Search Engine Optimization Archives

Without a steady source of leads or customers your business will not succeed. Many businesses use paid advertising, social media, referrals, or pay a premium for a “great” location to generate sales. However, there is a free stream of leads that a lot of businesses see as a mystery and has a huge impact on the success of any business, the art of ranking on the top of the organic search results, search engine optimization (SEO). With SEO, webpages with the right “secret sauce”, are served on top of Google (and many other search engines). This gives the website a better chance of being read by its target market by providing a path into a sales funnel.

Despite SEO being a constant consideration in digital marketing, it still has evolved over time, and the changes it brings also decide the success of a company. As a business owner it’s worth knowing what these trends are because these keep digital marketers up at night, help owners gain more leads, and give them an edge over other entrepreneurs.

AI-First SEO Approach

Experts have predicted that big data AI technology will be the focus of over $61 billion worth of funding by most brands by 2025 (Fagella, 2015). We still have a long way to go before then, but AI is still a game changer in SEO today. For instance, Google Analytics and AdWords (soon to become Google Ads (July 24,2018)) make use of artificial intelligence to improve ad targeting and to get performance insights. Google also relies on RankBrain to analyze content to give better organic results that work to answer the “how and why people search” then use that information to serve the most relevant results to future users.

What does artificial intelligence mean to business owners? Or why the heck should we care about it in search rankings?

With AI, your ranking in the search results or how much you pay for PPC is directly influenced by big data learning AND more importantly something you or your marketing agency has to adapt to. Frankly, tailoring your site to respond to AI could help your search ranking but did you really think it was going to be that easy? The AI system can’t easily be gamed (we doubt that any exploits will stay that way for long) but rather it is something that helps push quality content to the top. In layman’s terms, posting spun blog posts (content that is only changed in semantics but not in originality) or utilizing questionable linking strategies will catch up to you eventually. This also means that business owners need to be mindful of the companies they hire to improve rankings. What does that mean for search? Do we only have to cater to a program?

No but…

Optimizing Your Site For Voice Search

Most searches in 2016, over 40% adult user searches, were done via voice search, and this trend has steadily increased through 2017. With the accuracy of voice technology passing the 95% threshold means that more searches stay within a normal human vocabulary. Since most voice searches are questions, the best keywords to use in web content are actual sentences, instead of phrases. Keywords should also be long-tail (a fancy term for longer search phrases “think like a customer would”). Digital marketers respond to this trend by posting the questions and answers on the same page. The trick is to give users instant results.

However, readability for the consumer is going to play a big role in voice search. With more conversational questions, any answer has to get to the point quickly but also support a conversational style. Being the best answer verses being good enough is the difference between a site visitor or crickets. We are predicting that more voice users will only be served the best answer instead of getting a ten pack of search results. This is especially true due to the rise of home-based units such as Alexa.

The trend we have seen is more searcher focused results getting the top organic spots over content with a lot of backlinks. What do we mean by this? If you are searching for a service then service related links are shown, a product then more product sites.

Hasn’t this always been the case? No, in the past, backlinks (domains that include a hyperlink back to a website) were key to ranking. Why do you think every web design company threw a footer link on a website they made or why there are backlinks for sale on Fiver when you search for SEO.

The concept of pure linkless ranking wasn’t a viable strategy until recently (and still a hot button issue among the SEO community). A linkless search ranking strategy focuses on the quality of the website first (Content, inter site linking, page structure, technical SEO, user experience, and quality calls to action) before any attempt at link building begins. Then any link building is focused on quality over quantity. Now it is possible to rank with fewer links instead of thousands (don’t get us wrong the big dogs are not going down without a fight). With voice, now is the time for new businesses to start to take more of the search rankings or old businesses to adapt. Voice is opening the door to more user focused, and frankly better content in exchange for search rankings.

Interesting Topics SEO Trends

2018 is ushering interesting and relevant topics and starting to push keywords aside. Not that keywords and phrases have become useless but users now also search for topics instead of just keywords. Google’s algorithm responds to this trend and serves sites that best answer past similar topic queries (remember AI). Meaning you don’t have list every keyword or exact phrase to be eligible for the first page. However, to build content pieces that include more than one focus but stay under a topic have a better chance to rank for more terms. Words that would naturally be associated under a topic would be considered for a searcher’s inquiry as relevant.

