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B2B SEO: Content-Led Strategy

Business-to-Business SEO Strategy

B2B SEO is an important strategic marketing tool for companies looking to increase their visibility, gain website traffic, and create a strong presence online.

While the core components of SEO will remain the same regardless of your business objectives, your overall strategy and the specific tools you’ll lean on will vary depending on your industry.

An eCommerce platform will have a very different SEO strategy compared to a B2B SaaS company.

In this post, we’ll take a look at Business-to-Business (B2B) SEO strategies generally differ from B2C SEO strategies, how critical differences in the sales process produce these different strategies, and how B2B marketers can implement successful SEO programs focused on content and thought leadership.

Cornerstones of B2B SEO

Who’s Buying?

Businesses typically aren’t making one-click purchases from their couch like many B2C buyers. The sales process is usually longer, higher stakes, and therefore, much more involved.

Typically, you’re selling to professionals who know their industry. More likely, you’re selling to a team of professionals. Or at the very least, someone who needs to justify their purchasing decision to company stakeholders.

This means that your strategy will need to appeal to multiple decision-makers, each of whom might be looking to solve their problem in different ways.

While this can be intimidating, it can be a good thing because it provides a ton of opportunity to leverage your content marketing.

How so?

Well, a big part of B2B SEO is “thought leadership.” And while it makes me cringe just to type that term out, it’s a critical part of any professionally-focused marketing strategy.

Demonstrating your expertise on multiple fronts within your own industry is a big component of building trust within a sales prospect. Better still is demonstrating how you’re able to leverage that expertise (via your product or service) in order to address the pain points your potential clients/customers face.

If they know the extent to which you understand the challenges they face within their industry, that gives the decision-makers more confidence to pull the trigger on your product or service.

So, building trust within your prospect is important to closing sales.

No duh.

The question is, how do we leverage this into an SEO strategy?

Building Trust Through Content

It starts and ends with good content.

Whether in the form of blog articles, whitepapers, guest posts, eBooks, or podcasts, your content strategy should address customer pain points, provide not-so-obvious answers to common industry questions, and on the whole, work towards building the all-important trust factor.

This type of content serves multiple purposes.

As mentioned, it can build trust by playing an ongoing role in your sales process and can be provided or referenced by your sales team to nurture prospects.

However, as a factor within your SEO strategy, it will play an important role in increasing visibility and acquiring high-value traffic from the SERPs.

It’s important to remember users who land on your site aren’t likely to convert right away. That’s just the nature of B2B sales.

But by creating a memorable experience, you’re establishing an organic relationship between your brand and the potential customer. The next time the customer searches a relevant question and it’s your website that shows up, you’re furthering that relationship.

If the user has another question and types it into Google, he or she might be actively looking for your site in the SERPs because you’ve established yourself as a reliable source in the field.

That’s the essence of thought leadership.

Now, how do we go about creating this type of content? How do we become “thought leaders.”

Long Tail, Low Volume

One mantra you’ll often see when comparing B2B and B2C is “B2C = high volume keywords and B2B = low volume keywords.”

And to a certain extent, this is true.

Targeting potential buyers throughout the sales funnel will require answering specific questions and addressing pain points. This means the search queries will tend to be more obscure and specific. Hence, low volume.

Because they will often be in the form of a question, the queries will be longer. Hence, long tail.

In order to optimally perform this strategy, marketers can leverage two different tools: keyword research and customer surveys.

SEO tools such as MOZ and SEMRush are great for performing keyword research. They allow users to identify relevant search queries within their industry and develop content around them.

Customer services are fantastic because they allow you to obtain direct feedback from your customers about issues they struggle with, major pain points in their industry, and ways to make their job easier.

By speaking directly to them, you’ll gain first hand knowledge of how customers talk about your products and services, allowing you to further optimize your content.

B2B SEO Success

By implementing a content-focused SEO strategy, B2B companies have the opportunity to become thought leaders in their industry and establish themselves as a pillar of trust for their target markets.

While it’s not the optimal strategy for every enterprise out there, the general focus of B2B SEOs should be establishing their business as an authority with the solutions your customers need.

And if you’re looking for B2B SEO services, Fanatically Digital has the thought-leading, web-optimizing team for you!

January 25, 2023
Avoiding Agency Churn

There are many challenges to achieving a client’s goals. Often these challenges can be worked through by the agency and client. Identifying possible roadblocks prior to signing a contract will help ease the navigation through the initial months of the relationship. One sign of possible difficulty is a history of successive agencies for the client.

The issue of Successive Agencies

Sometimes, it is simply a difference in culture or way of working. To avoid this, we dive into how the client likes to work internally as well as with vendors. If these align with our own culture and method, it may be a good fit. If not, we will walk away from the opportunity.

When the succession of agencies is attributed to a “lack of performance,” red flags are raised.

While some agencies may struggle for results, most are decent. Sometimes the lack of results comes from the different working styles; this is fixable. More often, it results from an inaccurate assessment of the market, the client’s unrealistic view of their position, or restrictions the agency chooses to ignore in order to obtain the business. An agency can’t fix this set of issues, and ignoring them hurts the client.

Ignoring the realities

Both clients and agencies may wear rose-colored glasses. They tend to believe their own hype, ignoring their competition’s strength, the market’s complexity, or barriers to their goals.

On the client side, we may hear things like:

“We are well known in the market.” Too often, particularly in fragmented markets, clients overestimate their brand awareness.

“We have special relationships with the manufacturer.” Very infrequently, a retailer’s pull with a manufacturer will be greater than that of other retailers. As a result, clients may believe things like “we get the best pricing,” “we get access to more inventory,” or “we have access to more SKUs.” They believe they have an advantage that should naturally generate better sales. After working with the client and gaining experience in the vertical, it is apparent that the client does not have the advantages they believe they have.

On the agency side, the responses involve overconfidence in overcoming (or ignoring) what blocked prior agencies. The agency will take it if the client is willing to shift the business. While this will boost the agency revenue, it is a disservice to the client. Agencies selling to clients should highlight the issues even at the risk of not ‘winning’ the sale.

Avoiding the churn

The responsibility of making a good partnership rests with the client and the agency alike. It starts with reciprocal honesty.

What can agencies do, and what should clients expect?

Set realistic expectations.

One of our first steps in working with a prospective client is developing a model for conversion based on expected costs, impressions, CTRs, and conversion rates. This provides an average cost for leads or sales (with est revenue depending on the client.) Are these numbers acceptable to the client? If so, what is necessary to achieve them?

The first filter (are the numbers acceptable?) is a quick way to understand the client’s expectations. It is possible that prior agencies achieved these numbers, but the clients wanted lower costs per lead or sale. Sometimes, you get vague directions just to have a lower cost. Either way, having this ironed out before an engagement avoids issues later.

