Search Results

Author: Ray Martinez SEO agency owners and freelancers need to protect their margins to ensure scalability and profitability—especially as generative AI and other developments disrupt the industry. To accurately assess your agency's profitability, it’s essential to understand your earnings relative to expenses. After all, your team might produce top results for your highest-billing client while losing money for the company.  As VP of SEO for Archer Education, I’ve felt the pressure of both having to price my services accurately and the pain of not knowing how to price a project appropriately. How do you balance what it takes to win versus what it costs to get there? So, how can you set competitive pricing to safeguard profits and margins? Below, I’ll walk you through multiple considerations and steps to take to define your SEO agency pricing with the goal of creating a healthy profit margin.  Table of contents: Determine your value proposition Examples of UVPs for various agency types Pricing models for SEO agencies Monthly fixed-rate pricing Hourly pricing Project-based pricing Retainer-based pricing Performance-based pricing SEO agency pricing model table Define your statement of work Communicate pricing and expectations to clients Evaluate and adjust your pricing model Benchmark and iterate to scale your pricing and grow revenue Determine your value proposition The first step to defining your SEO pricing model is understanding what makes your agency valuable to potential clients.  Determining your unique value proposition (UVP) will help you better contextualize pricing for your products or services. Your UVP is a statement that communicates your business, product, or service’s key benefits—it’s essentially a “why” statement. As in, “Why should this client sign with your business?” Examples of UVPs for various agency types Below is a general breakdown of UVPs for the most common types of SEO agencies/service providers. Agency type Unique value proposition (UVP) Independent contractors/Practitioners Cost-effective and highly tailored SEO solutions, ideal for small businesses, startups, and individual brands seeking dedicated attention and customized strategies. Small boutique agencies Customized SEO strategies that are agile, adaptable for rapidly changing market conditions, and done at scale. Their focus on niche markets allows for deeper understanding and expertise.  Mid-sized agencies Tailored strategies with a focus on scalability and growth. Offers a mix of specialized and general SEO services suitable for mid-level markets. Enterprise-level agencies High-end, data-driven SEO campaigns leveraging cutting-edge technology and extensive research capabilities. Suitable for large enterprises with complex needs. To understand your agency’s UVP , assess the factors that help set you apart from other SEO service providers.  One factor might be the composition of your team and their strengths—in this case, you might build your UVP based on breadth or depth of expertise, diversity, capabilities, etc. Does your agency focus on a niche, product, or industry? If so, that should probably be part of the UVP you communicate to potential clients. For example, at Archer Education , we specialize in higher education enrollment marketing. We have years of experience in the industry, can speak to historical trends, as well as forecast future trends. As a team, we can look at a university’s down-funnel metrics and diagnose the critical issues behind underperformance pre- and post-lead. That type of expertise translates to real value, which we convey through our UVP.  Now that you’re on your way to pinpointing why a client would be interested in your SEO services, it’s time to look at how your value proposition, pricing, and benefits compare to competitors in your space. In doing so, you can identify the critical benefits of your products or services (or a competitor’s), enabling you to make better informed decisions on agency pricing.  Pricing models for SEO agencies Now that you have a deeper understanding of the value your agency provides clients, it’s time to determine the most appropriate pricing model for your agency. Monthly fixed-rate pricing For SEO agencies, a fixed-rate pricing model involves setting standard prices for specific services or bundles, offering simple billing and transparent upfront costs for clients.  However, my experience at a small business-focused SEO agency revealed challenges with this pricing model, especially for lower-tier clients paying $500 (or less) monthly. The effort required to generate results for these clients often exceeded the value of their payment, leading to overextension and financial strain for the agency. This situation highlighted the risks of over promising and under delivering, as it impacted client retention and the agency’s financial health due to a lack of clear expectations set from the start. Hourly pricing The hourly rate  model calculates pricing based on the amount of time your agency spends on SEO tasks, making it critical for freelancers, consultants, and agencies. It allows for flexibility and compensates you for all work performed. However, it can lead to unpredictability in billing for both the provider and the client.  For freelancers and consultants, your hourly rate is heavily influenced by the market cost for similar services, making pricing straightforward. Check out the hourly rate (including the high, median, and low ends) on sites like Salary.com , Glassdoor , and Indeed .  “A drawback to this pricing model is it can open up an avenue for clients to begin scrutinizing the amount of time billed for certain work. Many times, this can be solved with some additional client education, but that will depend on the client-agency relationship.” — Mary Carroll, Managing Director, Partnerships at Archer Education If you set your hourly rate on the high end, be prepared to justify that cost. If you set a rate on the low end, this affects the way people perceive your agency or services. You may also see high turnover with clients on the lower end due to budget constraints and perceived value.  To calculate your agency’s hourly rate, you’ll first need to calculate your hourly cost  by dividing a project’s total cost (not including your profit margin) by billable hours.  Profit margins will vary based on your financial goals and funding.  This method requires that you know the actual cost to provide your products or services—not just the price the client pays. Track the time spent on each part of a project to calculate average completion hours, then multiply by your hourly rate (excluding profit) to estimate the cost.  Undertaking this detailed process, as I did in 2023 with the help of project managers, is essential (especially when managing numerous deliverables), and you should prioritize it for your organization. Project-based pricing This model bases pricing on the complexity, duration, and resources required for individual projects. The agency (or freelancer) evaluates each project individually and sets a price according to the project’s specific requirements. This model is suitable for one-off projects or when the scope of work is clearly defined from the start, such as technical SEO migrations or other specialized projects. The most critical piece of project-based pricing is developing a scope of work. If a new need arises, this will be outside the scope of work, leading to three potential outcomes:  Creating an addendum to cover the additional costs The client handling the additional need independently The agency absorbing the cost Any of these options can lead to friction in a client relationship. If you offer project-based pricing, it’s best to ensure that the language in your scope of work enables you to avoid scope creep.  “One approach to that out-of-scope language is including an hourly rate for out of scope work that may need to be covered. This is a simple way to prepare clients for the fact that changes may arise throughout the project and to ensure you can invoice for your SEO team’s work!” — Mary Carroll, Managing Director, Partnerships at Archer Education Retainer-based pricing This approach involves providing ongoing SEO services for a fixed monthly or quarterly payment. Retainer-based pricing provides agencies with a stable income, while ensuring clients receive continuous support for their SEO strategies . In my current role, we deploy a similar model. The retainer model creates tiered pricing based on the number or types of programs we support. For example, we may work with a university with multiple bachelor’s degree programs. As the number of programs we support grows, so does the budget. So, for a school with one program, we might start at a $10K per month retainer; as they add two programs, spending will ramp up to $25K per month or more.  Since we know that the relationship with the client will continue through the contract period, we can plan for the future and set quarterly strategies, enabling us to tackle new needs and opportunities. This model differs from a fixed-rate contract, which offers a set list of services. The retainer model allows for more customization and flexibility for a partner.  “Ensuring clients get what they paid for (from an hours and deliverables standpoint) is a vital component of this pricing model,” Carroll said. “This model can also leave an agency vulnerable to dependency on fewer clients, which is a significant financial risk,” she added, noting, “If one or two large clients leave, expect a significant drop in total revenue.”  Performance-based pricing Performance-based pricing ties your compensation to achieving specific, measurable SEO outcomes, such as rankings , traffic increases, or other KPIs. It incentivizes agencies to deliver results but requires explicit agreement on targets and measurement methods  to ensure accountability. Performance-based pricing models, while potentially lucrative, differ across industries. For instance, online program management (OPM) companies that offered services like marketing and admissions to support online education growth initially benefited universities by attracting more students and enhancing technology access. However, these revenue-sharing agreements, which often locked in long-term commitments, have been criticized for exploiting universities and burdening students with additional costs. Recently, the US Department of Education’s scrutiny of such deals  has led to the downfall of major OPM providers.  Let’s take a look at some common performance-based SEO pricing structures and the agency types that use them below: Performance-based model Description SEO agency type Revenue sharing Sharing of profits and losses between parties Mid-sized agency Enterprise Dollar amount per sale Fixed amount for each sale Freelancer Boutique agency Commission-based Percentage of sale value as commission Mid-sized agency Enterprise Affiliate marketing Earnings from promoting others Freelancer Boutique Agency Cost-per-action (CPA) Payment for specific actions (sign-up, purchase, etc.) Freelancer Mid-sized agency Cost-per-click (CPC) Payment for each click on an ad Freelancer Boutique agency In specific industries, we’re seeing a higher adoption of performance-based models because of their lucrative nature. The publishing side of the SEO industry is an excellent example of this. Companies like Archer and Red Ventures offer clients a cost-per-click or cost-per-action pricing model. They use relevant owned sites to drive organic traffic and conversions for clients across various industries and/or verticals. In higher education, this translates to offering university leads that become enrolled students. Niche.com is another company that combines the CPC/CPA approach with affiliate marketing and links. Both Niche and Red Ventures have a massive footprint that extends across multiple verticals.  SEO agency pricing model table Pricing model Pros Cons Suitable agency types Fixed-rate Predictable pricing Price may not reflect actual effort Boutique Niche/specialized Hourly Flexibility in billing Unpredictable costs for clients Freelancers Consultants Project-based Customized pricing Potential for scope creep Boutique Niche/specialized Retainer-based Stable, predictable income Potential for dependency on a few clients Full-service  Enterprise-level Performance-based Lucrative for high-performing agencies Complex to define outcomes/expectations Enterprise-level  Niche/specialized Refer to the pricing models mentioned above to decide the most suitable model for your agency, but keep in mind that your agency might also need different pricing models for different client types. And, before you finalize your pricing, remember to familiarize yourself with any laws, regulations, or caveats that could affect your business.  Now that you are closer to providing actual quotes to clients, let’s discuss how you can protect your pricing—by defining the scope of your work. Define your statement of work A statement of work (SoW) is a document produced during your sales and contract period that outlines a project’s: Work activities Deliverables Timelines Milestones Goals A good SoW combats scope creep and sets reasonable client expectations. When building your statement of work, ask the right questions. If it’s a technical SEO project, for example, I like to ask things like:  Who’s tackling implementation for technical SEO?  This is important because you need to understand the implementation resources and the hours you’ll need to charge for them. Are you expected to manage uploads in the CMS?  Getting your hands dirty in the front end of a CMS can take time and effort, which can hurt your profit margins. What products, programs, or services do we support, and what is their priority?  Some products or services are more challenging to compete for than others, which will dictate a need for spending. For example, due to a product's complexity, you may need to hire a specialized writer who charges more per word. What problem are you looking to solve?  Are you looking for lower cost per acquisition, lead, or revenue goals? Understanding the client’s needs allows for detailed scoping by addressing their core issues.  In my experience, asking these questions builds trust with your client and sets your agency up for success. When these questions aren’t asked, you (or the client) will absorb unexpected costs. Schedule detailed discovery meetings to help avoid this situation and inform your SoW.  Communicate pricing and expectations to clients The next step is to communicate the statement of work you’ve built to your clients.  Use a document, a pitch deck, or a spreadsheet. This representation of work protects your organization and readies your client for what’s coming down the pipeline.  Whatever method you choose (I prefer pitch decks), I recommend connecting deliverables and tactics to a particular goal or objective—this enables you to provide transparency and build trust with your clients. I use quarterly strategies to adjust deliverables for my clients to allow us to be agile with our application of a data driven approach. These strategies align us with our priority programs and let the clients know how their money is spent.  In my deck, I’ll refer back to the previous quarter’s goals and benchmarks to show a complete path: If we’re down in traffic and conversions, here’s what went wrong. If we’re up, here are the tactics that got us there. In both instances, we set up what’s coming next and why.  Evaluate and adjust your pricing model Once your agency pricing is established and working, it’s time to measure success. You’ll want to understand if what you’re charging is profitable at a deliverable level. Is your agency making money from the pricing model? Are you running over on costs?  There’s no secret formula here—compare your estimated expenses to your actuals to stay on top of costs and get an accurate measure of your profit margins. In addition, your sales team should review the number of deals closed since implementing this pricing model. Are you winning new business, and is that business retained? Keep in mind that your pricing model can (and should) change under certain circumstances. It may be more efficient to provide different pricing if you find that your client base has shifted. Your profit margins may adjust depending on the demand for your services, and even that can affect what’s profitable for your agency to offer. Benchmark and iterate to scale your pricing and grow revenue After you’ve settled on a pricing model, it’s time to test it with benchmarking. After all, the only way to craft a pricing strategy that resonates with your agency and clients is by diving deep into the figures and getting your hands dirty. When you launch your new pricing, track your deals in whatever CRM you use. Compare your deals won/closed rate to the previous period to gauge the success of your new pricing structure from a client perspective. On the backend of a deal, track internal and external costs to ensure that your products or services are profitable.  And, compare your pricing to your competitors to get insight on your strengths and weaknesses. Understand your costs, team strengths, competitors, and your brand strengths. By doing this, you’ll be well on your way to scaling pricing that helps you sustain and grow revenue. Ray Martinez - VP, SEO at Archer Education Ray Martinez is the VP of SEO at Archer Education, where he leads a dedicated team comprised of senior analysts, specialists, and project managers. Together, they craft, implement, oversee, and evaluate SEO strategies for prestigious higher education institutions across the globe. Twitter  | Linkedin

Author: Aoife McIlraith Industry awards can elevate the perception of your agency or in-house team, making you more attractive to potential clients or helping you gain recognition in your organization. Crafting a winning award entry, however, is inherently competitive. So, where do you start? What should you know before you begin? And, how can you distinguish your award entry from the competition?  As an industry judge that has spent many years and hundreds of hours reviewing entries and awarding winners (at the US, UK, and European Search Awards, Global Marketing Awards, European Paid Media Awards, and more), I thought it would be a great opportunity ahead of the European Search Awards this year to lend some critical learning and tips on how to craft a winning entry. Since awards entries are evaluated on both the quality of the work as well as the quality of the application, that’s the lens through which I’ll share both what I’ve seen as well as insights from other industry awards judges as well. Let’s get started. Table of contents: Why teams apply for industry awards Before you apply: Research awards, categories, and past winners How to craft a winning digital industry awards entry What judges look for: The bare minimum for awards entries What to include and avoid for the best possible awards entry Introduction Objectives and budget Strategy, target audience, and creativity Tactical implementation and challenges Results Supplemental content Why we should win Before you submit your entry Digital awards entry do’s and don’ts Why should your agency or in-house team apply for an industry award? For winners, digital industry awards serve to: Elevate your team , adding to your agency’s credibility and in-house team’s visibility with management.  Awards highlight your team’s strategic and creative strengths, making your skills more visible to potential clients, partners, and bosses. Winning or getting nominated not only boosts team morale, but also showcases your expertise on company websites, sales collateral, and across social media platforms. Make you stand out against competitors.  Showcasing  awards on your website can illustrate expertise, experience, authority, and trust  to the industry, current and potential clients, and search engines. Submitting an award entry is one of the only ways you can independently benchmark your work against the best in the business, encouraging continual improvement and innovation. Additionally, nominations and wins can open you up to new partnerships with complementary agencies and clients who are interested in the highest, award-winning campaign quality and implementation. Feedback for future campaigns and award entries.  Most awards provide critique and feedback for entries by expert industry judges. This feedback often highlights really impressive aspects of the work and provides critique on areas to improve (both from a campaign perspective and the quality of the entry). Where else can you receive this type of independent expert review? If leveraged properly, this feedback is a gold mine. If you didn’t secure the win this year, this critique can also help you ensure next year’s award entry is elevated with an increased chance of winning. Before you apply: Research awards, categories, and past winners  To enter and win awards, you need to gather a bit of background information. Look to gain real insights into: Who runs the awards The awards categories available The standard and criteria for entries  Decide which award(s) to submit entries to Awards are a way of illustrating that you and your team are at the top of your field, so take the time to do the research.  Become a student—find details of the past winning campaigns, agencies, and in-house teams. This gives you a benchmark and helps identify what stands out in your field. Also, take a closer look into the companies that run the awards; are they reputable, well-regarded, and trusted in your industry?  This ensures that the awards you choose to enter (and may win) are respected and carry weight. Remember, your research may also benefit from looking beyond your own country to understand global standards and expectations. After you gather this information, decide on what types of awards and categories best align with your team’s efforts in the past year. It takes considerable time and expense to craft great entries, so make sure that that time and money are worth investing . Understand the standard you must meet To understand what judges expect, review the list of past winners. Review some of these top agency and in-house teams in your niche, see which awards they have won, and find the winning case studies. While you may not have access to their detailed submissions, many winners share case studies or highlights on their websites. It’s also beneficial to occasionally extend your research beyond your immediate geographical area to capture a broader view of industry standards. If you see common tactics and methodologies for illustrating the value of work, then you should ensure that you are replicating those techniques in a comparable way for the categories that you enter. Also, look at these companies’ social media accounts, which award events have they attended? Ask yourself, who are the award nominees and winners that are currently working with your dream clients? This will help you gain insights into the current standard those dream clients expect.  