According to Conductor, 72% of enterprises have had success with SEO. By optimizing your enterprise SEO strategies with quality content and sound technical practices, you’re setting the stage for sustainable growth in an ever-competitive online world.

In this article:

• Understanding Enterprise SEO and How It’s Different
• What Makes a Good Enterprise SEO Strategy?
• Enterprise SEO and AI
• The Challenges of Getting Enterprise SEO Done
• How to Measure Enterprise SEO Success
• Enterprise SEO Tools
• Integrating Enterprise SEO with Other Marketing Channels
• Staying Ahead of the Curve
• Enterprise SEO Case Study
• FAQ: How can I implement an effective enterprise SEO strategy to drive organic growth and revenue for my large organization?

Understanding Enterprise SEO and How It’s Different

Enterprise SEO is not just about on-page optimization; it’s a complex venture with a lot of moving parts. This requires a robust strategy to tackle the unique challenges of large organizations.

The sheer size of enterprise websites often means they have thousands, if not millions, of pages. A solid SEO foundation helps ensure you can compete in the highly competitive world of search results.

That means structuring your site and your strategy so that search engines can find and index pages correctly, and visitors and potential leads can find what they need and engage with your brand.

Here are a couple of ways that enterprise SEO differs from other types of SEO programs …

Scale

In small business SEO, one might juggle dozens or hundreds of keywords — but when we talk about enterprises? We’re looking at thousands upon thousands.

You’ll need tools capable of managing enterprise SEO strategies, which let you monitor rankings en masse and provide actionable insights into how well each keyword performs against competitors.

Business Silos

Another key difference between enterprise SEO versus small business or smaller-scale SEO projects is stakeholder involvement. With more cooks in the kitchen — each with their own ideas — it can be tough to create a cohesive recipe for success.

Silos within companies are notorious for making coordination difficult; different departments may have conflicting goals or strategies regarding things like content creation and distribution.

Fixing this problem requires clear communication so that all parts move together towards a common objective: Increased visibility in the search results, which equates to more leads, more customers and ultimately, higher revenue streams.

This calls for regular cross-departmental meetings where SEO isn’t seen as just an “IT thing” but rather integral throughout all stages from product development through post-launch analysis.

What Makes a Good Enterprise SEO Strategy?

When you’re playing the long game in enterprise SEO, your strategy has to be robust and flexible. It’s not just about getting more eyes on your page; it’s about building a sustainable foundation for organic growth in the search results.

In-Depth Research

Whether it’s doing in-depth keyword and topic research or competitor research for SEO, the best enterprise SEO strategies do not skimp on the upfront investment to lay a solid foundation.

Technical SEO

You want everything running smoothly under the hood.

That means spending time perfecting site architecture, which we refer to as SEO siloing. Google echoes this sentiment in its SEO starter guide, which emphasizes clean structure and navigation.

SEO siloing not only helps search engines and visitors discover key pages, but it also makes a site an authority on a subject matter.
Technical SEO also addresses the user experience component of your website, making sure visitors have a seamless interaction with your site. Ultimately, this translates to more revenue for many businesses because you are not losing people to a bad user experience.

One case study showed how an e-commerce company improved performance and saw a 7.6% increase in sitewide conversion, translating to roughly a $6 million lift in annual revenue.

Content Strategy

Quality content helps future-proof your SEO strategy, making your site ready to take on every curveball thrown by changing algorithms or consumer behavior trends.

You want your brand to serve up thorough answers to burning questions (aka search queries) backed by data-driven insights. The goal? To satisfy user intent so well that people keep coming back and ultimately, convert.

Any SEO strategy benefits from quality content; however, enterprise SEO strategies demand it, as brands need to build their authority in the space.

Link Earning

If you get the content piece right, you are halfway there when it comes to earning links. While links don’t hold as much weight as they used to, they still matter.

Today, building links isn’t about quantity; it’s about quality over anything else. Fewer high-quality links can elevate a site more than a bunch of low-quality links.

You can also use competitor research to find link opportunities you may not have thought of previously, and that is something we cover in The New Link Building Manifesto e-book.

Enterprise SEO and AI

Artificial intelligence can be a game-changer for enterprise SEO. AI is transforming how big businesses tackle the challenge of more visibility in search results.

For instance, with AI, companies can now use predictive analytics to foresee market trends and adjust their strategies accordingly. Another major leap forward is AI content.

In addition, AI-powered content married with professional editing can accelerate the progress of an SEO program like never before. Whereas content used to be a roadblock for agility, it’s now available faster with AI.

(For more on AI content, see my article at Search Engine Land: AI content creation: A beginner’s guide.)

But what makes AI truly stand out in enterprise SEO?

The ability to process massive data, fast. By leveraging AI-driven insights, large organizations can pinpoint exactly where they need to improve without getting bogged down by data overload.

The Challenges of Getting Enterprise SEO Done

Deploying an enterprise SEO strategy is no small feat. Here are three major challenges:

1. Buy-in: Without support from the top, SEO programs don’t have a chance. Ensuring everyone understands the value and potential impact of a strong SEO campaign on the organization’s bottom line helps rally support. Focus on building relationships, sharing data on successful SEO, dispelling SEO myths and piloting a small project. For more, read: 6 Practical Ways to Get Buy-In for SEO.
2. Business silos: One major challenge is departmental silos, which can be huge barriers to communication and collaboration. McKinsey reported that cultural and behavioral challenges, which include functional or departmental silos, have the most impact on the ability to meet digital priorities.
3. Resources: Where to find the time, talent and budget to fuel your SEO efforts effectively? Enterprises often struggle with balancing resources against other marketing priorities. According to a survey by Conductor (linked in the intro to this article), 57% of enterprises said limited in-house SEO skills as the most challenging obstacle to achieving important SEO objectives, and 43% reported limited SEO budget as the most challenging obstacle for their company.

To jump over these hurdles, enterprise SEO requires strategic planning, persuasive communication skills and often, tenacity. And, when you can outsource SEO expertise to an expert SEO agency, it’s worth it.

For more ideas, see more of our tips on how to get SEO done.

How to Measure Enterprise SEO Success

When you’re looking at a massive puzzle, each piece is crucial to seeing the big picture. Enterprise SEO has a lot of moving parts, and I’ll outline what to look for next.

Core Metrics

The core of any robust enterprise SEO strategy lies in tracking organic traffic growth over time. Organic traffic is the No. 1 indicator of SEO success.

But what about conversions? You can’t monetize your organic search traffic without a site that is primed for conversions. This is the brand’s responsibility, but one that a good SEO expert can advise on.

For more, see: SEO and Conversions: Two Halves of a Pie

Keyword Rankings

Keyword rankings can feel like vanity metrics sometimes, but they are vital when gauging how your content is performing. What we want is a consistent ranking improvement for strategic keywords across major search engines — a sign that efforts are bearing fruit.

Analytics Data

Digging into analytics like Google Analytics 4 (GA4) allows us to get granular with data. It lets us dissect which pages pull their weight and contribute most significantly to business goals.

Attribution modeling becomes key as it attributes credit where due along customer journey touch points. This is key when understanding complex customer journeys inherent to larger organizations.

Enterprise SEO Tools

The scale of enterprise SEO can be overwhelming. But there are tools out there that make this daunting task manageable — and maybe even a little bit enjoyable. Let me walk you through some essentials.

Technical SEO Audits

One critical tool in an enterprise SEO strategy is the SEO audit. While there is software that can help quickly uncover data about what is hindering SEO success, it is usually surface-level recommendations.

We believe that you get the best answers with a deep technical analysis by SEO experts.

To put this into perspective, three types of audits exist today:

1. The “Good” SEO Audit: Here, software uncovers superficial but useful SEO issues. Though, the results are typically a one-size-fits-all generic report. This works when you don’t have a budget for an in-depth audit, or you want to check some basics before starting with an agency. This is not a waste, but not a deep dive.
2. The “Better” SEO Audit: For this, an SEO vendor or practitioner offers additional SEO insights but without many solutions. They can identify problems that data analytics alone can’t uncover. But without in-depth solutions, this only points to possible trouble areas.
3. The “Best” SEO Audit: In this scenario, an SEO agency performs an in-depth technical audit. It requires the expertise of a seasoned SEO expert who specializes in technical website analysis and SEO business strategy. This is a manual review supported by tools, and it takes many, many hours. This produces the most robust data on how a website can fix issues related to ranking.

Read more: SEO Audits: The Good, The Better and The Best.

Data Analytics

The backbone of any robust enterprise SEO strategy is solid analytics.

What are some baseline tools you can use in your enterprise SEO? Google Analytics and Google Search Console are your windows into user behavior and site performance on a grand scale. Then there’s the need for comprehensive crawling software; a good tool is Screaming Frog.

Our SEOToolSet also has powerful capabilities that go beyond crawling and include:

• On-page analysis
• Project dashboard
• Site spider
• Visual link graph
• Meta details report
• Site health checker
• Ranking monitor
• Competitor tracking
• Multi-page analysis
• Competitor research
• Keyword research
• Backlink reports
• WordPress SEO plugin

Integrating Enterprise SEO with Other Marketing Channels

Integrating enterprise SEO with other marketing channels can score big wins for your business. Here are a few ways:

1. Social media and SEO: By aligning social media campaigns with keyword strategies and content themes, you’re more likely to engage users who are already primed by organic search results. Social engagement increases when content is optimized across both search and social platforms.
2. Paid advertising and SEO: Linking paid ad campaigns directly with high-performing organic content can reduce cost per click while improving ad relevance.
3. Email marketing and SEO: When email campaigns include links to well-optimized landing pages, they extend user engagement beyond the inbox and onto your website where conversion chances increase.

To truly integrate these elements into one unified force, you must break down departmental silos, as mentioned earlier. When done right, it creates a multi-channel approach that leverages each platform’s strengths, leading to better visibility online and ultimately, more conversions.

Staying Ahead of the Curve

SEO never stops evolving, and neither should your SEO strategy.

To stay competitive in enterprise SEO, you need to keep learning about new practices, algorithm changes and industry trends. Doing so not only sharpens your skills but also prepares you to respond well to any sudden shifts.

Consider taking SEO training at least once per year — whether it’s in person, at a conference or virtually (examples include our classroom SEO training or SEO training membership site).

This is in addition to daily reading to stay on top of any significant changes to Google Search, honing skills through monthly or quarterly webinars and attending conferences annually.

By the way, we just so happen to be hosting our next in-person training class April 9–11. We’ve revamped this all-new training course to bring you the latest SEO tips, strategies and techniques. Go here to register and learn more.

Enterprise SEO Case Study

When it comes to enterprise SEO, the proof is in the pudding. Big businesses have seen big wins by fine-tuning their strategies for maximum impact. Let’s explore a case study that highlights this success.

Auto Research and Review Giant Boosts Organic Traffic by 900% in One Week

One of the largest research and review sites in the automotive sector worked with Bruce Clay Inc. for a technical SEO audit with consulting. Our team delivered a 100+ page SEO audit, proposing many improvements, including radical siloing of their massive website content.

The client committed to implementing every SEO recommendation, no matter how large or small. They knew to pull it off, everybody — from the executives to the marketing and IT teams — would need to be on board.

The chairman of the board called a company meeting. He announced that search engine optimization was a key strategic initiative for the company. Everybody would need to be on board or essentially find a new place to work.

After implementing the SEO program and launching the changes, the website experienced a 900 percent increase in traffic within the first week. The site’s prominence continues to this day.

Final Thoughts

Mastering enterprise SEO takes commitment. Remember, getting buy-in from the top down and breaking down silos are two of the most important things you can do to set your enterprise SEO up for success. When done right, enterprise SEO can launch your brand to a new level.

If you need help getting company buy-in from the top down, I recommend checking out and sharing these resources:

• 6 Successful Ways to Get Company Buy-In for SEO [On-Demand Webinar]
• Free Executive’s Guide to SEO [Video Training]

Whether you’re a large enterprise, a mid-sized company or a small organization, our SEO experts can help you win big with your SEO and earn top rankings in the search results. Schedule a free consultation with us today.

FAQ: How can I implement an effective enterprise SEO strategy to drive organic growth and revenue for my large organization?

Implementing an effective enterprise SEO strategy requires careful planning and execution to drive organic growth and revenue for large organizations. The following strategies will guide you towards success.

