Romit @malhotra_harpreetkaur ) got together and I still remember after our marriage in Shimla we got an update that we won our first project.
Since then there is no looking back.
We’ve lived many sleepless nights and many challenges of running a business. But it never stopped us. We kept going on every time we came out learning a new lesson of life.
Today, we stand here to look back and cherish those hard worked days.
MY SUGGESTION TO EVERYONE IS THAT “Life is not easy” SO BE READY TO BE A WARRIOR.
Everyday there is going to be a new fight, just focus on how to conquer it.
“When people tell me they have learned from experience, I tell the trick is to learn from other people’s experience.”
The same thing can be said about case studies.
Case studies, as I personally think, are the best ways to learn from other’s experiences. Experience is the best teacher (even when it’s not our own.)
Case studies are as old as human civilization, although they were not documented as we see them today.
For example, a hunter somewhere in 500 B.C. might be telling others how he hunted down the lion using specific tools and techniques. The other hunters then adapted the same tools in their campaign.
Case studies are a way to share expertise and solution. On the other hand, they are a great way to learn more practically. They include actual examples and results.
A medical case study shows how the researchers identified the problem and created solutions accordingly. It would help the physicians in the future while tackling the same problem. Similarly, a hotel case study would help a new restaurant looking for a business in that area.
But case studies are not something you saw on teleshopping ads where (fake) audience claims to reduce 10 kg weight by taking a magic pill.
Instead, they include the hard and cold data being used in problem-solving and decision making to achieve the goals. The studies logically show “they-did-this-and-got-this.”
Case studies have been used for years by various organizations, medical and law schools, and artists.
And our SEO industry is not an exception.
In fact, case studies are as important as our analytic tools as online marketing is a trial and error process.
The SEO case studies of others can help you identify the best practices for the same concern, especially in the same industry.
SEO case studies can also be useful if you do not get results instead of doing the right things. Many brands have shared their case studies on how they boost their traffic using specific SEO techniques.
Here I have outlined some top SEO case studies you can learn from.
(Note: Names of the organizations hasn’t been given due to privacy issues)
SEO Case Study # 1: Improving Organic Traffic and Visibility
This is a case study of a website selling food products. They wanted to leverage digital marketing to promote their brand but didn’t know where to get started. Top of that, it was quite challenging in a competitive environment. They adapted specific SEO strategies to see success.
Objectives:
Creating a User-Friendly Website
Improving Visibility
Improving User Experience
Increasing Visitors
SEO Strategies Used by Them
Making the right keyword strategy
Identifying user intent
Organizing the website’s content
Creating a URL strategy
Posting fresh content
The Results:
22% Increased Website Traffic
40% Increased Recipe Sharing
Top Ranking for 10 Keywords
Key Lessons to Learn From This Case Study:
Creating a user-friendly website ensures easy navigation and encourages users to explore more.
A URL strategy can improve user experience and improve current marketing strategies.
Understanding the user intent is equally essential as it helps determine whether visitors will explore a website or leave it for a better answer.
Identifying the right keywords can put in front of the right audience and help your rank as well.
Fresh content not only educates your audience but also helps improve ranking.
SEO CASE STUDY # 2: Increasing Organic Traffic through Blogs
Blogs are also an important SEO strategy. See how this laboratory gets more traffic to its website through blogs by addressing customer’s key concerns.
Objective:
Creating blogs to help customers and to drive traffic as well.
SEO Strategies Used by Them:
Researching the topics using specific tools and Q/A platforms like Quora and Reddit.
Including the keywords used by the target audience in the search box
Using CTAs (Call to Action) in each blog
Promoting blogs through social media
Using real images, videos, and infographics
The Results:
33% Increase in Traffic to Product Pages
50% Increase in Organic Traffic
20% Increase in Page View
Key Lessons to Learn from this Case Study:
Audience-centric blogs are liked and shared by users.
Keywords make the content more discoverable.
Creating visual appeal through video or infographics can add to the success of your blogging.
CTA can prompt users to take the required action, thereby improving the chances of sales.
Social media is a basic yet essential channel to market your content.
SEO Case Study# 3: Boosting Local Inquiries
This case study belongs to a waste management business looking for getting leads through local inquiries.
Objectives:
To appear at the time when users are looking for their services.
Building awareness
Focus on the local searches
Improving on-page local optimization
SEO Strategies Used by Them:
Working on-page local optimization
Optimizing “Google My Business”
Creating high-quality mentions and links
The Results:
30% more booking
Improved visibility in targeted areas
Improved traffic and leads
Key Lessons to Learn from this Case Study:
Google My Business account is important to improve your local visibility.
On-page SEO helps you get better visibility and support your marketing campaigns.
Creating mentions and links on other sites and directories help get traffic back to your website.
SEO Case Study# 4: Ranking for Competitive Keywords
A local travel blogger was looking to compete for the top keywords used by his audiences, such as travel advice or outdoor travel tips.
Objectives:
To get on top with specific competitive keywords.
SEO Strategies Used by Them:
Guest Posting
Choosing the keywords with good volume
Performing competitor analysis
Linkbuilding
Promoting the content
Using other content types such as infographics and videos
Key Lessons to Learn from this Case Study:
Guest post not only exposes your content to more audience but also helps you earn a link.
Link outreach helps increase awareness and visibility.
There is no use in going after highly competitive keywords.
SEO Case Study# 5: Building the Traffic from 0 to 100 k
It is challenging to build traffic for a startup as everything has to be started from scratch. However, getting good traffic is still achievable if SEO is done right. Here is a case study of a software company that increased its traffic from 0 to 100,000 in less than two years.