Judge’s top tip:  Don’t restrict your research to just your own geographical area. For example, if you are based in the UK or Sweden, research awards based in the USA and Europe. Half of the judges I know judge awards globally—not just in their own country or region. This is key to understanding that there is a consistency in judging, regardless of country. If there is considerable consistency in judging, you can expand your research to gain insights into winning entries in other countries and regions. “To compete for the top spot in your category, several standards need to be met at once: There are of course the results, which usually are essential to even be considered as a winner, but remember that a big part of the entry is storytelling. No matter how good the campaign was, it needs to be sold to judges. Make sure you speak to the judges on all possible levels—like the creativity, the data, and the process. Each judge is different and needs convincing in a unique way. The winning campaigns tend to speak to all possible judging profiles and backgrounds at the same time.” — Natalia Witczy, Global, European, and UK Search Awards judge and CEO at Mosquita Digital Ensure your project matches award criteria When judges evaluate entries, one of the primary criteria is that they meet the brief. If you are not able to satisfy the brief, then you should look for a different category or even a different award to apply for. For instance, if you are applying for an award in the small business category, but you are working with a multinational corporation, you may very well be out of the running simply because the project does not satisfy the category criteria. “Sometimes, awards are won by process of elimination: After an initial review of all applications, I would eliminate the ones that didn’t meet essential criteria, then work backwards to identify the campaign that most accurately reflected the spirit of the award. Those who didn’t follow the category criteria/application instructions were the easiest to rule out of consideration, which is unfortunate because sometimes, aside from the one critical error, the quality of the campaign might have made it a serious contender.” — George Nguyen , Search Engine Land Awards judge  (2019-2021) and Director of SEO Editorial at Wix How to craft a winning digital industry awards entry Let’s now go over what the judges are looking for in your submission as well as the best ways to approach the standard sections of an awards entry. What judges look for: The bare minimum for awards entries In essence, an application is very similar to a case study. You want to illustrate the work that you did, the thinking behind it, and how you created great results.  Across your application, it is important to remember that you are judged on your work as well as the application itself.  So if you are not able to follow the application instructions and if you fail to demonstrate your work, you might not win even if the campaign was exceptional. Respect all instructions and follow them strictly. One example is word count; if the maximum word count is 1,000 words, do not exceed that. Judges might be reviewing over 50 applications for three days straight, so respect their time. It is very frustrating for judges when instructions are not followed and it is such a simple way to get points deducted. So, stick to all instructions and give the judges every reason to score you highly. Be very aware that judges have signed NDAs and the award process is completely confidential. Don’t risk losing points by not including crucial campaign information. Ea ch section of your awards application may be weighted. Do not ignore this weighting if it’s provided; if it’s not, then take an educated guess that all elements may be graded equally.  Regardless how small or simple a section of the application may seem, if the weighting of that section is worth the same as the other sections, it is worth investing time to ensure that all the content that you submit is robust. Don’t ramble but don’t be shy, either—you have an opportunity to showcase your work. Your competitors will illustrate their exploits in great detail, if you are too brief or too long in comparison, you will look as if you’ve undersold yourself.  When entries are similar, those that take the time to invest in the often-overlooked sections of the application can gain precious points that can put them over the top. In a tight race, the highest standard of information in each section can sometimes make the difference between a winner and a runner up. “Show the judges the unique elements because we already know the basics. All judges are experts, so don’t tell us that you did keyword research. Instead, tell us how you researched topics for the target audience and (having identified a sweet spot your client has a product/service for but no content) you filled the gap, structured the internal links  well, and doubled their sales. We need to understand what makes this award-winning, not just what you did.” — Judith Lewis, European, UK, and US Search Awards and Founder at Decabbit Consultancy Now that you understand the approach you need for filling out your awards submission, let’s look at how you can best translate your success story into the application. What to include and avoid to maximize the strength of your awards entry Most industry awards applications are divided into the following sections: Introduction Objectives and budget Strategy, target audience, and creativity Tactical implementation and challenges Results Supplemental content Why we should win Let’s explore how you can approach each of these sections to create a winning entry. Introduction (Agency/client or company overviews) At the start of most awards applications, there is a summary section that pertains to your agency/client or your company (if you’re an in-house team). Use this section to provide a short, informative introduction to your campaign. Set the scene on who your client is, the industry, and maybe even explain the competitor landscape. Take the time to help the judges understand the nature of the business. This is easier with large corporations and household names, but is especially important if you work with a smaller client. This section gives the judges critical background information to better understand your entry and campaigns as they read on, so mention details that are crucial to your success story, but do not go overboard as this is supposed to be a preview to the rest of the application. Objectives and budget I n this section, you need to be direct, to-the-point, and ensure that you include all information (but also limit it to just what is asked for). State the challenge that led to this campaign. List the set of goals you received from the client. Clearly state objectives, goals, and KPIs, both at the start and at the end of the campaign. Use bulleted lists to keep it succinct. Breakdown the budget, based on instructions provided, in clear currency figures. If you can not provide real budgetary figures (i.e., you’re bound to an NDA), you should at least provide an estimated range and then a breakdown of percentages of the budget as per instructions. If you are entering a regional award (e.g., Europe-wide), provide figures in both your local currency and the most relevant converted currency (e.g., Euros).  Remember, judges cannot judge what isn’t clearly measured or described. “State what your goals were before you took on the project, what budget and requirements you were given for the project, the outcome of the project, and the overall timeline of all those events.” — Barry Schwartz , Search Engine Land Awards judge  and CE O at RustyBrick Strategy, target audience, and creativity Strategy:  Describe the plan to reach specific campaign goals.  State the strategy of the campaign.  Link the strategy directly to results, demonstrating clear cause-and-effect. Describe any adjustments made to the strategy in response to unexpected market shifts or challenges. Do not  provide a list of campaign tactics under the strategy section. Target audience:  Getting judges to understand the target audience is crucial for aligning the campaign’s design and execution. Detail any research you carried out. Provide demographics and target audience behaviors. Explain how insights into the audience informed the choice of channels and messaging. Explain how the campaign was tailored to resonate with and engage the target audience. Creativity: Highlighting creativity distinguishes your campaign to judges in both conception and execution. Describe the creative process, from brainstorming to final concept and execution. Highlight examples of creative concepts, processes, and innovative use of technology. Discuss how creativity addressed specific challenges and boosted the campaign’s impact. Judge’s top tip:   Winning entries excel by showcasing a clearly defined strategy, an in-depth understanding of the target audience, and standout creativity. By effectively communicating and outlining how these components drove your campaign’s success, your submission will highlight not just its effectiveness, but also the innovative team behind the campaign.  Tactical implementation and challenges Tactical implementation  is where your strategy meets action, bringing the campaign to life. This is where you should detail the tactical planning, processes and execution. Explain the specific actions you took to execute the strategy, including the platforms and digital tools used. Describe the sequence of operations, showcasing how each tactic aligned with overarching goals. Highlight any innovative practices or unique methods that were crucial to the implementation process. Challenges:  Addressing unique challenges with creative thinking often separates the good award entries from the great ones. List major obstacles encountered during the campaign and explain how you overcame each. Discuss adjustments made to the original plan to accommodate unforeseen circumstances or results. Illustrate how overcoming these challenges contributed to the overall success and resilience of the campaign. Avoid  listing challenges that every agency or in-house team faces (e.g., “getting client or management buy-in” or “tight deadlines”).  A detailed account of your tactical implementation shows how you effectively executed strategies, while discussing challenges highlights your team’s adaptability and problem-solving skills. Together, these sections underscore your campaign’s innovative execution and resilience. “Remember the power of storytelling: problem, unique strategy, conflict, and results. A captivating story hinges on your unique approach and the challenges you overcame to achieve extraordinary results. Many entries miss this, so the results just end up looking ordinary.” — Miracle Inameti-Archibong, Search Engine Land and Drum Search Awards judge and Head of Search at John Lewis & Partners Results Clearly state how you achieved your results. No matter how fantastic your results are, if you are not able to show how you got there and back that up with first-party data and screenshots , it’s almost impossible to validate the results and get awarded high scores for your entry. I can not tell you how many times a lack of clarity and proof has let down entries I’ve judged.  Map the results back to the stated objectives—this should be obvious but is often (and surprisingly) omitted. Use hard figures where at all possible. Providing only percentages may harm your entry.  “We increased conversions by 450% in six weeks,”  is really not telling the whole story— 450%  of what? “We increased sales by 450%,” without illustrating how you contributed to that outcome is also not particularly useful. Never exaggerate your results. Judges are experts and will use third-party tools  to dig deeper if they feel your results are not what they appear. (Yes, it happened to me and yes, they got heavily penalized.) Hard figures are the standard, but if you are restricted by an NDA and need to use percentages, make sure that you provide extra details and prove your results.  Proving and illustrating your results is fundamental to whether or not your entry is high quality. The judges you’re presenting to are people who have been working in the industry for some time and will understand that there can be many reasons why a campaign may or may not succeed. By illustrating how you contributed to the outcome, you can give judges a good reason to advocate for your campaign and skills. Judge’s top tip:   Include a quote from the client on the success of the campaign and how it contributed to the business overall. This is a great extra layer of validation in the results section for the judges to review. Supplemental content Make sure your application shines on its own. Your application should be compelling without over-relying on supplemental documents. Enhancement—not dependence: Use supplemental documents to enhance the narrative of your application, not to house essential data or key points. For example, one thing you can do is show the judges the stages of your creative assets (how they looked at the start versus how they looked at the end). Simplicity and clarity: Aim for clarity and conciseness in both your main application and supplemental materials to avoid giving judges any reason to deduct points. Mind the word count: Remember that words in supplemental documents count towards the total entry limit. Do not lose points by trying to outsmart the rules by adding a ton of extra words in a PDF. Honestly, this will lose you precious points with judges. Judges review many applications quickly, and if yours relies too heavily on supplemental content, it complicates their evaluation. The judges are interested in the data and the evidence, not how pretty the supporting documents are. Why we should win This is one of the most overlooked sections (and one of the hardest to complete). This section is your chance to really show the judges the impact your campaign had on your client, customers, and audience.  Tell the judges why you think your entry deserves to win. Don’t assume they’ll pick up on you implying why you should win. Winning an award for achieving results you were paid to achieve is not award-winning—that’s just doing your job. What was exceptional about these results? What was unique and challenging about this campaign?  If possible, include a client testimonial to emphasize the value of your work. “In a couple of lines, you should be able to summarize the crux of your entry, why it’s innovative, unique and, most importantly, memorable for the judges.” — Crystal Carter , EU Search Awards judge and Head of SEO Communications at Wix Before you submit your entry Perform a final review.  Go back to the application instructions and make sure you checked off every single thing required. Review everything in detail and make sure you stay within the word count; if not, consider another round of editing. Review your screenshots, did you contextualize them? Judges may view your content from a number of different perspectives. While you may use one particular tool every day, that doesn’t mean that the judges who are evaluating your entry are familiar with that particular tool. Explain what your images illustrate and why you are showing them. Qualify your data, screenshots, images, and charts with insights that support your case. Remove screenshots or graphs that don’t back up a stated point. Get an unbiased, expert opinion.  Ask someone that you trust—an expert that has no connection to the campaign you are entering—to review your submission. Ask for their honest critique and feedback. They may very well spot opportunities to improve the entry. Have a native speaker write or review your application. Ensure that your entry is reviewed by someone who is a native speaker of the language you’re being judged in. Judges are likely to be fluent in the application language and will expect a clear and coherent entry that showcases you in the best light. I’ve seen some great cases of work, but the language quality ultimately let them down—a native speaker can help reduce this risk. Digital awards entry do’s and don’ts Do’s: Research thoroughly : Understand who won previously and the standards in your industry globally (not just locally). Adhere to guidelines strictly:  Follow every instruction meticulously and respect the word count and judge’s time. Focus on clarity:  Ensure your entry is clear and concise, making it easy for judges to understand your achievements. Illustrate your strategy and results : Clearly link your strategies to tangible results and demonstrate their effectiveness. Invest in every section:  Treat all parts of the application as critical. Provide proof of results: Back up your achievements with hard data, including charts and first-party data screenshots where appropriate. Use supplements wisely : Enhance your entry with supplemental materials, but don’t rely on them to carry essential information. Review and refine:  Have your entry reviewed by an expert and a native speaker to ensure it’s free from errors and clearly communicates your value. Don’ts: Overlook simple sections:  Don’t neglect parts of the application that seem less important; they could be decisive if entries are similar. Be vague: Specificity in your objectives, strategies, and results is crucial; vagueness can undermine your entry. Exceed word limits:  Stick to the word count to avoid deductions and demonstrate your ability to communicate effectively within constraints. Forget the client perspective:  Including testimonials or client perspectives can significantly enhance the credibility of your results. Miss the final review:  Double-check your entry against the submission guidelines and ask for feedback to catch any overlooked errors or opportunities for improvement. Rely solely on digital proof: While digital metrics are important, contextualize them with qualitative insights to paint a fuller picture of your campaigns impact. And, the campaign of the year goes to… Remember, every entry is an opportunity to showcase your team’s achievements, benchmark against the industry’s best, and highlight your innovative approaches. Ensure you approach each submission with the aim to impress and captivate the judges, demonstrating the excellence and impact of your work. Aoife McIlraith - Managing Director at Luminosity Digital Aoife McIlraith is owner and MD of Luminosity Digital marketing agency and founder of Searchmastermind.org and Speakerlineup.com. With 22+ years of international marketing expertise, Aoife helps brands get the right content to the right audience at the right time to drive sales. Linkedin

Author: Erika Varangouli Experienced content creators and SEO s know that the gap between creating some  content and creating efficient  content is enormous. After all, you’re pouring dozens of hours into planning, creating, editing, and optimizing without necessarily understanding where in the search results your content will show up. Instead of investing all your resources before your content goes live, you can scale more quickly and get a better idea of the steps you need to take to improve content performance by adopting the Content MVP Framework.  It’s a strategy that I’ve gradually developed to allow teams to create content that delivers results regardless of the available resources or budget. The framework is based on two simple ideas:  Knowing when your content is ready enough to be published makes all the difference. Success with content is an iterative process. Let’s unpack these ideas so you can put them to work for your content program. Table of contents: Why content is pivotal for online success (and why you’re struggling to nail it) Google’s response to chronic mediocre content and AI Content marketing is neither easy nor cheap Start treating content as a product The Content MVP Framework How to build your content MVP 01. Choose your main topic 02. Identify subtopics to cover 03. Define your content’s unique value proposition 04. Incorporate your product/service 05. Assess content for quality thresholds 06. Set your goal and KPIs 07. Iterate Why preparation is everything What I’ve learned from applying the Content MVP Framework Why content is pivotal for online success (and why you’re struggling to nail it) Before we get into the strategy, let’s recap some crucial context. Google accounts for 82% of the search engine global market share on desktop. If you’re marketing your business online, that means you want to be visible on Google.  This is typically achieved by creating content (at least, in 99.9% of the cases I know). Here’s a great paradox you have to work with in this scenario: To perform well on Google… you shouldn’t create specifically for Google. Successful content isn’t about trying to please bots or algorithms.  This comes straight from Google. The company’s advice  is to “focus on creating people-first content to be successful with Google Search, rather than search engine-first content made primarily to gain search engine rankings.”   For years, Google has consistently evangelized the same approach to content. From the Panda algorithm update in 2011 to the Helpful Content system in 2022 and everything in between, Google keeps urging online publishers to create content that answers people’s needs. In practice, though, this seemingly simple advice can become really complicated:  What does “helpful” mean in each case? What might be helpful to one person might be useless to another. What does “ people-first ” involve? Does that mean I’ll get penalized if I optimize for search engines? (Before you condemn this as a daft question, I’ve been asked this in real life.) What if I’m using AI to create content ? Do I stand no chance of ranking? I’m not one to sugarcoat things, so below are a couple more considerations that further complicate things. Google’s response to chronic mediocre content and AI For years, SEOs and content marketers have created content based on a simple formula: Identify target keyword Analyze the top ranking pages Replicate/paraphrase the content from the top ranking pages (same format, topic, and subtopics covered) Sprinkle in a few more graphs if possible And for a few years (or for a few websites), this approach seemed to work.  Which is why we ended up with millions of SERPs  (search engine results pages), the content of which, when stripped of SERP features, would be mind-numbingly repetitive. I think you’ll agree with me that this is not a people-first approach.  Google seems to be onto this, too.  In 2022, Google was granted a new patent on “information gain scoring.”  Essentially, this patent demonstrates how Google can calculate and score the uniqueness of a content piece compared to the rest of the content on the same topic. And, at the time of writing this article (March 2024), Google was in the midst of rolling out a core and a spam update in combination with handing out a number of manual penalties.  In its own words:  “We believe these updates will reduce the amount of low-quality content on Search and send more traffic to helpful and high-quality sites. Based on our evaluations, we expect that the combination of this update and our previous efforts will collectively reduce low-quality, unoriginal content in search results by 40%.” — Google , March 2024 This comes as a response to what has transpired in the last 12 or so months: The rise of generative AI tools (like ChatGPT ) has allowed unhelpful, unoriginal content to scale and spread like never before.  Content marketing is neither easy nor cheap  The top five challenges content marketers face (according to Semrush’s 2023 State of Content Marketing report ) are Attracting quality leads via content Creating more content faster (and finding resources for it) Generating content ideas  Generating enough traffic via content Generating ROI and sales via content So, here we are now, in 2024: Google SERPs seem seriously repetitive and broken. More AI-generated content  keeps getting added to the sea of existing mediocre content out there. Content marketers struggle to come up with ideas (or ideas that generate value).  How do we deal with the situation? Start treating content as a product Best practices suggest auditing your published content regularly to refresh , consolidate , or prune it.  But, what SEOs and content marketers rarely talk about is: “Is our content ready to be published? How do we know how little is too little or how much is too much to begin with?” The consensus nowadays is that you have to have the best content possible in order to rank. But, how can you deliver this the first time, every single time? This puzzle is what led me to approach content creation differently—by identifying its similarities to a product launch.  To be successful, content and product both need to: Target a specific audience  Meet this audience’s needs Involve a unique value proposition (UVP) Offer a great user experience  Be marketed efficiently Go through iterations/revisions This last part (going through iterations) took me back to product development 101:  Minimum Viable Product (MVP): A simpler or stripped down version of a product that you can still market and expect to see results.  