If the numbers are unacceptable, it is better to be open about it.

The second filter is critical in understanding how far the client will let you go to achieve results. It is often only after making recommendations that clients may object to the agency’s directions. Inquiring about the activities and recommendations of past agencies provides a sense of what will be acceptable. We will also provide broad recommendations to see if our strategy is acceptable. When there are too many unaccepted recommendations, it is difficult to achieve the goals.

For instance, we had a prospect that wanted an SEO program (and were paying an agency for SEO) who would not allow any changes to their website. The site needs many changes to be even remotely ready for a decent SEO program. While we could have continued to try to get the business, we would have done no better than the current agency. We informed the prospect of the barrier, were thanked for our candor and went our separate ways.

What can prospective clients do?

Be candid with expectations, history, and unknowns. Agencies rely on the information to make recommendations. Some information comes from research, and much comes from clients. If a skewed view shades the information from the client, then the agency recommendations will be off the mark.

A review of past agency interactions can be helpful if a company has seen a succession of unsuccessful agency partnerships. How many recommendations were made but unaccepted? Has performance been consistent over the agencies (though below desired targets)? Were there consistent meetings? These are generally easy questions.

Was the information provided to the agency accurate? This may be more difficult to determine because it requires companies to question their own stories. Challenging preconceived notions about the market position, product quality, and vendor relationships is hard when the company leaders are the source of information.

Long-term partnerships

Longer-term client/agency relationships are rewarding for both. Well-performing digital marketing performance for the client and steady revenue for the agency are, of course, important. But good relationships go beyond the monetary aspects. Ensuring the cultures mesh, communication is strong, and that there is mutual respect helps the relationship through the inevitable ups and downs encountered in business. These things start with open and honest conversations.

January 18, 2023
5 Steps to Clean Up Your Google Ads Campaigns
Why wait for spring cleaning when the start of the year is the perfect opportunity to freshen up your Google ad campaigns! With these quick 5 steps, we are going to cut the dead weight from your campaigns and breathe new life into our account.

Ideally, you are continuously optimizing your campaigns for peak performance, but sometimes non-crucial things slip through the cracks, especially during the holiday season. Now is the perfect chance to clean it up!

Now let’s roll up our sleeves and jump in:

Step 1: Remove Non Serving Keywords

Look at this! Google has done half the work for us. In your keywords under status, Google will label keywords as “not eligible. Low search volume” if there is little to no search history on google for this term.

Some people may have a hard time removing these keywords because they seem relevant to their ad group and they want to cover their bases. However, if google is telling you that no one searches for that term, then it is just cluttering up your account.

Time to pause these keywords and focus on your keywords that are receiving impressions. By cutting out the unnecessary terms, you will have a better view of what is relevant.

Step 2: Remove Keywords With Few Impressions

Now, step two is similar to step one. We are still cleaning out those keywords, except this time, google hasn’t done the first part for us.

When looking at about a year’s worth of data, focus on the keyword impressions. If a keyword has received relatively few impressions or even zero impressions, it is time to pause them. No sense in having them distract from important keywords that you have running.

Why are these keywords not receiving impressions?

They might not be receiving impressions simply because few people are searching for them. They also might not be receiving impressions because your other keywords are picking up the relevant search terms.

Over the past few years, Google has changed its definition of “phrase” and “exact” match keywords to be much more broad. Thus one keyword is more likely to pick up broader search terms.

Now, the majority of the time these are keywords that can be removed all together without a second thought. However, if you have a relevant keyword that you know gets a substantial number of google searches, but you still aren’t receiving impressions, it might fall to your bidding as the issue.

In this case, If you are working with manual bidding you need to consider your budget and goal CPC. If you believe your keyword is just that strong, then increase your max CPC. Just remember to check back in with this keyword and how it is performing!

Step 3: Cleaning Up Your Ads.

Alright by step three I’m sure you are getting the hang of it! Don’t keep what you dont need. It is very easy for ads to build up in a single ad group and before you know it you have ten ads and only three ads are regularly being shown.

What have we learned so far? CUT THEM!

You may have been trying out a new headline or body copy variation, but if they aren’t being shown, you don’t need to keep them around.

Step 4: Review all Extensions and Assets.

Extensions and assets are a pesky one that tends to fall between the cracks because people often focus on their ad group or ads pages as a whole. It’s time to make sure everything being shown is still relevant. Some things to check:
- Do you have any seasonal language that is out of date for this time of year?
- Are all products and services promoted still provided?
- Are the prices still accurate with current site pricing?
- Has there been any update in product packaging or company branding that doesn’t match your image assets?
Not only is it important to check in on your extensions to make sure they are relevant but giving yourself a refresher on what copy and assets are running in tandem with your ads is always a good practice. And we get it. This seems very simple, and it is! However, we have also noticed that extensions often are live for an extended period of time and get overlooked or forgotten when managing a large account.

Step 5: Clearing Out Ad Groups With No Impressions

Now after all of that, removing keywords, removing ads, and removing extensions, lets jump into our final step. Take a look at your Ad groups as a whole and how many impressions they are receiving.

If you have an ad group that isn’t receiving any impressions, you may have already noticed this when cleaning out keywords and ads that have not received any impressions.

Hypothetically this ad group might not even have any keywords or ads left in it. If this is the case it is almost time to let this campaign go, but first a few checks.
- Make sure your ad group is set up correctly and make sure no information is missing.
- Verify your targeting is set up properly for your intended market.
- And finally, is your bidding competitive?
If all of this seems in check and you still weren’t receiving impressions, say goodbye to the unneeded ad group and hello to a cleaned-up account!

Summary

Congratulations! With those 5 steps under your belt, you now have a clean account for the start of the new year.

We know people either love decluttering or hate decluttering but either way, the feeling of a clean account is always a good feeling. Now hopefully, you can find insights and important information faster because you can focus on the elements that actually matter.
January 11, 2023
Optimizing SEO vs. PPC Landing Pages

SEO vs. PPC Landing Pages

Search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising both play critical roles in any digital marketing strategy. One of the most important for both is the landing page.

Although both SEO and PPC landing pages follow many of the same best practices such as mobile friendly designs and conversion rate optimization tactics, there are a few key differences that separate the best SEO landing pages from the best PPC landing pages.

In this article, we’ll take a look at how the differences in goals and strategy of these two campaign types generate distinct best practices in PPC & SEO landing page design.

What Makes a Strong Landing Page?

Good landing pages serve a particular function that advances your business goals. Whether it’s making a direct purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or requesting a quote, meeting, or demo, a good landing page should be judged based on its ability to acquire traffic and convert users.

SEO & PPC Tactics

To understand the differences between PPC landing pages and SEO landing pages, one must first get a better overview of how PPC and SEO vary in the first place.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing a website to rank highly in engines like Google. You do this through the use of specific keywords, among other tactics. The goal is to expand the page’s organic reach – meaning the page ranks highly on Google.

