strengthening Customer Trust

While often overlooked, SSL certificate (HTTPS) labeling is an important SEO trend that businesses must consider. HTTPS is a crucial ranking factor for Google as it secures improved trust with your target audience. Ongoing innovations in search engine optimization have only reinforced this requirement.

Websites that hold an SSL certificate are labeled as "HTTPS" by Google. This indicates that the site offers high-level security and integrity. The security of user data is a vital factor! It can help boost your search engine rankings and drive increased traffic.

A site that does not hold SSL certification or is a non-HTTPS site will be labeled as "Not Secure" by Google and other search engines. This can significantly affect search engine rankings. Additionally, end-users will be reluctant to visit any site that is not safe.

The implications for innovation in this space are clear. To boost search engine rankings and offer a secure browsing experience, websites must obtain a basic SSL certificate. It's now an integral element of any SEO strategy.

4. Automated Content Curation Using GPT-3

If you are looking for true innovations within the SEO industry and digital marketing, the Generative Pre-Trained Transformer Number 3 (GPT-3) is worth your attention. One of the most prominent examples of its application is a 2020 story published by The Guardian on its website - written entirely by a robot.

Using a broad pool of datasets, GPT-3 technology is trained to mimic the way humans write. Some of the datasets it uses come from Wikipedia, Common Crawl Dataset, historical books, etc. When you input a writing prompt into GPT-3, it will read the relevant information on the internet and predict what will follow next.

As such, the GPT-3 API is a revolutionary content curation tool you can use across different SEO applications. These include tasks such as writing emails or creating the first draft of a report. All you need to do is feed the API some bullet points as an outline, keeping your keyword ranking in mind, and the robot will write it automatically.

5. On-Page Automated SEO Optimization for Enhanced Search Experience

Google has been continuously updating its algorithm to offer an improved search experience to users. As a part of its algorithm update, the search engine giant now considers long-form content as a vital ranking factor. Long-form content ideally takes a more in-depth approach to the topic and, as such, tends to meet the searcher's intent.

However, writing high-quality and relevant long-form content is not easy. It involves considering a wide range of factors such as competitor research, keyword discovery, topic selection, creating engaging headings and subheadings, providing valuable insights, constructing a social media support strategy, and much more.

Continuously creating unique content that is of value to your readers is one of the more challenging innovations in search engine optimization.

"One of the first places I turn for new article ideas is the 'Top Content' area found within my Google Analytics account. There, I'm able to access a quick list of the posts on my site that have been viewed the most often, providing me with some interesting insight into the subject matter that my audience finds most interesting."

Eric Siu "Easy Market Research: Leveraging Your Existing Data for Content Creation"

New AI-Powered Tools Speed Content Creation

Normally, the next step would be to spend several hours editing and optimizing each piece of long-form content for search engines. This is where on-page automated content optimization and technical innovation come into the picture.

Tools such as Content Harmony or Frase AI streamline the process of content research or checking top-ranking pages. They provide useful data developers can use to curate high-quality content.

Content Harmony helps design content briefs automatically, helping meet a searcher's intent in a shorter amount of time. Writers only need to provide a keyword/keywords and the software will analyze SERPs automatically based on various data points. The generated results help the author create content briefs.

The Content Creation Process Is Evolving to Meet Recent Innovations in Search Engine Optimization
Source: MarketMuse (All rights reserved.)

6. Optimizing A/B Testing for SEO with Augmented User Interaction

Most SEO professionals tend to focus on end-user A/B testing rather than SEO A/B testing in digital marketing. The former involves picking website visitors randomly and assigning them to various versions of a web page. Based on the user's interaction with the pages, professionals use these SEO activities to gauge overall online marketing performance.

However, SEO A/B testing adds Google bots assigned to analyze the same version of any page. In essence, you are showing different elements of any page to Google to test their SEO-friendliness. These include meta description, featured snippet, title tags, H1, schema markup, anchor text, etc. SEO A/B testing helps clarify what works well for the page and what does not. Optimizing a page based on these results will help boost its search rankings and visibility.