MVPs help businesses explore new ideas without dedicating huge budgets or resources to produce the end product. They allow you to collect feedback, understand product-market fit, iterate, and much more.  So, what if we applied this approach to content creation? The Content MVP Framework In simple terms, the Content MVP Framework helps you determine the minimum quality and information required in a piece of content in order to generate results post-launch/publication.   Similar to an MVP, the Content MVP allows you to launch a viable content product that can serve its purpose and its audience (so, it’s viable), but that might not be the end product.  You launch it to monitor how well it will perform. Based on the insights you gain, you can focus your resources and optimizations more strategically. This approach also allows you to publish content faster (especially when your resources are limited). “Results” here depend on your goals and your subjective measure of success. That may mean organic traffic, rankings, engagement, or something else. Whatever it might be, the Content MVP Framework relies on two simple ideas: You don’t have to (and perhaps you shouldn’t from the outset) invest all your content budget and resources into your first content iteration. The first version of your content needs to be good enough to generate some  results. Based on those results, you can plan your next iterations.  The Content MVP Framework is about efficiency and effectiveness  in content marketing.  And while this may sound like something that’s not for you (wink: editorial teams or companies that strive for “excellence”), I challenge you to continue reading.  Consider this: Content MVP doesn’t mean thin content. Or sloppy content.  In fact, I developed this framework in an attempt to put an end to all the sub-par content I used to receive from writers and editors. In the next sections I’ll explain how you can build a content MVP. You’ll discover that it has nothing to do with lower quality standards and everything to do with maximizing your resources and your results.  How to build your content MVP For a lot of workflows and content (especially evergreen content), there’s a general notion that once it’s published, you probably won’t have to do any major updates on it for a while. This mindset is actually counterproductive when using the Content MVP framework because this strategy is all about process and gradual improvement. Here’s the exact process I follow to build my content MVP:  Choose your main topic Identify relevant subtopics  Define your unique value proposition  Incorporate your product/service naturally  Review your content based on quality marks Set your goal and KPIs Iterate It’s important that you understand the entire scope of the process before getting started. Let’s dig in. 01. Choose your main topic  Let’s say, for example, you’re a mattress seller and you’ve identified the query [how to clean a mattress] as relevant to your audience (Semrush shows 14,800 monthly searches for this query). (Note: If you’ve already performed keyword research and created your content strategy, great. If you haven’t, you need to conduct keyword research  first and build your keyword and content strategy around target topics. Now, back to the rest of this guide.) This is the main target keyword for the content you want to build.  Next, identify close variants you will target within the same piece of content. If you use an SEO tool  like Semrush, you can use its keyword analysis features to gather these terms.  For example, Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool shows [how to clean mattress] (9,900 monthly searches) and [how to clean your mattress] (1,600 monthly searches) are both close variants that you can target with the same piece of content.  And if you don’t have access to an SEO tool, it’s still relatively easy to identify close variants manually. For each of these queries, the SERPs are quite similar (for example, the top results may be exactly the same, or upwards of 60% of the SERPs may be the same, even if the ranked pages are in a different order).  02. Identify subtopics to cover  Next, look for queries that are semantically relevant  and/or indicate very close or complementary keyword intent  to the main query.  There are different tools that you can use to get these (both free and paid). If you don’t have a paid tool subscription, you can use generative AI (like ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini) to help you here.  You can use a simple prompt (like “Propose 10 semantically related terms for [ how to clean a mattress] ”) or a slightly more complex prompt (like “I want to write an article to target the term [how to clean a mattress]. Propose 10 keywords I should also target in this article”).  Using the examples above, ChatGPT (I’m using ChatGPT4) returned the following results: Terms ChatGPT generated from the simple prompt Terms ChatGPT generated from the more complex prompt Mattress stain removal Deodorizing a mattress Deep cleaning a mattress Removing odors from a mattress Cleaning mattress spills Mattress disinfection Vacuuming a mattress Freshening up a mattress Mattress care and maintenance Sanitizing a mattress Mattress cleaning tips Removing stains from mattress Mattress deodorizer methods DIY mattress cleaning Best mattress cleaners Mattress hygiene practices Urine stain removal mattress Dust mite removal mattress Natural mattress cleaning solutions Bed care and cleaning Explore variations of these prompts as well as commonalities between Google SERPs in order to decide which ones to include in your content brief  and content MVP.  I also use AlsoAsked and a bit of good ol’ Google Search to discover relevant search terms and questions people ask around my main topic. AlsoAsked, provides two-level deep insights if you don’t have an account (on the paid subscription you can dig deeper).  Here’s what it returned for my main topic:  And on Google, my search for [how to clean a mattress] returned the following filters: As well as the related searches below: There are also numerous paid tools you can use at this stage, from MarketMuse and Frase to Semrush and Inlinks and so many more.  Using a paid tool like Semrush, I obtained these semantically related keywords:  Dust mites Dish soap Hydrogen peroxide Memory foam Mattress pad Learning how to clean Upholstery attachment Spot clean Stain remover Dead skin All the data above provides me with great ideas to consider while planning and creating my content. In many cases, some of these ideas warrant separate content pieces.  At this point, sift through the data and clean it up so that you end up with only the queries and subtopics you definitely want to target within this one piece of content.  03. Define your content’s unique value proposition To perform well in search and make an impact on your audience, your content doesn’t just need to be high quality and helpful—it also needs to differ from the rest of the content out there.  At this stage, you need to define the unique and additional value you’ll bring to readers with your content.  Start by analyzing the top-ranking pages for the keyword(s) you identified earlier. Once again, you can do this using free or paid tools (or manually, but this will take longer). If you have a paid SEO tool like Semrush, MarketMuse, Clearscope, Inlinks, etc. you can get this information directly from the platform. Each software provides these insights in a different format, but the important thing here is to be able to conduct a gap analysis of your SERP competitors . Once you’ve gathered this information, cross-reference it with the insights you gathered in steps one and two. Search for gaps between the content covered by your SERP competitors and the relevant terms you discovered during the initial steps of your research.  Any topics that are not covered by your competitors present great opportunities to add unique value with your content. I’ve often found that top-ranking pages involve similar content, but: Either none of them include all of the relevant subtopics (lack of breadth) Or, they don’t go into the necessary detail to analyze their topic sufficiently (lack of depth) You can address these gaps with your content. Or, you can come up with a whole new approach to the topic.  Assess whether content in the SERPs addresses the main user intent. Then, come up with new ways to add value for readers . Some examples of this involve:  Leveraging original data Publishing an opinion-led piece (thought leadership) Using a case study as a basis for content Dispelling myths around a topic Collecting insights and quotes from experts Making your content way more visual than the rest of the content out there You can also use generative AI to explore gaps in the top-ranking content. Simply define your reader (audience) and the topics/subtopics covered by the top-ranking pages, then ask it to propose new angles or ways to address the reader’s needs.  04. Incorporate your product/service Demonstrating how your product or service is relevant to the main topic is crucial.  Connecting the dots between what  you’re writing about and why  you’re writing about it is paramount in helping readers make subconscious associations between your brand and the problems you help them solve. The big bet at this point, though, is to do so in a natural way that doesn’t come across like you’re trying to sell them your product now-now-now.  Do : Include screenshots/GIFs of your product in the content naturally to demonstrate a solution to a problem or to show a practical aspect of it. Use graphs/charts/tables leveraging original data from your product/service to strengthen an argument. Share workflows and use-cases to make a complex idea digestible. Add relevant CTAs (calls-to-action) .  Don’t : Use promotional and salesy language to talk about your product/service. Include your product/service in the content if it’s not organically connected to the point you’re making. Feature sales materials (promotional videos, battlecards, etc). Overdo it with the CTAs / use multiple CTAs throughout the page. Here’s an example from Wix . The article is about on-page SEO for eCommerce websites. For the sections that Wix offers a suitable solution, the author includes a breakdown of how the user can use Wix’s feature to complete the step.  05. Assess content for quality thresholds  It sounds like the most logical thing in the world, yet the number of times I’ve seen a content piece fail at this stage is way higher than I like to admit.  Here’s why: Editors, SEOs, email or social media managers (or anyone else getting involved with creating and approving content) often focus on grammar, spelling, or syntax.  These things are important, but they should not be the A to Z of your editorial standards. A content MVP is good to go if—at a minimum—it also passes the inspection for: Covering the main topic and subtopic efficiently Delivering on the unique value proposition Balancing information and demonstrating the value of your product/service Cohesion and logical flow Content formatting Including a table of contents for skimability Including a summary and the most important information/takeaways at the top Including visuals to make complex points simpler and engage readers Adherence to your brand’s tone of voice and style Language that is easily comprehensible by your audience There are more criteria you can include in this stage. The main challenge is to distinguish between the content elements you need to run during pre-launch versus the “nice-to-have” elements that can wait until the first iteration.  The former are essential in order to launch a viable  content product.  To that end, create an editorial checklist before you get to work on any new content. This checklist should include the practical checks each stakeholder has to run from creation (usually the author) to editing (the editor) to publishing (which may include an SEO strategist, a designer or a developer, etc).  Ensure that: You define each check clearly so it's easy to understand for everyone involved. You group elements to check according to their type (editorial, SEO, etc.) for the associated stakeholder. Every check is marked complete before publishing. 06. Set your goal and KPIs For the Content MVP Framework to succeed, it’s not enough to just set overall goals and KPIs for the whole of your content program. You need to set a clear goal and KPIs for each content piece  before launching your content MVP. This is central to assessing whether your MVP is actually viable, how well it delivers on its potential, as well as how many (and what kind of) iterations you’ll need. This part of the process is particularly important when a piece of content is part of your wider content marketing program, as it helps you quickly spot the content outliers and address issues efficiently. At this stage, complete the actions below: Define the goal for a given piece of content: This can be the same as your website’s overall goal (e.g., increase organic traffic) or it can be different (e.g., attract new audiences through word of mouth). I avoid setting more than one goal per piece of content as this often leads to creating content that tries to tackle multiple topics, intents, or needs—ultimately underdelivering on all fronts. Set only appropriate and necessary KPIs : Based on your goal, determine the set of KPIs you need to track. For example, if I want to increase organic traffic, I will track organic clicks, organic rankings for my main keyword(s), and potentially organic impressions and CTR. But, if I want to attract new audiences via word of mouth, I need to measure referral traffic, and potentially social shares/mentions and backlinks . The main point here is to not only choose appropriate KPIs, but to also avoid the temptation of picking too many KPIs. The fewer KPIs you set for your MVP, the clearer the picture you will get once it goes live. Skip every metric that could be considered a vanity metric.  Benchmark : Once you’ve picked your KPIs, you can create your benchmarks. The way you approach this will most likely depend on:  The type of content The content’s goals/KPIs Whether the MVP is a new content piece or an update to an existing one The popularity of the topic The popularity, relevance, and authority of your domain Etc.  The dataset you use to create your benchmark is critical. Let’s say you’re creating a blog post to target a topic that gets a few hundred searches per month. It could be a mistake to benchmark based on the average traffic all your blog posts get (regardless of the popularity of their topics, their age, etc). A different approach would be to benchmark against your average ranking position for blog content after one, two, or six months and set expectations accordingly.  For example: “I will consider this piece successful if it ranks within the top five after one month, as this is a 20% improvement on my current performance.” Or, if you want to set an ambitious goal around traffic, you can benchmark against the performance of your top content (e.g., using the 80/20 rule). So, you can say: “I will consider this piece successful if it generates X clicks within the first three months, as this is a 30% improvement on the average performance of the top 20% of my content.” 07. Iterate  This is the final and most important part of the workflow because adopting the Content MVP framework means planning for iterations further down the line.  Before publishing your content, you need to define: How long you’ll wait until you review your MVP’s performance — This may vary depending on how big/authoritative your website is or the type of content you publish. From the outset, define the timeframe you’re going to monitor your MVP against set KPIs. Avoid setting a timeframe that is too narrow to allow you to extract meaningful insights or too long, which will lead to a delay in reaching high performance sooner.  What the first iteration may look like — Create hypotheses to establish an initial approach for future content revisions/iterations. For example: “If the piece fails to rank within the top five for [keyword], then review SERP changes, page title, subheadings, secondary keywords, and topics coverage.” “If the piece fails to rank within the top five for [keyword] after [1 month] from the first iteration round, then review internal links  and backlinks.” Hypotheses help you create a plan of action and set internal expectations around what may need to happen and when. In turn, this allows you to plan your resources in advance, which is essential in small businesses or teams with limited headcount or skills.  The one thing I waited this long to tell you: Preparation is everything In my experience, the Content MVP Framework can prove hugely successful or  disappointingly useless. What determines success or failure is how much research and work you front load—meaning what you put in place before  you start creating your content.  Although the preparatory work may differ across industries, businesses, or content types, here are the assets I put in place to ensure my content MVPs work.  Keyword and topic research : This provides me with a wider view of the topics that are relevant to my audience and my business. Keyword strategy : This helps me prioritize my topic list based on reach or conversion potential (or both). Content strategy : This shows how each content piece is linked to the rest and to the overarching goal, which allows me to assess the types of resources I’ll need and acquire ahead of launching my content program. Editorial guidelines : These form a nice basis for everyone involved to work off of. I create guidelines that go beyond the typical “we spell things this way” or “we use ‘we’ versus the brand name.” These are all essential and good to have, but I’m looking for things that really help writers and editors achieve the writing style and quality I’m aiming for. Think along the lines of: “Only one point per paragraph” or including tons of examples, like “Don’t write ‘Here are a few steps to help you accomplish [X]’, instead write ‘Here are the exact 5 steps [person, brand] used to achieve X’,” etc. Templates : These help ensure a minimum quality standard for every content piece and help me speed up the process. The first template I put in place is the content brief . Depending on the content type and the goal, each content brief adopts a relevant template that includes all the necessary information. Additional templates you can create include… Article templates based on article type (e.g., listicle, how-to, etc.)  Landing page templates Email templates Social media post templates (based on type of content shared) Testimonial / quote template Visual assets templates Reporting templates  Etc. What I’ve learned from applying the Content MVP Framework I’ve used the Content MVP Framework for over 10 years now. It has helped me achieve great results for my clients and my employers—and often with very limited budget or resources (or both). At Semrush, for example, it helped my team to increase the blog’s organic traffic 7x within less than a year. Here are my top takeaways after years of successful (and unsuccessful) applications of the framework: “Content MVP” does not mean thin, rehashed, or AI-generated content. This framework does not mean that content is created fast or that it requires minimal effort. It’s better to carry out substantial work during the research and preparatory phases, instead of waiting for the content production phase to do most of it. Templatizing as much as possible helps speed up work and ensure certain standards are met every time. Setting clear goals and KPIs is pivotal to launching the right content and for planning for the right iterations. Explaining the framework to all stakeholders (including the leadership team) is key. You need to address all the different ideas around what “great,” “perfect,” or “ready to go,” content means and get everyone on the same page. You also need to get buy-in from management . If they’re not clear on the expectations for this content, having to iterate a few months down the line can (and will) be seen as failure or damage control in many cases. I hope this framework helps you and your teams create content that works—faster and better than ever before. Erika Varangouli - Head of Search, Riverside.fm Erika Varangouli is responsible for growing Riverside.fm’s organic visibility. Before Riverside, she led organic and brand teams at Semrush. She has worked with companies like Capterra, Symantec, Travelex, Asics, HSBC etc. She is a guest speaker, webinar host, and awards judge. Twitter  | Linkedin