Pay-per-click (PPC) involves a situation where advertisers pay a fee every time someone clicks on their ad. On a search engine like Google, PPC ads typically appear alongside the organic results. The benefit here is that you don’t have to wait for your page to rank highly for your desired keywords naturally. So long as you’ve created the right type of compelling, relevant ad, you’re targeting the right audience, and you’re competitive in terms of how much you’re willing to pay for each click, you can quickly “buy your way” to the top.

While the overall look of both landing page types will be similar, the steps that you use to optimize them will vary.

SEO Landing Pages

SEO landing pages have a difficult job to do because they have not just one but two primary functions: user acquisition and user conversion.

Before we worry about converting users, we have to make sure they can find us to begin with.

Writing for Robots

While the search engine algorithms are in constant flux, they generally prefer pages with longer content. More text provides the robots with more material that they can use to discern what the page is about. With a more complete understanding of the page’s content, they’re better able to decide which users and search queries will find the page most useful.

Therefore, a big part of ranking on Google is demonstrating expertise on your given topic. They want to see websites approach their topic from different angles.

For example…

…let’s say you’re a law firm looking to rank for “car accident lawyers”. Google wants to see that your company knows what it’s talking about when it comes to traffic, insurance, and personal injury law.

As a result, you’ll often see landing pages for car accident attorneys featuring a wide range of content. They often contain instructions about what to do after an accident, facts about vehicle collisions, comparisons between different types of accidents, penalties for certain infractions, and on and on.

This content demonstrates a sufficient level of relevant knowledge on the given topic, and therefore, is worthy of ranking.

Now, are most users really going to find all of this information useful in their search for attorneys?

Probably not.

While some may find it useful, writing that much content takes valuable time and effort and could be better spent elsewhere. But it’s important for SEO, i.e. user acquisition.

In other words, it’s written for robots. Not humans.

Consequently, SEO landing pages tend to have a lot more “fluff.” But in the end, that’s what makes a good SEO landing page. They balance writing for robots and writing for humans.

PPC Landing Pages

On the other hand, PPC landing pages don’t need to “convince” search engines to rank their page. PPC user acquisition is primarily done off-page; in the Google Ads interface for example. We acquire users by creating quality ads and making competitive bids.

Because we don’t need to dedicate on-page space and resources to user acquisition, we can focus all of our efforts on maximizing conversions.

Writing for Conversions

In PPC, we’re paying a little bit for every user who lands on our page. Which means there’s a greater cost for non-converting clicks. We lose money for every user who lands on the page and doesn’t convert. Therefore more of our resources, efforts, and overall design should be spent on maximizing conversion rates.

What does this mean exactly?

Generally, it means that pages are more streamlined. The content tends to be short, sweet, and relevant.

If we’re bidding on key terms such as “car accident lawyers”, we don’t need all the “fluff” content about what to do after a car accident or penalties for certain infractions like we might see for SEO.

Our content should be dedicated to convincing users why our law firm is the right one to hire for their case.

Good landing pages (both SEO and PPC) also feature prominent calls to action with big obvious buttons and clearly marked forms. Users should have no question about how to engage your services.

CLICK HERE! SIGN UP NOW! CALL TODAY!

Moreover, we want users to convert. Not click away from the page. Thus, you might see PPC landing pages without any internal or outbound links. Not even a main navigation menu.

In the End

Overall, both PPC and SEO landing pages have a home in your digital marketing campaigns – you just need to better understand when and where to use each one. SEO landing pages tend to stand the test of time – meaning that once they rank in Google, they continue to bring in traffic. PPC landing pages tend to be focused on the short-term, meaning that they’re likely to lose their internal value once your campaign ends.

By understanding the best practices you need to use when optimizing each one, you’re left with invaluable resources that will help you accomplish all of your goals and more.

January 4, 2023
Email Marketing: an Overview

Email marketing has something of a mixed reputation. On the one hand, marketers tout its ability to connect with audiences, promote deals & products, and turn favorable ROIs.

But on the other, we’ve all seen that horrible dumpster fire we call a spam folder, often filled to the brim with clickbait, phishing schemes, and your run-of-the-mill rubbish and superfluous nonsense.

Thus, we get a mixed reputation.

But clearly, email marketing must provide some value to businesses. The question becomes, who does it benefit the most? What businesses should pursue email marketing?

So in this post, we’ll run through what email marketing is, what it’s good at achieving, what it’s not, who should implement it & who should steer clear.

Email marketing… what is it?

Email marketing is a form of direct marketing in which businesses send commercial messages via email.

Typically email marketing involves sending advertisements for specific products or promotions.

However, it is also used to foster brand awareness, trust, and loyalty. This can be in the form of announcements or newsletters, re-engagement emails, and even more personalized emails such as birthday messages.

Email marketing campaigns are best run through dedicated marketing clients and applications since free-to-use email service providers like Gmail and Outlook don’t support mass emails.

Popular platforms such as MailChimp, Sendinblue, and Hubspot allow businesses to create email templates, schedule content calendars, and upload huge contact lists.

This is important because email campaigns tend to have low open rates and even lower click-through rates, meaning large mailing lists are a necessity for most campaigns.

Businesses can compile contact lists from many sources including their own customer database, opt-in subscriptions & newsletter sign-ups on their website, and purchasing contact lists from customer databases. However, these paid contact lists tend to be much lower quality and less likely to convert than recipients who opt in.

Nevertheless, email campaigns have the potential to deliver some of the best ROIs in marketing. Let’s take a look at what they’re good at achieving and who stands to benefit most.

What’s Good About Email Marketing?

Inform About New Products / Sales / Specials / Promos

Email marketing campaigns are fantastic at promoting or highlighting products and services. From new product launches to sales promotions, email allows for a broad, but targeted and personalized reach. This makes it great for eCommerce, retail and high-volume product sales, travel & hospitality services, restaurants, and more.

Re-engagement & Cart Abandonment

Email is often a great way to re-engage inactive customers. Whether it’s a subscriber who made a purchase years ago or someone who abandoned their shopping cart yesterday, email campaigns are often used to reignite interest in potential customers.

This is especially the case for eCommerce platforms that wish to follow up with users who left the website without purchasing items in their online cart.

Brand Awareness, Trust, and Loyalty

Email allows businesses to keep in touch with past customers, subscribers, and leads, exposing them to their brand and creating awareness. When businesses use email to build brand awareness and trust, it’s often in concert with content marketing on blog and social media channels.

Not all businesses depend as heavily on repeat customers. But for those that do, email is one of the best ways to maintain engagement between purchases and build brand trust and loyalty.