Understand Your Target Audience: Begin by thoroughly researching your target audience to gain insights into their search behavior and preferences. This will help you tailor your SEO strategy accordingly.

Keyword Research: Conduct comprehensive keyword research to identify relevant and high-volume keywords that align with your business objectives. Keyword variations and stemmed versions can be used to optimize your content.

Technical SEO: Work to improve your website’s technical SEO, such as site speed, mobile-friendliness and crawlability. Streamlining these factors will enable search engines to better index and rank your website.

On-Page Optimization: Craft high-quality and relevant content that aligns with your target keywords. Optimize meta tags, headers and URLs, while ensuring a natural incorporation of keywords within your content.

Content Marketing: Implement a robust content marketing strategy that focuses on producing valuable and informative content. This will attract more organic traffic and establish your organization as an industry authority.

Link Building: Build a strong and diverse backlink profile by acquiring quality links from reputable websites. This will not only enhance your website’s authority but also increase organic visibility.

Local SEO: If your large organization operates in multiple locations, optimize your website for local search. Create location-specific landing pages, optimize Google My Business profiles, and encourage online reviews.

Analyze and Refine: Regularly monitor and analyze your SEO performance using tools like Google Analytics. Make data-driven decisions and continuously refine your strategy based on insights obtained.

Implementing an effective enterprise SEO strategy requires a comprehensive approach that encompasses careful planning, research, technical optimization, content creation and continuous analysis.

Step-by-Step Procedure for Implementing an Effective Enterprise SEO Strategy:

1. Research your target audience extensively, understanding their search behavior and preferences.
2. Conduct thorough keyword research, identifying relevant and high-volume keywords.
3. Optimize your website’s technical SEO aspects, ensuring optimal site speed, mobile-friendliness and crawlability.
4. Create high-quality and relevant content, incorporating your target keywords naturally.
5. Develop a comprehensive content marketing strategy to attract organic traffic and establish authority.
6. Build a diverse and authoritative backlink profile through manual outreach and relationship building.
7. Optimize your website for local search, if applicable, by creating location-specific landing pages and optimizing Google My Business profiles.
8. Monitor and analyze your SEO performance regularly, making data-driven decisions for continual improvement.
9. Regularly refine your enterprise SEO strategy based on the insights obtained from analytics.
10. Stay updated with the latest SEO trends and algorithm changes to adapt your strategy accordingly.
11. Test and experiment with different SEO tactics to identify what works best for your organization.
12. Collaborate with other departments within your organization to align SEO efforts with overall business goals.
13. Consider hiring an experienced SEO agency or professional to assist with strategy development and implementation.
14. Continuously track and measure the impact of your SEO efforts on organic growth and revenue.
15. Adapt and adjust your strategy as needed to maintain long-term success.
16. Regularly evaluate and optimize your website’s user experience to improve organic visibility.
17. Foster a culture of SEO within your organization, ensuring everyone understands its importance and contributes to its success.
18. Stay patient and persistent, as implementing an effective enterprise SEO strategy takes time and dedication.
19. Regularly measure your progress and celebrate milestones to maintain motivation and morale.

By following these steps and staying committed to refining your strategy, you can drive organic growth and revenue for your enterprise.

The post The Ultimate Guide To Winning Big With Enterprise SEO appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Keyword research is a big job, and you need the right tools to do it successfully. There are plenty of keyword suggestions and research tools on the market — here are seven of them (in alphabetical order) you should be using to better meet your audience’s needs and rank better in search.

1. Answer The Public
2. Bing Webmaster Tools Keyword Research
3. Google Ads Keyword Planner 
4. Google Trends
5. Keyword Generator (Ahrefs)
6. Keyword Suggestions (SEOToolSet)
7. QuestionDB

FAQ: How can I leverage keyword research tools to enhance my content strategy and SEO efforts?

1. Answer The Public

Answer The Public serves questions and phrases related to your keyword by using autocomplete data from search engines.

Add the data to your keyword research list, then write content to address each relevant question or phrase. You can write a separate webpage for each question or phrase, or include a bunch of them within one article (you might even rank for a featured snippet if you do it the right way).

You can do a couple of searches for free each day, or upgrade to a paid subscription.

2. Bing Webmaster Tools Keyword Research

If you’re trying to compete in Bing, then you’ll want to use its Webmaster Tools keyword research tool to discover the keywords and phrases people are using on the Bing search engine.

Take your seed list of keywords and input them into the tool. The keyword tool will suggest matching or relevant keywords related to them, including search volume and trends. Keywords suggestions fall into the following three categories: related, questions, or newly discovered.

Plus, the tool also provides the top-ranked URLs for the root keywords and can also give data on the keywords that are already driving traffic to your website. There are all sorts of filters you can apply to the data to refine it as well.

Bing Webmaster Tools keyword research feature is free for those who have an account.

3. Google Ads Keyword Planner

The Google Ads Keyword Planner is not just for advertisers; it’s also a handy SEO keyword research tool for websites competing in Google.

Input your seed list and the keyword suggest tool will help you find the most relevant keywords. Or, you can enter your website and Google will look for keywords related to the content.

The Keyword Planner gives data on search volume and will provide bid estimates for advertisers (which can also help gauge how competitive a keyword in organic search will be). You can narrow down your search by using various filters as well.

Keyword Planner is free for anyone who has a Google Ads account.

4. Google Trends

Google Trends offers — you guessed it — trends on search queries. You can enter a given keyword and get various data points on it, including:

• Interest over time
• Interest by region
• Related topics
• Related queries

You can also apply filters like what type of search — web search, image search, news search, etc.

You can also check out the Trending Now page to see what’s currently trending around the world. This can be useful for writing on timely topics.

Google Trends is a free keyword research tool.

5. Keyword Generator (Ahrefs)

Ahrefs’ Keyword Generator is a keyword suggestion tool that lets you enter up to 10 words or phrases and generates keywords for the search engine of your choice (there are nine of them), including Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon and more. Filter by country.

The data is offered up into six categories of keyword types, including: Phrase match, having the same terms as your seed list, keywords the top-competing pages also rank for, search suggestions via autocomplete, newly discovered keywords and question formats.

Get data like keyword difficulty scores and search volume for each keyword listed. You can use filters to find those keywords with good search volume and low competition (the sweet spot!).

Also, find out any SERP features associated with that keyword (a must when you are doing a whole-SERP SEO strategy). And, you can use this tool to find out SEO metrics on the top-ranked webpages for a term, too.

You can use the free version with limited functionality, or try a paid trial for a small fee. After that, if you upgrade to a subscription, the Lite version is $99 per month, and the Standard version is $199 per month at the time of writing.

6. Keyword Suggestions (SEOToolSet)

Of course, we have to mention our solution to keyword research, too, and that’s our Keyword Suggestions tool, which is part of our SEOToolSet®.

With the Keyword Suggestions tool, you can find terms that are semantically related to the keywords in your seed list. The tool can provide search activity for each keyword, three metrics to indicate competitiveness, categories, and a trending chart.

The SEOToolSet allows you to research keywords further by presenting more data, including keyword relative “activity” as a search query.

You can use the Keyword Suggestions tool for:

• SEO research
• Content planning
• Discovering word associations for video descriptions
• Finding keywords you might want to exclude from your PPC campaign, and more.

The SEOToolSet offers a free trial and then is $24.95 per month after that. The free version of the Keyword Suggestion tool will serve up five related words and phrases to your keyword (entered one at a time) pulled from search engine data.

7. QuestionDB

QuestionDB allows you to enter a broad keyword and find relevant questions related to it, pulled from its database of more than 32 million questions that “have been asked on various websites over time.”

The generated list will give you the relevant questions for keywords, plus volume and difficulty data from DataForSeo, an SEO data API provider. (“Keyword difficulty represents the median backlink profile strength of the top 10 webpages ranking for a specific keyword,” according to DataForSEO.) From here, you can view related topics and download the list of questions.

QuestionDB is free with limited functionality, offering 50 results per search. You can upgrade for deeper dives into the data and unlimited searches for $15 per month at the time of writing.

Keyword research is not a small feat, and the right tools can help you get the keywords most relevant to your audience and your business. For more on keyword research, check out:

• What Are Keywords?

Don’t have the time or resources to conduct thorough keyword research? Let our SEO experts do the work for you. Schedule a free 1:1 consultation to discuss how we can help.

FAQ: How can I leverage keyword research tools to enhance my content strategy and SEO efforts?

Navigating the complexities of content strategy and search engine optimization demands strategic precision. Keyword research tools are beacons of insight, guiding your content toward relevance and your SEO efforts toward success.

Engaging in a comprehensive content strategy necessitates more than just high-quality writing; it involves strategic keyword integration. Keyword research tools serve as the compass in this journey. By delving into these tools, you uncover trending keywords and gain insights into what your target audience seeks. This valuable understanding empowers you to curate content that resonates deeply with your readers.

Seamless integration of meticulously researched keywords directly influences your search engine rankings. Search engines thrive on relevancy, and these tools offer you the means to align your content with user intent. As you strategically pepper your articles with these keywords, you provide search engines with clear signals, ultimately enhancing your chances of climbing the results ladder.

One key advantage of leveraging keyword research tools lies in uncovering untapped niches. These tools illuminate the uncharted terrain of long-tail keywords, where competition might be less fierce and relevance is more attainable. Incorporating these hidden gems into your content enriches your strategy and helps you reach a more targeted audience.

Beyond keyword discovery, these tools facilitate monitoring and adaptation. Continuously tracking keyword performance offers insights into user behavior shifts. As search trends evolve, these tools empower you to adjust your strategy in real time, ensuring your content remains aligned with your audience’s evolving needs.

Keyword research tools transcend mere words; they are the compass, guide and beacon illuminating your path to successful content strategy and SEO. By harnessing their power, you position your content to resonate with audiences and increase search engine ranks.

Step-by-Step Procedure: How To Leverage Keyword Research Tools for Enhanced Content Strategy and SEO

1. Understand the significance of keyword research in content strategy and SEO.
2. Familiarize yourself with different keyword research tools available in the market.
3. Research your target audience’s preferences, interests and pain points.
4. Explore trending keywords related to your niche using keyword research tools.
5. Identify long-tail keywords that align with your content’s focus.
6. Analyze the search volume and competition level of selected keywords.
7. Prioritize keywords with a balance of search volume and competition.
8. Incorporate relevant keywords organically into your content.
9. Ensure that keywords match user intent and enhance the overall reader experience.
10. Monitor the performance of integrated keywords using tracking tools.
11. Adapt your content strategy based on emerging keyword trends.
12. Utilize keyword research tools to identify content gaps and potential niches.
13. Create content that addresses specific long-tail keywords and user queries.
14. Incorporate keywords in key areas such as headings, subheadings and meta descriptions.
15. Regularly update your content to reflect evolving keyword trends.
16. Engage in competitor analysis to identify keywords driving their success.
17. Leverage keyword research tools to refine and optimize paid advertising campaigns.
18. Collaborate with your SEO team to align keyword research with technical optimization.
19. Continuously educate yourself on emerging SEO and content trends.
20. Keep a pulse on your audience’s preferences to consistently refine your keyword strategy.

The post 7 Keyword Suggestion and Research Tools to Figure Out the Right Keywords for Your SEO Strategy appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

If you’re thinking it’s time to get serious about your SEO, here are five sure-fire ways to win at search this year – and beyond:

1. Know your audience
2. Use the right tools for informed SEO
3. Find out what the best are doing …. and do it better
4. Take SEO training
5. Maintain a good reputation
6. FAQ: How can I win at search engine optimization (SEO) in 2023 and beyond? 

1. Know Your Audience

SEO is about knowing what your audience wants, then making sure you have what they need at the moment they are searching. That’s the simplified version, anyway.

So it’s important to do the work to understand your audience, and how SEO can support their customer journey. Check out these tips for more …

3 Steps to Define Your Target Audience for Your SEO Program

In SEO, defining your audience means understanding what they search for. If you don’t know what your target audience would be searching for online then you won’t be able to create content that resonates with them. This can negatively impact conversions.

So, what to do?

1. Demographics: Study your target audience’s demographics. How do those characteristics play into what you have to offer? You can build profiles for both consumers and businesses, depending on if you’re B2C or B2B.
2. Keywords: Keywords, aka search queries, are simply the words and phrases that your target audience might use to find out more about what you have to offer, or the topics you’re a subject matter expert on. Keyword research fuels ideas for relevant content for your website.
3. Qualitative research: Interviewing your target audience is a great way to get inside their minds when it comes to what they want – or even their experience with your website.