Author: Crystal Ortiz SEO  and influencer marketing teams typically sit far apart at the metaphorical lunch table. But, what might seem like an unlikely pair might just be an untapped opportunity for greater ROI for your brand. Both channels seek to drive potential customers to your website and into your marketing funnel, and the teams that work on these initiatives possess data that often has implications for the entire business—not just their specific campaigns. Let’s break down these silos to see how social and SEO teams can work in tandem to seize opportunities and add value across your customer journey. Table of contents: SEO and influencer marketing: Why they’re better together How SEO can add value to influencer marketing campaigns How influencer marketing can help SEO campaigns Ways to align SEO and influencer marketing Potential challenges SEO and influencer marketing: Better together SEO teams are fluent in complex data and analysis, while influencer teams are creative and work closely with target audience segments. Collaboration between the two teams can provide practical business benefits via: Data-driven campaigns for influencer teams Better reach for SEO Teams More evergreen marketing campaigns Complementary campaigns that lead to better website experiences Data-driven campaigns for influencer teams Influencer teams make daily decisions around the creativity of their campaigns, who to partner with, and what they’re looking for audiences to experience.  SEO teams can aid influencer teams with these decisions via their ability to find data points about what their potential customers are interested in and searching for.  This might include:  Search volume Seasonal fluctuations Emerging trends Specific personas or buyer audience segmentation Etc. These insights can be incredibly valuable for audience and interest segmentation (e.g., pet enthusiasts, travelers, booktok, etc.), trends and seasonal influxes, and overall understanding of consumer behavior and interests.  For example, when we check beauty and hair trends, we can see that Google searches for [oval face haircuts male] are trending up by 127% YoY. This might be an interesting topic or angle that influencer teams can use to shape conversations or campaigns for clients in the hair and beauty industry. This data reveals that more people are trying to find the right hairstyle for their face shape, which could potentially inspire a series of videos, posts, and social media content, as well as SEO campaigns or products that help people find hairstyles and products according to their face shape.  “Hair styles by face shape” could be an interesting SEO- and influencer marketing-aligned initiative, given that [oval face male haircuts] has a monthly US search volume of 720. The variations around those keywords add up to 11,600 searches per month (the largest being [short haircuts for oval faces male], at 5.4K monthly searches).  SEO teams can validate and plan for website support and architecture to align with influencer campaigns, help create messaging that includes relevant keywords, and even find unique selling points or hooks around widely searched topics (such as in the example above). The influencer team could then align on the most common face shapes are and create content to help people find the right hairstyles for their face. This could lead to conversion content, like online quizzes, blog content, and email nurturing. Ultimately the goal would be to understand what problems consumers face when it comes to deciding on “style,” then building on that campaign to inspire purchases and pull people into the buying journey.  Better reach for SEO teams SEO teams like to focus on getting backlinks  to their websites naturally. While social shares might not directly correlate with an influx of backlinks (or provide any real value in terms of SEO link equity), it’s possible to create campaign buzz via influencer marketing. This can be a great opportunity for influencer/social marketing and SEO teams to partner to align on what pages (if any) the campaign will need as brand or campaign mentions rise.  For example, if a dog food company launched an influencer campaign about safe eating for pets, they could prepare pages in advance to share with influencers and on social media.  Those pages would also serve as the primary SEO pages for capturing the influx of traffic from the campaign. Hopefully, with enough amplification, the pages could earn additional backlinks and generate more in the future.  More evergreen marketing campaigns The value of SEO typically increases over time, meaning that creating pages inspired by influencer partnerships can grow website traffic beyond the initial influencer campaign.  If you create that campaign, you’ll have a destination to send visitors to during the launch, but you can continue to extract value from the campaign by keeping those pages on the website to gain additional traffic and backlinks over time. You can also revitalize and test campaigns that were previously successful, and you’ll be able to replicate those launches with high-converting pages.  For example, if you create an influencer campaign to launch a set of cooking pans, you can probably create a complementary SEO strategy to send traffic from the products themselves to any additional pages you want customers to visit as they make their purchasing decisions (i.e., buying guides, comparisons, how-to, etc) .  Complementary campaigns that lead to better website experiences Many marketing teams tend to think about the website experience only through their own lens. But, when SEO and influencer marketing teams think collaboratively and strategically, your website experience improves and users benefit. After all, SEO teams need content to support their goals, while influencer teams need website resources to support theirs. Here are some examples to illustrate my point: Landing pages not only support conversion goals from influencer initiatives, but they can also rank for keywords that bring in search visibility and traffic.  When influencers develop their product lines or collaborate with your company, you can publish creator pages that rank for their branded terms (Maddie & Kenzie Ziegler’s American Eagle line comes to mind). Regardless of campaign timing, people can search and find their collection on the AE website. As you can see from the Semrush data below, this influencer collection page generates an estimated 1300 visits per month across its 164 ranking keywords.  SEO teams should keep influencer initiatives top of mind, especially considering how those pages fit into the overall site structure and where internal linking  opportunities might exist.  How SEO can add value to influencer marketing campaigns If you’re on an SEO team (or if you’ve focused solely on SEO to this point), the first thing to do is check in with the social team to sync on their priorities (and yours). Using your SEO skills to complement influencer marketing goals while improving your website’s search visibility requires some creative thinking, so ask the right questions when you meet with the influencer team. Here are examples and tips to help you start the collaboration smoothly: Ask which campaigns you should familiarize yourself with to help you understand your audience and gain insights from the team. Get a sense of what your customers respond to best, their comments and questions, and any inside knowledge about the community. Social media teams are often the closest to customers, hearing directly from them on a daily basis. Find out what influencer categories work best for your business type, industry, and social media channels.  Follow social media trends and use the social platforms your company or clients are active on. Stay active on these platforms to make your conversations with the social teams more productive. Identify relevant, trending searches and evergreen keywords to provide to your social media team for consideration. Researching and positioning opportunities this way can help you bring in more traffic/conversions, which are generally KPIs for both teams. Influencer and social media teams should also know about SEO, how it works, and what they can look for or think about so you can validate ideas with research and data to help the team make better decisions. Consider educating the team with basic principles on this topic . Remember, the point here is to learn all about the social team’s plans and goals, especially surrounding overarching themes or topics that can seamlessly integrate with your SEO efforts. Communication between teams is really what you’re after, since this collaboration can play out quite differently depending on your business model and team structure, so prioritize transparency and trust if you want to reap the combined benefits of both influencer marketing and SEO. How influencer marketing can help SEO campaigns If you’re on a social media or influencer team and you’re curious about what a path to SEO collaboration looks like, here are some first-step suggestions to consider: Learn more about SEO, how it works, and how it relates to social media. SEO is becoming closely associated with social media as people are starting to use social platforms to search, plan, and get inspired. Similarly, search engines are integrating more social media signals into their results , so understanding how SEO and social media are intertwined will serve you well.  Ask which SEO campaigns are in the works and at which stages. Take a look at some of the data around how your audience searches to spark ideas for creative collaborations, social campaigns, or conversations within your community. Some social platforms, like Facebook  and TikTok , offer tools to help you monitor trending search terms that can inform your content in real-time, which can give you a headstart on the competition as traditional keyword research tools may not update as quickly. Ask the SEO team how they approach the website architecture, categories, traffic flow, and SEO tools. Educate and train the SEO team on social media best practices, your point of view, and insights into your customer activity. Your insights into customer pain points and interests are considerably valuable. Keep the SEO team informed about social media trends so they can help you put together data that helps validate search visibility opportunities for new topics. Finally, think about the areas of your business that need support and how influencers might be able to drive links or traffic to support those SEO goals. As I mentioned previously, communication between teams will always be the foundation of your success, so ensure you’re communicating regularly and often. Ways to align SEO and influencer marketing There’s no right or wrong way to approach collaboration. Most people think of influencer marketing as sending influencers products and trying to get people to buy from sponsored posts. But, that’s the last stage of the funnel.  You also need to think about SEO and influencer collaborations at the top of the funnel and amplify pages, search terms, products, and brand—not just the product.   The ultimate goal should be to get people from one stage of your marketing funnel to the next, so use these channels to generate awareness and align on messaging. That way, when you do get your product in front of customers (whether organically or via influencer marketing), it’ll be a brand they’re familiar with and are therefore more likely to buy from. Starting with an SEO idea In SEO, you often see groups of keywords that then turn into more extensive SEO campaigns.  For example, perhaps you want to create a cluster of pages surrounding a topic , and you think it’d be great to have influencer marketing support.  SEO product ideas (such as the release of new product libraries, templates , and educational resources) are another potential campaign that would pair nicely with influencer marketing. Once you’ve identified or developed a new SEO product, you could present your case to the partnerships team and discuss potential creative ideas and planning. If you’re further down on the communication chain (or if you prefer to present projects that are further in the pipeline), regular check-in meetings are a great way to update colleagues on the status of upcoming or existing products so social media teams have time to decide if those products align with their immediate goals.  Starting with an influencer marketing idea Starting with an influencer campaign can be equally beneficial to both teams.  For example, perhaps you’re looking to reach a new audience and you’ve developed a social media strategy in which influencers help you increase your visibility to this new audience (this is a very common strategy for TikTok creators—just think about how many times you’ve seen a sponsored placement for a pajama set, water bottle, or ring light — in your feed).  SEO can help provide research on the topics  that an audience segment is interested in, enabling you to better shape the ideas and messaging around the campaign. If your new audience consists of pet parents, for example, you could provide a list of topics you’ve identified as potential starting points for the SEO team. These ideas can turn into keyword research and a search intent  assessment, allowing you to provide a business case to stakeholders.  You would then have the SEO team support you in creating SEO-focused content to help move customers down your funnel.  Potential challenges to consider While a partnership might sound lucrative, both teams will naturally focus on individual initiatives that don’t necessarily overlap. Separation between the channels can make it hard to justify spending company resources on a joint campaign.  That said, settling into silos will put you at a disadvantage against competitors that can align their teams for collaborative campaigns that make a larger splash. Additionally, there may be external factors to consider, such as regulations, legal compliance, and advertising disclosures. Given the potential of SEO and influencer marketing to extend your brand’s reach, however, these challenges are worth addressing. Here are some potential challenges to think about when running SEO and influencer marketing campaigns in tandem. “Important” means different things to different teams Teams may have differing opinions on the importance of a particular aspect of a campaign. This may sound obvious, but it’s important to align with all stakeholders before taking action. While each team needs to have a firm understanding of their audience, SEOs might prioritize data and research, whereas social teams might prioritize creativity and customer connection. Whatever the case may be, you should let the customer data dictate your priorities over trying to be right based on your narrow own experience and viewpoint. Business goals should be top-of-mind Social media and SEO efforts should ultimately support revenue goals over short-term gains.  Remember, influencer marketing can be pricey, and SEO and development costs are expensive as well. The activities you support with influencer marketing and SEO should ultimately tee up the larger objectives of the business.  Consider whether you would execute a given campaign if the other channel wasn’t involved.  “Is this campaign a strong enough idea on its own, that I’d be proud to present as a channel effort if the other channel wasn’t involved?”   Additionally, you might have a good idea, but not the right idea to support what your business/audience needs at the moment. Focus on the ideas you strongly believe in; there’s nothing wrong with working through an idea only to put a stop to it if there are signs it might not be a worthy investment (or even worse, potentially result in wasted resources while moving you away from your goals).  For example, you may have developed an idea but it’s not aligned with the overall messaging your customers respond to on social media, or you ran a small test that doesn’t provide a strong enough case to roll out on a larger campaign (like with more influential creators or across multiple platforms).  ROI projections may look different Putting together a business case (as you would when obtaining buy-in at the individual channel level) has similar importance and weight in a joint effort. But unlike a singular effort, there are added benefits to combining influencer initiatives and SEO.  For example, you could present an SEO business case where you share the total volume, potential, traffic share, and expected business impact (such as revenue over a specific time period). If you’re adding an influencer campaign into the mix, you can add successful campaign ideas and data surrounding those campaigns to help illustrate how these two channels can propel one another.  For an influencer campaign, you can create your business case as you normally would, citing the overall promotion, creative direction, audience, potential reach, and ideal influencers. You could then add SEO data as an additional selling point to stakeholders. By demonstrating an added growth benefit, you can demonstrate how your campaign will progress beyond the initial launch.  Be aware that ROI in influencer marketing campaigns is measured differently than in SEO, which makes aligning on the business benefit that much more important.  In influencer marketing, you’ll generally look at the impressions, engagement (likes, comments, saves, and DMs), and revenue generated. However, conversions aren’t always clearly measured. For example, a consumer might be shown an influencer campaign once, twice, or three times before converting (and there are many definitions of conversions).  Similarly, ROI for SEO  can be a little ambiguous, especially considering the length of time it takes from launch to visibility and traffic generation. Thankfully, an influencer campaign can provide amplification for SEO initiatives.  Legal compliance Social media and legal teams will have more familiarity with legal compliance, such as FTC rules. SEOs should consider turning to those teams for understanding and education in this area.  Influencers are also considered brands of their own and may require legal language for using their image or likeness in certain areas beyond social media posts. Again, this is something for SEO teams to be aware of while working on influencer campaigns. Combine SEO and influencer marketing to minimize risk and maximize ROI Digital marketing is constantly evolving with consumer preferences, technology, and regulation. The businesses that worry the most about how to recover from an algorithm update  or losing visibility in social media feeds are the ones that tend to rely on a single channel to reach their potential customers.  By going multi-channel, you insulate your brand from overreliance on a single platform. And, by focusing on SEO and influencer marketing together, you can even go beyond simply avoiding risk to create campaigns that add ROI at every stage of your funnel.  Crystal Ortiz - SEO Consultant   Crystal Ortiz is an SEO consultant with experience across fashion, health, travel, automotive, and fitness. She teaches digital marketing classes at various universities across the US. Crystal lives in Indiana with her husband, son, and dog. Twitter  | Linkedin

Author: Ross Simmonds I’m sure that, right now, you have a story that is worth sharing. It might be a story about your business. It might be an update around one of your new sales. It might be a how-to blog post that you spent hours writing but haven’t promoted for more than five minutes. This is the reality for many, often leading to an unsustainable cycle of creating new content just to achieve similar performance as an effective distribution strategy. To boot, new content is generally more resource intensive to produce, making it less cost effective than distributing your existing content. Over the last decade, I’ve helped brands that have been stuck on the “content creation hamster wheel” see 10x more traffic on their content simply by distributing it. In this blog post, I’m going to help you learn the ins and outs of content distribution as a way for you to get better ROI out of the content marketing assets that you’re already creating on a regular basis. Let’s dive in. Table of contents: What is content distribution? Why content distribution matters The types of content distribution Owned distribution channels Earned distribution channels Paid distribution channels Content distribution strategies Content repurposing Content resharing Content syndication How to distribute your content effectively What is content distribution? Content distribution is the act of amplifying, repurposing, resharing and promoting your content online. Content distribution  is an often overlooked yet ridiculously valuable part of content marketing. It’s not just about putting your content out there; it’s about strategically placing it across a variety of platforms—be it social media, blogs, email newsletters, or even podcasts—to ensure that it reaches your target audience, engages them, and, most importantly, prompts them to take action. Why content distribution matters Content distribution matters because, amidst all the content that makes its way to your audience on a daily basis, it helps your content  get seen and heard by potential users or customers via the channels that they prefer.  It’s not enough to press publish on a piece of content and share it once or twice on social media. Every business that is looking to generate ROI from their content marketing should invest time and energy into distributing their content after it goes live. The key to getting better value and performance from your content lies in matching the right content formats and distribution channels. Let’s take a look at what you need to know about the latter. The types of content distribution Although there are many platforms and methods you can use to distribute content, they typically fall within these categories: Owned distribution channels — As the name implies, these are channels that you can control directly. Earned distribution channels — This refers to unpaid content distribution that you typically have to earn. Paid distribution channels — This involves payment for distribution on third-party platforms. It can include, but isn’t limited to PPC, social media ads, influencer marketing, display ads, etc. For this guide, I’ll focus on organic methods: owned and earned distribution channels. Owned distribution channels Owned distribution channels are platforms and assets you control, such as your website, blog, email newsletters, and social media profiles. You can distribute your content on these owned channels by promoting it to your followers or subscribers. Here are a few examples: Email list distribution Email lists are a staple in content distribution. Building an email list of your target customers and using that list to share your content is a powerful tactic. Email marketing gives you a direct line to your audience’s inbox. This personal connection allows for you to break through the clutter and drive these individuals back to your content on a regular basis.  So, if you write a blog post about your latest deal, share it over email. If you write an update about a new feature, share it over email. If you record your very first YouTube series, share it over email. The ability to communicate with your audience over email in a 1:1 way is incredibly valuable and a major leverage point as a content distribution play. Imagine being able to tailor your content to meet the specific interests of individual email subscribers, or segmenting your audience to deliver highly relevant articles, updates, and offers directly to them.  Here’s a tactical example:  Imagine you run a short term rental bed-and-breakfast business and send an email to 100 of your past guests. In most scenarios, a lot of these people will unsubscribe immediately because they only stayed at your rental because they happened to be in town at that time. But here’s how email personalization can be a super power: Let’s say that when these individuals signed up to receive emails from you, they self-identified their current address. You can now send 40 emails instead of 100 to only  the people who stayed at your venue as a staycation. This increases the likelihood of tailoring your message to the right people with the right story.  Social media distribution Social media distribution is one of the most effective ways to get your story out there to the masses. Unlike email, distributing your content on social media isn’t isolated exclusively to those who opted into your messaging.  Social media offers a viral network that gives your content a lot more chances to break out and spread from one person to many (or, ideally, many to many). Imagine you're scrolling through a social media channel, like X, and come across this: It’s a post from Wix that lives on their blog getting amplified to their social following. This post on X has more than 48K views, pushing the audience to read the blog post on Wix’s domain. This is the power of distribution. With growth-focused blog distribution  tactics, one blog post can reach thousands simply because they took the time to share it on social media. With social media, you can share your content and engage with your audience in real-time. From X (Twitter) to LinkedIn to Instagram, each platform offers its unique benefits, audiences, and opportunities for content distribution. Take advantage of them by creating compelling content and amplifying it. Website content distribution Your brand’s website acts as the central hub for your content distribution, offering a plethora of avenues to engage visitors and share your vibrant content landscape.  By integrating features like pop-ups, chat boxes, and strategic calls-to-action (CTAs)  throughout your site, you can leverage new dimensions of interaction and content promotion. Below is an example of website content distribution from the team at Gong. If you visit their homepage, you will see that halfway through the site is a collection of blog posts, eBooks and resources that they showcase to visitors. Placing content that you have created on different sections of your site is a form of owned channel content distribution. It’s especially successful when these pages are already generating a significant amount of traffic from people who may not know that these assets exist. Other on-site distribution tactics include things like pop-ups. The team at Briogeo has a pop-up on their site asking people to fill out a hair quiz: Pop ups like this can grab a visitor's attention at just the right moment, offering them valuable content such as a quiz (that can also double as a method of lead generation). You can do this with eBooks, white papers, or even a subscription to your email newsletter allowing for future distribution directly to their inbox. Earned distribution channels Distribution through these channels is gained through your efforts and are not paid for. Some examples of earned content distribution are:  Customer reviews Organic search (AKA SEO) Media mentions, press mentions, and social media shares Word of mouth These channels tend to be highly trusted by consumers and offer a sense of validation and social proof for your brand, making them invaluable assets for content distribution.  