Lead Nurturing

Businesses with a long sales cycle can leverage email to nurture leads at every step of the process. Use email to communicate expert insights on your products or industry with newsletters or whitepapers (again, in concert with content marketing), gauge interest with responsive drip campaigns, and close on more prospects.

Cost-Effectively Reach Audience

Start up costs for email marketing are rock bottom. Many platforms offer their bottom tier plans for free. This enables businesses that are strapped for cash to get their foot in the door and establish marketing channels for no cost at all.

However, even the more expensive plans are relatively cheap. High quality plans might run for several hundred dollars per month, allowing businesses the freedom to experiment and optimize their marketing schemes and email templates.

What’s NOT Good About Email Marketing

Email is a Numbers Game i.e. You Need a Large Audience

Given low open rates and even lower click-through rates, email marketing is a numbers game. If you’re a local business providing, for example, B2B or home services, your target market might simply be too small for an email campaign to make sense.

Low-Quality Lists

Compiling high-quality lists of opt-in users can take time. And for websites with relatively low traffic or those looking to expand their audience, that means leveraging paid contact lists from customer databases which tend

International Regulations Can Make Things Tough

International regulations on mass email marketing differ significantly between countries. If your business is active in European or overseas markets, different rule sets may require separate campaigns, designs, and strategies.

Consistency is Key

Successful email marketing campaigns require consistent optimization and content updates. It is NOT a set-it-and-forget-it strategy. Although it provides a low cost barrier to entry, it requires dedicated oversight, whether by your in-house marketing team or an agency. This has the potential to increase costs.

Is Email Marketing Right for You?

Email marketing is rarely implemented on its own. Often, it is used in conjunction with content marketing, SEO, or PPC advertising. If you’re considering implementing email marketing within your broader marketing efforts, contact Fanatically Digital to learn how we can help your business.

December 14, 2022
Display Campaigns & Brand Awareness

Today, we’re looking at how to build brand awareness with display advertising. This can be a very nuanced conversation and it is important your team is on the same page from the jump. Some decisions that need to be made from the start are, what campaign and ad types to use and what KPIs will be used to measure the success of a brand awareness campaign.

Here we are going to break down a few ways to set up and measure a brand awareness campaign.

Why Display Campaigns for Brand Awareness?

Using a display campaign alongside a search campaign is a great tactic for a brand awareness objective.

These two campaign types will work side by side to support one another. When solely using search campaigns you are only getting in front of people who are actively searching for your product or service.

However, when using display campaigns and curated audiences your ads will appear in front of potential customers who might not even know your product or service exists. Thus expanding your potential and actual reach exponentially.

Here is where your search ads come in handy to support your display ads.

A potential customer who viewed your display ad may click directly on your ad and be taken straight to your sight. Great!

However, they might not be ready to buy just yet. Then a few days, weeks, or even months later, when they are ready to buy or looking for more information, they can search for your company and be met with a search ad.

Perfect! The tag team ad types did their job. Now, your search ads may come into play much quicker.

Those who are distrusting of display ads may pop over and do a quick google search right away for your company. Again being met with your search ads. So don’t be surprised if you see an increase in your search campaign impression and make sure to budget accordingly to pick up the new traffic.

Measuring the Success of a Brand Awareness Campaign

Being on the same page regarding Key Performance Indicators is crucial for any campaign, especially for a brand awareness campaign.

That’s because usually, brand awareness campaigns aren’t using conversion rate or cost per conversion as their success metrics, instead oftentimes using impressions, clicks, and CPM.

This can be a tricky adjustment if your team isn’t used to using these KPIs.

If your goal is to see an increase in impressions and clicks for a brand awareness campaign there is also a good chance that conversion rates will go down and cost per conversion will go up, which can make people uneasy.

We get that.

Usually, you want a higher conversion rate and a lower cost per conversion, which is why your KPIs need to be straightened out ahead of time.

So, why is a display campaign with a brand awareness objective worth it?

Well, it’s true, display ads, unlike search ads, aren’t necessarily reaching people who are actively searching for your product or service thus your click-through rate and conversion rate are logically going to decrease.

That being said, brand awareness campaigns are all about the long term pay off. Display ads aren’t reaching people actively searching for your product or service, no, but hopefully when people are in need of your product or service your company will come to mind or at least be a recognizable name when they search.

Keep in mind this need could be in 2 weeks, 2 months or even 2 years. Therefore you want to increase your impressions and clicks so you are getting in front of as many new customers as possible.

This leads us to another good indicator of a successful brand awareness campaign.

Rather than zeroing in and looking at the impressions and clicks of one individual campaign try zooming out and looking at branded queries as a whole. This is relevant for both paid ads and organic searches. Are more people searching for your company name?

For example, when running a Brand Awareness Campaign for 10 weeks we saw an 88% increase in paid branded search term queries and a 110% increase in organic branded search queries.

We saw that our increase in branded awareness spend strongly correlated with the increase in branded search queries. This benefit would not have been something that was noticed if we isolated ourselves to only looking at the display ad metrics. Thus, once again it is important to take a step back and look at the whole picture when running a brand awareness campaign.

All companies and campaigns are different. Running ads and goals can be very nuanced. It is crucial to have the important conversations about ad types and KPIs right off the bat to ensure that your campaign runs smoothly towards your team’s goals.

December 7, 2022
Managing Change in SEO

SEO is dynamic. That’s no secret to anyone familiar with the field. We see a lot of changes in our metrics that result from Google adapting or changing algorithms. Sometimes, Google changes how it processes information through Google Search Console. And other changes are the result of something in the market (or related to it). The many influences on SEO can make it difficult to determine why numbers are changing (or not changing as expected.)

Over the past year, we have seen different things affect our clients. Depending on the client, geography, or industry, some clients felt the impact of the changes more than others. Here are a few of the more notable changes.

Change In Manual URL Submission

Old hat to SEOs, but perhaps unknown to those on the outside, Google Search Console (GSC) provides webmasters with the ability to submit a URL and request that Google index it. And it is just that, a “request.” Manual submissions are used for new pages or pages with substantive or time-sensitive changes.

In theory, GSC will pick these URLs up in the sitemap or as part of its crawling. But those are based on unknown crawling schedules. So, being able to submit the URLs for “priority” indexing manually has been a valuable tool.

Unfortunately, late last year (or perhaps earlier), Google started to delay crawling manual submissions. Though the tool indicates the URL is in a priority queue, Google takes no action in a timely manner.

In our experience, a URL submitted manually would be indexed within a week and often with days. Then last fall, indexing was delayed. Google would acknowledge the URL but not index it for search for quite some time.

The length of the delays indicated that the indexing may not have occurred because of the manual submission but because Google saw the URL while crawling.

Indeed, that was ultimately the guidance Google provided. While you can submit URLs manually, they are more interested in finding links from other sites to your pages.