For more, check out: 3 Steps to Define Your Target Audience for Your SEO Program

How SEO Supports the Customer Journey

SEO is a marketing activity, and like other marketing activities, it supports the customer journey from awareness to action.

In fact, research shows that people first turn to search engines for discovery and comparison shopping – and that the organic search channel is responsible for driving a majority of revenue over other digital channels for many businesses.

Here are a few ways that SEO supports this customer journey:

Awareness phase: As prospects turn to the search engines to discover what you have to offer, you need to show up in the search results. SEO exists to help you do just that.

Consideration phase: Showing up to the party is one thing, but persuading your prospects to engage with you is another. There is plenty of competition in the search results, and SEO tactics like a compelling search listing to garner click-throughs and great content on your site keep moving your prospects forward.

Decision-making phase: While SEO’s ultimate goal is to drive traffic, our website exists to convert visitors. Decision-making tools and customer reviews can go a long way to helping with this. And a good SEO team will suggest ways you can convert organic traffic better.

For more, check out: How SEO Supports the Customer Journey

2. Use the Right Tools for Informed SEO

You can’t do SEO well without the right data. Building an expert tool stack is one of the first steps to winning at search.

Here are some tips to help …

7 Google SEO Tools Every Website Publisher Should Use

These seven tools are a must-have in your SEO tool kit:

1. Google Analytics 4
2. Google Search Console
3. Mobile-Friendly Test
4. PageSpeed Insights
5. Page Experience Tools
6. Google Trends
7. Search Quality Rater Guidelines

For more, check out: 7 Google SEO Tools Every Website Publisher Should Use

By the way, if you are considering AI content tools as a solution – don’t. They are at best tools, good for outlining or quoting statistics, but it is not a content creation solution.

But it is a worthy tool. Read more about this in my article: AI-Generated Content Is a Tool, Not a Solution.

The Top SEO Software That Experts Use Every Day

There’s a tool for almost every SEO activity out there (and there are a lot of activities to do). We compiled a list of the tools we use on a daily basis for SEO activities like:

• Crawling
• Data aggregation
• Competitive research
• ADA compliance
• GDPR compliance
• Google algorithm affects
• Content optimization tools
• SEO browser extensions and tools

For more, check out:

• The Top SEO Software That Experts Use Every Day
• The Bruce Clay SEO Plugin for WordPress

3. Find Out What the Best Are Doing … And Do It Better

There’s a reason that content is ranking on Page 1 of the search results. Our job as SEO professionals is to figure out why. Of course, there are plenty of tools and strategies to help us do that so we’re not wasting time simply guessing.

Here are some strategies to beat the competition …

SEO Should Beat the Competition, Not the Algorithm

The goal of SEO is to avoid trying to beat a search engine algorithm, which consists of endless combinations of signals. The goal is to beat your competition, but how do you do that? Start by figuring out which websites are ranked at the top for your target queries. Then, create better content.

Keep in mind that when someone conducts a search on Google, its algorithm attempts to establish which webpage provides the most pertinent answers and offers the optimal user experience.

We can never know which algorithmic signals Google applies to a query, so we can never optimize perfectly. We can only try to be the least imperfect compared to the pages that are already ranking.

For example, all else equal, do you think Google would choose Page A over Page B if Page B was a slow-loading website?

For more, check out: SEO Should Beat the Competition Not the Algorithm

How to Do Competitor Research for SEO

So you want to figure out exactly what the competition is doing … here’s where the heavy lifting comes in. You’re going to need the right tools and a roadmap.

Here are some common ways to discover and spy on your competitors in the search results using the SEOToolSet, our own advanced suite of powerful SEO tools:

• Check out the Research Summary report, which gives you detailed information about the domains and webpages ranking for your target keywords.
• Then run the Multi Page Analyzer (MPA) tool to see what the competition is doing to rank. The Single Page Analyzer goes into more detail.
• Next analyze their link profiles using the SEOToolSet Link Report.
• Then you can look at the competition’s website health using the Site Checker.

Also don’t forget to do a SERP analysis to see what other types of content are ranking aside from the blue links.

For more, check out: How to Do Competitor Research for SEO

4. Take SEO Training

One of the best ways to gain a fresh perspective on SEO is to take training. Even the most seasoned SEO professionals prioritize learning.

That said, there are many ways to further an SEO education. Let’s discuss ….

What Is SEO Training?

Simply put: SEO training teaches you how to increase your website’s online visibility and traffic from search engines.

There are many types of educational opportunities out there, including:

• Online training
• In-person training
• Books

Beware of trying to cobble everything together from multiple sources, though. If you are serious about your SEO education, then look for a training course that organizes the chaos and filters out the wrong information. Bad SEO information can kill a website.

For more, check out: What Is SEO Training?

What’s Your SEO Learning Style?

Which type of SEO education is the best first for your preferred learning style? Not everyone learns the same way, and knowing this helps you evaluate a training course.

Most people will fall into one or more of the following learning styles:

• Visual: You prefer graphic elements over words.
• Auditory: You prefer lectures and discussions.
• Read/write: You prefer written information.
• Kinesthetic: You learn through doing.

Spend some time analyzing the following formats so you can figure out which resonates:

• Online training
• Classroom training
• Books
• Supplemental learning
• Membership websites

For more, check out my article on Search Engine Land: What’s Your SEO Learning Style?

It’s Time to Rethink Your SEO Training

The majority of learning during the pandemic took place online. As a result, online learning has evolved over the past handful of years.

Now, people are expecting more from their online learning than they did in 2019. They want more than just a status set of videos, they expect engagement.

Many people want to learn remotely with the option to engage with instructors and other students. And they want all types of content that cater to different learning styles and lifestyle preferences.

This is why it’s time to rethink what SEO training can be. As a company that’s been at the forefront of SEO training for more than 20 years, we’ve reimagined what virtual SEO training can look like.

For more, check out: It’s Time to Rethink Your SEO Training

5 Questions to Evaluate Any SEO Training Course

Always do your due diligence before signing up for SEO training. Here are five questions to ask before taking an online SEO course:

• Who created the course? Do they have the experience and knowledge to provide reliable guidance?
• What materials does the course cover? Know ahead of time the concepts you want to learn, then evaluate your options.
• How is the information presented? Not everyone learns in the same way or expects the same thing from a training course.
• How fresh is the information? Search evolves at break-neck speed. Depending on the topic, you don’t want a course that hasn’t been refreshed in a few years.
• What kind of reviews does the course get? The proof is in the pudding – what are students saying about it?

I wrote more about this on Search Engine Land. See: 5 Questions to Evaluate Any SEO Training Course.

And by the way, we’ve got an excellent training platform at SEOtraining.com. If you’re in need of expert online training with updated resources to help you win at search, you’ll find no better place.

5. Maintain a Good Reputation

Maintaining a good reputation can indirectly impact your search engine rankings. Here are some strategies for understanding reputation and SEO …

Is Sentiment an SEO Trust Signal?

Trust is a big deal to Google – it has said in its Search Quality Rater Guidelines that reputational research is key to understanding if a site is trustworthy or not.

For that reason, we believe that sentiment analysis should be a part of SEO strategy. For more, check out: Is Sentiment an SEO Trust Signal?

How to Use Sentiment Analysis to Strengthen SEO Trustworthiness

With the right tools and looking in the right places, you can begin to get a sense of how people view your business.

We take that data and use it to enhance our SEO audits and track the success of campaigns. Armed with the right sentiment data, we can help businesses:

• Address customer complaints
• Resolve satisfaction issues
• Reward happy reviewers
• Reinforce the brand’s reputation and trustworthiness

For more, read: How to Use Sentiment Analysis to Strengthen SEO Trustworthiness

There you have it – five strategies and multiple tactics to help you win at search this year. Follow the steps in this article and you can breathe new life into your SEO program.

Want expert help to win at search? Contact us today for a free consultation.

FAQ: How can I win at search engine optimization (SEO) in 2023 and beyond?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an ever-evolving field. In order to stay ahead of the competition, adapting strategies and tactics to the evolving digital landscape is crucial in order to succeed at SEO in 2023.

Understanding Your Audience is Key to an Effective SEO Campaign

Be an informed SEO by arming yourself with the appropriate tools and data. Form an expert-led tool stack for gathering insights and making wise decisions; Google Analytics, Search Console and PageSpeed Insights are essential. In addition, consider installing browser extensions, competitor research tools and content-optimization tools as these will allow you to optimize your website while staying ahead of the competition.

SEO isn’t all about beating search engine algorithms — it’s also about outshooting your competition. Assess what the top sites in your field are doing to provide answers for specific searches, then strive to surpass that by offering superior user experiences, optimizing page loading speed and using decision-making tools. Improving your competitors’ strategies will help you increase organic traffic.

Invest in SEO Training

SEO is an ever-evolving field, so ongoing learning is a necessity. Consider investing in SEO training courses to gain a fresh perspective, expand knowledge and keep abreast of the latest trends. Look for courses with comprehensive information that filters out outdated or misleading material; bad SEO practices could harm your website so ensure reliable educational sources.

Maintain a Good Online Reputation

Keeping a positive online reputation can have an indirect effect on search engine ranking. Develop trust with your audience by responding quickly to customer concerns and rewarding positive reviews. Use sentiment analysis to gauge how your company is perceived, then use this knowledge to enhance SEO audits for maximum performance gains by building trustworthiness into the fabric of your brand and business.

Implementing these strategies and staying informed about SEO developments will position you to be successful in 2023. SEO should be approached as an ongoing process. Remain proactive, adapt to changing priorities and optimize your website continuously for maximum performance.

The post 5 Ways To Win at Search (Roundup) appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Every Monday, SEO is a brand-new industry. It’s complex and can be difficult to keep up with the constant changes.

In the right hands, SEO is a powerful tool that makes your brand first among equals.

In the wrong hands, doing SEO incorrectly hurts your brand and can ultimately cause your business to fail. The difference between the two is expertise.

So in order to implement a successful SEO program, it would be wise to work with an experienced agency or consultant.

An expert SEO agency knows how to implement good strategies to improve your online visibility, establish your company as a trusted authority in your niche, attract more organic traffic to your website, and increase your revenue.

Not all SEO agencies are created equal — some are good, some are bad. If you know more about SEO than your agency does, don’t expect to see meaningful results. And if you’re not getting the best results from your SEO campaign, it’s time to look elsewhere.

There are many factors you should consider before deciding on hiring outside help. Here, we will look at the top 10 expert skills you should expect from an SEO agency:

1. 1. 1. Keyword research
      2. Competitor analysis
      3. On-page optimization
      4. Off-page optimization
      5. Technical SEO
      6. Content marketing
      7. Local SEO
      8. Analytics and reporting
      9. SEO tools
      10. SEO training

   FAQ: What are the top contributions that an SEO agency can make to your SEO program?

1. Keyword Research

Keyword research is a critical component of every successful SEO campaign. It’s what helps you understand your target audience and their search behaviors.

A good SEO agency will utilize keyword research to provide you with an edge in understanding and outranking your competitors. They will also conduct content gap analyses to identify gaps and enhance an overall competitive content strategy.

The top three search results for a query get the majority of clicks. An agency will help you align your content creation and optimization with the keywords and queries your audience is looking for to give you a better chance of showing up in those positions.

For more, read:

• What are keywords? Why are keywords important to SEO?

2. Competitor Analysis

The goal of SEO is to beat the competition, not the algorithm.

SEO agencies know how to conduct a thorough competitor analysis to analyze the SEO strategies of a website’s competition. These insights inform the recommendations they make on how to outperform them.

For more on competitor analysis, read:

• How to do competitor research for SEO

3. On-Page Optimization

On-page optimization improves a website’s relevance and user experience, leading to higher visibility in search engines.

Some tactics include:

• Optimizing the website’s content with keywords.
• Deploying the right formatting.
• Schema markup.
• Making sure a webpage is mobile-friendly, user-friendly, and fast.
• Focusing on the organization of the content throughout the site, including the internal linking strategy.

With expert knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, a great SEO agency can optimize a website’s structure, content, and design to ensure it meets the technical requirements of search engines and user needs.