Customer review sites Customer review sites are pillars of earned content distribution, and for good reason: People trust reviews. The majority of people trust independent review sites more than any other source, according to a consumer online survey from Software Advice: Consumers consistently rely on these platforms to understand what brands/products others trust and also to voice their experiences and opinions on products and services. This presents you with a unique opportunity to harness the power of organic testimonials. Platforms like Yelp, Google Business Profile , and industry-specific review sites provide you with valuable feedback from users and serve to amplify your brand’s visibility and credibility. Encouraging happy customers to share their positive experiences can significantly enhance your reputation, driving more traffic to your content and, ultimately, your offerings. Engaging with reviews, both positive and negative, demonstrates your brand’s commitment to customer satisfaction and continuous improvement, fostering a trustworthy and relatable image in your industry. Organic search (SEO) Owning a top position in the search results when someone looks for your brand or offering on Google is a huge opportunity. Search engine optimization (SEO) provides you with the ability to show up in organic search rankings without paying Google for your spot. The search engine results page ( SERP ) is the page that Google serves up after you type in a query, like [Best Spas in Georgia]: In the SERP above, three spas have earned top placements when someone goes to Google to type in this phrase. You may notice that what is actually ranking here is their GBP account, with star ratings, links to their respective websites, and directions—this is why customer reviews  are so important. At the top of the SERP (above the map) is an article from the Exploring Georgia tourism website. This website likely generates a ton of traffic from searchers and the benefactors of this are the spas that happen to be listed on that page.  This same basic principle applies for all types of businesses with an online presence. For example, eCommerce businesses can create how-to or buying guides  to educate audiences about their industry and how to use their products, and make that content available on-demand via search engines. Media coverage & press mentions When your content or brand stories catch the eye of journalists and news outlets, the articles talking about your brand can increase your content’s reach. Coverage not only brings your content to a broader audience, it also has the ability to send referral traffic directly to your site. Engaging with the press, journalists, writers, and media creators  (whether through press releases or direct outreach) opens up a distribution channel for your brand/content to get highlighted on platforms where you traditionally may need to pay big bucks to get a little bit of ad space. In addition, organic media coverage carries an element of trust that you just can’t buy with paid ads, even when those ads appear in the same publication. Word of mouth Word of mouth has always been incredibly persuasive for audiences, and with the rise of social media, it has become even more influential. Positive word of mouth can have an exponential effect on your brand’s reach and credibility, making it one of the most cost-effective ways to spread your messaging as it relies heavily on satisfied customers and engaged brand advocates. Encouraging word-of-mouth recommendations through reviews, referrals, and social media mentions and shares can help you reach audiences that you may not have been able to connect with otherwise. On social media, one of the most effective ways to increase word of mouth is to include a CTA in the original content asset you’re distributing. For example: Tell people on X to retweet Tell people on YouTube to hit share Tell people in their inbox to FWD the email Tell people on LinkedIn to leave a comment All of these little CTAs can drive meaningful returns. Bookmark this guide and reference the table below for a quick overview of the content distribution channels mentioned above: Content distribution channel Suitable for Metrics to monitor Email newsletter A range of businesses (eCommerce, B2B, D2C, publications, etc.) Various types of content, including informational posts, new products, etc. Open, subscribe, and unsubscribe rates The types of content that get clicked on Social media Engaging with a broad audience in real time Sharing timely content to reach a large consumer base Engagement rates Follower growth Social referral traffic Website Every brand (both small and large businesses) Capturing leads from your ideal customers Building and establishing brand excellence Website traffic Bounce rates Conversion rates Customer review sites Brands where decision making includes customer research Building social proof and trust Review referral traffic Total number of reviews Ratings SEO Increasing organic visibility in search Attracting your target audience at various stages of the marketing funnel Keyword rankings Organic traffic Click-through rates Media coverage Brands looking to reach a broader audience Establishing brand credibility Number of quality mentions Sentiment of coverage Word of mouth Service-based businesses Leveraging customer advocacy amongst your ideal customers Net Promoter Score (NPS) Referral rates Customer lifetime value Paid distribution channels Paid distribution channels involve paying to promote or distribute your content on third-party platforms. These distribution channels are not limited to Facebook, Instagram, and Google though. Paid distribution channels also include opportunities for amplification like paid influencer partnerships, podcast ads, or even newsletter sponsorships. We would be here for hours if we tried to describe all of the ways in which paid distribution can happen. The channels are plentiful, the formats are extensive, and the ways in which you can run your paid media campaigns are diverse. From PPC to fixed rates, the world of paid distribution is one that is vast and significant. Content distribution strategies You can approach content distribution by: Repurposing your existing content Resharing your existing content Syndicating your content on third-party platforms Content repurposing Content repurposing is the practice of reshaping existing content into different formats or fresh pieces to expand its reach and lifespan (i.e., performance). It’s about taking the core ideas or data from your content—be it a blog post, video, podcast episode, webinar , infographic, etc.—and adapting it for various platforms and audiences.  For example, you could transform a comprehensive research report into:  A series of blog posts Infographics Short videos Social media posts This strategy maximizes the value of your original content investments while allowing you to engage with different segments of your audience (via the different distribution channels), catering to their unique preferences and consumption habits.  By repurposing content, you enhance its visibility and effectiveness, ensuring your message resonates across multiple channels and touchpoints. To repurpose your content effectively, you need to understand your target audience and how they consume content. Once you identify this, consider adapting your existing content into different formats that align with those preferences.  For example, if you find that your audience prefers visual content, consider repurposing written pieces into infographics or videos. Additionally, think about ways in which you can make your content more interactive and engaging, such as hosting live Q&A sessions or creating polls and quizzes. Content resharing Content resharing is taking something that you created in the past and sharing it over and over and over again. This method is popular with marketers who use it to improve the performance of evergreen content .  Resharing evergreen content allows you to reach new audiences and drive ongoing traffic to your website or blog without having to invest the level of time and resources required to create entirely fresh content.  It’s also a great way to repurpose content, as you can share it on different platforms and revamp its formatting from time to time. For example, if you wrote a comprehensive guide on how to start a business last year, you can reshare the blog post for months to come. To effectively reshare your content, consider scheduling posts in advance using a social media management tool like Buffer or Hootsuite. Keep in mind different time zones when you're scheduling your content especially if you have a global presence. Now beware: Don’t use this message as permission to reshare the same thing every day. I’ve seen some brands and people make the mistake of thinking that just because they can reshare content that this is the only thing they should do—that’s a mistake. Resharing is one of the many distribution strategies that you can embrace. Find a mix of repurposing and resharing to maximize the power of organic distribution. For example, if you have a social media calendar the ideal mix might look like this:  Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Week 1 New content New content Repurposed content New content Reshare from Monday New content Week 2 Reshare from last Tuesday New content Repurposed content Reshare from last Thursday New content Repurposed content Content syndication Content syndication is the strategy of republishing your original content on third-party platforms or websites to reach a wider audience. This could mean taking an article that first appeared on your blog and having it published on a larger publication’s site, or sharing your infographic with a partner website that serves a similar target audience. The beauty of content syndication lies in its ability to expand your brand’s reach beyond your immediate followers or subscribers to include the syndication platform’s audience as well, introducing your content (and thereby your brand) to new eyes. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement; your website gains additional exposure and potential traffic, while the host site enriches its content offerings without producing new content firsthand. If you do decide to embrace content syndication, it’s important to understand best practices. Ensure that your syndicated content hosted on other sites canonicalizes  back to your original content (on your domain). This helps search engines understand which version they should send searchers to. How to distribute your content effectively Like other digital marketing strategies, you’ll need to research your audience, plan your execution, and report on progress in order for content distribution to yield consistent results. Step 1: Content distribution research Understanding who you’re trying to reach—their interests, pain points, and where they spend their time online—informs not only the type of content you create but also the channels through which you share it. Start by analyzing your customer data and social media habits to build audience personas. These personas should include:  Demographic information Professional info Content preferences Etc. Once you define personas for your audience, you will have a clear picture of the channels they spend time on and the types of content they want on those channels. This research is crucial for developing a content distribution engine that drives consistent and meaningful results. Here are a few ways to conduct this research: Audience research tools: Leverage software like Sparktoro or Audiense to conduct research that gives insight into the exact channels your audience spends time on. You can learn who they follow, what they talk about, and even what podcasts they listen to. Content research tools: Use content research tools like BuzzSumo to better understand what content your audience shares and engages with online. Native social research: Deep-dive directly into the channels your audience is spending time on and look at how they’re behaving, what content they’re interacting with, and how they’re amplifying (sharing) content in these channels. Step 2: Content distribution planning Now that you understand your audience and where they spend their time, you need to plan how you will distribute your content. Start by identifying the channels you want to target and determine which types of content will resonate best on each platform. For example, visual platforms like Instagram and Pinterest  may be better suited to infographics or images, while LinkedIn may be a better fit for long-form articles or thought leadership pieces. Next, create a content distribution schedule that lists when and where you will share your content on each channel. This can include both organic and paid distribution efforts. Consider utilizing social media management tools to schedule posts in advance and track performance across channels. Step 3: Execute and report on progress Great content distribution is not just about spreading your content for the sake of it. It’s about driving impact. Here are some key metrics to track and analyze to gauge the effectiveness of your content distribution strategy: Reach and engagement : Evaluate your content’s audience reach and interaction levels, such as likes, comments, and shares. High engagement rates often signal content relevance. Referral traffic : This refers to the visitors directed to your site from shared content. Assess both traffic volume and visitor behavior to gauge traffic quality and relevance. Leads/Contact generation : While not always applicable, monitoring lead generation from distribution efforts can be crucial. This encompasses actions like form submissions, newsletter sign-ups, or any engagement indicating potential customer interest. Audience growth : Quantifies the expansion of your audience across platforms. A growing audience signifies effective content distribution and brand connection. By tracking these metrics, you can paint a picture of your content's performance, make informed decisions, and continually refine your content distribution strategy for optimal results. Channels may change, but the value of content distribution is constant Distribution changes regularly. It’s not realistic to assume that the channels we’re distributing content on today are the channels that we will use in 5–10 years. The channels always change. But one thing that doesn’t change is the value of distribution. Great distribution is the key to a successful content initiative. This is why I wrote an entire book dedicated to distribution called Create Once, Distribute Forever . It’s a complete guide to how to embrace not just the tactical elements of content distribution, but also the theory and strategy behind why distribution is one of the most powerful forces in the digital world. I hope you check it out. I hope you also send this along to your team, colleagues, or friends. I’m confident that someone out there you know would benefit from reading it. Let’s get more people off the “content creation hamster wheel” and get more people to realize the importance of distributing their work. Ross Simmonds - CEO of Foundation Marketing Ross Simmonds is the founder of Foundation Marketing, a B2B SaaS Marketing agency that works with some of the worlds most successful brands. He's also the author of Create Once. Distribute Forever: How Great Creators Spread Their Ideas and How You Can Too . Twitter  | Linkedin

Author: James Clark Discovery is the very first step in SEO—if a search engine can’t discover your content, it will never crawl and index it, which means searchers won’t be able to access it. An XML sitemap is an optional, but powerful, tool to support the discovery process (and by extension, your technical SEO efforts). But, what should your sitemap contain? How do you create it? And how do you tell search engines about it? Let’s go on a discovery process of our own—drawing from the official sitemaps protocol and Google’s documentation—to understand how to use sitemaps for better SEO. Table of contents: What is an XML sitemap? How XML sitemaps help your SEO Types of sitemap What an XML sitemap should (and shouldn’t) contain Static and dynamic sitemaps Size limits for XML sitemaps and sitemap indexes How to generate an XML sitemap Sitemaps on Wix Generate sitemaps with Screaming Frog Submitting your XML sitemap to Google and Bing Validating your XML sitemap HTML vs. XML sitemaps What is an XML sitemap? Before Google and other search engines can crawl and index your pages, they must first discover them. A sitemap is a document that facilitates the discovery process by telling search engines about the pages on a website that are available to crawl. Although sitemaps can come in different formats, the most common is XML (extensible markup language)—a language that uses tags to “mark up” and structure information (a bit like HTML). One of the benefits of XML is that both people and computer programs can easily read it. XML sitemaps follow the sitemaps protocol, which Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo all support. This protocol defines what a sitemap can contain, how to format it, and even how to submit it to search engines. How XML sitemaps help your SEO The main way a search engine discovers web pages on a site is by following backlinks. These could be links from your own site (internal links), or links on another site (external links). Some pages can be difficult for search engines to find. An “orphan page” is one that doesn’t have any inbound links pointing to it, meaning that search engines will never discover it by following links. Your website can even have small groups of orphan pages that only link to each other. Another challenge that search engines face is knowing when pages were updated. Although search engines will periodically revisit crawled pages to see whether the content has changed, this isn’t particularly efficient either for search engines or website owners. Sitemaps solve both of those SEO problems: They tell search engines about pages that are available to crawl, even orphan pages. And, they can also tell search engines when a page was last significantly changed, making crawling more efficient. That isn’t to say that a sitemap can replace an effective internal linking policy. Remember, links don’t just help discovery, they also tell search engines about the relationship between pages—something that sitemaps can’t do. Types of sitemap You might think that “sitemap” and “XML sitemap” are synonymous, but the sitemaps protocol defines three valid sitemap formats: XML Text file Syndication feed Google and other major search engines can work with any of these formats. In most cases, you’ll want an XML sitemap—but if your platform or CMS doesn’t provide you with this, consider the other two formats: A text sitemap is a text file (with a .txt extension) that lists all your page URLs, one per line. It can’t contain any other information.  Text sitemaps are simple to create, so this is a good option if you have a very small site and rarely add new pages—though in that situation, you may not need a sitemap at all. A syndication feed is a way of distributing content, especially news content. Although feeds are less popular than they used to be, many platforms still provide them in either the RSS or Atom format. News sites often create feeds for individual categories (or “channels”)—here’s the start of The Guardian’s RSS feed for its culture category: One big drawback of using a feed as a sitemap is that it usually only contains the most recent content. Nonetheless, it can still help search engines discover that content (and, through internal links, other content on your site). The rest of this article focuses on XML sitemaps as these are the most common, and versatile, type of sitemap. What an XML sitemap should (and shouldn’t) contain Your sitemap should contain the URLs of all the pages you want search engines to crawl (and subsequently show in search results). Each page has its own pair of opening and closing tags, containing a element that specifies the page’s location—like this: https://example.com/myurl1/ https://example.com/myurl2/ There are plenty of pages you shouldn’t include in your sitemap, for example: Pages that aren’t the canonical version of the content Pages that are blocked by robots.txt Pages set as noindex In other words, pages you wouldn’t want Google to attempt to crawl and index. The element is mandatory, but there are other optional elements you can include with each URL to add more guidance for crawlers: : The date the page was last significantly modified : How frequently the page is likely to change (e.g., “monthly”) : “The priority of this URL relative to other URLs on your site”—the higher the value (from 0.0 to 1.0), the more important you want crawlers to perceive the page as Google says it ignores and values, while Bing says it “largely disregards” them. The tag, then, is the most useful way of indicating to search engines that a previously discovered page needs to be recrawled. Sitemap extensions The sitemap protocol only specifies how to include URLs in a sitemap. However, one of the most powerful features of the protocol is that you can use it to include other types of content (the “X” in “XML” stands for “eXtensible”). There are Google-supported extensions for the following content types: Images News Video You can create separate sitemaps for these content types or include them in your existing sitemap. The extensions introduce many new mandatory and optional elements. For example, video content requires the tag pointing to the location of the video thumbnail. Static and dynamic sitemaps Dynamic sitemaps are generated each time they are requested from the server, so they will always be up to date. In other words, if you create a new page on your website, then load your dynamic XML sitemap in a browser tab, it should list your new page. Likewise, if you change an existing page, the sitemap should update the value for that page. (If your sitemap is supposed to be dynamic but isn’t updating, you might have a caching issue.) Static sitemaps, on the other hand, aren’t generated on the fly and don’t automatically update. As the name suggests, they are just static files. In almost all cases, a dynamic sitemap is a better option. After all, if one of the main roles of a sitemap is to tell search engines about new content, you want your sitemap to include that content as soon as it is published. Size limits for XML sitemaps and sitemap indexes The sitemaps protocol specifies size limits for XML sitemaps “to ensure that your web server does not get bogged down serving very large files” (but also to make the process more efficient for search engines). Your XML sitemap should: Be no larger than 50MB (52,428,800 bytes) Contain a maximum of 50,000 URLs The size limit refers to the size of the uncompressed file, so compressing the file won’t help you get around this requirement. Instead you should follow the advice given in the protocol: “If your site contains more than 50,000 URLs or your Sitemap is bigger than 50MB, you must create multiple Sitemap files and use a Sitemap index file. You should use a Sitemap index file even if you have a small site but plan on growing beyond 50,000 URLs or a file size of 50MB.” A sitemap index is an XML file that lists multiple XML sitemaps. You might have one sitemap for your posts, one for your pages, and another for your categories—all listed in your index. Sitemap index files have size limits, too. Similar to individual sitemaps, they should: Not exceed 50MB (52,428,800 bytes) Include up to 50,000 sitemaps The sitemaps protocol also has restrictions around content. Some characters must be “escaped”—an ampersand (“&”) is written as “&”, for example. If you’re using your web platform or CMS to generate your sitemap, it will likely follow the protocol, so you only need to worry about these restrictions if you’re creating your sitemap manually (which is rare). How