While linking has always been an important ranking factor, Google is moving to where it may only acknowledge URLs if they find them while crawling other sites/pages. This is pure supposition but within character for Google.

Smarter, more efficient SERPs

Depending on how you look at your search impressions in GCS, you may see a drop that masks actual improvement.

For websites with many pages with similar content (think product pages), we have seen a reduction in the URL impressions but an increase in the query impressions (absolute number of times the site appears for a query).

Previously, Google was delivering 2+ site URLs to a single query. More recently, we are seeing fewer URLs appearing for the same query, but our impressions and position for the URL that does appear are improving.

While our URL impressions decrease, our query impressions increase.

Giving credit to Google’s methods, we also see improvements in the quality of the traffic as measured across engagement, leads, and e-comm. The algorithms better deliver relevant content (though less of ours) to the searchers. Both searches and websites benefit.

Localization in SEO Matters

We do a lot of work in the moving industry with clients in different markets across the country. As you can imagine, people in different areas may search for the same service using different terminology. This is not unique to movers.

But, in addition to users searching differently, the competition is different, and the way Google ranks things appears to change based on the market as well.

We experiment with different content structures and have found that how we construct URLs and arrange content is ‘rewarded’ differently by Google in different markets. In some cases, more encompassing content on a page gets ranked well for search terms, while in other markets, divided, more focused content on a page works well, spreading the same content from one page over multiple pages. The same content performs differently depending on how you structure it, which changes by market.

Implications for national brands and brands with local footprints are the same. To get the best results, you not only have to cater to how people behave at the local level but also to how Google rewards content at the local level (perhaps driven by local behavior we can’t see.)

It informs brands engaging with digital marketing companies with a cookie-cutter industry approach. We have seen this in the medical industry and restaurants as well as moving. Marketing companies that focus on a niche apply the same site structure and KW priorities that may work well in some markets but not others.

Changes in SEO Results that have nothing to do with us

When we review changes in performance, we don’t just look at the absolute delta. We break it down to see what groups of search terms improved and what group of search terms decreased (standard SEO practice.) In any given month, the net of these may be plus or minus, but segmenting them lets us better understand where we can have an impact.

In one case, we saw that nearly 10% of the volume in declining search terms came from a query that has little to do with the products.

The product is a “Throat Goat Pump.” Last year, Google was also showing our URLs for the search “goat throat” as well as the correct term “throat goat.” Understandably, people may have transposed the words.

In 2022, Kim Petras released a song named “Goat Throat.” Now, Google has a highly relevant page to which to direct searchers. While the term was used previously, Google didn’t have a place to direct users. Now it does.

So, of the terms that lost impressions in GSC, 10% came from a word that the vast majority of the searches are irrelevant. May we have lost some revenue? Sure. But, the fact is the new content made much more sense. And, we do still sometimes appear for it, so perhaps it remains relevant for certain users that Google has identified.

There are two takeaways from this: 1) Changes to your SEO metrics can be significantly impacted by things over which you have no control… the landscape is not static. And 2) some changes, even big ones, may not be as negative or positive as they first appeared.

Managing Change in SEO

The secrecy in which Google operates makes knowing what to expect impossible. Even announced changes are sufficiently vague as only to give the warning to keep your eyes open… which you should be doing anyway.

The best way to navigate the changes is to stay focused on best practices. . Even Google’s most recent guidance points back to old guidance for SEO. Relevant content, good code structure, decent site performance, and localization where it makes sense will mitigate the impact of Google’s changes.

But there will be an impact. With consistent reporting, deep dives, and focus, any changes will be apparent early, and you can react to them.

SEO is not rocket science, it is just hard work.

August 26, 2022
Our favorite 9 Google Analytics Reporting Features
Google Analytics has a lot of great reporting capabilities and features. Too many people don’t use them because they may not be obvious, or may take some time to set up, or their inputs may not be properly set up. Whatever the reason, it is worth overcoming it to benefit from these Google Analytics capabilities.

Google Universal Reporting overview

These capabilities are part of Google Universal. Yes, Google wants everyone to migrate to Google G4, and you should. But the reality is that Universal Analytics will be around for a while. The amount of time you spend setting up proper GA reporting will be well worth it for the next year or two or more before your G4 migration.

GA Universal has several areas for reporting. All of them have their own value, and which ones you use will depend on what questions you want to answer. And this is the key point for any reporting setup.

The first step is to gather the questions you need to answer, how often you need the answers, and what you will do with the information. Too often, we see people set up elaborate reporting schemas, but don’t really have an idea of what the action items might be.

To get to the questions it helps to start with something as basic as your responsibilities.
1. What actions do you take and how often?
2. To decide on those actions, what information do you need, questions answers?
3. Finally, how will you know if your decisions and actions actually made an impact?
The type of reporting and frequency will be based on the answers to these questions.

Daily reporting is often a comfort rather than a practical use of your time or resources. Do you take action every day based on yesterday’s metrics? If so, then daily reporting makes sense. If not, then daily reporting becomes a distraction, or worse, encourages you to ignore information because it comes in too often without changing.

Design your reporting around the three questions above, and you’ll find your time is much more productive.

Though we really like the reports shown below, the standard sets of reporting capabilities are very useful. You should be sure to explore these to understand if they serve your needs before investing time and resources in customizing reports and dashboards. Don’t over-engineer your reporting.

Our Favorite Types of Google Analytics Reports & Features

1. Google Analytics Alerts

One frustration people have is learning about a problem well after it started. These situations often lead to prolonged poor user experience, lost revenue, or large gaps in information. If you are charged with maintaining a website, or your goals are impacted by various parts of site performance, then Google Analytics Alerts can help you stay on top of things without having to constantly log into GA or your site to check.

You set up your Custom Alerts in the Admin area for a given View.

Take a look at the options that are relevant to your responsibilities. If it’s eCom conversion rates, you can create an alert for a drop vs a prior period or below a certain level. Basically, anything that you can measure in GA can be the basis for an alert.

The alerts can be set to be emailed to yourself or others.

A few things to keep in mind.
1. The alerts are intended to be triggered based on performance. So, they work over a daily period or longer.
2. Be sure of your threshold. Getting alerted every morning because you set the conversion rate threshold too low will lead to you ignoring the alerts. If the threshold is truly accurately set, but likely to trigger alerts, you need to address the core issue causing the low conversion rate before setting up the alert.
3. GA Alerts are not intended to notify you of catastrophic events. If your site crashes today, you’ll not know until tomorrow. If page load speed drop significantly, again, you’ll not know until tomorrow. There are other tools available to monitor major events like these.
Google Analytics Alerts are a great tool if you follow the “management by exception” philosophy. As long as things are going well, you don’t need to constantly monitor reports. But, when something falls off (is an exception), you want to know and manage it.