7. Innovations in SEO Do Not Negate the Need for Non-Text Content

The purpose of using non-text content factors in SEO is to offer an improved user experience on your website.

Text alone lacks the engagement factor that keeps audiences interested, especially in long-form content. As a result, adding non-text content factors is crucial. These include images, graphs, infographics, videos, animations, audio clips, slideshows, PDFs, etc. will help improve the quality of your content. Likewise, doing so will make it more relevant and engaging.

Conclusion

With modern technology developments such as those already mentioned and Google Search Console making their way into the industry, it is evident that SEO optimization is definitely not dead. On the contrary, custom SEO has never been more important, especially local SEO. This will continue as Google constantly changes its approach to how websites are ranked in SERPs.

Do you want to leverage the potential of SEO to boost your search engine visibility, drive organic traffic, garner quality backlinks, and improve ROI? If so, you must commit to staying current on these technologies and implement regular modifications to achieve quality results. You might even consider partnering with a professional SEO service.

If you would like to connect with an SEO strategist to speak more about implementing innovative strategies and learn more about technical SEO, contact one of our Relevance SEO experts.

Over the years, fortunes have been made and lost on Google’s algorithm. Its technology has advanced leaps and bounds since its inception in the late 1990’s. What was once ripe for manipulation is now a search engine results page (SERP) that mostly delivers what Larry Page and Sergey Brin originally envisioned – relevant search results free from spam.

It’s taken Google many years to get its search engine where it is today. SEO is not something you do anymore; it’s what happens when you get everything else right. SERP success is now a trailing indicator of good PR and inbound marketing. Sure, there are some on-page best practices, but that’s not rocket science.

Several weeks ago, Visualsoft, an ecommerce marketing agency based out of the UK, asked if I’d participate in the creation of its interactive infographic Which Google Updates Have Had the Biggest Negative Impact for SEO. I agreed and answered a number of questions related to how updates have impacted my SEO efforts over the years.

They curated my answers and the answers of several other industry insiders and created a beautifully designed parallax scrolling website that takes visitors through 11 years of algorithm updates in an animated way. After reading this article you should definitely click through and give it a scroll. Bravo, Visualsoft!

Here are 16 of the many Google algorithm updates they featured:

Boston – 2003

This update was the very first to be given a name. According to Moz’s Google Algorithm Change Historythis update was a combination of algorithm changes and major index refreshes. The announcement of this change took place at SES Boston.

Boston-Algorithm-Update

Cassandra – 2003

This was the first update that claimed to target link spam, like mutual links between co-owned websites. It also targeted hidden text and links.

Dominic – 2003

The exact nature of this update was unclear, but the way inbound links were reported or counted seemed to havechanged in a big way. In addition, webmasters were seeing new Google bots on their servers that were bouncing.

Florida – 2003

This update is reported to have ushered in a new era of SEO by completely destroying the value of 1990s tactics. Massive keyword stuffing was severely hit.

Austin – 2004

This was purported to be the update to clean up what Florida missed. It further cracked down on spammy on-page tactics like invisible text and Meta data stuffing.

Bourbon – 2005

Webmasters speculated that this update changed how non-canonical URLs (www vs. non-www) and duplicate content were treated. It was also the first appearance of “GoogleGuy,” the Matt Cutts persona we know today.

Google-Bourbon-Update

Big Daddy – 2005

This update rolled out in December, but continued to rollout until March of 2006. This impacted URL canonicalization, site redirects and other related items.

Buffy – 2007

According to Wikipedia, this update was not a deliberate one, but an accumulation of many smaller changes. Visualsoft reports the update focused heavily on keywords.

Google-Buffy-Update

Vince – 2009

This was the first update that led webmasters to believe Google was favoring big brands in its SERPs. Cutts called the update minor, but the implications of showing favor to large brands is not a minor change for mid-market companies and SMBs.

Caffeine – 2010

This update directly impacted how and how fast Google indexed the Internet. It was a much needed technological update and laid the infrastructure to handle the vast amount of content being created today. Indexation moved from a stratified methodology to a more dynamic approach. According to Google, it resulted in a 50 percent fresher index.