Objectives:
Building brand awareness
Improving organic traffic
Promoting Sales
SEO Strategies Used by Them:
Keyword research and competitive keyword analysis
Content Creation
Implying link building techniques
Improving blog visuals and readability
Promotion over Social Media
The Results:
Having 100k visitors in less than two years
Top ranking for 30 keywords
Many of their posts still rank on top Google spot for specific keywords
Key Lessons to Learn from this Case Study:
Keyword research is important to find the relevant keywords that can boost traffic.
Link building adds to your credibility and leads to higher site metrics and SEO scores.
Using videos and infographics make content appealing as well as sharable.
Content should be more on the latest issues faced by the audience.
Want to Achieve Success Like These Case Studies? We Can Help
These case studies must have made you familiar with essential SEO ingredients like keyword research, blogging, local SEO, content creation, promotion, and many more. It is well and good if you have SEO expertise to imply these SEO essentials. Otherwise, make sure to choose a professional SEO expert or agency to get the job done. If you are looking for the same, look no further than our digital marketing services.
We can help you conquer the ranking and boost traffic with the right SEO practices backed by our experience. Get in touch now!
A good percentage of Google search queries are in the form of a question.
Whether it’s dating advice, learning magic, making girlfriend happy, or finding the best shoes in the town, everyone prefers to type it in a question form over Google Search.
And Google doesn’t disappoint as it tries to provide the best answer that can go with search intent.
But Google doesn’t answer on its own. Instead, it collects the data from websites, reviews, and trusted entities to match the answer.
It means that if you have the close answer to the user queries, you can show up in its People Also Ask box.
What is People Also Ask box?
It is a Direct Answer facility by Google. It is the set of questions answered that closely matched to the searcher’s intent. It appears in the set of four questions that can be expanded to see the answer.
For example, I want to know how French toasts are made. I use Google search to find the answer and this is what Google shows along with the key answers in the People Also Ask box.
Here is another one (obviously, searched by a curious or jealous female fan of Brad Pitt).
Like featured snippets, the PAA box shows answers in different formats ranging from text, tables to videos (sometimes).
What are Expert opinions on People Also Ask or PAA Box?
Okay. Now you must have understood what the People Also Ask box is. It is a direct answer facility by Google to show you the related questions to your search queries. It helps people find the best answers.
As a business, should you care about People Also Ask Box?
Yeah, you should.
This is because Google pulls out data from several sites, reviews, and trusted entities to provide the best answers.
Showing up in the PAA answers can benefit your website as you get in the front of million eyes looking for the answer. This way, it is a great opportunity to improve your organic search.
EXPERT OPINION
Given their typically high position in search results, the PAA box provides brands and SEOs with an opportunity for visibility in a crucial section of the results page.
– George Nguyen, Editor at Search Engine Land
According to a study by Ahrefs, PAA box appears roughly four times in search results than featured snippets. SEMrush has found that the PAA box appears 75% of the time.
Source: Moz.com
The percent of search results with PAA is higher on mobile devices. In Singapore, they pop up 3 times more often in mobile results. In the USA, they occur four times as often on mobile devices.
Source: advancedwebranking.com
While featured snippets usually appear either first or second in the SERPs, PAA boxes can appear in almost any position. For example, it can be on number two position for the query “how to do SEO” and number five for “how to do digital marketing”.
Source: Semrush.com
How to Optimize for PAA Box?
PAA shouldn’t be ignored if you are looking to improve your ranking.
Make it the part of your SEO or online marketing campaign. Here is how to optimize your online website or other entity to appear in the PAA box.
Choose the Right Keywords:
Find out which keyword set is ideal for the People Also Ask box. You can use a rank tracking tool to find the frequency of PAA results for your target phrases. Also, use the Google Universal search engine ranking data, and look at the SERP feature report.
Brainstorm for the Questions:
Slip into your customer’s shoes and think about what they are likely to ask. Besides, you can use several online tools to explore questions such as Yahoo Answers, AlsoAsked.com, Answer the Public.com, and Usetopic.com. Quora is also an effective way to get insight into people’s queries. Once you generate the list of questions, see if you can answer them all as well as incorporate somewhere in your content.
(Snapshot of Usetopics.com tool for finding the answer)
Optimize Your Content:
Google fetches the data or answers from several online entities such as websites and reviews. But it only considers the content written in the right format. Here are some suggestions to make your content fit for the PAA box:
Write in a plain and natural language
Avoid making it look like a sales copy
Target on the questions you have researched (like on Quora)
Keep your content updated
Use the tools like “Answer the Public” to Understand Your Audience Queries Better.
EXPERT OPINION
When writing about a topic, research it thoroughly and ensure you’re answering all the key questions people have. Thorough keyword research and tools like AlsoAsked will help here.
– Sam Underwood, Digital Search Marketer
Strategically Optimize Your Key Pages:
You can try everything you think that people can search for. For example, many people search for “what is the cost of online marketing”.
You can optimize your pricing page for that. But the answer shouldn’t be built around “Call us for Quote Now”.
Instead, you can mention about the general pricing plans (avoiding sales viewpoint as possible).
Careful planning in advance and active listening in the moment to what consumers want means you’ll learn how to develop your answers. It is an ongoing process of active listening.
– Jeannie Hill
How to See Reporting on Your PAA Listings?
Google Search Console helps you track the data on your PAA listings. However, it only happens when your listed answer on the PAA box is expanded. One more thing—if your PAA box occurs in position five, your listing within the PAA box will be reported in Google Search console as position five, no matter if your answer pops up as one of the original three or the tenth of the listing.