One way for digital marketers and online entrepreneurs to provide meaningful content is to write advice, reviews, and how-to articles. Content can also be sorted out into different themes. Keywords are still relevant, but only because they make searching for sites and content easier. That said, Google Trends, Google Keyword planner, Spfu, SEMRush, and Keyword Explorer remain indispensable tools for the digital marketer, to name only a few.

Responsive Design

Over the years mobile devices have become more functional with their multiple features. Not only are they used to call and text, but now they are mainly used to browse the Internet and download mobile apps. This is also the perfect opportunity to make websites responsive to mobile devices. Responsive designed websites are optimized to provide a great user experience on desktops/ laptops, from Androids to iPads. InVision provides 11 powerful examples of responsive web design, which you can check out and apply to your own website.

Test your site mobile speed and responsiveness

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Now you can also serve mobile optimized versions of your website through the AMP (Accelerated Mobile Page) project. AMP is tailored more to static content and sites that don’t serve mobile responsive (or load slowly). In a nutshell it strips down your site of extra fluff to load instantly (near instantly) and serve the /amp version. Google has pushed AMP heavily for years because they want all websites to load fast on mobile for better user experience and rank sites that tailor to mobile. This Mobilegeddon was slated to happen a few times (made a few of us SEOs sound tin hat like “it’s coming we swear”) but recently Google’s mobile first page speed was rolled out (July 9th, 2018) making it a significant ranking factor. That means that the slowest sites have some updating to do.

Desktop Site Speed

We talked about mobile speed, desktop speed is still a huge ranking factor. While mobile is dominating the internet usage 56% of online time (our handy infographic). We still see conversion rates being higher on desktop for E-commerce (easier to view multiple items at once) than mobile (few exceptions: single sales and social). Google places quick-loading sites on top of the search index, just as it promised in 2010. Users likewise prefer sites that load faster. A website should launch in 2 seconds or less. Otherwise, there’s a huge chance for users to leave the page. Worse, they might never return. To improve page load times, pages need optimization. Images should be the right pixel size and format (a common issue we see is a 3000 x 3000 px file in a 150 x 150 px image post or PNG file as a photo instead of a logo), server compression enabled, HTML, CCS, and Jscript magnification (getting rid of the non functional code, notes, white space), to name a few but these free website speed test tools or ours (the mobile speed report) will tell you what you need to do.

Position Zero

Position Zero at the top of results in the featured snippets section, they start before the rest of the search results show up. Users get most information from Position Zero, where the answers they need are at their fingertips. When users see the information they need on the first page – and on top of – the Google search, they likely will stop scanning the other results. They also have your result to click on as they scroll down. The great thing about Position Zero is you don’t have to be number one get featured (but it doesn’t hurt). The priority of any SEO expert is to: Get to Position Zero and they do that by providing ready answers to who, what, where, and why.

Shorter URLs

A shorter URL is more readable and good ones are easier to remember. Of course, users can copy and paste URLs, but some mobile devices make it difficult to do so. URLs that contain at least one keyword are also SEO-friendly (but not as important as they used to be but for the user it does help make it relevant). If possible, URLs should contain few, if none, numbers and alt characters.

Here are some of our go to URL Shorteners, most are free.

Bitly.com (The paid version allows you to brand your URLS.)
Yourls.org (self hosted options that you can get close to Bitly without the huge monthly price tag if you have some development knowledge.)
Tinyurl.com
PrettyLinks.com (WordPress)

If the URL is Shortened will it hurt my own site’s SEO?

No. They still hold SEO value to your site due to the nature of how most shorteners use 301 redirects to move traffic from your tiny URL to your main site. This means that the pagerank flows to the destination site. Due to the sharable nature of a shortened link, the likelihood of earning social shares and brand mentions as well as quality links back to your site significantly increases.

You can also use URL shorteners for affiliate links. For those who utilize more blog, content, influencer, or affiliate marketing strategies these shorterners pay you per impressions.

Some of the highest paying URL shorteners are:

Petty Link
Linkshrink
Shorte.st
Adf.ly
Dwindly
Linkbucks
Spaste

***Disclaimer*** We do not endorse or have used any of the paying URL shorteners (some clients have used them with success).