Panda/Farmer – 2011

SEOs named this update Farmer prior to its official release. However, when announced, Google named it Panda.The update focused on spam, thin content, content farms, scrapers and sites with high ad-to-content ratios. Many updates to this algorithm have occurred since its initial launch and continue today.

Freshness – 2011

This update was an extension of the indexing infrastructure put in place by Caffeine. It sought to reward the newest most relevant content in the SERPs. According to Google it impacted 35 percent of all search queries.

Venice – 2012

According to Moz, this update appeared to have aggressively localized the SERPs by more tightly integrating local search data.

Venice-Google-Algorithm-Update

Penguin – 2012

This update looked to identify and diminish websites that were considered over-optimized – sites built for search engines and not people.

EMD – 2012

Exact-Match Domain (EMD) sought to devalue domains containing desirable keyword phrases. Speculation existed that this update was another way for Google to help big brands do better organically.

Hummingbird – 2013

This was a major update by Google. It was reported to have evolved its core algorithm and indexing infrastructure to understand the relationship between words and subsequent queries. It’s also reported to have laid a foundation for the Knowledge Graph and mobile search.

Google-Hummingbird-Update

Many other updates are featured and covered by Visualsoft’s animated and interactive parallax scrolling website. Understanding Google’s past through these algorithm updates helps us understand where the search behemoth may be headed tomorrow. It is this writer’s opinion that Google is looking to completely eliminate the field of SEO in the future and to favor brands with the largest and most engaging online audiences.

It used to be that SEO professionals could create enough of the signals Google’s algorithm used to determine relevance. Today, however, it’s become increasingly difficult for an SEO to mimic the signals created by a true brand audience. It’s become easier, in most industries, to do good PR and growth marketing in order to build a real audience than it is to manipulate the link graph and sculpt on-page factors. There’s too much risk for manual or algorithmic penalty to do anything else but build real audiences by creating helpful and engaging content that people want to consume, share, cite and evangelize.

If you would like to connect with an SEO strategist to speak more about implementing innovative strategies, contact one here!

This article was update 3-10-22.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important tools businesses should utilize in our modern world. SEO-friendly webpages are more likely to be clicked on in a Google search because they contain keywords. Keywords are what search engines use to produce results. If you want your business to pop up on the first page of results, you'll need to educate yourself on SEO.

How it Works

The first step to educating yourself on SEO is learning about search engines and how they work.

Search engines use crawling, indexing, and ranking to produce search results. The system will scour the internet for code and content in URLs that match the keywords. Then it stores the information and ranks the pages from most relevant to least relevant. The first results you see will be considered the most relevant web pages.

There are two types of SEO: on-page and off-page.

On-page SEO is the process of optimizing elements of your website itself. Key components of on-page SEO include keyword research, title tag, meta description, header tag, keyword usage, internal links, and site maps. If your website includes each of these components, users will see your website before your competitors’ pages.

Off-page SEO is the method of promoting a website via link building. Link building is using hyperlinks in other websites to drive traffic to your website. Users click on your hyperlink located on another website. Doing so takes them to your website. This will also drive referral traffic, leading to better authority and credibility.

If you use both types of SEO, your website will receive a better ranking, thereby gaining more visibility.

Read Books Published by SEO Experts

There are many books on the market to teach readers how to use SEO. When choosing which ones will suit your purposes the best, it’s a good idea to decide if you would get more use out of general information or niche market selections.

For information regarding general SEO tactics that are applicable to every field, one good example is The Beginner’s Guide to SEO by Jessica Ainsworth. These “bottom line”-type books can walk you through the basics of SEO and how to take the first real steps toward applying them in your business venture.

Most of these general publications aren’t overly bogged down with technical word salad and are fairly easy to absorb. Some even have corresponding workbooks to help organize your process and record the results of your efforts. Even if you eventually decide to hire a marketing partner to handle your SEO, you can use general SEO knowledge to better communicate with them and judge if their efforts are proving to be successful.

SEO Practices for Niche Markets

Once you have a decent grasp of how SEO processes work, you may want to move on to other resources that go further in-depth and relate more closely to your specific field.