Getting Success with PAA—A Case Study
In the summers of 2018, I have been approached by a US real estate firm looking to increase their sales through an online listing. I thoroughly optimized their site for flaws and found that they lack efficient keywords. However, I also wanted to know how PAA can work for them along with other marketing strategies. Here I will only include PAA strategies and results as the topic is all about PAA. Right?
Our PAA Strategies:
Generating Right Keywords People Used for Buying, Selling, and Listing Homes
Incorporating Semantic Keywords
Adding FAQs Box and Including Some General Real Estate Questions as Well
Optimizing the Content for Voice Search
Using the Q and A Mark Up and Other Schemas
The Results:
Optimizing the real estate website for PAA as well as other SEO strategies improved their traffic and exposure as well. They also saw a 200% increase in People Also Ask results.
OVER TO YOU
People Also Ask or PAA is on the way to becoming a key online marketing strategy over time. Thanks to the ever-increasing question-based search queries and Google’s mission to provide quality search results. If you haven’t optimized your website for the PAA box, do it now or else your competitor will do it.
What do you think? Let me know by commenting below!
I searched Google for the causes and treatment of rash.
And the site that topped my search results was none other than WebMD.
We all know that WebMD is an authentic medical domain educating on various health conditions.
But why Google trust it? Why it places WebMD on the top of SERPs related to health and medical advice?
As a webmaster, I can give you several reasons why Google shows WebMD on top.
But one driving factor behind all those reasons is its E.A.T.
E.A.T stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trust.
It means that WebMD has got the expertise, authority, and trust. The content is created and verified by medical experts, making it authentic for users.
The users come here, trust it, and share it, making it reliable for Google.
This is just a rough overview of E.A.T to show its role in the search engine results.
LET’S UNDERSTAND E.A.T IN DETAILS
What is E.A.T?
E.A.T stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trust. Launched in 2014, E.A.T has become a key metric of ranking.
It is a framework mentioned in Google’s Search Quality Guidelines that helps people determine how helpful or useful a page is to solve their queries. Google wants to provide users the quality results for any queries, and websites with sound E.A.T are likely to get higher rankings.
Here is a brief explanation of each E.A.T component.
Expertise:
A content creator should be an expert in his field. Although it might not be that critical for gossip or entertainment sites, it really matters for financial, legal, and medical websites. For example, providing an author bio in any piece of writing can help people know about the content’s expertise.
Authoritativeness:
Authoritativeness is referred to as the quality of being accurate and reliable. Google measures that by backlinks, reviews, and mentions associated with your website.
Trust:
Trustworthiness comes into play when a website asks users to provide sensitive information such as credit card information. Therefore, a user should feel safe while exploring your site. The primary way to build trust is by implementing an SSL on your website.
“Proven trustworthiness is really important. While expertise and authority are factors that boost your rankings, trustworthiness, or rather a lack thereof is what can easily tank your rankings on Google.”
Keep in mind that these three components work together to help your website be in Google’s good books.
It might not work if you are an expert and produce low quality or irrelevant content. If you have expertise and authority in your content, then the last thing to worry about is your website’s security.
Therefore, you have to be eligible for all components of E.A.T.
However, EAT is not a ranking factor as confirmed by Google’s Danny Sullivan—
“Is E-A-T a ranking factor? Not if you mean there’s some technical thing like with speed that we can measure directly. We do use a variety of signals as a proxy to tell if the content seems to match E-A-T as humans would assess it. In that regard, yeah, it’s a ranking factor.”
But it can’t be denied that it plays a vital role in getting your website recognized by Google.
WHAT IS GOOGLE’S QUALITY RATERS GUIDELINESOR QRG?
E.A.T is essential for the success of your website in search results. It helps build your website’s credibility among the users.
Well, Google QRG is a 166-page long document that contains essential guidelines to rate a website.
This document has been provided to 16,000 human raters employed by Google just to check every website manually. After all, humans can assess the value of the content better than any machine.
But these raters don’t have the power to rank the website based on their ratings.
Instead, they report to Google’s engineers, who then assess their algorithms based on the information provided.
Simply put, the raters’ feedback is used by Google to adjust its algorithm.
“ Quality Raters are spread out all over the world and are highly trained using our extensive guidelines. Their feedback helps us understand which changes make Search more useful.
Raters also help us categorize information to improve our systems. For example, we might ask what language a page is written in or what’s important on a page.
We use responses from Raters to evaluate changes, but they don’t directly impact how our search results are ranked.”
You can download the complete Google Quality Raters Guidelines from HERE.
Broadly speaking, Google Quality Raters’ Guidelines works on four things to rate the website:
A.T
Needs Met (does your page satisfy the users?”
Your Money or Your Life (Important content related to life, money, and health. It calls for utmost expertise.)
Page Quality (Misleading titles, ad-blocked content, and obtrusive ads might harm your ranking.)
“They don’t tell you how the algorithm is ranking, but they fundamentally show what the algorithm should do.”
– Ben Gomes, Google’s VP of Search, in an interview with CNBC over Google’s QRG
The Relationship Between E.A.T AND GOOGLE’S QRG
Again, quality raters cannot influence the rankings of your website.
But Google surely leverages their reported information to show the high-quality website first in the search results.
“These ratings do not directly impact ranking, but they do help us benchmark the quality of our results and make sure these meet a high bar all around the world.”
Many of these websites lack E.A.T; traffic went below when the core update is released, and Google’s ability to detect E.A.T enhanced.