to generate an XML sitemap How you generate your XML sitemap will depend on the CMS or platform you use for your website. Let’s look at how this works for Wix websites as well as how to do this with Screaming Frog, a popular SEO tool. Sitemaps on Wix Wix websites come with sitemaps automatically. I say “sitemaps” because the platform provides different sitemaps for different types of pages. The sitemap index lives at https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml, but this could link to sitemaps for events, forum posts, or more, depending on the functionality your site uses. For example, this London barbershop has a sitemap specifically for the products it sells on its Wix website: Also, when you complete your Wix SEO Setup Checklist, Wix automatically submits your XML sitemap to Google for you. You’ll need a Premium plan and your own domain to take advantage of this. Generate sitemaps with Screaming Frog Maybe your platform or CMS doesn’t generate an XML sitemap for you. Maybe you aren’t even using a platform or CMS and instead hand-coded your site from scratch! In these situations, you’ll have to get a little creative. If your site is small, you could use the text sitemap format we looked at earlier, create the file manually, and host it on your server. But, this isn’t very practical if you have more than a couple dozen pages. Instead, you could use an SEO tool called Screaming Frog to crawl your site and create an XML sitemap for you. This is a powerful option as it will automatically exclude pages that are blocked by robots.txt, set as “noindex,” or have a canonical tag pointing to a different URL—in other words, all the pages you ordinarily wouldn’t want Google to attempt to crawl and index. The free version of Screaming Frog will crawl up to 500 URLs, so if your site is bigger than this then you’ll need to pay for a license. Just as with a text sitemap, the next step is to host your new XML sitemap on your server (preferably in the root directory) then submit it to Google. If your site changes often, you could even look at scheduling an automated crawl. One downside of the Screaming Frog approach is that it gives you a static sitemap. If you create a new page or update an existing one, the sitemap won’t automatically change to reflect that. Submitting your XML sitemap to Google (and Bing) Once you’ve generated your sitemap, the next step is to inform the major search engines so they can use it. There are two ways to do this. The first is to specify the path to your sitemap or sitemap index in your robots.txt file, like this example from the Manchester United website: This small change will enable Google and other search engines to find your sitemap the next time they crawl your robots.txt file. The downside here is that you don’t get any feedback: you won’t know when those search engines last read your sitemap, how many pages they discovered, and so on. For that, you’ll need special tools provided by the search engines themselves. These tools let you both submit your sitemap and see how it is being read: For Google, the tool to use is Google Search Console. Our complete guide to Google Search Console walks you through the process of first verifying your site in Search Console and then submitting your sitemap (or sitemap index). If you manage a number of sites and want to submit your sitemaps to Google programmatically, use the Search Console API. Bing has its own equivalent of Search Console, called Bing Webmaster Tools, and the submission process here is also straightforward. You don’t have to choose one approach or the other. It’s definitely worth both specifying the path to your sitemap in your robots.txt file and submitting your sitemap to search engines individually. Validating your XML sitemap It may seem strange to talk about validating your XML sitemap after submitting it, but that’s because submitting your sitemap is actually the best way to validate it. When you submit your sitemap to Google using Search Console (or Bing using Bing Webmaster Tools), the tool will tell you whether your sitemap is valid. In Search Console, you get a green “success” message if everything is OK: But if you get a red message instead, something has gone wrong. Just click on the error to find out more: Once you’ve fixed any errors, resubmit it to prompt Google to fetch it again. There are also free third-party tools you can use to validate your XML sitemap, either by pasting in a link or uploading an XML file. However, even if your XML is valid, there might be another reason why Google can’t fetch your sitemap: Perhaps your robots.txt file is blocking Googlebot from accessing it. Unlike Google Search Console, a third-party validation tool wouldn’t pick up on this kind of issue. HTML vs. XML sitemaps We’ve seen that XML sitemaps are intended for search engines, but there’s another type of sitemap aimed at human users: the HTML sitemap. This is a directory of the main pages or sections on a site, and can help users quickly understand the site’s structure and navigate around. Your HTML sitemap may sit on a dedicated page, or perhaps in the footer—as with this example from Apple: So called “mega menus” in the site header are, in effect, another kind of HTML sitemap: HTML sitemaps do serve an SEO purpose, too: They are a collection of internal links, which Googlebot will happily use to discover new pages and understand the value of those pages. So in that sense they complement the work of your XML sitemaps. That doesn’t mean you should use just an HTML sitemap. Thinking specifically about search engine discovery, they have some major drawbacks compared to XML sitemaps: HTML sitemaps are limited by space on the page, so don’t usually include individual articles, blog posts, or product pages (likely to be the bulk of your new content). HTML sitemaps don’t tell search engines when content was updated. HTML sitemaps usually need to be updated manually, so they may not be completely up to date. For those reasons, you should focus on providing an XML sitemap that is useful to search engines and an HTML sitemap that is useful to your users. If an HTML sitemap wouldn’t be useful to your users, simply don’t include one. Take control over your discoverability with XML sitemaps Now, you have an in-depth understanding of sitemaps. Put your knowledge into practice by working through the following questions: Does my website have an XML sitemap? Does it list (only) the pages I want to be crawled? Does it contain all the detail I want it to (e.g., the time)? Is it valid XML and within the size limit? Does my sitemap update automatically (or do I have a way of updating it)? Have I submitted it to Google and Bing? Have I specified the path to my sitemap in my robots.txt file? Would my users benefit from an HTML sitemap? The exercise will help you come up with a plan for your site, revealing any actions you need to take to improve your sitemap coverage and boost page discoverability. And, if you’re in doubt about anything, refer to the sitemaps protocol and Google’s documentation! James Clark - Web Analyst James Clark is a web analyst from London, with a background in the publishing sector. When he isn't helping businesses with their analytics, he's usually writing how-to guides over on his website Technically Product. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Debbie Chew Building backlinks for your SaaS business the same way you would for an online store or a local business is a mistake—one that could end up costing you time and giving you little ROI in return. From buying cycles to stakeholders to the types of content those stakeholders look at, your link building must cater specifically to the demands of your SaaS company if you want to increase your exposure, rankings, or traffic. For the past few years, I’ve focused specifically on SaaS link building at Dialpad, working with dozens of clients and enabling me to conduct a study of SaaS link building tactics, which I presented at SearchLove 2023. You’ll find some of those tactics in this article, along with a framework that specifically focuses on what SaaS companies should know about link building. Table of contents: The benefits of link building for SaaS businesses How to get started with SaaS link building Identify pages that need links Conduct a competitor audit Create linkable assets How to secure links for your SaaS business Via other SaaS companies Via relationships with journalists and writers The benefits of link building for SaaS businesses Despite any link building myths you may have heard, backlinks play several crucial roles in SEO. They help search engines find and understand your content, as well as evaluate your relation to other websites. I’ve previously written about why link building is important, and now I want to highlight three key benefits in this section: E-E-A-T Better rankings More leads and revenue E-E-A-T Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) is one way that Google measures web page credibility. Google relies on E-E-A-T (amongst other signals) to determine which pages to rank. Links and mentions of your site contribute to E-E-A-T, which can lead to better rankings for your SaaS business. “Google’s algorithms identify signals about pages that correlate with trustworthiness and authoritativeness. The best known of these signals is PageRank, which uses links on the web to understand authoritativeness.” — Google, How Google Fights Disinformation Better rankings If we were to simplify what the SEO process typically looks like for a SaaS company, there are four key steps: Research keywords to identify what your audience searches for. Create content for those keywords. Optimize the content to rank. Drive signups and revenue, and repeat. Link building helps contribute to the third step—optimizing your content to rank. Especially in competitive and saturated niches, quality content and a fast-loading site alone may not be enough to rank well, so having quality links to your page can act as a tiebreaker. Leads and revenue Let’s say, for example, you’re an SEO at a project management SaaS business. A backlink from a listicle about the “Top 10 Kanban Software” not only increases your visibility to potential leads, but it also makes it easy for them to navigate directly to your site to sign up (and possibly become a paying customer that drives revenue). This referral traffic is extremely valuable for SaaS companies. It’s one of those links that you want to have even if links did not matter to search engines. Going back to search engines, this backlink (and its referring article about the top kanban software) can also help Google understand your company as an entity. In semantic SEO, entities are real-world concepts like people, places, and organizations. Google relies on various sources (including your relationship with other entities) and what others have said about you to understand your SaaS company. How to get started with SaaS link building In this section, I’ll cover what you should do before you start building links to your site (outreach and securing links to your SaaS business are covered in the next section). By now, your site should already have foundational pages (like a homepage, pricing page, and a product page). Unlike local SEO link building, which focuses more heavily on citations and links to the homepage, SaaS link building primarily focuses on SEO pages—pages that target specific keywords your potential customers are searching for. Identifying these keywords requires a bit of research and an understanding of your audience. You can also ask yourself (or your wider team) questions like, “What are decision-makers searching for?” and “What are pain points that our product helps solve?” After identifying these keywords, you can turn them into feature pages and blog posts that cover the entire customer journey. Using the example from earlier (for a project management SaaS), your site should have feature pages that target keywords related to how your product can be used, like [gantt chart] and [todo list]. To address customers higher up in your marketing funnel, you should also publish high-level blog posts that inform or educate your audience on more general topics, like [how to manage tasks] and [what is scrum]. Identify pages that need links After giving your SEO pages some time to rank, you’ll need to review their search rankings to see how they perform. Let’s say, for example, you created a page to rank for the keyword [gantt chart templates] but you’re not ranking on page one. Assuming you created better content than your competitors, building links to your page can help it eclipse the competition. As you can see in the screenshot below, the top five pages have a handful of domains that link to those pages. However, understand that this does not mean you need at least 90 links from different domains to rank, as the quality of those links may vary (from highly authoritative to nearly worthless). This also doesn’t guarantee that you will outrank competitors if you get that many links. What this does indicate is that Google prefers recommending content that has “proven itself” to be helpful, and those backlinks are an indication of that. Now, you might end up with a long list of pages that aren’t ranking as well as you hoped—this is normal. So, how do you prioritize? There are a few things you can consider: Pages that have high conversion rates Pages that target keywords with high cost-per-click (CPC) Pages that target keywords with lower keyword difficulty You should prioritize the metrics that align best with your business or campaign’s goals (e.g., if your primary goal is traffic, then you can prioritize pages based on keyword difficulty). I’ll explain how to actually get links to these pages in the section about how to secure links for your SaaS business. Conduct a competitor audit When auditing a competitor’s links, many guides recommend a link gap analysis to help you identify sites that link to your competitors (but not to your website). This data is often difficult to act on since there may be a large gap between you and your competitors, especially if they have strong brands and/or have been link building for much longer. Other link building guides may also tell you to find your competitors’ links and try to replace them, also known as the “skyscraper technique.” Generally, this tactic doesn’t work so well in practice—particularly when your competitor’s brand is more widely known than yours. Instead, understand what actually gets links in your niche, why, and then start ideating from there. To do this, find your competitor’s top pages by links (while skipping over any foundational pages, like the homepage and pricing page). If you’re an Ahrefs user, you can use the Site Explorer’s “Best by links” report to find this information (although similar functionality is available on many SEO tools). In the example below, I’ve used this report to explore Asana’s backlink profile: This analysis can help you understand: What types of pages get links: Are they feature pages? Glossary pages? How-to guides? Infer how your competitors earned the link: Was it a guest post? Did they contribute a quote? Did they conduct a study? Was their page much more helpful than others? Which domains linked to them: Can you outreach to these domains? Are there similar businesses you can also reach out to? I highly recommend analyzing at least three to five competitors, but the more the better as this helps you get a less biased view of how your niche builds links and the pages that they go to. These insights help inform the types of pages to create and topics that you may want to cover for your own SaaS website to earn backlinks. Create linkable assets Your competitor audit (from the previous section) should help you understand what page or content types tend to get links in your niche. These are the linkable assets for your specific industry. Put simply, linkable assets are pages on your site that others can’t help but want to link to. They may be extremely helpful, unique, informative, authoritative, or all of the above. Aside from link building to your existing SEO pages, creating linkable assets can help attract links with little to no outreach. In a backlink tactics study I conducted in early 2023, I looked at the top five pages (according to backlinks) for 23 companies in six industries. Of these companies, 19 of them are SaaS businesses and you can access the raw data to see which companies were included. The most popular page or content type that received the most links were product/feature pages, guides, glossary pages, and research reports. An honorable mention goes to statistics roundups, such as [project management stats]. This is another type of linkable asset that tends to work well no matter what industry your SaaS business is in. How to secure links for your SaaS business To build links to your SaaS tool, there are many tactics you can try with varying success rates, difficulties, resource requirements, impacts, and ultimately, ROI. For example, you could sponsor a conference and get a link that way, but those types of links should have a “sponsored” attribute. Also, those links tend to go to your homepage instead of your SEO pages, which may not have much impact on how you rank for non-branded keywords (though it may bring in valuable referral traffic). Link building for SaaS tends to center around two major concepts: Creating linkable assets Building relationships Becoming proficient in these two areas is how you succeed in link building for your SaaS business. Since I’ve already covered linkable assets that can help you get backlinks naturally, I’ll go into more detail about building relationships. This can be split into two target groups: other SaaS companies and journalists/writers. Building relationships with other SaaS companies Before going further, I want to emphasize that building relationships isn’t so much striking a deal that’s “if you link to me, I’ll link to you”—Google calls this behavior “excessive link exchanges” in its link spam policies. Instead, you should approach relationships with other SaaS companies with the same care as you would if you were building co-marketing relationships (think demand generation partnerships with other companies with a similar audience). Essentially, you should not knock on every single door (or accept everyone that comes knocking on your door), but rather filter opportunities that actually make sense for the SaaS brand that you represent and its audience. Start a list of relevant companies Some companies/industries will naturally complement your own. Compiling a list of these industries and companies to research will help increase the odds that the relationship works out for both parties. For a task management SaaS provider, for example, there are a number of other SaaS companies that share a similar audience or provide tools that are also used in project management. For instance, time tracking tools or collaboration tools would be ideal relationships to build and cross-promote. On the other hand, certain niches like telemedicine (e.g., Teledoc) or point of sales systems for restaurants (e.g., Toast) wouldn’t be the most beneficial (or relevant) partners to have. Once you have a list of potential companies, take a look at their websites. You can use an SEO tool to see what their top organic pages are, or do a site search to see if they have published content related to your industry. Then, you’ll need to identify the point of contact to reach out to. This could be the company’s content manager, SEO manager, or someone similar. You can use LinkedIn or an email finder tool to find their contact information. The next step after that is to work on your email outreach. Define your request Before you compose your outreach email, you first need to decide on your request. There are typically two types of outreach requests: a link insert or a guest post. A link insert, also known as a “niche edit,” is when a link is added to an existing web page—typically, these should be informational pages like blog posts or guides. Let’s say you notice that the time tracking tool that you want to collaborate with has a blog post titled “Guide to workplace tools,” which covers the use of task management tools. Your email should explicitly highlight this request. The other type of request is a guest post, which is when you write a blog post for another website and link back to your own site (guest posts should never be spammy in nature, otherwise the backlink is unlikely to improve your SEO). Instead, I’d recommend guest posts as a way to share your company’s expertise with a new audience. Therefore, your end goal should be sharing knowledge that another company’s audience would find helpful—rather than writing a mediocre piece of content in order to get a link to your site. Email outreach tips Since email outreach is complex and can be its own standalone guide, I’ve outlined some key points to remember when writing emails for link building: The best cold outreach is warm. As a SaaS product, you may have existing relations with other companies (such as ones that integrate with your app). Cross-promotion with these companies is often the easiest to secure. Avoid using templates and email blasts. Oftentimes, people (especially SEOs) are tired of getting the same emails in their inbox. If you want to build a relationship with another company, personalized outreach is a way to show you value the opportunity to collaborate with their company. Add value. Most link building outreach emails sound something like this: “I saw your blog about X. Can you link to my blog about Y?” This kind of outreach lacks motivation for someone to act on your request. Being able to provide value to the email recipient can help cultivate a win-win relationship. It can be in the form of promoting their blog post in your newsletter, including a quote from their team in a future blog post, and more—just be sure not to offer cash as that violates Google’s guidelines. Personalize and follow-up, but don’t overdo it. Personalization ties back to my earlier point about not using email templates, but you should be careful to avoid coming off as creepy (e.g., “You recently posted about how your brother likes sushi and I like sushi too!”). Also, following up once or twice is acceptable, but constantly following up increases the risk of getting your emails marked as spam (which can hurt deliverability) or an angry response from the recipient. Building relationships with journalists and writers Another group of people that you can build relationships with—and not just to get a link from—are journalists and writers. Journalists and writers often look for experts to quote for a story that they’re covering or a topic that they don’t have expertise in. Journalists are also on the lookout for stories that may interest their readers, and this is where digital PR comes into play. “As an editor at Search Engine Land, professionals from Microsoft, Google, Yelp, etc. would reach out to me with news from their companies to see if I wanted to write a story about it. I would also reach out to them for quotes about industry developments. These partnerships were mutually beneficial and were far more effective because we had relationships, instead of simply acting transactionally.” — George Nguyen, Director of SEO Editorial at Wix, former Editor at Search Engine Land Use HARO, Help a B2B Writer, or similar services HARO, which stands for “Help a Reporter Out,” is a free service that connects journalists to sources. The journalists that use this platform tend to be quite broad, from entertainment to health to technology and beyond, so you’ll need a system to help you filter out irrelevant requests. You can refer to the HARO link building guide for a step-by-step overview of how to do just that. Another similar platform is called Featured (previously Terkel) that requires a subscription if you want to answer queries on their platform. If you’re in B2B SaaS, be sure to subscribe to Help a B2B Writer. And if you’re SaaS company