Let’s say you are a fledgling attorney looking to drive clients to your practice. An example of a niche SEO book that would be especially applicable to attaining your desired clientele would be Law Firm SEO: Exposing the Google Algorithm to Help You Get More Cases. Far beyond mere SEO basics, this book goes in-depth, teaching readers such things as how to optimize their websites to make them SEO-friendly.

Even if you don’t necessarily run a law firm, you can use niche SEO resources like Law Firm SEO since Hennessey Digital gives you the information to really dive into ways of navigating data analytics and Google algorithms and applying them to your specific trade or business.

Books are one of the greatest resources for educating yourself on SEO. And with online ease of access, highly specialized subjects such as SEO and derivative niche varieties can be purchased with the click of a button rather than a trip to the local bookstore or library.

Enroll in SEO Classes

There are many programs available to learn about SEO and how to use it.

These programs are broken down into easy-to-digest chapters so you won’t be overwhelmed by all the new knowledge. Some of these programs can be taken online or in person. Since the subject is becoming increasingly vital to marketing, many schools and organizations offer these specialized classes.

Some programs are available for free online, while others cost hundreds of dollars. As the saying goes, you tend to get what you pay for. If you want to get a job that requires SEO knowledge or attain general expertise, getting a certificate or degree may be a valuable investment.

Learn by Doing

It’s all well and good to research until your head bursts, but eventually, you will have to take the first steps of implementing what you’ve learned. Here are a few simple things you can do.

The first thing you should do is consider updating your most important website content. Updating your existing content will save you time and energy, as you won’t need to create new content. This can give you more efficient results for the amount of time invested.

The second thing you should do is consider incorporating long-form content into your website.

Sure, smaller blogs are easier to write, but they don’t include as much content as long-form blogs. Readers consider long-form content to be more engaging. A long-form article is anything over 2,000 words.

One final thing you can do is decrease page load time.

If a webpage loads too slowly, many users will not return to your website. Mobile phone use has gone up, which means more people are using their phones to search the internet. Optimize your website for mobile use, and the pages should load quickly.

Use SEO For Success

Search engine optimization is a handy tool to drive more customers to your business.

One of the best things you can do for your company is to educate yourself on SEO. By following the suggestions above, you can begin improving your SEO rankings in no time.

If you run a small service business — such as a financial advisory practice, property management firm, or HVAC company — you're probably wondering where content fits into your marketing plan. You don't have a massive budget to spend on SEO or unlimited time to dedicate to an endless stream of organic content creation.

If you want to know the cold, hard truth, getting to the top of page one of Google in a highly competitive niche such as yours is challenging. It's going to require thousands of dollars and months of hard work. You'll need to hire an SEO expert. You'll need to invest in strategic content creation and link building. After that, you'll probably cross your fingers that you've done enough to please the search engine gods.

Even then, there are no guarantees that you'll get the results you're looking for.

So: Is Service Business Content a Waste of Time?

In light of what's just been described, it's easy to assume that content is a waste of resources for the average service business in a highly competitive niche.

However, that's not true at all. SEO is just one aspect of content creation. You need to shift your view of content. And a simple change in perspective could be the game-changer you need to get your service business content strategy back on track.

Content as an Authority Builder

Let's assume, for a moment, that you're a financial advisor in the suburbs of a major city. While you know you're one of the best in the area, the reality is that you look just like the 25 other advisors in your zip code. You operate XYZ Wealth Management Firm while your closest competitor operates ABC Wealth Management Firm. You're wearing a navy suit in your LinkedIn profile picture and so is she. You offer retirement planning and 401(k) rollovers, and so does she.

Truth be told, there isn't a whole lot that separates the two of you.

And if we're being honest, this is the case in almost any local service business niche. Whether it's HVAC, plumbing, landscaping, financial advisory, bookkeeping, house cleaning, or general maintenance, it's challenging to stand out in a field where everyone is offering the same basic services. You're forced to compete on price, which drives profit margins down. Someone else is always willing to go lower.

Service Business Content Must Set Your Company Apart

Herein lies the true power of service business content. When leveraged effectively, content has the ability to differentiate you from the competition by amplifying your authority in ways that few other marketing investments can.