2. Google Analytics Dashboards

A Dashboard is a great type of report that concisely shows important information and lets you keep an eye on trends, general performance, and any exceptions. The key is that the elements of the dashboard remain consistent so you can tell, almost at a glance, if something seems off.

The purpose of the dashboard is to provide a higher-level view of performance and indicates where and when you may need to delve deeper. This is often made analogous to the instruments in an airplane cockpit. They’re designed to be quick and easy to read, so we know if there is an approaching issue.

In addition to the traditional approach of using an analytics dashboard, we also like to use them when we launch a new initiative. Set up properly, with the right filters, and you can closely monitor virtually any segment of your website traffic against target metrics. This makes it easier to see if the initiative is on target or you need to adjust your plan.

Setting up a dashboard in GA is pretty straightforward. On the left-hand panel under Customization, you click on Dashboards. Then, click the red “Create” button.

At this point, you will have three options:
1. Blank Canvas. I recommend holding off on this option until you are familiar with the widgets and filters of the dashboard.
2. Starter Dashboard. This is a good, basic dashboard about general user stats for the site. It won’t show you much by way of nuance, but it is a good overview of the site’s performance.
3. Import From Gallery. The GA Dashboard gallery is pretty well populated and a great way to explore different layouts and ways to view your GA data. One caveat is that some of the dashboards in the gallery might make assumptions about how your GA is set up and your data may not fit their dimensions, metrics, and filters.
Once you are in a dashboard, you will see a few options at the top. The first is the “+Add Widget”. Dashboards are comprised of widgets displaying graphs, tables, counters, etc.

There are a lot of configurations you can create. But, one of the most useful elements is the “Filter.” This handy tool lets you isolate the site traffic to that which is important to you.

Most of us look at segments of the traffic, such as paid search or certain content/pages, among other dimensions.

Explore the dimensions and you will likely find that you can narrow the scope of the dashboard data to what is most relevant to your reporting needs.

If you are starting out, focus on playing with the “Starter Dashboard,” editing the widgets to see what happens.

Then do the same with the gallery dashboards. After a while, you’ll be able to add the widgets and filters that show you the information in the format you need.

3. Google Analytics Custom Reports

The custom reports, also under Customization, allow for the same data and filter access as the Dashboard. But, the reports tend to be narrow and deep, whereas dashboards tend to be wide and shallow.

Galleries are also available in the Custom Report area. These reports tend to be good for metrics shown over many elements of a dimension. Think product sales, conversion rates by date by channel. These are data tables built to show metrics and dimensions in a way that the default to Google’s UI reporting doesn’t.

There are three basic ways to set up reports.

Build the report

start by selecting the metrics, then the dimensions. You have the option of creating flat tables or building in a drill-down table.

Additionally, you can add multiple tabs. This can get tricky because there is a temptation to add tabs upon tabs, leading to data creep. Falling into this trap causes reports that become unuseful, they lose their focus.

When creating these reports, one of the most important tools is the filter. Generally, without filters, the data in reports created here are very similar to the standard reports in the GA UI.

Import from Gallery

Like Dashboard, there is a robust custom reports gallery. The gallery has some great filtering capabilities that will let you narrow the scope to the most relevant types of reports.

When you look through the Gallery, be careful to select reports and not dashboards. These are usually identified in the title.

Finally, before you build a report from scratch, take a look at the next way to create custom reports.

4. Saved Reports

I am combining “Saved Reports” with “Custom Reports” because what you save from the regular Google Analytics UI has been customized.

If you find yourself going into the standard reports in GA, adding the same secondary dimension, and the same filters to review data on a regular basis, this should be created as a saved custom report. And Google makes it easy with the “Save” button at the top.

The good thing about the Custom reports and the Saved reports is that they have the same date range selection as all GA reports. Also, if you want to make tweaks, or try out different dimensions, you can duplicate the report. This lets you keep the current report intact while checking out some options.

5. Goal Funnels

Perhaps one of the most useful reports for optimizing the users’ path to your target goals is the Conversion Goal Funnel visualization. This is something we like to use with the purchase funnel but can be used with any goal that requires the user to take discreet steps.

To start, you need to set up a goal in the View’s Goals section. Creating a destination goal, with steps along the way.

Generally, the steps are discreet pages that the user clicks through on the way to the goal destination. This may be a thank you page, transaction confirmation, or some other content consumption.

There are several reasons the funnel visualization is useful. At a high level, it tells the conversion rate from when someone starts the process to when they complete it.

But, more telling is that at each stage, you can see the funnel drop off and where the users went, either as an exit or to which pages on the site they went.

A closer review of this information can provide insight as to why people are dropping off. This can be used to decide where you might run A/B testing, or change content to ease the flow from one step to the next.

Helpful Google Analytics Features

Generating reports is great, but providing features to share, annotate and append the data are key strengths in Google Analytics. The rest of our favorite features in GA incorporate these capabilities and we’ve found it to be very useful.

6. Exporting GA Reports

A nice aspect of Google Analytics reporting is the ability to share the report via email, PDF, or spreadsheet. You can export the various reports for downloading or send them to a Google Docs Spreadsheet. You can also set the reports to be emailed on a one-time basis or as a scheduled report.

7. Notation in GAs UI

Often, when we see changes or odd blips in the GA data, we ask what happened that may have caused. A neat feature of Google Analytics is the ability to make date-based notations that appear wherever the graph of data is seen. Make notations as things happen, even if you don’t initially see a data impact. This will help when looking back to explain data trends.

8. Data Importing

A great feature of Google Analytics is the direct connection to Google Ads, being able to see the cost, clicks, and impressions by various dimensions. This feature is extended to other channels via the data import feature in GA.

There are several types of Data Import. We most often use Cost data. A key consideration is that your UTM parameters’ values match the medium, campaign, content, and other dimensions that are being passed through with the channel data that you upload.

If you are responsible for media performance, this tool makes it easier to create a single repository of your media metrics and performance KPIs. You will find this feature in the properties admin section.

9. Audience Definitions – Audiences

Creating audiences allows you to segment your visitors into distinct profiles that can be used in Google Ads, or in segmenting your reporting. This is great for remarketing, optimizing the user experience, or just understanding how some segments behave versus other segments.

As you explore Google Analytics, you will no doubt find features that you favor over others. The fact is, there is a lot that can be done in GA. These 9 features just barely scratch the surface.

From integrating other Google Tools, to creating content segments, or custom dimensions, you can design just about any kind of reporting you need in order to make decisions. Just be sure you plan what you need ahead of time.
February 25, 2022
21 On-site SEO Areas to Improve Your Rankings

The recommendations for on-site SEO, or on-page SEO, over years, have often been “flavors of the day”. Because Google is opaque, there are no direct answers about what specifically improves rankings. In our view, placing too much emphasis on a single aspect (or a couple) of SEO elements will lead to disappointment.