How to Create E.A.T Friendly Content
So far, you must have read that GOOGLE’S QUALITY RATERS GUIDELINES is more or less based on E.A.T principles.
Google is likely to tweak its algorithm based on the report of these guidelines.
Therefore, the message is clear—only an E.A.T friendly website has good chances to rank, no matter what algorithm comes.
There is no right time to update your website according to the E.A.T norms. Do it now.
Here’s how…
Create Quality Content That Stands for Expertise:
Whether you write medical content or run a recipe blog, make sure it has the reflection of your expertise. Otherwise, it is better to get it done by an expert of that field, especially if it is related to medical, finance and health, or any other area of Your Money, Your Life (YMYL)
However, formal expertise is not required in the content related to life experience or everyday expertise. For example, someone mentioning his experience with depression in any form won’t be penalized. Because Google thinks that the person is sharing his knowledge, not expertise.
Here’s what Google guideline says about it.
“Consider this example. Here, forum participants are telling how long their loved ones lived with liver cancer. This is an example of sharing personal experiences (in which they are experts), not medical advice. Specific medical information and advice (rather than descriptions of life experiences) should come from doctors or other health professionals.”
Use Authentic Sources:
Make sure to link your facts and statistics to a credible and accurate source. This makes your content looks authentic.
Google pinpoints this thing in its guideline—
“High E-A-T news articles should be produced with journalistic professionalism—they should contain factually accurate content presented in a way that helps users achieve a better understanding of events.”
Look for Positive Reviews:
One of the E.A.T rules is to gain positive reviews on your content. It will improve your page quality as well as build a reputation. Positive reviews are triggered by high-quality content that helps your audience.
Besides, you should take care of negative reviews by trying to know their problems and providing solutions accordingly.
Make a Wikipedia Page:
For Google, Wikipedia is a reliable source.
Joshua Hardwick, the head of content at AHREFS and the founder at the SEO Project, opines—
“News articles and Wikipedia articles can help you learn about a company and may include information specific to reputation, such as awards and other forms of recognition, or controversies and issues.”
In fact, having a Wikipedia page for your business can help you gain authority and trust to some extent. It is also worth mentioning that Google extracts information from Wikipedia for Google Knowledge Graphs, which is a critical point in improving your online reputation as well.
OVER TO YOU:
Google Search Quality Raters’ Guidelines impact algorithms. And E.A.T is going to be a crucial factor in that. Therefore, optimize your content according to E.A.T so that your website can easily pass an algorithm test on any given day.
What do you think? Let us know by commenting below!
How to optimize your content for improved traffic and visibility?
Generally, you insert keywords, create a meta-description, use heading tags and share it on other platforms.
Apart from ticking all these SEO boxes, you should do one more thing.
That’s optimizing the user reviews or feedback received on content.
User reviews speaks about the experience of visitors with your content. Some reviews can be good. Some can be negative. Whatever reviews you get, make sure to optimize them to improve your content.
For example, some readers ask you to update certain parts of your content. Or some are looking for video or some more tips. Once you make all these required changes suggested by your visitors, your content sounds better and efficient.
Here you will learn why and how to optimize user reviews to improve the performance of your content in SERPs. Let’s get started!
HOW OPTIMIZING CUSTOMER FEEDBACK CAN BENEFIT YOUR SEO?
The suggestions by your audience are useful in making your content relevant and potent. When your content sounds relevant and better, it can improve its ranking and visibility on the SERPs.
That’s not the only benefit associated with optimizing your customer reviews.
Have you ever thought that the reviews, whether they are good or bad, include certain keywords?
For example, a review that contains the phrase “the best SEO advice” can make your blog rank for the same keyword.
This also helps Google identify your blog or business, letting it to improve position in the SERPs.
As an added bonus, user reviews contain semantic keywords that are also useful.
Secondly, responding to the comments signifies to Google and users that your business cares for feedback and opinions.
You Don’t Have User Reviews? Here’s How You Can Generate Them
There is no shame in admitting that your blogs have little to no reviews on them. But it also prompts you to boost the engagement so that it attracts feedback from the readers.
Here are 8 tips that can help you in getting reviews on your blog.
1. Using CTA at the End of the Content:
Asking for feedback can be as simple as asking them for their thoughts at the very end of the blog. For example,
“Looking for your valuable opinion on this piece of writing!
It will encourage the readers to drop their feedback on your content.
2. Via Email:
Using email to ask for reviews is an effective approach. This is because over 90% of users open their email daily. And 58% of them check their email before doing anything else. Some readers might have subscribed to your blogs. If not, then you can go out to your user list.
Send emails to all of them asking for their feedback on your blogs or other pieces of content.
The message can be crafted like this:
“Hello Sam (it’s better if you personalize the mail using their name)!
Positive feedback from amazing readers like you helps us improve our blogs. Could you take a couple of seconds to go to this LINK and share your experiences? We will be grateful!“
3. Social Media:
Sharing your content via social media not only prompts the users to drop reviews but also encourage them to leave the feedback on the post.
4. Writing on the Trendy Topics:
Over the years, Quora has become a goldmine for webmasters to search popular queries posted by users. You can use these queries to create content.
5. Reddit:
Reddit is a great source of interesting and popular topics to choose from.
6. Email or Online Thread:
Ask your subscribers about their concerns so that you can create a blog on that. Online community or thread can be created to keep track of the most talked about things among your audience.
7. Competitor Research:
Look at your successful competitor’s to find out what keywords are they targeting to create content. The comments on their blogs can also help you figure out the relevant topic.