The reason we have not is because a 3rd party ad is shown to the customer before they are directed to your deal or funnel. For affiliate bloggers, marketers, or influencers these may still provide some value. Since you can post and have them shared across many channels while still getting revenue from views can add another passive income stream. However, just remember that the end goal of any affiliate marketing campaign is to generate a sale. Do you really want to trade-off not being able to control what your potential customer sees and if they forget your offer?

Content-Gap Analysis

Studying a competition’s site design, affiliate links, and content give marketers an edge in SEO. There is a need to provide content that hasn’t been written about yet or under served content. Users will also appreciate it when a website has unique content that match their preferences and provide them a relevant online experience. When we approach a content-gap analysis, we look at Google trends and Google’s keyword planner (just sign up for adwords (Google Ads)). We also use at tools such as SEMRush and SPYfu.com, and some ones we have internally. We are building a comprehensive guide on content but in the meantime here is a short guide on how to perform a basic one yourself.

A Fluid Site Architecture

Users enjoy their online browsing experience when they seamlessly move through a website. Thus, site architecture and navigation should be kept simple. Users shouldn’t be left guessing what to do next as they search a page. Effective calls to action and site links help increase sales while helping to build a solid interlinking structure that help drive your visitors through your site.

A fluid site architecture likewise helps search engines index the pages on the website. Site crawlers should also easily navigate the web page when you keep your end-user in mind.

Fixed Technical Issues

Nothing disappoints users much than seeing broken links or 404 errors on your site. With the help of a detailed SEO audit, a properly trained SEO specialist or consultant can fix technical issues such as slow loading pages, thin content, redirecting pages, and broken links. They can also fix more advanced issues such as incorrectly installed SSL or CDN, hacker database injections and improperly managed redirects.

A complete SEO audit is completed to improve a website’s SEO campaign. It’s best to do this every quarter, or every time a website is catering to a new client or target market.

Every SEO Audit has 9 basic steps:

Determining the website/company’s strategic goals.
Analyzing the quality of keywords. Are they specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound (SMART)?
Analyzing the competition.
Conducting a technical analysis.
Analyzing each page level, such as conducting Copyscape checks, META descriptions, and Titles.
Analyzing content (i.e. excessive ads, grammar mistakes, too many occurrences of your keyword, off topic posts from your focus keyword, spammy comments).
Improving user experience, including return visitors, exit pages, and goal completions.
Identifying strengths and weaknesses in external and internal link profiles.
Checking citations and untapped directories.

Longer Existing Pages

Backlinko published a study in 2016 that yielded how longer content has the likelihood of getting a higher ranking. Content writers can easily extend 1200-word posts to 2,000 words. This also means that content can be extended instead of made from scratch. Because existing pages already have a readership, it would be easier to keep them by updating published content. Adding an interactive table of contents also enables the user to go directly to the information they are looking for or interests them. Meaning you can rank for more terms while improving customer navigation and experience.

SEO trends are rapidly changing with new updates seemly happen weekly. It’s important that digital marketers are up for the challenge and adapt quickly to these new developments. It’s not enough that marketers understand the basics of SEO; they must also know how to tinker with the sites they work on and check analytics data regularly to make sure that the right customer actions are happening. It is not enough to create a site with content because if you don’t convert you won’t pay the bills.

We would love to hear your feedback in the comments and continue the discussion.

Why you're not getting the right or any search traffic.

You may have invested your own time in search engine optimization or even hired a SEO consultant to work on backlinks and blog content but you're not seeing the traffic that you expected. It might be time to analyze the quality of links and the keywords that were focused on.

Now that I have captured your attention, full disclosure, this post was completely written using Google Voice on my phone. This is to showcase how well voice technology has improved and soon I will link a post going over why this is a significant change in how you should approach search. However, keep reading because minus a few grammatical errors this is my thoughts as if you were speaking to me. Also it is really hard to think and proof read at the same time. Also Google if you are reading this please turn down the dun dun after I pause on Cortona.

Many times I see clients who have focused on a keyword that is dare we say unobtainable with a current level or efforts. Worse yet they acquired spammy backlinks that only drive bot traffic or Nothing at All.
You may be wondering: How can I compete with another company that spends tens of thousands a month on search engine traffic?