We’ve sat in on more than one seminar session dedicating inordinate time to debating things like the Title tag. “Stick to keywords”, “use attention-getting language” (little worry about KWs), “absolutely stick to less than 60 characters”, “don’t worry about the length too much.” This was one session, 4 experts, 4 opinions.

Here’s the thing. They may all have been right. The discussion of what to do for SEO outside the context of actual search terms, locations, competition, and other factors is fairly meaningless. Cute title tags may garner enough clicks in some categories to make it better than discrete keyword usage. You have to try different approaches (though I favor discreet KW usage 😉 ).

Our approach to SEO

To make it through the Google dance, it is best to have a holistic approach to search engine optimization. While individual tactics may sway things in a category or a location, if the core content and page structure are wanting, it will be harder for pages to improve in their search rankings.

Cover the basics first, then, based on the competitive landscape, decide what to emphasize.

Here are 21 on-site SEO implementations that will help you cover the key aspects of search engine optimization.

1. Title Tag: Tell the search engines what your core topic is

The HTML title tag content appears in the tab of a web browser. It is also the primary title source of content that appears in the search results.

Search engines use this content as an indication of the topic of the page.

Google has been changing up the Title content on the SERPS, using its AI to decide to re-write the title to better match the search query. Some research indicates that this happens more often when the title tag content is over 60 characters or less than 6.

The best practice is to keep the length between 50 and 60 characters.

2. Description meta-tag is your sales pitch

This is your elevator pitch. Why should the searcher click on your SERPS rather than others? Make it compelling.

While descriptions are not necessarily used in rankings, they do impact your organic CTR. Keep the primary search term at the start of the description (a few words in perhaps, if not the start), to make the relevance clear to the searcher.

Keep the length close to but under 160 characters.

3. H tags are the base structure of your content

Remember in school when you had to write a paper and the first step was to write an outline? H tags are like an outline. They provide structure to the content.

There should be one “H1” tag. Then there are/can be multiple “H2”, “H3”, and so on. If you get beyond “H4”, you probably are getting deep enough for a different page to cover the topic.

If your content is deemed Google “Snippet” worthy, the H tags will likely be part of the content. Make them descriptive enough to make sense if read by themselves.

4. Content length, the ongoing debate

Generally, the overall content length should not be less than 500 words. While this can vary depending on the keyword competition, more, relevant content, is the way to go. While 500 words have been a minimum benchmark, more (relevant) content is better.

Break content into smaller chunks of 100-250 words. Avoid compound sentences. Your content should be written with authority, but not over the heads of a novice read in the category. Small, concise paragraphs are easier to scan and consume. This makes it better for reader retention and time-on-page.

5. Keyword use has evolved

Over the years we have gone from singular keywords/terms target page focus to theme/semantic targeted. Semantic search improved the understanding of the relationship between words and phrases within a topic. Using similies, interchangeable terms related to the topic is a preferable way to go.

Having said that, check the high-ranking competition and see if this holds true for your target keywords/topics. As we said, things change by category, search term, and location.

6. Image file size

Keep it small. Use only as large (dimensionally) an image as needed. We’ve worked with clients that offer high-end residential landscaping and remodeling. Large, beautiful images are a must for their brands. But, do try to keep it small as possible.

To help with any dimensional-sized image, use image compression to minimize the KB size. You can use graphics tools as well as plugins/addons for most CMSs like WordPress.

7. Make good use of the “alt” attribute

“Alt” is an attribute in the “img” tag for images. The content of the “alt” attribute is intended to be a description of the contents of the image.

The content should be descriptive of the image while clearly related to the content of the page (presumable, that’s why the image is there.) “Red car” is not as good as “red 1967 ford mustang on a country road.”

8. Create an FAQs Section

FAQs have benefits for users and SEO

FAQs tend to be engaging. If done properly, with research, the FAQs help users with core concerns about the product, service, or company. This reduces bounce rate, increases on-page time, and gives users what they need.

For some categories, properly structured content might be picked up in the snippets. This is more trie with FAQs related to broader topics, so worth considering where it makes sense in your content.

9. Use Lists where it makes sense

Properly structured, lists make it easier for search engines to understand your content. Use the standard HTML ul/ol list tags.

Users consume lists at a glance, letting them see the relevance of the content with less effort. Like other recommendations in this article, this is a user experience benefit.

10. Apply JSON for structure content

The search engines try to accurately identify the information on a page. For much content, they have to work it out semantically. Where possible, they look for structured data. This is where information is provided in an agreed-upon format.

JSON is a format that provides information (unseen by the user) in the code of a page.

Schema.org, provides the agreed-upon structure for things like business information (name, address, phone number, etc), reviews, product information, and more. This provides a good place to see what types of information make up the structured data.

By using the structure, site owners make it easier for search engines to identify content.

11. Use MicroData if you can’t use JSON

Ok, technically, this provides the same type of thing as JSON, but it is embedded in the HTML tags that present the information to the user.

Also as part of schema.org, it’s valid. If you are not familiar with JSON structure, you can use HTML microdata.

12. The image source file name in the url

Back to the img tag. The file for the image is placed in the “src” attribute of the tag. We like to use file names that align with the image name and site content. For instance, following the example above, rather than us a name like “image001.jpg”, or “car.jpg”, we like to use “red_ford_mustang_1966.jpg”.

It is not necessarily a book boost to organic search, but it is another indication.

13. Share the PR love and improve user experience with good hyperlink text

Internal linking is a great tactic for sharing PageRank and connecting content throughout a website. To help strengthen the connection, contextualize the content of the link and the target url. Use descriptive text where appropriate. Rather than just say “click here”, add copy that lets the search engines “see” what the target content is about.

If you have access to Google Search Console or search ranking data, you can be more strategic about your internal linking. But, absent these tools, place descriptive internal links where they will help the user the most.

14. Let the social platforms know what’s on the page with OpenGraph

Sites and social media channels use the open graph markup to display content on their platforms when picking up your page. The open graph (OG) tags provide information social platforms use to display when someone shares the page URL. Titles, images, descriptions, and so forth are shared. For now, unlike Google, if the sites use OpenGraph tags, the social channels don’t overwrite them.

Ahref provides a great introduction to Open Graph tags. There are a lot of tags for OG, but don’t overwhelm yourself with them. Pick the relevant ones and let the others go.

15. Make it easier for search engines to find content with a Sitemap

We are referring to the XML file that tells search engines about the pages on the site. It lets you convey information such as the page URL, how important you believe the page is relative to other pages on the site, how often it’s updated, and other attributes. Most CMSs have addons/plugins that can generate sitemap XML files automatically.

16. Be proactive with mobile settings using the Viewport

This is a meta tag that provides browsers information about the viewing port ratios so they can size the viewable area through which the page is displayed.