Our Always Up-to-Date SEO Checklist is a great resource to help you with on-page optimization. I suggest bookmarking the page for frequent reference.

4. Off-Page Optimization

Off-page optimization includes things like social media marketing, influencer promotions, press releases, and earning quality links to the website.

Backlinks are a ranking factor, although it isn’t specifically the number of links that matters. Fewer high-quality backlinks can better improve the credibility and authority of a website than a large volume of lower-quality ones.

In other words: The days of “link building” are over …. ultimately, earning relevant links comes down to creating great content that people want to link to and share.

For more on backlinks, see:

• The New Link Building Manifesto: A Complete Guide to Earning Links That Count

5. Technical SEO

Technical SEO involves optimizing a website’s performance to ensure it meets the technical requirements of search engines and offers a great user experience.

For example, page speed is a confirmed Google ranking signal, and Google wants pages to load in under 2.5 seconds.

Technical failures are a common reason for a drop in rankings and traffic. And the complexity of today’s websites requires an expert to identify and fix any issues that may cause these drops in traffic.

With expertise in website architecture, server configuration, and user experience, the right SEO agency can ensure that your site is technically sound and make it easier for search engines to access it.

For more on technical SEO, see:

• Technical SEO vs. On-Page SEO: The DIfferences
• SEO Guide: Technical SEO Tips

6. Content Marketing

Content marketing is about creating and sharing content in a way that helps you achieve your business and marketing objectives.

Content marketing involves:

• Communicating effectively.
• Making connections.
• Sharing the right content.
• Engaging your audience.
• Being in the right place at the right time.
• Seizing opportunity.
• Inspiring action.
• Nurturing the needs of your customers.
• Showcasing your personality/company culture in a way that fits the brand.

An expert SEO agency understands how experience, expertise, authority, and trust factor into quality content that builds trust with your market. They are skilled at developing content strategies, optimizing content for target keywords, and implementing content promotion techniques that demonstrate authority to search engines and to your target audience.

7. Local SEO

Local SEO is critical for businesses that rely on local customers. In fact, research from BrightLocal shows that 98% of people use the internet to find information about a local business.

Some of the SEO tactics used in local SEO differ from traditional techniques for organic search results (“10 blue links”).

And the complexity of local SEO grows when you have national and multi-site businesses, including franchises.

An experienced agency knows how to utilize local keyword research, on-page optimization, and local link building to ensure that a business’s website appears in local search results for the most valuable queries.

For more on local SEO, read:

• How Do I Rank Higher in Google Local Search?

8. Analytics and Reporting

Analytics and reporting are essential to measure the success of an SEO campaign and identify areas for improvement.

SEO agencies should frequently check in with you to provide detailed reports on the website’s performance, rankings, and traffic. They are experienced in data analytics tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and other SEO tools. And with the launch of Google Analytics 4 (GA4), an agency will have even more powerful tools to track and analyze user behavior on your website.

9. SEO Tools

SEO tools can provide a competitive advantage and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of any agency’s services.

These tools can provide valuable information about keyword research, backlink analysis, and website optimization.

Some SEO agencies (like ours) have their own proprietary SEO tools. Our SEO ToolSet software offers a suite of unique tools for website optimization. It’s been used by over 5,000 clients, including Fortune 500 companies and government agencies.

With access to the right tools, an agency can provide businesses with a unique and effective strategy that outperforms its competitors.

Remember that there is always a difference between data and wisdom. SEO tools can inundate you with data, but what sets agencies apart is the wisdom to understand what the data is telling you.

A skilled SEO agency will give you the right data with information specific to your website, then make actionable recommendations to help you make the right decisions for your business.

For more on SEO tools, see:

• The Top SEO Software That Experts Use Every Day

10. SEO Training

SEO training, like tools, can provide a competitive advantage and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of any agency services.

By learning how SEO works or improving upon the SEO skills you already have, you can have more strategic conversations with your SEO provider.

As the SEO industry continues to grow, the demand for training courses has steadily increased. Google Trends data shows a notable surge in search interest for SEO training services toward the last quarter of 2021.

These trends underscore the vital importance of investing in SEO training, showing its importance for business survival in an ever-evolving digital landscape.

Some SEO companies provide SEO training – we happen to be one of them. We’ve trained tens of thousands of students over 27 years on the foundations of SEO and evolving best practices.

In the past few years, we have reinvented our SEO training from in-person classes to an online membership site with tons of resources for its members in various content formats.

With the constant changes to search engine algorithms, staying up-to-date on SEO best practices and strategies through quality training is essential to remain competitive in today’s online marketplace.

There are a plethora of SEO training offerings out there — you must do your research and choose wisely. Before committing to anything, I suggest reading my article on Search Engine Land to help you evaluate your options.

Looking for an experienced SEO agency with a proven track record of helping websites get to Page 1 in the search results? Look no further than Bruce Clay, Inc.! Reach out to us to schedule a free consultation.

FAQ: What are the top contributions that an SEO agency can make to your SEO program?

Many businesses don’t have the time, resources, or knowledge to implement a successful SEO program. Working with an experienced SEO agency can significantly enhance your campaign. Here are the top skills you should look for when deciding to hire outside help.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is at the core of any successful SEO strategy. SEO agencies possess the knowledge and expertise required to perform thorough searches that identify relevant keywords for your industry, product, or service. They also optimize websites so they rank higher in search engine result pages (SERPs). By understanding your audience and their search behavior, agencies can optimize sites so they appear higher up in SERPs, leading to more organic traffic and conversions.

Competitor Analysis

To be the best in SEO, it means outstripping competitors. SEO agencies specialize in competitor analysis to gain valuable insight into their strategies and assist you with creating an improved SEO plan by studying what others are doing. Using this knowledge, they can identify opportunities to outrank rivals and bring more qualified traffic to your site.

Expert On-Page SEO

Optimizing the relevance and user experience of your website is paramount for its success. An SEO agency utilizes its extensive knowledge of HTML and CSS to optimize the structure, design and content of your website in accordance with search engines’ technical requirements while simultaneously meeting user demands. A specialist agency can boost rankings and targeted traffic by employing strategies such as keyword optimization, formatting schema markups and creating user-friendly navigation.

Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to activities performed outside of your website that contribute to its overall search engine optimization success. A good SEO agency can develop an effective off-page strategy for optimizing your website, including social media marketing, influencer promotion, link acquisition strategies, or creating high-quality links. These experts understand the importance of a good link-building strategy and can create content that earns backlinks for increased authority, credibility and visibility for your brand.

Analytical Insights and Reporting

Reporting and analytics are crucial in evaluating the success of any SEO campaign and identifying any areas for improvement. SEO agencies typically provide regular reports detailing website traffic, rankings and key metrics gathered using data-driven insights provided by tools like Google Analytics and Search Console that will allow you to stay ahead of competitors in an ever-evolving digital landscape. These reports help keep an accurate account of SEO campaign activities while keeping a detailed log of improvements necessary in real-time.

Choosing the right partnership with an SEO agency can be the key to the success of your business. Take the time to get to know them, what they offer and what their track record is like. Leverage their experience in the industry to achieve better results — more traffic, visibility, leads, conversions, sales and customers.

The post 10 Expert Skills of an SEO Agency appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

With millions of websites competing for top positions on search engine results pages, it is vital that your business implements an SEO plan to ensure it can stay visible and relevant to potential customers.

Hiring outside SEO assistance may seem out of reach for smaller businesses or those on a tight marketing budget. But not all hope is lost — SEO vendors sometimes provide cost-cutting options that still deliver excellent results, like partial service SEO offerings.

If you’re in need of SEO expertise, there are multiple methods available to you. Let’s discuss five ways you can get cost-effective SEO help right now to drive more organic website traffic.

1. 1. SEO consulting
   2. Website audits
   3. Time blocks
   4. SEO training
   5. SEO tools

FAQ: How can I get cost-effective SEO help to improve my online visibility and attract potential customers? 

1. SEO Consulting

SEO consulting services are an excellent alternative to a full-service agency approach.

Consulting services enable businesses to get SEO guidance for a specified period of time so they can create and maintain a search engine-rewarded site. Hiring a consultant is different than hiring an agency that does everything for you from ideation to execution. It’s a perfect option for companies that need expert guidance but cannot afford an agency that handles everything.

SEO consultants can provide a range of services from reviewing your website content and performance to keyword and competitor analysis, or developing an SEO strategy tailored to your specific needs.

For instance, here at Bruce Clay Inc., we tailor consulting programs based on client needs and in-house capabilities (what clients can reasonably do on their own).

You can work with an SEO consultant for potentially any mission-specific project as a cost-effective solution to improve your SEO with limited resources.

2. Website Audits

Site audits are an excellent option for businesses looking to improve their SEO on a limited budget.

An SEO audit is a website analysis that looks at issues hindering your search engine rankings and areas that need improvement to gain more visibility in the search results and drive organic search traffic. This analysis uncovers valuable insights into your website’s performance and pinpoints areas for optimization, like improving website speed or optimizing content. By addressing these issues, you can improve your website’s search engine ranking and attract more organic traffic.

The best audits require an expert deep dive with tailored solutions versus a generic one-size-fits-all report generated by an SEO tool that merely points out surface-level issues. (And they should also include some consulting time as you implement the changes.)

Site audits are invaluable as they allow you to get expert SEO advice on the best ways to boost your website.

For more on audits, see:

• What Is an SEO Audit?
• SEO Audits and Tools: The Good, The Better and The Best

3. Time Blocks

Investing in time blocks is a great way to engage with an expert, especially if you’re working on a short project and are looking for validation.

A time block is just what it sounds like – a block of time that you purchase from an SEO vendor. Not every agency or SEO professional may offer this. But when they do, it can be a great way to customize what you want the expert to do for you.

Whereas SEO consulting is largely an expert telling you what to do, a time block-type arrangement can secure a number of hours where the SEO pro implements anything you need. This is like hiring a handyman to perform the tasks you have identified; it can be great for the more technical tasks that perhaps you don’t have the skills for.

One example of a project best suited for a time block would be to align your site to Google’s page experience update and its core web vitals – a task that really requires technical expertise.

4. SEO Training

SEO training teaches you how to increase your website’s online visibility and traffic from search engines on your own. Training courses can provide businesses with an effective solution for taking a DIY approach to SEO.

But the sheer volume of information can be daunting, making it hard to know where or how you should begin or focus your energy. There are various SEO training solutions out there, but not all will produce equal results. Choose wisely or you are wasting your money.

I believe the best course of action is this process:

1. Take a formal SEO training course.
2. Have a good SEO reference manual/book you can refer to along your journey.
3. Read articles from SEO experts you can trust on an ongoing basis. (If you haven’t already, I highly suggest subscribing to the Bruce Clay Blog.)
4. Continue to learn by attending quality events throughout the year (virtual or in-person) – the more, the better.

SEO education is never done – even when you become an expert. So make this a continuous part of your journey.

Learn more:

• How to Learn Search Engine Optimization
• What Is SEO Training?
• DIY SEO: 4 Questions to Ask Before You Start
• 5 Questions to Evaluate Any SEO Training Course [Search Engine Land]

We offer expert online SEO training, videos, and other resources at SEOtraining.com. It’s an interactive membership experience that evolves with SEO to keep you informed on what’s changing in the world of search marketing. You’ll learn our tried-and-true SEO methodologies that will help you achieve better results — more traffic, qualified leads, customers, sales, and revenue.

5. SEO Tools

For those with an extremely limited budget who are also up for the challenge of doing the basics of SEO on their own, simply investing in SEO tools can help you make data-driven decisions.

But a word of warning: Without a basic understanding of SEO, tools will provide the data but you will ultimately lack the wisdom of how to interpret that data.

At Bruce Clay Inc., we give our SEO training students access to our proprietary SEO tools, so that they can learn SEO and learn how to read the data at the same time.

Either way, tools can get you to a certain point, but then it’s time to think about investing in your SEO skills and education to break through the plateau.

For more, see:

• 7 Google SEO Tools That Every Website Publisher Should Use
• The Top SEO Software That Experts Use Every Day
• Bruce Clay SEO Plugin for WordPress Users
• SEOToolSet.com

Every business has its own unique set of challenges. Evaluate your resources and goals before deciding on what type of SEO help you need.

From SEO consulting and site audits to block services, SEO training and SEO tools — we offer it all. Schedule a free consultation to discuss how we can help you achieve your search goals.

