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If you decide to change one thing about your digital marketing in 2016, make it to increase your SEO spend – you won’t regret it, and here I’ll explain why.
In SEO, you have to dig a little deeper than your competitors and invest enough to get the rewards your business deserves. Read on to discover what you can do with your SEO in 2016 to make a big difference to your business.
There are no shortcuts to long-term success in search engine optimisation (SEO).
If you are ready to invest, you need a comprehensive solution that empowers your business to create (or reinforce, improve and maintain) the foundation that not only supports your digital success, but is able to fuel it for the duration.
You wouldn’t build a house on weak foundations, or leave it to deteriorate without professional maintenance, so it’s time to start looking at your website and approach to SEO in the same light.
With the volume, velocity and variety of big data available to facilitate effective decision making, marketing teams need to work with big data platforms, specialist data analysts and SEO experts who can turn all of this information into meaningful insight.
You cannot look at a small part of the picture anymore; you need to look at all of it:
Let me put all of the data into perspective, as I appreciate this can mean different things to different people.
I recently wrote a post about ‘What we learned from one billion site audits‘ and while one billion may seem like an astounding figure, when it comes to big data and thoroughness of SEO delivery, this is just a part of the opportunity that we can leverage for competitive search engine advantage.
Here’s a few of the things we learned from one billion site audits:
A comprehensive SEO strategy is likely to include:
At a more granular level you will want to consider areas like the following (this is not an exhaustive list):
Search engine optimisation in 2016 is vastly more encompassing that it has ever been before, and if you are looking to compete effectively in Google (or any other search engine), you need to reflect this in the breadth and depth of expertise that you employ.
SEO needs content. Without content in its many forms, any opportunity for search engine success will be minimal.
The identifying, creating, optimising and promoting of the right types of content is perhaps the very starting point for content and SEO working together.
Effective SEO content: creation and collaboration.
When SEO and content works together it:
When you combine these two disciplines you can create content that delivers results, and you’ll also gain a better understanding of the current value of your content. Furthermore, it allows you to: spot new opportunities for effective content creation, refine and improve your content results, and make more informed choices to support your SEO goals.
Here’s an example of using SEO data analysis (in this instance using our own deep data platform Awww.vertical-leap.uk/wp-content/uploadspollo Insights) for spotting effective content opportunities:
Search engines cannot work without links. From website and content discovery, to external votes of confidence and authority, you need links to compete online.
Link building is a critical component of SEO; it features in every search marketing ranking factors study worth reading, and I cannot see the need for backlinks within an SEO strategy changing for many years to come.
Source: Moz search ranking factors
The purpose of links far exceeds simply sending traffic from one website to another. They also:
To achieve the above, you need distinct, specialist skills and expertise that is dedicated to fulfilling link-based objectives and more.
Expecting a single point of contact, regardless of their level of experience and knowledge in SEO, to be the expert spanning every SEO specialism is unrealistic.
The depth and diversity of skills needed for a business advantage in any competitive industry means that a team of distinct specialisms is the only realistic scenario for maximising search opportunities.
How expertise is segmented will often be reflective of the perceived impact and importance of that specialism required to deliver SEO results. Other factors that may come into consideration are the industries being targeted and the search objective in question.
Would it be logical to have a local SEO expert who is highly successful in delivering targeted search gains to deliver an international SEO campaign?
The key here is maximising the SEO opportunity, based on what is needed to deliver the ultimate potential gains, as opposed to restricting the opportunity based on settling for the status quo.
In 2015 we created ‘the anatomy for the perfect search marketer’, to help you understand the component parts to look for in individual SEO experts. However, in today’s search marketing, this is more ‘the anatomy for the perfect search marketing team’:
The days of SEO experts working in a room on their own, only having interaction when they need to justify insights or implement strategy, are over.
By the way, read about our own approach to SEO – fix, boost, fill.
SEO always works better when it’s deployed collaboratively as a key aspect of integrated working with other specialist teams.
Whatever digital marketing project you are working on, if you are looking at SEO as a separate medium rather than an integrated one, please stop now and reconsider your approach.
If you are contemplating SEO for the first time and considering whether to add this to your marketing mix or use it to replace something else, consider whether SEO will actually enhance your existing marketing mediums first.
When I get asked: “Which should I choose, SEO or (insert any feasible marketing channel)?” my response on nearly every occasion is: “both“.
Part of this logic is that SEO, when given the opportunity to do so, will nearly always bolster existing marketing efforts and deliver a positive force multiplier to your marketing.
As a practical example of this – when you combine SEO and PPC expert teams you can:
It is important to change your perspective of silo-ed experts, adding disparate feedback, advice and recommendations to your digital marketing, and to start to see the integrated working model as the approach to take.
All digital marketing disciplines that combine data sets (and re-combine data sets for even greater value) work more efficiently and effectively when separate expert areas collaborate.
You cannot build long term SEO success without both time and expert resource.
It is important to recognise that search engine optimisation is a long term, ongoing investment. In fact, when incorporated effectively, SEO should never stop.