Think of it like this. All else created equal, which of the following companies is a cold prospect going to trust more?

The choice is clear, right?

ABC Wealth Management Firm might have a slick logo and clever website, but everything is generic and replaceable. XYZ Wealth Management Firm has a marketing strategy with teeth. If everything else is created equal, 9 out of 10 cold prospects are going to call XYZ to set an appointment.

While visibility obviously matters — and you can't convert a prospect into a client if they don't first find you online — the reality is that content should be viewed as an authority builder. When created through this lens, you're much more likely to generate high-quality content that resonates with your target market. Plus, you'll see some residual SEO results on the back end.

Tips for Developing Authority-Boosting Service Business Content

Once you start to look at content as a conduit for authority, rather than SEO collateral, you'll suddenly see new opportunities that you were never focused on before. And if authority is the play, here are some simple ways you can maximize the value of content marketing and use it to your advantage.

1. Create better landing pages.

Most service business websites have a home page, an About Us page, and a basic What We Do page. But if you want to stand out and build authority within your niche, start by creating robust landing pages for every individual service/market. Check out this Katy Property Management page from Green Residential as just one example. They've dedicated landing pages for every one of their individual markets in the state of Texas. Pages burst with social proof and detailed information. This establishes instant credibility with visitors, as opposed to one big generic page that makes it look like they try to serve everyone.

2. Author a book.

Writing a book is easier than ever before. Thanks to online tools, self-publishing platforms, and Amazon, you can write, design, publish, and even print books with a very low overhead cost. Consider writing a short, 50-100 page book on a topic that your audience finds valuable. Most people will never read it. But the fact that you have a book instantly bolsters your credibility.

3. Share useful content on LinkedIn.

Your business should be zeroed in on the LinkedIn platform. This is particularly true if you're in a B2B service niche and/or work with a lot of white-collar professionals. However, regardless of who your niche serves, LinkedIn is a good place to build up your circle of influence with other businesses in the area. Share well-written content, connect with people, comment on posts, and otherwise make yourself known.

4. Seed your blog with pillar content.

You don't need dozens of blog posts on your website. However, it's a good idea to have a handful of “pillar” pieces. These are long, in-depth posts that touch on the biggest pain points and/or solutions in your industry. All of your marketing and traffic acquisition efforts will center around these pieces of content.

Evolve Your Service Business Content Strategy Over Time

There are obviously other steps you can take, but this short guide should provide a pretty good starting point. As you begin investing in service business content, you'll see new opportunities emerge. At this point, you can continue to adapt your strategy.

You don't need to publish five blog posts a week. You don't need to send out an endless stream of tweets throughout the day. Quantity is not the goal. With authority-boosting content, it's all about quality. A well-developed content strategy that accounts for this fact will get you the results you're seeking.

SEO trends evolve on a semi-regular basis with every update Google makes to its search engine algorithm. This fact alone means that last year's SEO-friendly page may need an overhaul.

Did you know that the No. 1 search result on Google gets 31.7% of all clicks? On the flip side, only 0.78% of all users click over to engage with anything on the second page of results. These statistics explain, in a nutshell, why every business wants its content to show up on the first page.

It's no secret that search engine optimization (SEO) is a powerful strategy for bringing high-quality traffic to your site and boost conversions. But only if it’s done right. The right SEO techniques and tools can help land you a spot on the coveted first page. The problem, however, is that SEO trends are constantly evolving, and staying on top of the latest trends can become quite daunting. I've put together what I think are some of the most critical SEO trends you need to be aware of in 2021, so let's take a quick look.

1. Leverage Current SEO Trends by Remembering to EAT 

For a long time now, Google has been favoring high-quality content. But what exactly does “high-quality” mean in 2021?

First, your content needs to have some sort of beneficial purpose and attempt to help users. The second indicator of high-quality content, at least as far as Google is concerned, can be summed up with the acronym E-A-T. Your content needs to reflect a high degree of expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Google’s third-party Search Quality Raters use these indicators to rate the quality of content on web pages. Google then leverages this information to improve the results it showcases to users.