FAQ: How can I get cost-effective SEO help to improve my online visibility and attract potential customers?

Cost-effective SEO strategies to increase online visibility and attract potential customers

As a businessperson, you understand the significance of creating an engaging online presence for engaging and attracting potential customers. Search engine optimization plays an integral part in increasing website visibility and driving organic traffic to your site.
Though hiring an outside SEO expert might seem costly, there are cost-cutting measures you can employ that can increase online visibility while simultaneously increasing customer acquisition.

This article explores five strategies for cost-effective SEO assistance.

1. SEO Consulting Services: Offering Tailored Advice for Success
SEO consulting is an ideal alternative to hiring an agency. By contracting an SEO consultant for a fixed period, they provide customized guidance tailored specifically to your needs and circumstances. An SEO consultant can offer valuable insight and guidance tailored specifically for your site content, performance analysis, keyword research or competitor analysis needs. At Bruce Clay Inc., we understand the importance of customizing our consulting programs based on client requirements as well as internal capabilities.

2. Website Audits: Discover Insights to Enhance Performance
Site audits can be an ideal solution for businesses on a limited budget looking to enhance their SEO. SEO audits involve conducting an in-depth examination of your site that highlights issues hindering search engine ranking and areas requiring improvement, including issues such as website speed optimization or content optimization. Invest in services offering customized audit solutions rather than just general reports generated by SEO software programs.

3. Our experts specialize in developing tailored solutions to address Time Blocks
By investing in time blocks, you can hire an SEO vendor for specific hours at a fixed rate. This option acts like hiring an efficient handyman when dealing with technical tasks that require specialization; such as aligning your website to Google’s Page Experience Update and Core Web Vitals requirements. While not all agencies or professionals provide time blocks as an option to customize assistance as effectively as possible.

4. Gain SEO Knowledge and Empower Yourself
If you prefer doing SEO yourself, investing in professional training is a smart move. SEO courses will teach you how to increase website visibility online and generate organic traffic. In order to remain up-to-date with industry best practices and stay abreast of industry practices, it’s best to select formal courses, utilize reliable manuals, follow experts regularly, as well as attend quality events both physically and virtually throughout the year – this way your knowledge will continue to expand.

5. SEO Tools: Data-Driven Decisions
SEO tools provide invaluable data that can assist with decision-making when on a tight budget. But it’s important to remember that without knowledge of SEO, interpreting data may prove challenging; before turning to tools for help, it is wiser to develop a basic knowledge first. Bruce Clay Inc offers students access to proprietary SEO tools which enable them to learn SEO efficiently while effectively interpreting data.

There are numerous cost-effective strategies to enhance your online presence and attract customers, such as SEO consulting, website auditors, time blocks, and SEO training. Each business differs; therefore it’s essential that you assess both goals and resources before choosing the optimal approach for SEO investment. Utilizing cost-effective strategies for SEO will enable you to optimize online visibility without straining marketing budgets.

Bruce Clay Inc. offers businesses of any size extensive experience in improving their SEO to achieve online success. Our team keeps abreast of industry trends and search engine algorithms; their services can be tailored specifically to meet each client’s unique needs and budget.

Don’t let the perceived costs of SEO deter you from increasing online visibility. Our cost-effective strategies and experienced partners can help increase website rankings, traffic volume, and business expansion. Contact us to discover how our solutions can assist your organization to thrive in today’s digital marketplace!

The post 5 Cost-Effective Ways You Can Get SEO Help Right Now appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Bruce commonly says that “There is a difference between data and wisdom”. Wisdom comes from understanding. It’s one thing to claim that you know SEO, but it’s entirely different to understand SEO.

The difference between “knowing” and “understanding” SEO determines how well your website ranks and how well your bottom line performs. If you simply know SEO, you will likely be left behind in the search results. And in today’s competitive market, that is something your business just can’t afford.

Wisdom also comes from years of experience. Bruce Clay has pioneered the SEO industry since 1996 — that’s over two decades of experience working with thousands of clients large and small. He started Bruce Clay Inc. (BCI) to help marketing professionals at all levels acquire the knowledge and skills to win more traffic. The wisdom BCI has developed over the years can help guide you (and your website) to success now and into the future.

Our path to SEO wisdom is built on three key components:

• SEO Training
• SEO Tools
• SEO Services

SEO Training

SEO is not once and done. And because the industry changes almost daily, it is essential to have access to proper training for long-term success. You need ongoing training and updated resources to keep your knowledge effective. Staying informed will help keep you ahead of your competition and give your website a competitive edge.

Having experts on your team makes a big difference. Well-trained experts who understand SEO can go beyond the data, look at the bigger picture and apply wisdom to make informed decisions for your business. They know that to be successful in SEO you must beat the competition, not the algorithm.

The good news is that you can get trained and build yourself into an SEO expert. That’s why we developed SEOtraining.com. This all-inclusive membership experience lets you learn from experts in an ongoing and interactive online format.

You’ll learn from the “Father of SEO” Bruce Clay himself, who has taught effective SEO to more than 5,000 marketers worldwide and been the official Advanced SEO Workshop training partner for major search marketing conferences since 2008.

In the program, we provide you with advanced SEO training (video classes, live Q&A, webinars, e-books, mini-classes, ask-us-anything recordings, etc.) that you can access throughout your membership. We share our knowledge about how to convert your new expertise into wisdom to increase traffic, leads, sales, and clients. We also show you how to use your new SEO knowledge in a way that helps you almost instantly turn your website into a towering authority in your niche.

The membership community at SEOtraining.com is growing, and there’s no better time to join. If you want to build your brand as an SEO expert and learn how to win in search, this training program is for you.

Start training at SEOtraining.com today!

SEO Tools

In the world of SEO, there’s certainly no shortage of tools to help you with various tasks. To develop understanding and wisdom, you need the right tools to get the job done. They must present the right data and a deeper analysis with information that is specific to your site. The wrong data can mislead you down the wrong path, ultimately hurting your business.

It’s important to understand there is a big difference between DATA and WISDOM. Having data doesn’t help you unless you develop the expertise to understand it and take appropriate action. That’s wisdom. But without data, wisdom is in a vacuum.

We concentrate on putting together tools and reports that can move the needle for a website. Our SEO software tools provide you with the right answers, without getting lost in unimportant detail. They dive deep into SEO-specific data to provide you with the wisdom needed to beat your competition in the search results.

Deliver results for your business with our SEO tools.

SEO Services

One goal remains constant in the ever-changing world of SEO: more traffic.

The higher a site ranks on a search engine results page, the more traffic the site can receive. And to achieve a high ranking in search, having experts makes all the difference. Experts understand that no two sites are alike. Wisdom and a strong tactical strategy are the winning combination to long-term success.

Our experts each average 10+ years of experience in the SEO industry. They possess the wisdom needed to make any website a trusted authority that ranks well in search engines.

Our SEO services are always tailored to match your needs. Whatever your SEO goals are, our team looks forward to helping you achieve them.

Boost your traffic, rankings and revenue with our experts. Book a free consultation and let us know how we can help.

There is no “easy” button when it comes to SEO. And to truly be successful, it takes time.

The best way to develop your own SEO wisdom is to learn for yourself. Let us help guide you.

The post SEO Wisdom From Bruce Clay appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

In this article, I’ll highlight the tools that our SEO experts use every day for a variety of tasks.

A word of warning: There is a significant difference between DATA and WISDOM. Having data doesn’t help you unless you develop the expertise to understand it and take appropriate action. That’s wisdom. But without data, wisdom is in a vacuum.

Why use multiple tools? Well, when the only tool in your toolkit is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Why not have every tool? Besides the expense, you would have too much data that would be almost guaranteed to conflict. If you run several tools to find what appears to be the same kind of data, they often report different numbers for the same thing.

Why not pick one SEO software and stick to it? Well, the more popular tools give the same wimpy, middle-of-the-road, staying-out-of-trouble recommendations to a million users. Instead, you need a few specialty tools to do deep dives and get closer to the issues and solutions.

I’ll group the tools into categories to cover the many types of data research needed for search engine optimization. Feel free to jump to the type of SEO software that interests you:

• Crawling software
• Data aggregation software
• Competitive research software
• ADA compliance
• GDPR compliance
• Google algorithm effects
• Content optimization tools
• SEO browser extensions and tools (our favorites)
• FAQ: How do experts utilize a variety of SEO tools to enhance website performance and optimization?

Of course, features and pricing may vary. Larger sites may subscribe to higher-level versions, often with more features. This is just a summary to point you in the right direction.

Crawling Software

DeepCrawl

This SEO software can crawl millions of URLs and billions of links. DeepCrawl looks at hundreds of metrics to help SEOs identify and manage technical SEO issues and ensure webpages are being crawled by search engines. This is a preferred tool when it comes to crawling software.

Price: Starts at $89/month. Free trial available.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Screaming Frog is another tried-and-true crawling tool that offers a lot of features for analyzing a website. Find broken links, analyze meta data, find duplicate content, generate XML sitemaps, and much more.

Price: $149/year. Or, crawl 500 URLs for free.

SEOToolSetⓇ

Our SEO software’s site spider auto-crawls a website down to five clicks deep and, among other things, identifies any issues that may impact your site’s indexability. The SEOToolSet also offers page analysis tools, ranking monitors, and a whole host of other features for expert SEO analysis. (Side note: Find out more about what our SEO tools have to offer at SEOToolSet.com.)

Price: Starts at $24.95/month.

Data Aggregation Software

URLProfiler

This powerful SEO software can help you perform a variety of SEO tasks, including penalty audits, content audits, domain research, link prospecting, and more. URLProfiler is configurable to your needs, depending on what type of data you need to complete the job. Some of the best features include data aggregation, API integration, and speed tool.

Price: Starts at $19.95/month. Free trial available.

Competitive Research Software

Ahrefs

Competitive research is just one of the many things you can do with Ahrefs. Its Site Explorer lets you see what keywords competitors rank for and the traffic to pages. Also, see who links to the competition and if they are doing paid search. They also offer a “free” Webmaster Tools Account if you verify ownership of the domain. Data is limited but very useful as a free tool.

Price: Starts at $99/month. Get a trial for $7.

Semrush

(Yes folks, it is Sem and not S.E.M.) Another good competitive analysis tool (that also offers many other features for SEO work, such as keyword research) is Semrush. You can easily find out who your competition is in the search results, benchmark your traffic against theirs, track mentions of competitors, analyze competitors’ social media, and more.

Price: Starts at $99.95/month (billed annually). Free trial available.

Majestic

Majestic is a fantastic link intelligence tool that is particularly handy for competitive analysis. Get access to backlink information on multiple competitors and compare performance. Of course, you can use Majestic for your own backlink analysis as well.

Price: Plans start at $49.99/month. Demo Majestic here and sign up to access the reports.

ADA Compliance

PowerMapper

To be sure a website complies with the American with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), PowerMapper’s SortSite tool “finds pages that are unusable by people with disabilities. It checks entire websites against W3 WCAG 2.0, WCAG 2.1, and US Section 508 accessibility standards.”

Price: Varies based on tools. Free accessibility checks available.

GDPR Compliance

GDPR Website Compliance Check

The GDPR Website Compliance Check scans a website to identify the cookies that are set and where data is going to help ensure you’re in compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

Price: Free

Piwik Pro Cookie Scanner

The Cookie Scanner offers a complete cookie scan to identify first- and third-party cookies on a website, the cookie providers, GDPR cookie requirements, and more.

Price: Free

Google Algorithm Effects

Panguin Tool

This tool can help you figure out if you’ve been impacted by a Google algorithmic penalty. The Panguin Tool helps you determine when a traffic shift up or down aligns with a Google algorithm update so that you can investigate what might be impacting a website.

Price: Free

Content Optimization Tools

InLinks

InLinks provides in-depth information on how to optimize your content for a topic. Use it to identify marketing trends with content, for content optimization, and for discovery, ideation and enhanced rankings (such as featured snippets, how-to, FAQs, etc.). This SEO software generates a content brief for the topic you want to publish with targeted recommendations including access to related topics and a comprehensive list of related questions.

Price: $39.99/month. Free plan available.

Featured Snippets+ Tool

This tool for featured snippet optimization allows you to optimize your content so your webpage has a better chance of being chosen for a featured snippet, aka “position zero.” Featured Snippets+ analyzes which competitors own a snippet for the topic; the top “people also ask” questions, and more.