Whilst every website brings with it low hanging fruit, longer tail keyword opportunities and technical improvements for quick (sometimes immediate) SEO wins, the notion that SEO is a one off activity (or a single phase of quick wins) is incorrect.
There is no silver bullet to SEO and, in nearly all instances, successful SEO is more related to prioritising, repeating and refining the myriad opportunities that exist for improvement and gains, rather than completing any restricted set of known actions.
This SEO tactic encourages continuous improvement and incremental gains from search engine marketing. If you use ever-changing data to drive phases of improvements that are fuelling the next levels of results, why would you ever stop?
In my experience, most Google manual penalties and negative algorithm impacts are caused by a disparity between SEO aspirations and realistic expectations.
If you want to become the authority in your field and remain so, you need to be prepared for the long haul. In almost every scenario, there will be existing industry-leading sites, businesses and experts. When you are looking to replace these, you have to bring to the table more than just short-term tactics.
Yes, there are quick wins, which are still important as they can prove your approach works, reinforce your selection of SEO agency (or the expert team you employ), and provide data for driving next stages of strategy. However, they need to be paired with medium- and longer-term tactics.
If you are only focused on the tactics that will deliver immediate returns, you will miss out on a larger proportion of available results.
Short-term focus also encourages black hat SEO (or certainly a lot of the actions which move very closely to low quality and spammy tactics) which can very quickly restrict or permanently impede your chances of succeeding online within that niche (with that website).
What happens when you limit the amount of expert time you employ? You’re effectively saying that you only want to have access to a smaller part of the biggest picture.
Yes, this is a little simplistic, but it is also very true.
The scope for boosting visibility is huge, and if you are not taking greater advantage of this, your competition very likely is. Your competitors are ever-changing, and part of the challenge facing SEO is not only building and expanding effective visibility and positive impact from search, but also maintaining it.
Something regularly forgotten when it comes to SEO success is the constant attention that is needed to reinforce what you already have. Hitting a new ranking target, exceeding traffic goals in a month, and adding new areas of conversion success to your site are all great; what’s even better is the ability to ensure all of these actively contribute to your total site success all year, every year.
Further reading: How to increase website traffic
Achievement of an objective in SEO is an initial success metric. Maintaining it, reinforcing your claim for it, and ultimately expanding and maximising it – that’s the ongoing challenge.
When you add something new to your website (a topic or theme, a page, a new product range or service etc.) you start a new claim for opportunity and value.
An initial goal should be that anything you add is the best example of what you can find available. Ideally it should be 10x better than the closest competing example.
The next stage is gathering data from this and using data for the next stages of actionable insight. At this point you will have benchmarks covering a number of areas: impressions, click-through rates, visits, bounce rates, quality metrics, micro and macro goal completions, average page ranks, volumes of search queries and much more.
The purpose of benchmarks is that you have a base layer from which to set new targets and objectives, to create a strategy that works towards delivering them.
[chapter name=”Keeping up with the industry”][/chapter]
Most competitive environments change, but the SEO industry sets a pace that very few can stay on top of. Keeping in touch with the SEO industry can be an extremely time consuming (but equally important) aspect of service delivery.
The danger of dated knowledge can be seen in many ways, including adverse algorithm impact and manual penalties. This can have a negative impact on any business and every industry, regardless of brand, size or any other criteria.
The alternative approach to looking at the impact of algorithms (something that is not covered a great deal), is the chance to derive value from them.
Every algorithm update presents more ways to improve your SEO performance. It is part of an attitude and approach to ongoing professional service delivery that cannot be shortcut.
Whilst many SEO fundamentals remain fairly consistent (‘content is king’ etc.) attaining success from them can grow worlds apart over a relatively short time frame.
Consider the changing importance of mobile search and responsive design in 2015, driven in no small part by the Google Mobile Friendly Update – aka ‘Mobilegeddon‘.
Other examples springing to mind include:
I want you to think differently about spending more on SEO, so that your business can get the rewards it deserves.
If you have any questions, please get in touch; share them with me and we can discuss how to improve your SEO results in 2016 and beyond.
Lee has been working in the online arena, leading digital departments since the early 2000s, and oversees all our delivery services at Vertical Leap, having joined back in 2010. Lee joined our company Operations Team in May 2019. Before working at Vertical Leap, Lee completed a degree in Business Management & Communications at Winchester University, headed up the online development and direct marketing department for an international financial services company for ~7 years, and set up/run a limited company providing website design, development and digital marketing solutions. Lee had his first solely authored industry book (Tactical SEO) published in 2016, with 2 further industry books being published in 2019, and can be seen regularly expert contributing to industry websites including State of Digital, Search Engine Journal, The Drum, plus many others. Lee has a passion for management in the digital industry and loves to see the progression of others through personal learning, training and development. Outside the office he looks to help others while challenging himself, having skydived, bungie jumped and abseiled (despite a fear of heights) with many more fundraising and voluntary events completed and on the horizon. As a husband and dad, Lee loves to spend time with his family and friends. His hobbies include exercising, trying new experiences, eating out, playing countless team sports, as well as watching films (Gangster movies in particular – “forget about it”).
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