You can't. Not in the way that you would expect.

If you don't have the budget to compete you have to find other ways to obtain qualified traffic that your competitors may not be focusing on. Would you rather have one key word that drives thousands users or hundreds of long search terms that drive 50 to 200 users each. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that small adds up quick in the terms of exponential growth.

16-20% of all monthly searches on Google have never been seen before. (Google Interview)

If all of those searches are new and haven't been seen before, that means to answer the questions what and why before it's asked is very important.

What do I mean by what and why?

You should be thinking about:

What questions will potential users, customers, searchers, or clients will ask before buying?

Did you know but there are many different ways to slice a sandwich. I should know because my wife likes for sandwiches cut horizontally... or vertically, or sideways. I don't remember until after I cut it wrong.

When it comes to search does that mean that you should order your keywords in different and unnatural variations?

For example: "Minneapolis SEO" and "SEO Minneapolis". Those two are individual search terms with different volumes according to Google. However, if you were to search in Google's Keyword Planner only one search volume would be shown. This is because they are phrase matches and are considered the same/ similar search term. You don't have to have both variations in the exact order on a page to rank well in Google. Otherwise we would have very unnatural articles that frankly wouldn't be entertaining to read. Now I am going to throw a wrench in everything I just said because there is some value in exact match search terms over phrase matches. (Knowing when and how to break this rule is good SEO and copywriting.)

Just because Google has a search term volume for a certain phrase order doesn't mean that it's a qualified searcher. What I mean by this is culturally, for example, in other English-speaking countries (and even regionally word choice order may be different just do to common cultural phrases.

For a South Africa client in the event rental industry, "hire" and "lease" had significant local search volume but "rent", "rental" had nearly Zero. Unless we increased the search location and it was followed by in South Africa which we attributed to be local foreigners. However, for the United States the opposite was true. The small volume of local searches has to do with cultural over search trends. In this case, exact match had better results over phrase. Another great example is the term "uni" versus University, college. State side you will rarely see or hear Uni as much.

You have to consider the psychological and cultural impacts of your searcher when you want to increase the quality of your traffic. Making sure that a keyword is something that is a cultural relevant potential search term or part of your in your target demographic is important. It can be the difference between landing a customer and showing up in another country search where you can't service. (or not many if you have set up a preferred location or have a country specific URL like .us)

The why.

Or as I like to call it, "The why should I care." As a company should always be putting out content that answers the question why should I care. Why should I care about your company, doing business with you, and why is this relevant to "What" I searched for.

How do you make your "Why" a relevant search their "What"?

You make your companies content relevant through your meta description, titles, and the choice of information you display on your website that supports that content. You wouldn't want to click a cake recipe and be directed to a plumber. While they may be correlated if your surprise birthday cake was found by your two-year-old and they flushed it down the toilet, I'd be willing to bet that you'd be clicking back before reading anything about the plumber.

Then why do businesses do that with their website SEO?

It simply can be answered by businesses trying to hard. They stuff keywords, or utilize none. They give great content without locking on on key terms that searchers may use to get there. They focus too much on backlinks without fixing the issues on their site. Great SEO balances target keyword terms and like similar search terms with relevant content that flows into a great user experience.

Back to why your organic traffic isn't converting.

We have addressed unqualified traffic but have not talked about user experience and conversion paths. After you have worked on great content and are starting to lock in relevant traffic converting that traffic is the next step.

User Experience And Its Effect On SEO

How your users flow from search to your website and to convert to a sale is important. With the right call to actions, lead magnets, and ease of contact information. BUT how they experience your website should be a top priority. For sake of time (I could write a book on just this topic) I will just focus site speed and errors.

The faster your site speed the better since according to Kissmetrics a "1 second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions." And "40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load."

Any good SEO will work to lower that load time because site speed is a significant Google Google ranking factor for search and even more so in July 2018.

On site errors such as 404 (page not found), poor internal linking structure, and thin content all have impact on your traffic and rankings. While backlinks are important you need to work to fix onsite errors so your link building outreach can be more effective.

When you focus on quality traffic keywords searches, answer why and what, and improve user experience you can fix your traffic and increase your sales conversions.

Eland Consulting LLC

Category: Search Engine Optimization

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