Price: Starts at $49.99 (one-time fee). Demo the product with limited URLs for free.

Bruce Clay SEO WP Plugin

Analyze the top-ranked pages for your keywords and find out how to optimize your content to meet or beat them. Includes targets for meta data, readability scores, and word count. This SEO plugin also gives you the ability to track how you optimize the page with keywords.

Price: Starts at $24.95/month and includes a subscription to the SEOToolSet. Free seven-day trial available.

SEO Browser Extensions & Tools

Heading Tag Markup

This extension highlights and notates all heading tags on a page. It’s useful for seeing if heading tags are set up properly.

Price: Free

Highlight This

This extension allows you to create a keyword list that the tool then uses to highlight the words visually as you browse a website. You can create multiple lists and assign colors to them.

Price: Free

Word Counter

This extension lets you select any text online and get a word and character count quickly with a right click.

Price: Free

Text Analyzer

Quickly get a picture of the words used most on a page, the word count of the page, and more with Text Analyzer. A really basic but fast and useful tool if you want to quickly view those metrics.

Price: Free

Schema Markup Generator (JSON-LD)

The Schema Markup Generator (JSON-LD) creates JSON-LD markups for you. Just choose the type of schema.org markup you want to create, input the information, and go.

Price: Free

WordPress Security

Hacker Target’s WordPress Security Scan tests vulnerabilities in application security, WordPress plugins, the hosting environment, and the web server.

Price: Free

Advice for Picking SEO Tools

SEO is only as good as the SEO software you use to analyze a website. This article contains some of the tools we use currently, but the list is fluid. So give tools a try, but then choose wisely and build a tool stack that will set you up for success.

We can provide the expertise you need to improve your website SEO. Contact us today for a free consultation.

FAQ: How do experts utilize a variety of SEO tools to enhance website performance and optimization?

Optimizing website performance has become paramount for businesses seeking online success. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts understand that achieving this goal requires a comprehensive toolkit of specialized software and techniques. Through strategic utilization of SEO tools, these experts streamline their efforts, enhance performance, and unlock the full potential of their websites.

At the core of effective website optimization lies the deployment of crawling software. This specialized tool, such as DeepCrawl or Screaming Frog SEO Spider, allows experts to conduct comprehensive website audits. Experts thoroughly understand their website’s health by identifying broken links, analyzing meta data, and generating XML sitemaps, making way for targeted improvements.

Competitive research software, exemplified by Ahrefs and Semrush, offers experts valuable insights into the strategies of their competitors. These tools enable experts to uncover keywords competitors rank for, understand traffic trends, and even identify paid search efforts. With this information, experts make informed decisions to outmaneuver competitors and elevate their website visibility.

In the realm of compliance, experts ensure their websites adhere to accessibility and data protection standards. Tools like PowerMapper aid in conforming to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by identifying pages inaccessible to people with disabilities. Meanwhile, GDPR compliance checks, such as the GDPR Website Compliance Check and Piwik Pro Cookie Scanner, safeguard user data in line with EU regulations.

Experts also leverage content optimization tools to enhance their website’s search ranking. InLinks, for instance, offers valuable insights for optimizing content around specific topics. Featured Snippets+ helps tailor content for coveted featured snippet positions, while the Bruce Clay SEO WP Plugin empowers experts to optimize pages for optimal visibility.

Transitioning seamlessly from one subtopic to the next, experts weave together the diverse functionalities of these SEO tools to orchestrate a symphony of website optimization. By implementing crawling software, competitive research tools, compliance checks, and content optimization strategies, they create a powerful amalgamation that maximizes website performance and drives results.

Experts employ a multi-faceted approach to SEO by harnessing various specialized tools. Their mastery of crawling software, competitive research tools, compliance checks, and content optimization techniques propels their websites to new heights of performance and optimization. As the digital landscape continues to evolve, their expertise remains a beacon of light, guiding the way to digital success.

Step-by-Step Procedure: Leveraging SEO Tools for Enhanced Website Performance

1. Introduction to SEO Tools: Explain the significance of SEO tools in optimizing website performance.
2. Crawling Software: Detail the functionalities of crawling software like DeepCrawl and Screaming Frog SEO Spider for comprehensive website audits.
3. Competitive Research Tools: Explore how tools like Ahrefs and Semrush aid experts in analyzing competitors’ strategies.
4. **Compliance Checks: Discuss tools like PowerMapper and GDPR Website Compliance Check for ADA and GDPR compliance.
5. Content Optimization Tools: Explain how InLinks, Featured Snippets+, and Bruce Clay SEO WP Plugin enhance content ranking.
6. Seamless Transitions: Emphasize the importance of integrating these tools harmoniously for holistic optimization.
7. Expert Strategy: Share insights into how experts strategically combine tools to drive performance improvements.
8. Real-world Examples: Provide case studies or examples showcasing successful website optimization through tool utilization.
9. Long-term Benefits: Discuss how consistent tool utilization contributes to sustained website performance.
10. Dynamic SEO Landscape: Address the evolving nature of SEO tools and the need for continuous learning.
11. Professional Recommendations: Offer expert tips on selecting the right tools based on specific optimization goals.
12. Measurement and Tracking: Explain the importance of tracking and measuring the impact of tool usage.
13. Balancing Tool Stack: Advice on creating a balanced tool stack that addresses various optimization aspects.
14. Collaboration: Highlight the significance of expert collaboration for optimal tool utilization.
15. Future-proofing: Discuss strategies for staying updated with new tools and techniques.
16. Case Study: Provide an in-depth case study showcasing how a website achieved remarkable results through tool-driven optimization.
17. Key Takeaways: Summarize the key learnings from using SEO tools for website optimization.
18. Conclusion: Reiterate the central role of SEO tools in achieving enhanced website performance and optimization.

The post The Top SEO Software That Experts Use Every Day appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

If a cardiologist wanted to see how your heart was doing, they’d hook you up to an EKG to measure your heart rate at rest or during activity.

What a cardiologist wouldn’t do is tell you your heart health based on a study of people like you, without doing an EKG. They need a baseline. And that baseline is the information your unique heart is putting out.

There are a lot of great WordPress SEO plugins out there. And they all function differently. A common theme among many of them is that they base their recommendations (and functionality) on SEO best practices.

Best practices definitely have their place. But you can’t rely solely on them. After a while, your site becomes average and like everyone else’s. Your website and your keywords are as unique as a heartbeat. To have a better chance of ranking on Page 1 of the search results, you need custom SEO advice. And I’ll show you how to get it.

• Best practices are great, except when they’re not
• What’s missing in your WordPress SEO guidance
• How to get custom SEO advice from your WordPress SEO plugin 
• FAQ: What data and analytics does a WordPress SEO plugin provide to enhance my SEO efforts?

Best Practices Are Great, Except When They’re Not

I’m all for large-scale SEO research studies that produce interesting data on all things SEO. Some studies you may have seen in the past show ranking factors, optimal metadata length, content length correlated to top rankings, and so on.

These studies tend to look at a massive amount of search results across all niches and all types of keywords with varying intent. Marketers use these studies as a guiding light.

This data then becomes an SEO truth which many go by. The new best practice then trickles into every corner of the SEO industry, including in-house practices, agencies, and WordPress plugins.

Folks, there is a difference between data and wisdom, and assuming that every keyword on the web requires a 1,700-word page to rank is simply crazy.

Study data provides a useful road map. But we can do better.

What’s Missing in Your WordPress SEO Guidance

When it comes to WordPress SEO plugins, there’s no shortage of great ones. You will not likely find everything you need in just one SEO plugin. So the best way to go about using them is to create a custom plugin stack that works for your SEO needs.

As we researched the SEO plugin market before we created our own, we found a gap. Many of the leading plugins base their guidance and features on established best practices and industry data averages.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with that. We saw an opportunity to help more websites succeed in the search results with an SEO plugin that gave custom SEO advice.

Instead of static recommendations based on generic research, we wanted to give real-time SEO advice based on the top-ranked pages for a keyword.

This is a game-changer. Consider this: Every keyword has a different intent, and that intent biases the algorithm. Since every keyword query has its own intent and thus its own algorithm, there are as many algorithms as there are keywords.

Then you add the bias of RankBrain and an individual’s web history on a query, and the possibilities are endless when ranking webpages. It is almost impossible to hit a home run if you’re just relying on generic best practices.

That is why analytics tools exist — to give you custom data. That is why we decided to power our Bruce Clay SEO WP plugin with analytics, not just static best practices.

How to Get Custom SEO Advice from Your WordPress SEO Plugin

Real-time analytics powers every aspect of our WordPress SEO plugin. That’s because our plugin is run like software as a service (SaaS) rather than a static WordPress plugin.

It enriches your WordPress workspace with SEO recommendations based on real-time search results and analytics.

Our WordPress SEO plugin uses live connections with:

• Google Analytics
• Google Search Console
• SEOToolSet®

So you never need to leave WordPress again to analyze your keywords, competition and performance in real time.

As a result, the optimization advice is customized. This helps you optimize your page to the same level as the top-ranked pages in Google’s search results.

Our WordPress SEO plugin gives you custom SEO advice and performance data such as:

• Target content length
• Readability scores and goals
• Custom meta information advice
• Keyword density and distribution goals
• Mobile usability and speed scores
• Average time on page
• Page views
• Conversions
• Clicks
• Impressions
• Click-through rate
• Content performance by author

Traffic tab in Bruce Clay SEO WP plugin

And by the way, when you subscribe to our SEO plugin, you get full access to all the tools in our SEOToolSet. Since our WordPress SEO plugin is powered in part by the SEOToolSet, you don’t have to leave WordPress to get the benefits of it.

But if you log in to your SEOToolSet, you can take advantage of more SEO tools and reports at no extra charge.

How much do we believe in this technology? Our issued U.S. patent number is 10698961.

Ready to get real-time SEO advice in WordPress? Get your free trial of our WordPress SEO plugin now.

Read more on how the Bruce Clay SEO plugin helps you with:

• Keyword optimization
• Avoiding duplicate content
• Custom SEO advice per keyword
• Tracking your content performance

FAQ: What Data and Analytics Does a WordPress SEO Plugin Provide to Enhance My SEO Efforts?

Search engine optimization (SEO), also known as search engine marketing, is critical to ensure that your website appears prominently in search results. WordPress provides an ideal platform for SEO efforts; however, with the right plugin this process can take off even further.

Understanding Keyword Performance Metrics

A key component of SEO is knowing how well your chosen keywords are performing. WordPress SEO plugins offer comprehensive keyword analysis, revealing vital information like search volume, competitiveness, and trends. Armed with this data, you can fine-tune your content strategy and focus on keywords that resonate most with your target audience.

On-Page Analysis for Content Optimization

To succeed in the digital sphere, your website’s content must be optimized for both search engines and users. WordPress SEO plugins provide in-depth on-page analysis, highlighting areas where you can improve. These insights encompass readability, keyword density, meta tags, and even suggestions for internal linking. By implementing these recommendations, you can enhance your content’s relevance and user-friendliness.

Backlink Tracking and Competitor Analysis

Staying ahead of the competition is a core tenet of SEO. WordPress SEO plugins can assist you in this endeavor by offering tools to monitor backlinks and analyze your competitors’ strategies. By keeping tabs on your inbound and outbound links, you can identify opportunities for link building and detect potentially harmful backlinks. Additionally, gaining insights into your competitors’ keyword rankings and content strategies can guide your own SEO efforts.

Performance Metrics and Site Speed Optimization

Website speed and performance are crucial ranking factors. Many WordPress SEO plugins provide performance metrics and recommendations for enhancing site speed. These insights can help you identify and rectify issues that may be slowing down your site, improving user experience and search engine rankings.

Empowering Your SEO Journey

A WordPress SEO plugin can be a game-changer for your SEO endeavors. These plugins offer an array of data and analytics, from keyword performance metrics to on-page analysis and competitor insights, all of which empower you to make informed decisions to enhance your website’s SEO performance.