8. Google Search Console:
Last but not least—check out article’s queries in your Google Search Console to see if people are looking for your topics.
How to Run User Reviews Optimization for Your Content
We hope that the above-mentioned methods will help you attract feedback from the customers. Once you get sufficient amount of reviews on your content, it is time to optimize them.
1. Go through All the Comments:
There are many steps of optimizing reviews on your content. The first one is to analyze them. You need to read them all to get some key findings.
Are users happy with your contents? What are the points they do not agree with? Do they make any suggestions?
2. Respond to The Comments:
Whether the feedback is negative or positive, make sure to reply to all the comments. If some users are not happy with the details, assure them that you will make the relevant changes. And it costs nothing to say thanks to the visitors who appreciate your content. This will, as we have said before, will show that you care of your audience.
3. Make the Suggested Update or Changes:
Based on the feedbacks, add the relevant content as required by your audience as well as remove those irrelevant parts.
To understand this point better, let’s go through this example.
Your blog is on useful tips to create SEO friendly URLs. But some part of it becomes dated over time. Some readers are making you aware of this concern. However, that doesn’t mean you jump on making changes suggested by them.
Find out if they are right. If you conclude that their suggestions are worthy of implication, inform them that you have made or will make the required changes.
Otherwise, you can clarify to them why those changes can’t be made. Do it politely so that your response doesn’t seem rude to them.
4. Run the Feedback Optimization every 3-6 Months:
You can perform feedback optimization every 3-5 months as you get sufficient amount of review during this timeframe. Periodically optimizing the reviews of your audience will keep you content relevant, updated and fresh.
Bottom Line:
User reviews are one of the crucial parts of SEO. However, feedback optimization is not known to all webmasters. Only reputable digital marketing experts are using this strategy in best possible way.
Responding to your user reviews to create content accordingly not only keeps your content relevant but also keeps you in the good books of Google based on user engagement.
After all, your content is meant for your audience. Targeting their queries will make your content naturally engaging for them. If your content has a lot of feedback and you haven’t optimized it yet, the time has come to run the feedback optimization process. If you don’t have sufficient reviews, encourage your audience for the same through emails, CTAs and social media. One more thing—always choose a trendy topic to create your content. It will increase the chances of engagement over your blogs. Sharing is also important for user engagement. Here is some additional tips you can go through that will help your content to stand out in 2020.
What do you think? Drop your valuable feedback to the comment section given below!
You will find a stark difference in their creation.
A 2014 blog is an absolute textual blog and lacks references, visuals or sources. Talking about 2020 blogs, it includes all details, stats, and visuals to look appealing and engaging.
But they have one thing in common—both are created according to the content trends of their respective years.
The point is here that content creation has changed a lot in the course of these six years.
Content strategies that worked in 2014 will not work in 2020.
This is because the search engines have become more user-oriented while people like you and me look for a quick solution that appears as soon as we key in the query.
In 2020, content needs to be engaging, authentic, and “problem-solving” to ace the ranking game.
Avoid Writing Thin Content in 2020:
Review this piece of content:
“Are you looking for the best software development and consulting services? We are the best software development and consulting services.Our best software development and consulting services are available at reasonable prices.”
Being stuffed with unnecessary keyword usage, this piece sounds ridiculous. Isn’t it?
Interestingly, such pieces of content used to get good ranking before the advent of the Google Panda algorithm in 2011. This algorithm aims to drop the rankings of “thin content” or low-quality content.
However, spammed or thin content hasn’t gone out of practice yet. In fact, it has evolved in other forms like scrapping. Scrapping involves duplicate content or the content that is rehashed or manipulated with the use of synonyms.
But keep in mind that thin content only hurts your ranking and nothing else.
Cautioning against such practices, Todd Friesen, director of digital strategy and SEO at Salesforce, opines,”
“It’s (thin content) not going to work anymore in the content world. Everybody’s content has gotten good. I can go who wrote this piece of crap and they’re gonna move on because you know the bar has been set.”
The number one content strategy to imply in 2020 is to avoid thin or low-quality content. Instead, create the content that can boost engagement and prompt users to take action.
Here are some basic ways to ensure the quality of content:
Avoid keyword stuffing. Use semantic keywords.
Say no rehashing or sentence manipulation.
Read the content for relevancy and quality.
Address any plagiarized content issue.
Best Content Strategy is to Address the Pain Points of Your Audience:
Have you ever thought why most of the search results are Quora answers?
And this is even surprising when your 2500-word article doesn’t rank for the same search query.
The reason is pretty simple—Quora covers the solution for that query which your blog fails to do.
When you do not get solution in a 2500 word blog
Here we got our content strategy no. 2—the content should find and solve the customer’s problem. Most users expect blogs or any form of content to address their concerns.
It is worth to quote Carolyn Shelby, manager of SEO at ESPN, in this context:
“People are that impatient and crazy so the trick is just to make sure that you know what your users, your target audience wants and hand it to Google on a silver platter and make it easy for Google to ingest it and dice it up.”
She means that the content should be logical, easy to understand, and exceed the user’s expectations.
If your content is all about making tea, cover the points what to do when tea becomes excessively sweet as it can be a common problem associated with the tea prep.
Secondly, you should know how to present your information. It not only helps your content to be captured by Google but also makes it searchable for voice assistance devices or tools.
Therefore, present the key points with headings, bullet points, and short sentences.
Above all, you should be aware of your target audience and their problems. It will help you find the right solution as well as the way to present them.
Use Best Content Curation Tools as Part of Your Content Marketing Plan:
Content curation is another important part of your content strategy.