Expertise

Google favors reliable sources of information. Content written by genuine experts in their fields is likely to rank higher in searches. For example, Google’s quality guidelines state that only medical professionals and experts should write medical advice. This helps to explain why every article on Virta’s blog is written only by medical practitioners and healthcare experts.

Top 3 SEO Trends: Virta's Blog Written by Medical Practitioners and Healthcare Experts

Authoritativeness

Google also favors content and websites that are reputable and trusted by external sources. This means that content that has been cited on multiple other reputable websites will rank higher. If The New York Times mentions you, for example, that’s going to send a strong signal to Google.

Authoritativeness: A Mention in the New York Times Sends a Strong Message to Google

Trustworthiness

Google favors websites that offer a high degree of transparency about their creators. Some examples of trust signals include:

For example, healthcare provider Virta has a very impressive “About Us” page on their website. The page provides an overview of their mission, origin story, and achievements. It also showcases their leadership team, investors, advisors, and board of directors. All these comply with current SEO trends and are excellent trust signals as far as Google is concerned.

Trustworthiness: Virta's "About Us" Page Lends Trustworthiness

Tip for Marketers

If you want to outrank your competition in 2021, you will need to create content that 1) benefits your audience, and 2) conforms to Google’s E-A-T guidelines. Even if you outsource content development, make sure you hire people who are knowledgeable about your industry. Use relevant statistics, facts, and real-world examples in your content to support your claims. Also, make sure that your website includes detailed information about your business.

2. New SEO Trends Require Fulfilling Search Intent

One key to adopting winning SEO trends in 2021 is to understand the "why" behind the "what." Ask yourself: Why do people flock to Google? What are they essentially looking for?

People look to search engines for answers to their questions or to learn more about a particular subject. So, if you can 1) understand the intent behind their searches, and 2) provide the answers or information they’re looking for, you’ll be one step closer to your goals.

Google has evolved far beyond simply analyzing strings of words. With the BERT update, Google now uses pattern recognition to understand how people actually converse and present more relevant search results. Regardless of how you combine words or spell your search queries, Google tries its best to understand user intent and return relevant information from the web. So, if your content fails to match user intent, your search rankings will be negatively affected.

This is exactly why marketers should focus on creating valuable content that satisfies search and user intent. A study conducted by Ahrefs found that optimizing a landing page for search intent resulted in a 677% increase in traffic in just six months.

Top 3 SEO Trends: AHREFS Jump in Organic Traffic

Tip for Marketers

Before you start creating any form of content, search your target keyword on Google to understand its intent. For example, when someone searches for “content marketing,” it’s likely that they’re looking to learn more about content marketing. However, if they search for “content marketing services,” it’s more likely that they’re looking for vendors who provide such services. Once you know the search intent for a particular keyword, you’ll be able to ensure that your content matches the intent.

Top 3 SEO Trends: Matching User Intent with Content

3. 'Page Experience' Will Soon Become a Ranking Factor

Google defines "page experience" as a measure of how users feel when they interact with a particular web page. Beginning May 2021, the page experience factor will have an impact on the ranking of a website. In addition to existing signals such as site speed, mobile-friendliness, HTTPS-security, and safe browsing, a new set of metrics called Core Web Vitals will now determine the page experience.

So what constitutes these Core Web Vitals?

The addition of these metrics means you can no longer afford to ignore these factors if you want to optimize for SEO trends and improve search rankings in 2021. If a couple of pages have equally relevant content, the one that offers a better user experience will rank higher once the new algorithm rolls out in May.

Top 3 SEO Trends: Google Core Web Vitals

Tip for Marketers

As the new changes won't take effect until May, you still have time to optimize your website and improve the user experience. Start by analyzing the loading speed of web pages using Google’s PageSpeed Insights and take the Mobile-Friendly Test to see where you stand. If you don’t have the necessary expertise to optimize your website in-house, consider outsourcing to an outside agency.

Final Thoughts

Gone are the days when SEO was all about keyword research and optimization. As SEO trends continue to evolve and become more complex, the only way to win is to stay abreast of the latest trends, concepts, and techniques. 

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