Step-by-Step Procedure: How to Leverage WordPress SEO Plugin Data and Analytics for Enhanced SEO:

1. Install and activate a reputable WordPress SEO plugin.
2. Configure the plugin settings according to your website’s needs.
3. Perform keyword research using the plugin’s tools to identify high-potential keywords.
4. Create and optimize content around the selected keywords, following the plugin’s on-page recommendations.
5. Monitor keyword performance metrics regularly and make adjustments to your content strategy as needed.
6. Utilize the plugin’s backlink tracking features to manage your site’s backlink profile.
7. Analyze competitor strategies using the plugin’s competitor analysis tools.
8. Incorporate insights gained from competitor analysis into your own SEO strategy.
9. Review the plugin’s performance metrics and take action to improve site speed and performance.
10. Regularly update your content and SEO strategy based on the data and analytics provided by the plugin.
11. Continuously monitor your website’s SEO performance and adapt your approach to stay competitive.
12. Stay informed about updates and new features offered by the plugin.
13. Collaborate with other SEO professionals and share insights gained from the plugin’s data.
14. Maintain a consistent focus on quality content creation and user experience.
15. Track your website’s progress in search engine rankings and organic traffic over time.
16. Adjust your SEO strategy as necessary to achieve your desired goals.
17. Stay up-to-date with industry trends and algorithm changes that may impact SEO.
18. Conduct regular audits of your website’s SEO health using the plugin’s auditing tools.
19. Implement recommended changes to address any SEO issues identified in the audits.
20. Continuously learn and adapt your SEO practices to stay ahead in the ever-changing world of digital marketing.

This article was updated on December 22, 2023.  

The post WordPress SEO Plugins: Why Real-Time and Customized Data Matters appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

You’ve just written an article. And you think it’s pretty good. But is it fit to compete with the millions of other articles in Google’s index on the same topic? In this post, I’ll explain how to boost your articles to be the most relevant for a person’s search on the topic. Read to learn:

• What is an SEO article
• Why should you write an SEO article
• How do you write an SEO article
• Compete better in the search results with optimized articles
• FAQ: What are the key steps for optimizing an SEO article?

What Is an SEO Article?

An SEO article is a piece of written content, like a blog post, featured on your website as a page with a unique URL. An SEO article educates, informs, and entertains your target audience with expertise and quality. An SEO article is also optimized for search engines to have a better chance of getting on Page 1 of the search results.

Why Should You Write an SEO Article?

Here are six reasons why you should write an SEO article.

1. Web content is why Google exists.

Webpages, including articles, are what search engines like Google store in their index. When someone performs a search, the engine analyzes their query and matches it to the most relevant indexed items. Without these webpages, Google would have nothing to show users in its search results.

2. Google’s algorithm is getting smarter all the time, but it still needs help.

An SEO article is optimized for search so that it can help search engines better understand what the topic is about (see Google’s Webmaster Guidelines for more on this). This increases the chance it will be considered relevant to a query and show up on Page 1 of the search results.

Search Engine Optimization is about helping search engines understand and present content.

-Google, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide

3. Being found for a search can impact your revenue.

The organic search channel drives more than 50 percent of traffic to a website on average (and up to 64 percent for B2Bs). Organic search is also responsible for up to 59 percent of revenue over other channels.

4. You can establish your expertise and authority on a topic.

Google places more value on websites with high expertise and authority, and a well-written article is one of the key ways to demonstrate this.

High quality pages and websites need enough expertise to be authoritative
and trustworthy on their topic.

-Google, Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines

5. Delight your intended audience.

SEO articles can result in things like return visits to your site, more time on your site viewing other content and conversions.

Creating compelling and useful content will likely influence your website more than any of the other factors discussed here. Users know good content when they see it and will likely want to direct other users to it. This could be through blog posts, social media services, email, forums, or other means. Organic or word-of-mouth buzz is what helps build your site’s reputation with both users and Google, and it rarely comes without quality content.

-Google, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide

6. Beat your competition in the search results.

A search-optimized article uses data to make it better. Find out what the top-ranked content is doing on the same topic. Then, you can meet or exceed it.

How Do You Write an SEO Article?

To write an SEO article, you need at least these two things:

1. A professional writer and a subject matter expert.
2. SEO tools that can provide the data you need to optimize the content.

Here are eight key steps to writing an SEO article.

Step 1. Define the document specs.

First, specify the basic article facts such as the topic, target keywords, meta title, meta description, and URL. At the top of your document, create a table that contains the key details for the new content. This table helps you organize all the details of a well-optimized article before you start writing.

Step 2. Create expertly written content.

Google wants the search results on Page One to have an element of expertise. That’s because Google wants its users to be satisfied with its results. Quality content keeps your audience happy, too.

That said, before you write an article, make sure you have at least one of the following:

• Subject matter expertise or a subject matter expert you can interview
• Writing ability or a professional writer
• An expert editor

For example, if you are the subject matter expert but you’re not confident in your ability to write, hire a ghostwriter or editor. If you are a writer, make sure you have access to a subject matter expert (or really great research skills) to help you craft the piece.

From Google’s SEO Starter Guide, here are two pieces of sage advice:

Expertise and authoritativeness of a site increases its quality. Be sure that content on your site is created or edited by people with expertise in the topic. For example, providing expert or experienced sources can help users understand articles’ expertise. Representing well-established consensus in pages on scientific topics is a good practice if such consensus exists.

Also:

Users enjoy content that is well written and easy to follow.

Avoid:
– Writing sloppy text with many spelling and grammatical mistakes.
– Awkward or poorly written content. …

Step 3. Use SEO tools.

Many writers are not trained in SEO, so mastering an SEO article can be intimidating. Good news: SEO tools exist that can help writers easily optimize their content.

For instance, Bruce Clay’s WordPress SEO plugin helps content creators get SEO data before, during, and after the writing process. So, articles are optimized with best practices for a specific search query (not blanket best practices that aren’t that useful).

Step 4. Research keywords (aka search queries).

What is your audience typing into Google’s search bar when looking for the info you have on your website?

In its SEO Starter Guide, Google explains the very basics of keyword research:

Think about the words that a user might search for to find a piece of your content. Users who know a lot about the topic might use different keywords in their search queries than someone who is new to the topic. For example, a long-time football fan might search for [fifa], an acronym for the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, while a new fan might use a more general query like [football playoffs]. Anticipating these differences in search behavior and accounting for them while writing your content (using a good mix of keyword phrases) could produce positive results.

You want to have at least one primary search term you optimize your article with and up to two secondary keyword phrases. Does that mean you have to use more than one? No. But it can be an advanced strategy for some.

At this point, it’s worth noting that an article will be naturally optimized when you write it. That’s because if you write enough (quality) words on a subject, the words you use will describe the content well.

So why optimize? To help your great content better compete in the search results. When you use specific keyword queries in your content, it can signal to Google that your content is more relevant to the searcher’s query than other content like it out there.

For more, see our article on optimizing page content, and try our free keyword suggestion tool to get started.

Step 5. Identify and analyze the competition.

Did you know that your competition online consists of the top-ranked pages for your keywords? These are the webpages in which you are vying for attention in the search results.

Once you have your keywords, you can begin a competitive analysis. Using the right SEO tools you can find out which pages are ranking in the top spots on Google for your search query.

This is where things get good. Armed with that data, you are not blindly following general SEO best practices (“It must be 1,000 words!”) for your article. You are optimizing specifically to be on par with — or even exceed — the top results for that keyword.

For example, Bruce Clay’s WordPress SEO plugin examines your competition and presents data such as:

• Total word count to aim for
• The title tag and meta description length
• The number of times a keyword is used
• The readability score of your SEO article compared to the top-ranked webpages

(And all of this is in real-time before or during the writing process, not after.)

Step 6. Optimize the content in your SEO article.

At this point, you should have both the well-written article and your keywords. Now is the time to optimize.

You want your keywords to show up naturally in the content. So, the first step is to identify where you might be able to switch up a few words or phrases with your key terms.

Rule No. 1: Always make sure it reads well. Slapping your keywords in any old place without regard to grammar can make your article look spammy to Google and annoy readers.

Optimize content for your users, not search engines … Designing your site around your visitors’ needs while making sure your site is easily accessible to search engines usually produces positive results.

Avoid:
– Inserting numerous unnecessary keywords aimed at search engines but are annoying or nonsensical to users. …

-Google, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide

In general, you want your keywords to be evenly distributed throughout the content from top to bottom. For more on this, see our in-depth article on how to use keywords in content, and check out our handy and printable .

Step 7. Review the content.

Depending on the size of your organization or circumstances, you will also need an editorial and SEO review prior to the article being published. This can ensure that the article is written well, free of errors, and in line with Google’s guidelines.

Keep in mind that if you are accepting guest posts, you should hold that content to the same standards as the content you produce in-house. Not doing so can have serious implications for the quality of your site.

As an example, guest posts done wrong can cause a site to get hit with a manual penalty from Google.

8. Track the Content’s Performance

Writing an SEO article is not a set-it-and-forget-it approach. You will want to track the performance of that article and learn from the data.

Using Google Analytics or an SEO tool like our WordPress SEO plugin, you can view how an SEO article is performing in search. You’ll want to look at things like:

• The number of page views
• Average time on page
• What queries are bringing search traffic to that SEO article

Google Analytics and Google Search Console data displayed in the Bruce Clay SEO WP plugin

With this data, you can:

• Learn what’s working and not working in comparison with your other SEO articles
• Update the content with new, more relevant keywords

Compete Better in the Search Results with Optimized Articles

An SEO article is a quality, search-optimized article written for readers and search engines. These articles have a better chance of getting on Page 1 of the search results.

There are several reasons why you’d want to write an optimized article, including getting more traffic to your site from the organic search results.

With the right process and tools, like those mentioned in this article, you are on your way to winning over both your readers and the search engines.

If you use WordPress, take our plugin for a 7-day free trial here: Bruce Clay SEO for WP.

FAQ: What are the key steps for optimizing an SEO article?

Content that is of high quality is only half the battle. Search engines must also easily find your content and rank highly to be effective online. Use this guide to move through the essential steps to optimize your SEO article.

1. Keyword Research and Selection:

Begin your SEO journey by conducting thorough keyword research. Identify relevant keywords and phrases your target audience will likely search for. Tools like Google Keyword Planner can help you uncover valuable insights.

2. Content Planning:

Craft a well-structured article outline that incorporates your chosen keywords strategically. This blueprint will serve as your roadmap, ensuring your content flows logically and naturally while including essential keywords.

3. High-Quality Content Creation:

Write informative, engaging, and valuable content that answers your audience’s questions. Aim for readability and coherence while naturally incorporating your keywords. Quality content is the foundation of SEO success.

4. On-Page SEO:

Optimize your article’s on-page elements, including title tags, meta descriptions, and headers. Ensure that your primary keyword is included in these elements, but avoid keyword stuffing.

5. Image Optimization:

If your article includes images, optimize them for SEO by using descriptive file names and adding alt text. This practice enhances accessibility and provides more opportunities for search engines to index your content.

6. Internal and External Linking:

Include relevant internal links to other pages on your website and high-quality external links to authoritative sources. This not only enhances the user experience but also boosts your SEO rankings.

7. Mobile Optimization:

In an era of mobile browsing, ensure your article is responsive and mobile-friendly. Google prioritizes mobile-friendly content in its rankings.

8. Page Speed Optimization:

A slow-loading page can deter users and impact SEO. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to identify and address speed issues.

9. Publish and Promote:

Once your article is written and published on your website, post it and share it across all social media to engage your target audience and amplify its reach. Engaged readers will likely share it, further expanding its impact.

10. Monitor and Adjust:

SEO is an ongoing process. Continuously monitor your article’s performance using analytics tools like Google Analytics. Adjust your strategy based on the data.

Step-by-Step Procedure for Optimizing an SEO Article:

1. Perform comprehensive keyword research using tools like Google Keyword Planner.
2. Create a structured content plan that strategically incorporates selected keywords.
3. Craft high-quality, informative, and engaging content.
4. Optimize on-page elements like title tags, meta descriptions, and headers.
5. Optimize images with descriptive file names and alt text.
6. Include relevant internal and external links.
7. Ensure mobile-friendliness and responsiveness.
8. Improve page loading speed using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights.
9. Publish and promote your article on your website and social media platforms.
10. Monitor performance using analytics tools and adjust your SEO strategy for long-term success.

The post What Is an SEO Article? Why Should You Write One? And How? appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

That’s because Google evaluates a website’s quality based on three factors — expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T).

Sentiment indicates reputation, which indicates trustworthiness. However, if the sentiment is negative, it can damage a reputation.