It is the process of gathering information from a variety of sources, including stats, expert quotes, and citations. This way, it helps determine the reliability and authenticity of your content.
And it is also true that this process is quite cumbersome. Maybe you need to burn your midnight oil to find the right sources for your content. Needless to say that such an exhaustive process can hinder your “creative juice” as well as time to create content.
That’s why using content curation tools makes up as our content strategy no. 3!
Content curation tools automate the content curation process. They help you locate relevant content or help you with new content ideas.
For example, there is a tool called Anders Pink that crawl millions of webpages to create daily briefings. These briefings can be then be sorted out for specific keywords.
And who can forget Buzzsumo that provides you a list for the most shared content on the subject you are looking for. Plus, you can sort the list using categories like content type, follow authors, date, and more.
As an added bonus, you can find out the latest trends as well as the most shared content. You can then use all these insights to create relevant and authentic content with all the latest information.
Even Buzzsumo helped me curate content for this topic. Here’s how…
Flipboard is also counted among quality tools for its ability to fetch content from reliable and trusted sources.
Freshen Up Your Old and Dry Content:
This new content strategy also requires you to work over your old and dry topics which can be as simple as “How to Plant a Tree” or “How to Choose Headlines.”
This is because such topics are available at thousands of websites, giving your visitor a range of options to choose from. Why one would read your blogs if they have thousands of such pieces at their disposal?
One thing you can do is to freshen up those old pieces by using infographics, quotes, podcasts, visuals, and videos. It will make your content attractive enough to encourage the audience to get engaged with it.
Optimize Your Content Marketing Approach for Voice Search:
Hello Siri, how to do push-ups? And Siri displayed these results—
Well, many people use voice assistance like Siri or Amazon Echo to get help with their daily tasks. Using such devices make sense as they are quick and simple than typing.
According to one study by Forbes, nearly 50% of all searches will be voice searches by 2020.
It simply means that your content should be activated for voice search. After all, voice search is becoming a key ranking factor.
Here’s how to optimize your content for voice search…
Look for phrases and longtail keywords.
Focus on natural language (the way we talk is different than the way we write.)
Make it easy to read as well as scannable.
Create a FAQ section or blog around conversational but specific questions associated with your industry.
Optimize your content for Local SEO keywords such as “digital marketing agency near me.”
Add Content Based Videos to Stand out in 2020:
Over the years, a video has become an integral part of content strategy.
Video content is more appealing and shareable than its textual counterpart. This increases the chances of high organic ranking in search results and better conversions as well.
One of the key benefits of video content is that they make complicated concepts easy to understand. For example, explainer videos can be used to educate the users on your products. Or reviews can be made more authentic with videos as users can see a person using them. Facebook Live can be used to launch your new products.
Last But Not Least — The Frequency of Content Publication in 2020:
How often should you publish the contents?
Well, there is no straightforward answer to this.
Some say that quality is important. Some advocate for quality. However, the fact is that both are important for a fruitful content strategy.
It will be challenging to gain any traction with a sluggish or inconsistent publishing schedule even for your great piece of content. A single piece of great content might not benefit your business or brand in the long term.
Having a consistent content schedule and publishing frequent content can help you make the most of your content marketing.
HubSpot has found that the publication of four blogs per week can increase the traffic up to five times more than those that publish once a week.
But that doesn’t mean you need to work as a content mill. Providing quality and value in the content should be your topmost priority.
Over to you:
So these are some key points to be included and implied in your content strategy for 2020 and beyond. It is all about understanding your users and their needs and create content accordingly. Besides, you need to prioritize videos as well as optimize your content for voice search. Once you are done with all these parameters, make sure to create a realistic content publishing schedule.
What do you think? Let me know by commenting below!!!
Ever Since its outbreak in late 2019, Coronavirus pandemic has shocked the entire world with its severity and crumbled the economies all around the globe. The horrific virus first appeared at the Chinese city of Wuhan and slowly clutched many countries in its deadly grip. Sadly, not only had it cost billions of lives worldwide, but also, it has shaken up and altered the natural living standards and habits of the people around globe.
While any nations are in lockdown and following strict social distancing policies with other precautionary measures, many businesses are fighting for their survival. One of the major reasons for drastic fall in business, apart from the deadly infection itself is the fact that consumer’s shopping habits and their way to approach things have been deeply affected. Not only the pandemic and self-quarantine have left them economically challenged, but also people are immensely stressed with disruption to their daily routines.
Why SEO will dominate during Covid-19 time?
Apparently, the marketing seems to be the only ray of hope for many big or small scale business industries. The marketers currently are expecting low budget with high goal achievement as low cost Digital Marketing seems to be the top choice rather than other costly options such as paid media and reduction in headcount ratio.
In this situation, lowering down the budgets, limiting the channels and reduction in the staff numbers is eventually becoming one of the top concerns for many firms. Majority of marketers are considering that SEO services are way more beneficial during this time.
Moreover, despite the lower budget 40% out of total of 72% entrepreneurs predicted that their marketing goals will be increased while 32% of them anticipated that their goals will remain same.
Source: The Impact of COVID-19 on Marketing (2020)
Likewise 58% of marketers told that they will lower the budget and on the other hand 34% of them seemed to be more inclined toward investing in low cost channels like SEO.
Additionally, 63% of enterprises are predicting that SEO will be a prominent aspect in the current marketing scene.
In addition, the latest search results from Google have also corroborate the rising importance of SEO services as the searches for term “SEO” is rising at substantial pace.
With over 66% of markets reported that SEO was also the top most performing channel in last year, leaving behind other marketing channels in competition with a large margin.