It seems like this should be the default behavior, but the tag is needed for a mobile-friendly experience. As Google is assessing sites with the mobile-first perspective, missing this tag is a problem.

17. Bold tags, are good for UX. For SEO?

Using the “bold” tag to make text bold may help with search engines connecting content to search queries. But, regardless of the direct ranking implications, the judicious use of bold tags will help users identify important content. This tends to reduce bounces and increase time on the page. The tag may be a minor player but is helpful in showing and prioritizing important content.

18. Provide the search engine crawlers directions with Robots.txt

The robots.txt file is a plain text file that lives in the root server (usually) of the site. It tells the search crawlers what pages/folders should and should not be crawled.

In addition to some admin pages, transaction pages, and member area pages that you may not want to waste quotas on, you may have page content that is not core to what is important. You may want to tell the search engine crawlers not to index those pages as well. Unless you are an experienced SEO, you should be conservative in your list of blocked content.

19. E-A-T: Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness.

The E-A-T factor does not technically have a metric that you can measure against. There are, however, a few things you can do to improve E-A-T.

Be sure to have writers with subject-matter experience. As people research subjects, it quickly becomes clear if the writer has experience with the topic, or is just a generalist who picked up the contract to write it.

Authority can be tricky. Google tried to have a metric for this but people spammed it. What you can do is be sure your site is well focused on the topic/category and, where applicable, have profiles for the writers. The writer profiles should reflect what might be found in LinkedIn or industry trade publications. Linking to those other bios can help as well.

Trustworthiness is what it says, can the site be trusted. Think about claims. Is the deal on the site too good to be true? Are the qualities attributed to the products or service reasonable? Basically, be honest and you’ll be ok.

You can get a lot of advice on this topic. Try to keep it simple though. Here is a good perspective on E-A-T.

20. Make your content easily shareable

Use code snippets provided by the social platforms so users can simply click to share. Along with the Open Graph tags, make sharing easy for users. Have your social links on the site, and have share buttons in relevant, sharable content. The more user engagement you encourage, the more traffic and, hopefully, links you’ll garner.

21. Read & Listen to content about Search Engine Optimization

No, technically, this is not on-site or on-page SEO. But, read SEO articles, subscribe to the industry newsletters, and listen to podcasts. This really serves two purposes.

If something changes, or is on the horizon, you’ll hear about it earlier. While we don’t chase the flavor of the day, being aware of things and critically thinking about them is important.

It’s motivating. Hearing about and seeing others try new things, learn, succeed and fail, encourages us to do the same. When you disconnect from the broader community, engagement in your own SEO efforts also wains.

For seasoned SEOs, the above is basic. Some of the recommendations are about SEO hygiene, keeping things in order in case Google makes another change(and it will.) But, for the business owner responsible for the website and overall performance, the above provides a guide for focusing conversations and understanding what your in-house SEO or agency might recommend.

If you don’t have the time or resources to tackle all or even some of the list above, then here are the three that’d I’d prioritize: Content, Title Tags, H tags. These are all very closely related. Using the Content as the base, the other two will follow.

This article intentionally did not cover the technical aspects of implementing the 21 SEO focus areas. Most are things people with rudimentary HTML skills should be able to handle. But, if you’re just starting out, I encourage you to pick one area at a time and search “how to…” to learn more about implementation or making changes. There are so many resources for HTML out there that you should be able to easily find one that suits you.

There are other components to SEO such as technical SEO and link building, but those are well beyond our scope here. If you have any questions, drop us a line.

February 8, 2022
SEO Timelines: How Long Does SEO Take to Work?

How long does SEO take to work?

It’s a pretty straightforward question with a less straightforward answer. Because that answer (like it always seems to be) is a frustrating it depends.

Sorry. I know, that’s never any help. But the answer will never be the same for any two sites because, quite simply, no two sites are ever the same.

So, while I cannot give a straightforward answer to ‘how long does SEO take to work,’ what I can do is offer a typical timeline for a generic SEO strategy as well as the factors that determine how quickly a site might respond to that strategy in each phase. So let’s dive in.

Typical SEO Timeline

Compared to PPC campaigns which provide almost immediate results, SEO is a long haul that can take months to build a strong foundation and years to create a powerful, sustainable search presence.

Most SEO strategies can be split up into four phases with distinct levels of activity. If you’re considering hiring an agency, they’ll likely follow a similar timeline.

Phase One

Defined: The first phase is almost always dedicated to research and review. If you’ve hired an SEO agency, they’ll likely spend the first month or so researching your industry, niche, or market, keywords, competition, as well as become acquainted with your website and tracking schemes.

Time: Phase one is usually about a month or so. If you’ve hired an agency or SEO that is already familiar with your field or niche, this will be even quicker.

Expected Results: don’t expect any.

Phase Two

Defined: Phase two is when activity really begins. If the agency discovers major technical issues or finds areas to improve the code or structure of the site, these are typically tackled in the first round of activity. We want to make sure that search engines can easily access and read your site. This is also the time in which we’ll begin our link building efforts.

Time: For small, healthy, or young sites, phase two may only take a couple of days if it’s even necessary at all. But for larger sites that may be older (especially if multiple developers have managed it over the years) and less technically sound, this process can take a while; sometimes up to several months.

Expected Results: Once the technical aspects are fixed, it is certainly possible to see improvements in impressions or positioning. But technical fixes alone won’t make a successful SEO strategy.

Phase Three

Defined: This is where content production and improvement begin. Once we have a solid technical foundation to build on, agencies will start to optimize current landing pages as well as schedule and publish new content to drive inbound traffic. By this point, link building outreach is in full swing.

Time: Phase three will take anywhere from one to six months. By the end of the third phase, once technical fixes are made, existing content has is optimized, and new content is published, by this point, there should definitely be some favorable movement in the organic search metrics.

Expected Results: This doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting new clicks left and right. It could simply mean a respectable bump in impressions for a handful of landing pages. Which brings us to…

Phase Four

Defined: Phase four is really just a continuation of phases two and three. Agencies will make adjustments according to search performance, client feedback, and changes to the almighty algorithm.

Time: Phase four is indefinite. By now, enough time has passed to collect data on those initial changes from which we can fine-tune and further optimize our strategy moving forward

Expected Results: Phase four is where you’ll see sustained, steady growth. This is where SEO is really meant to shine and the results you can expect will depend on just how good your SEO team is. But with a solid team, year over year increases should be expected and great SEO teams can double organic users every few years.

So… How Long Will This Take?

It will probably be a number of months before your SEO agency will be able to offer any evidence of progress. As a business, it’s important to understand that going in. SEO requires patience and long term strategizing and any agencies that guaranteed they can get you to rank #1 in “x” months should be viewed very skeptically.

If you’re considering SEO for your business, check out Fanatically Digital’s services as well as our SEO pricing.

January 31, 2022