My belief is that the sentiment around a brand or website is its primary indicator of trustworthiness. This is why sentiment analysis is now part of SEO success.

To help you use sentiment analysis to strengthen your site, here I’ll explain how to do it both manually and with today’s best tools. In this post:

• What is sentiment
• What is sentiment analysis
• Why reviews are important
• Sentiment beyond online reviews
• How to conduct sentiment analysis (manually and with tools)
• How to incorporate sentiment data in SEO
• FAQ: How can I use sentiment analysis to improve my brand’s online reputation and trustworthiness?

What Is Sentiment?

By definition, sentiment is the emotional tone behind someone’s words, whether written or spoken. When it comes to your business, it’s what people are saying and feeling about your company and products.

Discovering your brand’s online sentiment has many benefits. You can use that kind of info to improve customer satisfaction, influence product development, expand brand awareness … the list goes on.

How do you discover your online sentiment? Through sentiment analysis.

What Is Sentiment Analysis?

Sentiment analysis is the process of analyzing text to determine the speaker or writer’s emotional tone.

Basically, it’s figuring out how the writer feels about the subject. This can be done with a few key searches or with sentiment analysis tools.

As humans, we are pretty good at understanding what people say as either positive, negative, or neutral. So, we analyze sentiment naturally.

Computers, on the other hand, have a much harder time with it. Consider these examples:

• “This place is terrific!”
• “This place is a terrific waste of money!”

We can tell the difference easily. But can a machine tell that these two comments have opposite sentiments? Thanks to artificial intelligence and machine learning, analyzing sentiment is now possible — and I believe Google is using sentiment measurement to detect that trust component.

When Google wants to analyze the sentiment of a brand or website, it mostly looks at online reviews.

Why Reviews Are Important

User reviews affect purchasing decisions. Online reviews signal trust and help increase the buyer’s confidence.

A study by Spiegel Research Center found that “The purchase likelihood for a product with five reviews is 270% greater than the purchase likelihood of a product with no reviews.” Interestingly, the study found that reviews carry twice as much weight for higher-priced products.

So, the bigger the purchase decision, the more people rely on reviews.

If online reviews influence people’s purchasing decisions this much, it’s no wonder search engines want to factor them into their algorithms.

Search engines want satisfied searchers. So, they need to show trustworthy results.

But review sites aren’t the only places to find user sentiment …

Sentiment Beyond Online Reviews

Social sentiment is all over the web. Customers are sharing how they feel about you on social media, in forums, in news articles, and in Wikipedia.

All that sentiment, so little time.

Reading all comments across every social media platform and review site is a lot of work. Even a small business will find that challenging.

Luckily, there are relatively pain-free ways to perform sentiment analysis — both with and without tools.

How to Conduct Sentiment Analysis

Now that we know it’s possible to analyze online sentiment, the question is: how do you mine and analyze online sentiment across multiple sites?

Using a combination of manual searches and sentiment analysis tools, you can get a pretty good understanding of a site’s online reputation and monitor it in real time.

First, I’ll show you how to run a sentiment analysis without tools.

How to Do Sentiment Analysis Manually

Tools are helpful when monitoring real-time reviews and conversations. But even without them, you can get an accurate understanding of a brand’s reputation online. Here’s how.

Step 1: Start with the Better Business Bureau.

The Better Business Bureau’s slogan is “Start with Trust.”

It is one of the most important metrics for a business’s reputation (for businesses within the U.S.).

Pay attention to your BBB rating and address complaints. You’d be surprised at the number of clients that don’t do either.

Step 2: Check independent rating services.

Besides the BBB, millions of people use Yelp, Consumer Reports, Amazon, and Google Shopping. Visit these sites and learn how people feel about you by reading the reviews.

It’s also a good idea to check smaller review sites that focus on your industry niche. BrightLocal has a great list of high-quality niche review sites for your reference. Many people rely on these specialized review sites when it comes to industries such as healthcare and law.

Step 3: Take advantage of your review accounts.

SEOs should make sure websites are making the most of the review sites and social media platforms they already have.

If you’re not doing so already, monitor and encourage Google reviews. Make sure your Google My Business account is current.

Also, turn on Reviews on your Facebook business page. Recommendations that people make on Facebook are integrated into reviews, so it is important to enable this feature and add greater trust.

Your Google reviews and ratings appear prominently in the knowledge panel when anyone searches for your brand. Facebook or other site’s reviews can also show up, so don’t miss out on these trust signals.

Step 4: Use the 100-Point Algorithm.

I am impressed with Brian Patterson’s metric for calculating a brand’s online reputation. Called the “100-Point Algorithm,” it calculates the sentiment score of a particular search results page. Brian is a columnist at Search Engine Land and he shared his equation back in 2015.

It’s a manual way to discover and track sentiment by page, and you can learn how to do it directly from him.

Now that you’ve done the hard work by hand, it’s time to see what the bots can do for you.

6 Tools for Sentiment Analysis

There are many sentiment analysis tools that offer different features and functionalities. Some only mine and analyze, while others also organize and display the data.

When choosing which tool is for you, consider the sources and features so that the tool complements your manual efforts.

Here, I review six sentiment analysis tools for SEOs:

1. Yext
2. Chatmeter
3. BrightLocal
4. Hootsuite Insights
5. Social Mention
6. Sentiment Analyzer

Yext

Yext recently added sentiment analysis to its Reviews monitoring software. A new Sentiment tab shows business owners what reviewers are saying as either positive or negative. It shows data based on keywords (like “place”) and their modifiers (like “great” or “bad”) used in reviews. Each word has a sentiment score assigned to it.

There’s also a way to create a collection of keywords (such as words related to “food”) to help the business understand how people feel by topic.

Chatmeter

Great for multi-location companies, Chatmeter Pulse is a text and sentiment analysis tool that shows sentiment analysis over time. One standout feature of Pulse is that it can recognize mixed sentiment within a single review and break down sentiment by topic.

The sunburst tool helps you understand the average sentiment for each topic and its related attributes with color-coded segments. If you’re working with a multi-site client, the product can compare sentiment by location, too. You can run a free brand audit to learn more.

BrightLocal

The BrightLocal Reputation Manager lets you monitor and manage all your online reviews in one place. Users get to see and manage reviews by source and can use the tool to simplify the way customers write reviews.

Most recently, Reputation Manager added 40 new niche review sites so that customers can now see and review data on more high-quality and relevant review sites. If you’re an agency or working with a multi-site client, the tool’s new Review Inbox feature is also a plus. It brings all reviews together in a single feed or dashboard.

Hootsuite Insights

A real-time social analytics tool, Hootsuite Insights lets you filter sentiment results by location, language, and gender. This tool goes beyond social media sites and mines sentiment from news sites, blogs, forums, and other public sources online (over 100 million) to produce results you can then use to run reports, stay on top of trends, and handle customer complaints before they backfire.

Social Mention

If you’re looking for a free social media analysis tool, Social Mention has a free option that allows up to 100 searches a day and two email alerts. Without the need to sign up or download anything, you can simply search for a brand or hashtag via a search engine to uncover real-time online sentiment. The report includes the number of mentions, users and a sentiment score with detailed analytics and a simple way to stay on top of everything that’s being said about your brand or keyword online.

Sentiment Analyzer

Another free one, Sentiment Analyzer allows you to analyze a snippet of text and produces a sentiment score from –100 to +100. Unlike the other tools listed, it analyzes a body of text as opposed to mentions of a brand or hashtag online.

Use this tool if you want a better way to decipher vague or confusing customer reviews. The example shown on the tool’s homepage is the Declaration of Independence, which, according to the tool, has a sentiment score of 26.8, indicating that the text is “somewhat positive/enthusiastic.”

How to Incorporate Sentiment Data in SEO

Now that I’ve explained HOW to analyze your brand’s sentiment let’s discuss what to do with it.

We use sentiment analysis to enhance our audits. We also use it to track the success of campaigns and spot potential issues.

Some customers have trust issues with a brand or website, and it’s our job as SEOs to discover why.

Analyzing sentiment can identify reputation problems and help a company develop a more customer-centric approach that:

• Addresses customer complaints
• Resolves satisfaction issues
• Rewards happy reviewers
• Reinforces the brand’s reputation and trustworthiness

More than a Feeling: A Trustworthy Site

As SEOs, we know when something’s just not right with a website.

We dig, we dig deeper, and often times we discover that it comes down to how a website or brand interacts with its customers.

Customers are real people with feelings. Feelings matter, and how we handle them does, too.

Make sentiment analysis part of your SEO toolkit, and you’ll lay the foundation for a trustworthy site.

As I mentioned in my first post, we now include sentiment analysis as part of our SEO audits. If you’d like to learn more about how to improve your online presence, request a free quote today.

FAQ: How can I use sentiment analysis to improve my brand’s online reputation and trustworthiness?

Maintaining a positive online reputation is crucial for any brand. Consumers today are not just looking for products or services; they’re seeking trust and reliability. This is where sentiment analysis comes into play.

Understanding Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment analysis, also known as opinion mining, systematically determines the sentiment expressed in online content, whether positive, negative, or neutral. Brands can utilize sentiment analysis to gain valuable insights into customers’ perceptions. By comprehending the emotions behind customer feedback, brands can respond effectively and make informed decisions to enhance their reputation.

Real-Time Monitoring

Sentiment analysis provides instantaneous insights for brands. Brands can monitor comments and mentions across multiple online platforms, including social media, forums, review sites, and other review platforms. By staying informed about what customers say in real-time, brands can swiftly address issues, offer solutions, and express gratitude for the positive feedback.

Enhancing Customer Experience

Sentiment analysis can identify recurring issues or trends in customer feedback. By addressing these pain points, brands can improve their products or services, resulting in a better customer experience. This proactive approach shows that you value your customers’ opinions and helps build trust and loyalty.

Leveraging Positive Sentiment

While addressing negative sentiment is essential, leveraging positive sentiment is equally powerful. When customers express satisfaction or appreciation, acknowledge and share their feedback on your platforms. This showcases your brand’s commitment to excellence and encourages more positive feedback.

Step-by-Step Procedure: Enhancing Your Brand’s Reputation with Sentiment Analysis

1. Define Your Objectives: Clearly outline what you aim to achieve with sentiment analysis, whether improving customer satisfaction, resolving issues, or building trust.
2. Select the Right Tools: Choose sentiment analysis tools that suit your brand’s needs and budget.
3. Identify Relevant Platforms: Determine where your target audience is most active online and focus your sentiment analysis efforts there.
4. Create a Keyword List: Develop a list of keywords and phrases related to your brand, products, or services to monitor sentiment effectively.
5. Set Alerts: Real-time notifications can alert you to any mentions or mentions about your brand that might arise on social media so that any mentions can be addressed quickly and appropriately.
6. Assess and Categorize Sentiment: Evaluate each comment or mention and categorize it as positive, neutral, or negative.
7. Address Negative Sentiment: Respond to negative comments or reviews with empathy and solutions.
8. Acknowledge Positive Sentiment: Show appreciation for positive feedback and consider sharing it on your platforms.
9. Identify Trends: Analyze sentiment data to identify recurring issues or trends that require attention.
10. Improve Products/Services: Use sentiment analysis insights to enhance your offerings and address customer concerns.
11. Monitor Competitors: Extend your sentiment analysis to monitor how your competitors are perceived and identify areas where your brand can excel.
12. Educate Your Team: Ensure your team is trained to interpret sentiment analysis data and respond effectively.
13. Measure Progress: Continuously assess the impact of your sentiment analysis efforts on your brand’s reputation and trustworthiness.
14. Adjust Your Strategy: Adapt your strategy based on the evolving sentiment trends and customer feedback.
15. Engage with Customers: Engage with your audience through social media, forums, and review sites to maintain an open line of communication.
16. Share Success Stories: Share stories of how you’ve addressed customer concerns and improved your offerings.
17. Collect Feedback: Encourage customers to provide feedback directly, helping you gather valuable insights.
18. Consistency is key to success.
19. Assess Return On Investment (ROI): Evaluate the return on your investment for sentiment analysis efforts and verify if they support your brand goals.
20. Adapt and Grow: Continuously adapt your sentiment analysis strategy to evolving consumer preferences and industry trends.

Follow these steps to leverage the power and potential of sentiment analysis to build trust among your audience, improve your brand’s online reputation, and elevate its image.

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