Conclusively, Digital marketing and low cost channels like SEO are turning out to bet the major focus for many marketers worldwide and more than half of the firms are turning to the digital content for brand building as it seems more efficient, safe and high gain approach during the time of self-isolation and social distancing.
In my career since 2004, I have read many books. My favourite is the “The Art of SEO” all editions. Directly or indirectly, all articles and books have some similarity i.e. they talk about role of human mind and behaviour in the list of SEO activities.
Recently, I also started reading “A textbook on General Phycology” to explore more on the topic of psychology and get an in-depth knowledge.
However, I would lay my emphasis on below 4 pointers that relates to the importance of SEO and Psychology in 2020:
Keyword Research and Searcher Psychology
Creation of content and human Psychology
Link Building and Psychology
Website architecture and audience behaviour
Keyword Research – Understanding the searcher psychology:
Considering that, the short term phrases which were used by human has been replaced by long term queries.
Example: A person looking for a pizza shop in 2004 in Manhattan, New York – Would have simply typed on Google.com “Pizza Manhattan” whereas in 2020 the human mind with the growth of technology and AI would have searched or spoken to Siri “Best pizza restaurants near me with 5 star rating”.
This clearly shows how human psychology and searcher intent has evolved over the time with the growth of technology in terms of keyword interpretation and research.
What is the best strategy for keyword research in 2020?
We have one of the best tools like SEM Rush and Answer the Public for researching or spying on competitors.
However, if I have to talk about psychology and list one particular strategy that stands out for me then it will be using “Google Auto Complete” feature to get best maximum number of keywords based on searchers intent.
The process is simple: For example, if I have to search for possible search phrases that have been searched for my targeted term or niche i.e. “Plumbers in Manhattan”
I would simple type in Google search “Plumbers in Manhattan” as below:The screenshot showcases the auto complete listing of keywords:
2. You can further elaborate by using “A-Z” combinations in front, middle and Back of the keywords to get a possible list of best keywords for the niche.
Crafting a story that is rich in keyword topics and covers your targeted audience sentiments:
In order, to make your website content stand out:
You need something that can touch the right sentiment of the audience. In our in-house experiments at KVR Web Tech, we are using Google AI and sentiment analysis tool. The tool help us to get good insights VS competitors content and thus improvise.2. You need perfect amalgamation of selecting the right keywords and topics.
Example: Business selling insurance to Sole traders in Australia.
In order, to have a perfect list of topics that should be covered in the content, simply again used “Google auto complete” feature and make a list. Review, what type of topics are being covered. See below snapshot:
It clearly shows that I have to incorporate topic about cost, cover, comparisons and talk about sole trader cleaners, contractor and consultants.
Again, you can run different set of combinations to get a list of topics.
3. Researching on top competitors – Yes, what is their winning formula. Try to get an idea of how the top 3 competitors on search are drafting their content and how you can be unique in your own story and idea.
Important tip: For uniqueness, Gather stats and conduct surveys on relevant forums, groups on FB which covers your targeted audience to get high level data and convert that into statistical data.
4. Trending Data – Incorporating the trends in your story will surely help to stand out and gain exposure. We use “Buzz Sumo” to find relevant trending stories, sort them out and make a list of what will entice a reaction among our targeted audience.
Understanding the psychology, developing relations and garnering links
In 2004, when I started my link building career, we use to send emails for outreach, have conversations and then after developing a bond exchange links.
It was a clear process that had emotions and one loved to follow the process and get success that could last long from SEO prospective.
However, in later stages link building was bombarded by commercialization and paid schemes, which resulted in link farms and slowly Google and reliable website owners changed their outlook towards the same.
So let’s talk about 2020, the things have changed so have the strategies. We are somehow getting back to where we had once started.
Influencer Outreaching is not that simple now days. If you want to outreach a strong influencer in your field, you need to study them, understand them and then win your race towards getting a brand mention for your website. Below are some point that can help:
Follower Wonk, is a tool that you can use to get a list of top influencers.
Study them by reviewing their social profiles. Create a list of their like and dislikes.
Prepare an outreach pitch on an email that can get a reaction on the first go!
Generate a conversation by using your pitch elements i.e. “list of likes” and make sure you stay away from the “dislike list”
Provide a free giveaway if your business supports the model
Understanding the visitor behaviour and changing the website architecture:
I like Neil and had a great interview session with him. I believe he has contributed a lot towards our field of SEO. One of his contributions that I have been using since so many years is “Crazy Egg”. The tool we use to understand how the audience react to the various elements on our website.
The basic purpose is to:
View and analyse, if we have the placed all the elements correctly i.e. Call to action, images content and videos
View and analyse, A/B testing of which colour suits my audience in the best particular way.
Understanding your audience behaviour and improvising on the design is a must, if you have to win the race of getting quality conversion from your qualified organic traffic.
In a short summary, the above all topics can have their own articles. I have tried my level best to give you an overview and will keep posting more extensive information on the same.
Are you having a local business and struggling to get an online presence?
The below 5 pointers are the key to success. It will really help you to layout a plan and then strategize your local marketing efforts on the path to success.
Management of Local Listing and Local Directories
Local Search Engine Optimization
Creation of Landing Pages tailored towards your audience
Online reputation management
Paid ads and Social Media Presence
Now let us dig deeper to get more insights on the above points.
Steps to manage your local citations and business directories for local marketing:
The foremost step is to set up your Google My Business account. The set up and verification process is easy. You will need a valid address, phone number and a registered business name. To validate the same, Google will send a postcard which will contain a 5 digit code. You will receive the same on your provided registered address.
Once the Google My Business account is active, you need to know the meaning of the term NAP. Name, Address and Place (Location address). The NAP has to be consistent wherever you register your business in the 3rd step.
Research now starts, search for local business directories orcitations in your area. Make sure, you are registered with high authority and reputed websites.
Example – For US owners Yelp has been the most effective business directory and similarly for India Just Dial has been performing very well.
You can also be specific to your niche. For example, for home improvement owners and interior designers website like houzz has been doing really good.
How to find directories in your local area? You can use the below search parameters on the search engine to find directories, I am going to use an example of an Electrician looking for directories in New York.
For Industry specific directories use below operators:
“Industry” directory – Example “Electrician” directory
“Industry” inurl:directory: – Example “Electrician” inurl:directory
“Industry” intitle:directory – Example “Electrician” intitle:directory
“Industry” inurl:links – Example “Electrician” inurl:links
Note: The 2 points here is to understand that relevancy to your business and location is a necessity with usage of same NAP that you have used in your GMB account in 1st step.
Now once you are listed in the business directories, it is time to manage all listings. There are 2 ways of doing the same.
Considering the budget involved you can use tools like bright local and yext to manage the listing in different countries. These tools run automatic scans on all listings and will provide you deep insights on errors and rectification under a single dashboard. However, there is a cost involved as they offer different packages.
Another way, is too do it manually i.e. maintain a list in an excel file and give it a review once a month.
How to use local SEO to boost your local marketing efforts?
Search engine optimization of your local business is a must, if you want to excel in your business and stay in front of your competitors.
We are going to divide this into three topics:
On-page local SEOThis part of SEO deals with the optimization of your local website. It lay emphasis on optimizing your localized website pages with targeted location based keywords, having localized content that serve your users and making use of local schema and other applicable structured data to stand apart in search results.
Off–Page Local SEOGetting local awareness through communicating with local bloggers and raising brand awareness via directories, events, sponsorships will help in getting high authority links and votes towards your website, thus helping in keyword rankings and organic traffic from search engines.
Update CitationsKeep your GMB and local business citations updated with latest videos and images. Make sure you use all features of these websites to maximum potential. For example: GMB itself allows you to post description, hours, appointment url etc to your account that can be big conversion factors for your audience.
Creation of Landing Pages tailored towards your audience:
You have got traffic, your marketing strategy to get qualified traffic is working well. However, a website landing page which does not solve its purpose of conversion of qualified traffic, will result in a dead end and a waste of investment in terms of both time and money.
So, It is very important that the website landing pages should talk to customer in their language.
Below are some of the pointers that you can keep in mind while creating a landing page for your local business:
Make your content localized to the best possible extent i.e. use images that speak to local customers, add content and location based keywords that your audience can easily relate to and make sure you describe your marketing pitch clearly.
Make use of local reviews, accreditations to gain trust of the user. Remember, Trust is an important factor of conversion. You can embed reviews from GMB and other profiles.
Appropriate use of CTA (Call to Action) buttons for conversion. Track your forms, phone number and email using Google Analytic. Set up Goals, monitor conversion path and then improvise on the landing page elements.
Videos speak larger than words, make use of videos in order to gain attention of your local audience. It can be a customer review or a marketing pitch video by the owner or his team itself.
Make sure the page loading speed and the mobile user experience is good.
Online Reputation Management – Handling reviews and Brand Reputation for local marketing
Customer service does not only cater to getting positive reviews but also replying to the negative feedback of your customer.
Remember, all accounts and business profiles including GMB are open to reviews that can be posted from your customers.
The below points will help you to streamline your business goals and acquire a positive word of mouth for your brand:
Make sure you check all the portals, social media websites and business profiles where your business is listed and reply to all negative and positive reviews., this authenticates that you are a responsible business owner.
Encourage your customers to post reviews to your social media and GMB account. More positive reviews will help you outrank your competitors in terms of brand awareness and expertise.
If you are running a local store, shop or restaurant then incentivize your local employees to ask for reviews in store.
Using Google Paid Ads and Social Media for Conversions and Brand Awareness in local marketing:
Paid ads is a tool which can not only help you in getting instant conversions but also in making enhancements in your business strategies as per your buyer reactions.
If you have a budget and I would surely suggest you to initiate with a trail to understand the local market and business demands.
Based on your goals, you can use Google Ads for Local Businesses to target Google search. It is an easy to use tool, where you can set your daily and monthly budget and will be charged only if someone clicks on your ads. The interface allows you to track conversion and even give you the entire data and suggestions for conversions.
In some part of countries, especially US “Google Guarantee Ads” are really helping local businesses to stand out. You can read about more information here.
Another parallel strategy that you can club with Google ads for brand awareness is posting on Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest, whatever suits your business needs and interests. Below are some important points that you can incorporate in your social media strategy:
Have a Facebook Business page, Instagram account that have all required business information.
Post regularly on the selected mediums – Have a post schedule and set up a calendar. You can experiment for time and days based on audience reaction.
Boost your website content, reviews on these channels. Yes, you can use a little paid budget to grow your targeted reach. Facebook and all other channels has a sophisticated ad manager that can help you to circulate your brand voice to your selected niche of audience.
Note: Other than this, there are other channels that can be good from lead prospective. For example Yelp in US, Justdial in India and Houzz for home improvement businesses all are open for paid ads and can get you some good lead prospects.
Conclusion:
The above insights will surely be of great use if it is targeted correctly. You need to be innovative and have a fast approach in order to succeed in this ever evolving competitive world.