based in the UK, you can monitor the #journorequest tag on X (formerly Twitter) to see if there are any relevant opportunities. When you find a source request that you can respond to, be sure to craft your response according to the requirements and deadline (when applicable). You should avoid using AI content creation tools because those submitting the request are looking for expertise and opinions about a certain topic, not an AI-generated answer. With this link building tactic, there are some disadvantages you should be aware of: You may not always get a backlink If you get a backlink, it may be to your homepage It may take a while for the quote (and your link, if applicable) to get published With that said, the advantages of these types of platforms are that they’re a less resource-intensive way to get links. Also, this is a great way to build up a network of journalists that you can potentially reach out to for future PR campaigns. Run digital PR campaigns Digital PR is about getting online publications to mention or talk about you. Digital PR campaigns aim to create interesting stories about your SaaS company that relate to topics that journalists want to write about. Oftentimes, they tend to be reactive or latch onto trending topics. One common example of a digital PR campaign is identifying a recent (or upcoming) event and pulling relevant data (such as a statistic) that journalists can then use to contextualize what’s going on. For example, AAA (American Automobile Association) publishes an annual study to predict the busiest days to drive during the Thanksgiving holiday. It releases the study ahead of Thanksgiving and shares it with journalists so that if they’re writing a news article about Thanksgiving travel, it would be very relevant to mention AAA’s findings. As for a campaign that utilizes a trending topic, here’s one that HubSpot published shortly after the adoption of ChatGPT in early 2023. The company conducted a survey to understand how sales professionals use AI and created a report based on the findings. This report has links from publications like Business Insider and Yahoo! News. Now onto the pros and cons: Digital PR campaigns are one of your best bets to get backlinks from very authoritative publications—think The Verge or Wired, for example. They’re also some of the hardest links to get, but the advantage is that they have a very wide reach, which can lead to a lot of positive brand exposure and referral traffic. Also, when top-tier publications talk about you, it’s almost guaranteed that mid-tier publications will also do the same. Therefore, it’s a way to potentially get a lot of backlinks and visibility. On the other hand, digital PR campaigns tend to cost a pretty penny. They’re one of the most resource-intensive link building tactics. And with any tactic, results are not guaranteed, so you’d be taking on risk. Like HARO, another disadvantage to consider is that journalists are not required to link to you (it may even be against their publication’s guidelines). And if they do, you’re either getting links to your homepage or whatever page the campaign is focused around. Measure and optimize your link building efforts for continued success Once you begin link building for SaaS, it’s important to also keep a record of your activities. You might find that certain linkable assets work better than others, which will inform your future strategy. Similarly, you might find more success building relationships with other SaaS companies rather than doing the same with journalists. I’ve previously covered how to measure your link building efforts, including the different metrics that will help you understand the impact that link building has and what areas you can improve on. Remember that if you’re in a competitive niche, link building (amongst other areas of SEO) is an important lever to stay competitive and improve your organic visibility. Good luck out there, and may the odds be ever in your favor! Debbie Chew - Global SEO Manager Debbie Chew is an SEO Manager at Dialpad with over 8 years of experience in digital marketing. She specializes in content and link building, and is passionate about sharing her learnings with other marketers. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Maddy Osman If you’re in a new town and looking for a cafe to visit, you might head to Google for a “coffee shops near me” search. The results that pop up directing you to your next latte are Google Business Profiles, which function both as online listings and marketing tools for your business. Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is like a snapshot of your business, providing searchers all the essential information they need, such as location, phone number, hours of operation, reviews and more. GBP is growing in importance, especially for SEO and local search. It can be a valuable way to help you connect with your customers and, best of all, it’s straightforward to set up. Making your business easier to find for searchers is a no-brainer. And, Wix has made it even easier to create and manage your GBP profile by partnering with the service to make it accessible from your Wix dashboard. In this post, we’ll go over some of the most important info about GBP and how you can best optimize your profile on Wix. What’s in this guide: Google Business Profile 101 Why GBP is important for your business Best practices for your GBP Managing customer reviews How to create your GBP on Wix Using GBP Insights on Wix Google Business Profile 101 Google Business Profile is a free tool on Google Search and Google Maps. It serves as a listing for your business and contains basic information about it, including: Contact info Address Business category Hours of operation Link to your site But, GBP isn’t just an online business card. Customers can view photos and reviews left by others, which can help them decide whether to visit you. For business owners, GBP can enable you to schedule bookings or showcase your products or services. Not every business will qualify for a listing. The requirement to have a GBP is in-person contact with customers through a physical location or a business that travels to customers where they are, such as a plumber or delivery service. Why GBP is important for your business It’s no secret that Google is used for almost everything. So, if a customer Googles your business specifically (or a term that is relevant to your business), your GBP can help them find the information they’re looking for. For example, if someone searches “San Antonio bakery,” they’ll have plenty of bakery GBP listings to choose from in the area, and you want yours to be one of them. What’s more, 50% of users who did a local search on their smartphone went to a store within a day, according to a Google and Ipsos study. And, GBP is the number one local ranking factor, according to Whitespark. In addition to helping you more easily connect with your customers and improve your online visibility, your GBP can potentially further your reputation and give you insight into your customer experience. You might think you don’t need a GBP profile if you rank well for relevant searches. But, if your competitor’s GBP profile pops up and yours doesn’t, it might steer people to another business before they even see your site. Best practices for your GBP Follow these tips to optimize your profile for search. Fill out your listing completely and strategically Create a comprehensive profile for your business on GBP to answer questions your customers may have and convey professionalism. Pay special attention to the category you’re listing your business in, as it can help you better connect with searchers. You’ll have more competition if you choose a generic category like “restaurant” than if you choose “Mexican restaurant,” for example. Plus, the more accurately you convey your business, the more you’ll be able to frame expectations for potential customers. Add visuals Photos may be an important factor for potential customers. Make sure your listing has a cover and profile photo. Then, consider adding other interior, product, or service images. Businesses with more than 100 images on their profile had 520% more calls, 1,065% more site visits and 2,717% more direction requests than businesses that didn’t, according to a BrightLocal study. Adding videos to your profile is another great way to stand out and give users a feel for your business. Explore GPB’s extended capabilities GBP has a host of features that could help your business, such as: Messaging Posts Bookings Pricing Menus Depending on your industry, you might be able to list your amenities or services. Look into the features that would serve your business. Making it easy for customers to book an appointment through Google could increase your conversions. Or, if you’re in the food industry, adding your menu can help you stand out from competitors in your area. You might want to turn on the messaging feature so customers can easily reach you with questions. And, use posts to let users know about relevant updates and/or promotions. Managing customer reviews Reviews are an essential part of your GBP. They can make you stand out—positively or negatively—to customers. According to Whitespark’s report, positive reviews are the second most important conversion factor. To attract reviews, you can encourage customers to share their experience through signage at your business location or on your social channels. Note that Google discourages offering promotions for reviews in order to keep them impartial. Instead, focus on providing quality products and services that drive customers to take the initiative and leave a positive review. And, make it easy for them to do so by sharing your GBP link in your receipts, thank you emails and at the end of chat interactions, for example. Another helpful tactic is to respond to reviews regularly. That way, customers build trust with your business and feel heard. In fact, businesses that respond to reviews are seen as 1.7x more trustworthy than businesses that don’t, according to Google. This also goes for negative reviews, which can be tricky, yet beneficial, to reply to. Remember that reviews live on your profile, so it’s an example potential customers will have of how your business handles unhappy customers. Stay professional, courteous, and authentic. Offer compassion and solutions where appropriate. How to create your GBP on Wix Setting up a GBP is simple and now you can do it in Wix. Here’s how: Go to the Marketing & SEO section in the left-hand menu of your Wix dashboard Select Google Business Profile Click Start Now to fill out all the information about your business If your business is already set up, you’ll go to the Verify & Manage page If it is not set up, you will create your business’s profile The next step is to verify your business to prove you own it. You can confirm ownership over the phone, by email, or postcard. Once verified, you’ll want to set your profile up for success. Using GBP Insights GBP Insights can help you figure out whether you’re meeting your SEO goals or if you need to put in more work to make your profile more attractive to search engines and users. You can access Insights by going to your Google Business Profile within the Wix dashboard. From there, you can get an overview of your profile’s performance, including: Views: How many people viewed your listing Direct searches: When someone directly searches for your business name or address Discover searches: When someone searched for a category, product, or service your site offers, and your Business Profile appeared Branded searches: When someone searched for your brand or a brand related to your business Activity: The actions users took on your listing (for example, if they called your business, visited your site, requested directions, viewed photos, etc.) This information is invaluable for understanding how people found your business. Analyzing the metrics can enable you to identify trends or patterns and adjust your strategy accordingly. Your GBP is a doorway for many customers and, with Insights, you can narrow down what’s working and what’s not. Beyond your Google Business Profile Google Business Profile is a tool that helps you stand out on Google—a crucial element for any local business. Your listing provides quick and essential information to your customers while also letting you engage with them in a variety of ways. By optimizing your listing, you set your business up for success and can connect with your customers more easily through search. Maddy Osman - Founder, the blogsmith Maddy Osman is the bestselling author of Writing for Humans and Robots: The New Rules of Content Style, and one of Semrush and BuzzSumo's Top 100 Content Marketers. She's also a digital native with a decade-long devotion to creating engaging content and the founder of The Blogsmith content agency. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Jamar Ramos This post was last updated on May 18, 2023. Creating an effective, repeatable SEO and digital marketing strategy can be a challenge for small or medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Limited bandwidth and personnel, budget restraints, and even analysis paralysis can contribute to the inertia that’s holding your business back. Fortunately, many aspects of marketing your online business are about process. Once you set up your workflows, building awareness, driving clicks and leads, and winning over new customers can be quite gratifying. At that point, gradually iterating on your processes and trying out new channels and tactics can actually be fun. To get your business to that point, let’s discuss how you can build a set of repeatable digital marketing strategies as an SMB. We’ll start with setting lead-generation goals, but here’s the table of contents if you’d like to skip to the most relevant guidance for your particular situation: How to set lead generation goals SEO and organic marketing strategies for sustainable business growth Optimize your website for search engines Consider adding a blog Consider social media marketing Consider email marketing Paid marketing strategies for instant exposure and amplification Establish your monthly budget Choose your paid search or paid social channels Create paid landing pages How do you set lead generation goals? Simply put, break down organizational silos so that you’re marketing and selling to the right audience. This, in turn, helps to ensure that you’re opening up your business to the largest pool of potential leads. Just as marketers can use data from paid media campaigns to inform some of their on-page optimizations, data from one of your internal departments can inform decisions made by a different department. While this may be easier for some businesses than others, fundamentally, all you need to do is break down those silos and ensure internal departments are talking to each other and sharing critical data. Communication is particularly imperative in two departments: your marketing department and your sales department. Align sales and marketing Sales and marketing need to align on marketing strategy to ensure your business grows and scales appropriately—after all, you wouldn’t want your marketing team to target audiences that your sales team is unfamiliar with. One solution is to enable these two teams to create and implement lead generation guidelines to alleviate some handover headaches. Some of the things they need to align on include: Lead scoring — Both teams need to define what a marketing-qualified lead (MQL) is, what a sales-qualified lead (SQL) is, and even what an opportunity to get a customer into your customer journey looks like. This can help you decide where to place individual leads in your buying funnel. In addition, this can help the marketing team understand when an MQL becomes an SQL and pass it to the sales team for contract development. Service-level agreements (SLAs) — Both teams must agree on the SLAs offered to potential clients. Having these in place helps the teams put together the best package for a lead. This sets the partnership up for success because all parties know what is promised and what should be delivered. Key performance indicators (KPIs) — To ensure both teams are iterating toward higher prospect-to-close numbers, monitoring KPIs is essential. You’ll want to keep track of the following: 01. Number of incoming leads 02. Number of converted leads 03. Lifetime converted lead value By tracking the above, you can monitor your outreach numbers, how many leads turn into paying customers, and how much those customers are worth over time. Once you have the marketing and sales teams aligned on goals, it’s time to set your SEO, organic, and paid marketing strategies. SEO and organic marketing strategies for sustainable business growth While there are a number of organic (“free”) marketing channels that can help small businesses, we’re starting with your website because having a website and updating it is essential to bringing organic leads to your business, making it the one channel you must use. The others we’ll discuss are great to have, but you can pick and choose which to add to your plan depending on how relevant each strategy is for your particular type of business. The goal of these additional strategies (as outlined below) is to drive potential customers back to your website, where they can actually transact with you. Optimize your website for search engines You want potential customers to easily find information about your products/services on Google and purchase them. Your website’s job is to convert people based on your marketing strategies. So, you want your website to shine when new visitors show up thanks to your SEO and marketing strategies. You need to optimize your website for search engines to ensure ease of use as well as discoverability on Google—fortunately, what’s good for users is also generally good for search engines. The first step in optimizing your website is ensuring each page has a goal. Align each webpage to a goal Each page on your website should convey one message clearly and concisely. For example, product pages should focus on your product's unique benefits and features. Your contact page should give visitors information on how to get in contact with your company through email, phone, and social media. When pages talk about multiple subjects, they confuse visitors and search engines. This can result in lower rankings, lower visibility, and lower sales. Instead, pages should have a single goal and work toward achieving that goal. If you find that your pages are not meeting those goals, audit them by answering the following questions: What is the goal of this page? E.g., brand awareness, conversion, etc. How well is the page achieving that goal? Does the content on the page help it achieve that goal? Does the content on the page help the visitor achieve their goal? I.e., does it address why they came to this page? Is there any content missing that would help the page achieve that goal? I.e., information or even navigation. Is this page duplicative of another page? Does this page need to exist? Answering the questions above can help you discover effective ways to optimize your site for search queries, get started with keyword research, and update your web pages. Prioritize internal linking Similar to how maps guide us toward our destination, your website’s internal linking guides visitors toward their destination—if implemented correctly, that is. Internal linking is more than your top navigation, footer, and breadcrumbs. Proper internal linking utilizes landing page content to link to deeper, relevant pages that answer visitors’ questions. In addition, carefully placed call-to-action buttons can move visitors to your transactional pages via internal links. Websites need proper internal linking because it’s difficult to predict how visitors will move from page to page once they reach your site. We can add guardrails to assist their journey, but sometimes they’ll choose pages independently. In SEO, internal linking also helps search engines efficiently crawl more of your website. If there are few ways to find a particular page, chances are a search engine bot may miss that page, meaning it won’t be shown as a result in search engines. Add transaction buttons to your pages You’ve optimized your website content, aligned each page to a specific goal, ensured your pages are indexable, and updated your internal linking. But, is it easy for your potential customers to get in touch with you or purchase your products or services? Make sure that, at any given time, your customers are only a single button click from transacting with your business. As mentioned earlier, you cannot guarantee when customers will buy from you or what page will spur their transaction. What you can control, however, are the number of opportunities they have to buy from you. One of the simplest ways to facilitate easy transactions is to add a CTA in your header and make your header sticky (always in view, even if the user scrolls down). That way, the CTA follows the website visitor and gives them quick access to a transaction button to easily purchase your products/services when they're ready to shop. Remember, conversions can be more than a website visitor buying your products/services. They can also refer to an email newsletter signup (as is the case in the example above), someone contacting you for a sales call, making a reservation, etc. For a deeper dive into pairing your objectives with the right CTA, read Lazarina Stoy’s guide on how to choose the right CTA for your business goals to maximize your website’s transaction opportunities. Consider adding a blog A blog provides space for long-form content to educate visitors about your business, your products/services, your employees, and your industry-specific thought leadership. A blog isn’t necessary for every business, but you should consider it part of your multi-channel marketing strategy due to the SEO value, longevity, and reusability of blog content. You can repurpose blog content in many ways: Email newsletters — Send links to your email subscribers filled with pertinent information, including new blog posts. Organic social media posts — One of the best ways to promote your blog posts is through your social media channels. You can create shortened links to track how many people click on them and what channels they’re coming from. Sharing blog posts on social media may bring in new customers that might never have interacted with your business otherwise. Paid social media — Many social media platforms allow you to boost the reach of your organic posts. This is a fantastic way to get conversion-centric content in front of new social media audiences. Video content — You can convert your text blogs into videos (which may help your content appeal to more people) and add those videos to the existing page. The text becomes the transcript. You can also upload those videos to a dedicated YouTube account. This is especially excellent content marketing if you create how-to blogs about your products/services. While SEO content creation and marketing is an excellent addition to your multi-channel efforts, it isn’t easy. You’ll need someone who can consistently research topics, write, edit, and publish blog posts. You don’t need an aggressive publishing cadence: one or two blog posts a month to start are sufficient to build a healthy corpus of knowledge. Check out Crystal Carter's great guide if you want to learn how to source ideas for user-first content and start writing your own customer-centric blog posts. Consider social media marketing Social media can help you reach a new audience daily by posting your content, sharing others’ content, and replying to your followers and other accounts. You can build a community of brand ambassadors who amplify your message, content, and story. The first step in building your community is picking which platform(s) to use. Each platform has its advantages and drawbacks. Let’s take a look at a few of your options. Twitter — This platform is excellent for sharing content and building a community. Most businesses use Twitter to share other accounts’ content, respond to their followers, and handle customer service requests. Pepper in posts about your business sparingly. You want to add value to your follower’s timelines—spamming them with promotional posts about your business may drive them to unfollow your brand. Facebook — In addition to posting content on Facebook, you can create a dedicated business page that gives your followers quick access to your operating hours and contact information. You can also add a CTA button for quick transactions directly from your Facebook page and even set up a Facebook Messenger chatbot that interacts with your customer’s specific questions. Instagram — IG is a great place to post product photos and business-related images. You can share “behind the scenes” pictures, infographics, other visualized data, and videos. If you sell a product that is enhanced with a visual component, IG is your platform. TikTok — Video, video, video. That’s what TikTok is all about. One way to use the platform is to ask your customer to record videos while using your products. Sharing videos of happy customers is a great way to entice more people to buy your products. Consider email marketing Email marketing has several benefits for your business. It can help you: Nurture and generate leads by asking website visitors and social media followers to leave their emails in exchange for an incentive (like an exclusive offer, for example). Build brand awareness by keeping your company and your products/services top-of-mind for new leads. Use content marketing to answer questions about your products/services for new leads. Best of all, like social media, email marketing can help you build a community. Building a community is better than having customers. A community will promote your brand, leave reviews, and suggest your products/services to friends and family. A community, if treated with respect and grown with care, will provide higher lifetime value to your business. If you’ve been collecting emails through signup forms, you should retarget those potential (or repeat) customers. Send them special offers and coupon codes. Send monthly newsletters containing your latest content to give your blog additional visibility. While email marketing puts you directly in front of your audience, that can become an issue. If you send too many emails, your subscribers will mark you as spam or unsubscribe from your list. Both are bad for business. You can avoid oversaturating your community by outlining the types of emails you send and their cadence. For example, you can provide dates for your upcoming deals in a monthly newsletter, send out a reminder for the sale a week in advance, and one once the deal has launched. Paid marketing strategies for instant exposure and amplification Now that you’ve thought through your SEO and organic marketing strategies, it’s time to layer on some paid marketing to amplify your content and drive traffic to your site. While organic marketing typically only requires your time and energy, you need money to launch paid marketing strategies. As an SMB, dipping into your revenue to pay for ads can be intimidating. Let’s remove the fear with a plan of action. Establish your monthly budget The first step is determining how much you’ll spend per month on your campaigns. Start with a comfortable amount—you can always raise it when you start experiencing some success. Let’s say you have $12,000 budgeted annually for your paid media campaigns (meaning you have $1000 to spend each month). This $1000 dollars, however, may need to cover more than just ads. Unless you run the campaigns yourself, you’ll need some help. Make sure to account for any money you’ll spend on consulting help for your paid campaigns. A great way to keep track of your ad spend is to create a spreadsheet or document that will monitor your spending habits each month. This will help you stay within the budget limits. Choose your paid search or paid social channels Once you’ve established your budget, you’ll need to choose your advertising platforms. With paid search, you run ads on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. With paid social, you run ads on social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc). You don’t need to use all of them to start. If you have a small budget, you may want to limit the number of platforms you use so your money goes farther as you begin. Whatever you choose, remember to periodically test out other channels to ensure you’re acting on the greatest marketing opportunities. Create paid landing pages When you launch your ads, ensure you have individual, noindexed (not discoverable via search results) landing pages for your paid traffic. Why? So that you don’t mix your organic search traffic with your paid traffic. Proper tracking and attribution are essential so that you can gauge the true success of your ads. For example, if you send paid traffic to your organic pages, you’ll have muddied data and little-to-no way to tell if your paid traffic converts. You also want to ensure your paid landing pages are noindexed so search engines don’t rank them. If your paid ad landing pages are indexable, they might rank ahead (or instead) of your organic pages. This can harm your SEO strategies and muddy your tracking and reporting data. Success later starts with the basics now The guidance above just covers the fundamentals of marketing for most SMBs—we haven’t even started scratching the surface of more advanced strategies yet. Before you set your sights higher, review the advice I’ve laid out to ensure that you understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. A solid foundation of basics will not only take you far (think the 80/20 rule), it’ll increase the efficacy of your advanced strategies later on. Jamar Ramos - Content Marketer Jamar Ramos is a 10-year digital marketing veteran with SEO, content marketing, and social media marketing experience. He enjoys writing, playing volleyball, and fighting back against anyone who claims that Shakespeare isn't the greatest writer to ever put pen to paper. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Crystal Carter Good homepages present visitors with what they’re looking for, but great homepages do so while also working to achieve business goals as efficiently as possible. The way you design your homepage can direct traffic to certain sections of your site, filter visitors to the appropriate pages for whatever stage of the customer journey they’re currently in, or even direct them to complete a single task (like a newsletter signup). Each one of those objectives carries different implications for not only your homepage’s SEO, but the SEO of your site overall. In this article, we will explore the importance of homepage SEO and how it can impact your SEO activity. Table of contents: What is a homepage? What is meant by homepage SEO? Does changing your homepage affect SEO? Homepage style examples and how they impact SEO outcomes The Funneler The Converter The Informer The Feeder The Billboard What is a homepage? The “homepage” is the term used for the first page that users see when they arrive at the root of your domain . For most sites, this tends to be the one of most visited pages. Because of the traffic homepages receive and the fact that search engine bots often crawl the homepage first, performing well here can impact your overall SEO. What do we mean by homepage SEO? Homepage SEO is the process of focusing your SEO efforts on improving the value of your homepage, both as a standalone page and as something that has a significant influence over your wider site and domain. Along with the UX and copy, decisions regarding internal linking, structured data, keyword priority, and content feeds can change how your site is crawled and ranked. As such, optimizations to the homepage can include reviewing your copy, images , content structure, linking, and so on. The aim with homepage SEO should be to think about your homepage as a uniquely important part of your SEO funnel. Does changing your homepage affect SEO? In a recent Wix SEO webinar , Mordy Oberstein shared a number of ways that changing your homepage can impact the brand positioning of your website. In addition, here are three more significant ways that your homepage can affect your technical SEO: Crawlability — Pages that are linked from the homepage will have increased crawl priority. This means that they will move further up the queue in terms of which pages Google crawls when it visits the site. Since crawl priority is a signal that helps Google understand which pages are the most important for a site, strategic internal linking from your homepage can influence how pages rank in search. Backlinks — There are many things to consider with regards to backlink strategy , but the evergreen nature of the link is certainly a factor. And, since your homepage is the face of your root domain, there is nothing more evergreen than that. Links pointing to the homepage are less likely to be lost through link rot and are more likely to add value to your site for a long time. Sites that clearly align their homepage content and tech configuration with relevant brand keywords and information will be able to benefit the most from consistent link growth to their homepages. CWV — Core Web Vitals are a Google ranking factor that assess how users experience your website in terms of loading time, UX, and site interactivity. These metrics are calculated in terms of the percentage of page views, meaning that 75% of user page views should pass these metrics. On smaller sites, the visits to the homepage can contribute to a large portion of that traffic, so if this page is well optimized it can help you achieve sitewide performance goals. Examples of how different homepage styles impact SEO outcomes Looking at five distinct but common homepage types, you can get a clear idea of how different homepage configurations can have a wider effect on the SEO of a site. The Funneler Some homepages essentially act as a conduit for funneling users to more specific elements of a brand—I like to call these pages “Funnelers . ” These pages tend to be used by brands and businesses that serve a range of audiences under the same brand name. So, users are not expected to dwell on the page but rather to move quickly to more targeted content on the same site or within the brand’s ecosystem. A good example of this kind of page is Virgin.com, where the page quickly filters site visitors to a range of business offerings, including space travel and mobile phones. Use this type of homepage to: Point users to high-value content Funnel traffic and audiences to distinct business offerings, even if they are on a different domain or subdomain Create this type of homepage by: Prioritizing the placement of your most popular segments Segmenting UX with contrasting colors and distinct sections Adding buttons with CTAs Optimize for this type of homepage by: Using top keywords for each segment Using the keywords for top segments in the page title and meta description Providing context for your segments with richer copy below the fold How does a Funneler homepage impact SEO on the wider site? The SEO impact of a Funneler is predominantly seen in the backlink profile of the business. So, in the case of Virgin.com, more than 80% of the backlinks for the domain go to the homepage, which is highly unusual. This aligns with Virgin’s brand and business model because it is dynamic, but the brand and homepage remain consistent no matter how Virgin manages its segments or subsidiary businesses. For smaller brands, this tactic can be applied to direct funnel audiences based on need (think “buyers” or “sellers”) or to help users navigate straight to your top products or services when they land on the site. The Converter A “Converter” homepage serves to get users to complete tasks on the site (e.g., sign in, register, or purchase). This is used consistently across eCommerce sites like Amazon, Etsy, and eBay. This highly actionable homepage style aligns with brands that help users achieve goals and create solutions. SaaS provider Later uses a Converter configuration on its homepage to great effect. The page drives traffic to its sign-up and upgrade pages. And, as is the case with many SaaS tools, when users are logged in, they can use the homepage URL to be redirected to the app itself. Use a conversion-focused homepage to: Reduce friction for users who wish to complete a single task on your site Direct traffic to distinct transaction points Create this type of homepage with: Buttons with CTAs to drive activity to eCommerce and bookings pages Interactive elements like forms and chat for services Unique selling points for eCommerce Optimize the type of homepage by adding: Headers with relevant keywords to contextualize forms for search engines Context to conversion points with links to deeper content where users can learn more Add CTAs like “Buy,” “Shop,” “Reserve,” etc. to copy and meta descriptions How does a Converter homepage impact SEO? Taking Later (the SaaS company mentioned above) as an example, the homepage is the single most popular page on the site, garnering 20% of site search traffic and a significant portion of PPC traffic. In terms of keywords, this page has the most ranking terms and twice as many keywords as the next best-performing page. This is a sign of efficiency. Later has aligned its business goals with its homepage strategy, meaning that the users who visit this page from paid, organic, and other channels are able to get what they expect from the homepage, which (in this case) is to learn about or sign up for Later’s services. How does a Converter homepage impact SEO on the wider site? In the case of Later and converter pages like those seen on Etsy and eBay, the conversion focus of the homepage helps to balance the overall keyword profile of the site. So, in each case, the homepage is the top page for commercial intent on the whole domain. And in many cases, the proportion of commercial keywords on the homepage surpasses that of the wider domain by about a ratio of two-to-one. This suggests that if you want to change the overall keyword intent for your website, then significant priority should be placed on the homepage. The Informer An “Informer” homepage is a constantly updating source of information. These pages align well with brands that provide data and insights as a core part of their business. A good example of this is the London Stock Exchange website, which provides up-to-the-second information on stocks and trading. Of the sites that I surveyed, this one had the most internal links, coming in with 378 internal links on the homepage. Sites with the latest information (like surf reports, local news, weather, and other time-sensitive information) or that publish throughout the day (like news articles and job listings) should leverage internal linking well. These internal links help Google to crawl and index new content at high volume, as the content is created. Use an Informer-style homepage to: Show new content to Google and users as it’s created Drive traffic to subsections of a website with similar content Create an Informer-style homepage using: Blog and content feeds Strategic internal linking Headers with keywords Optimize for this type of homepage by: Submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools Utilizing RSS feeds Focusing on link hierarchy and priority How does an Informer homepage impact SEO? This kind of page reflects a wider content strategy for high-frequency publishing. If this is your kind of site, then creating systematic ways to surface content is key to getting content indexed quickly, making it more likely to rank. For example, “All the Food,” a food blog that publishes around four articles per day, uses the latest post feeds and curated blog feeds to great effect on its homepage. For users, this sends a signal that the site is dynamic and full of fresh ideas. For search engines, these feeds provide a path to the latest content, increasing the likelihood that it can start showing up in search results sooner. How does an Informer homepage impact SEO on the wider site? In the case of the London Stock Exchange, the homepage is pulling through almost 6% of the site’s overall keywords. This percentage is higher than any other site that was reviewed for this article. This reflects the strategic value of this page for search engines. And, for high-frequency publishers that may be creating content with a wide range of keywords, we see that a homepage that is strategically focused on certain terms can help Google add context to the site overall. The Feeder A “Feeder”-style homepage works much in the same way that a directory does: with the aim of surfacing lots of content at the category or folder level. This is common for eCommerce sites that work with curated collections of links. This style of the homepage is worth considering if you have a large collection of content that will be more accessible to users when it is curated into clear groups. With these pages, the goal is to be strategic about the links that you show or target at any given time, so seasonality and localization should be considered here to add context to the collections. Use a Feeder-style homepage to: Surface new content as it’s created Support indexation Create a Feeder-style homepage using: Product, blog, or job feeds Strategic menu configurations Optimize this type of homepage by: Adding strategic internal linking Adding headers and keyword copy for feed collections Automating and adding keywords to blog summaries Resurfacing high-performing and seasonal content How does a Feeder homepage impact SEO? In the case of Fandom (shown above), we see that the homepage is more of a conduit for the wider activity of the website. Compared to the other homepage types that were reviewed, the Fandom homepage had the lowest proportion of: Total site backlinks going to the homepage Total site keywords originating at the homepage Total traffic to the homepage While this may seem counterintuitive, it is actually fitting for the overall objective of Fandom’s website, which is to drive traffic across its network of content. Depending on your objectives, a strategy of shifting traffic from the homepage across your wider site can form part of an effective SEO approach. How does a Feeder homepage impact SEO on the wider site? Since a Feeder homepage does not aim to be a destination page, it is something that should facilitate the SEO performance of other pages across the website. Through strategic internal links, the page can add value to the subfolders that matter most. Fandom was the largest domain that I reviewed, with over five million ranking pages and many of the pages being generated directly by users. So, creating a directory of content categories, rather than showcasing every piece of new content (as with the Informer) allows Fandom to drive traffic to new content folders and to drill down further from there. This helps homepages for larger sites to remain organized, but also responsive to seasonal needs and trends. The Billboard A “Billboard” homepage is a page that is visually fairly sparse and often includes very little crawlable text. Some pages (e.g., The Potter Trail, shown above) will use this tactic above the fold and then add more links as users scroll down the page. But larger companies, like ZARA (shown below), can rely heavily on the strength of their brand recognition and use a billboard for the full structure of the page. At first glance, this page seems like there is very little going on, but in actuality, the page has stripped back the text and other content in order to direct users to take a single action (in this case, selecting a local region from a dropdown that creates a number of backlinks across the domain). When used wisely, this highly focused tactic could be applied to send users to a promotion or event. Use a Billboard-style homepage to: Focus users on a single task Visually display your brand identity Create a Billboard-style homepage with: Images that are optimized for search Clean composition above the fold Dropdown menus and content To optimize Billboard-style homepages: Implement structured data for images and your site overall. This can sit underneath your visuals and provide context when you have limited text on the page. Add image attributes like alt text, alt tags, descriptions, and file names. Use well-linked drop-down menus to help you maintain an aesthetic while also providing links to your wider site. How does a Billboard homepage impact SEO? Of the sites that were surveyed, the ZARA homepage was the only page that had a majority of keywords with navigational intent. I do not believe pages of this kind are more likely to have navigational intent than others. But, it’s clear that this was the singular goal of ZARA’s homepage, making this a powerful demonstration of what a Billboard-style homepage page can do. How does a Billboard homepage impact SEO on the wider site? The impact of a billboard page on a site will vary depending on the main objective of the page. For ZARA, its homepage is highly functional despite the thin amount of text. The navigational focus of the homepage is even demonstrated within the SERP, where indented results show international subfolders. Thus, the homepage is a fundamental part of this global brand’s international SEO strategy. Your homepage needs to serve your brand as well as your audience When designing your homepage, your most important priority is to create whatever it is that your audience expects to see there. But, it’s also important to consider how your homepage impacts your site’s overall SEO. To that end, you’ll need to factor in your business’s goals and make the right decisions regarding internal links, layout, and even menus, to ensure that your homepage is doing everything it can for your brand and its online presence. Crystal Carter - Head of SEO Communications, Wix Crystal is an SEO & digital marketing professional with over 15 years of experience. Her global business clients have included Disney, McDonalds, and Tomy. An avid SEO communicator, her work has been featured at Google Search Central, Brighton SEO, Moz, DeepCrawl, Semrush, and more. Twitter | Linkedin

Author: Sophie Brannon In high-competition sectors like eCommerce, where customers may have many similar product options to choose from, higher-quality backlinks can help you stand out with better rankings and a stronger presence in relevant search results. What makes link building for online stores, in particular, unique is that these websites can include thousands of pages that need to work together to turn visitors into customers. To be successful, you need to understand how to effectively drive authority to your various eCommerce page types. Let’s get started. Table of contents: What are backlinks and why are they important for eCommerce websites? eCommerce link building techniques eCommerce page types and appropriate link building techniques eCommerce homepages PLPs and category pages Product display pages (PDPs) eCommerce blogs How to prioritize and optimize your eCommerce link building Authority (backlink quality) Niche relevance Competitor backlink gap Anchor text Link attributes Natural links vs. Manipulated links Branded vs. Unbranded link building Agency vs. In-house link building What are backlinks and why are they important for eCommerce websites? Backlinks are hyperlinks pointing from one website to another. They act as a hypothetical endorsement or “thumbs up” to Google, suggesting that the target URL is a valuable resource. Backlinks are not all equally valuable. The relevance and quality of the backlinks (as opposed to quantity) are the most important aspects to consider. Understanding the fundamentals of backlinks can help you accurately assess the value of link building for your SEO strategy. Backlinks are just as essential for eCommerce websites as they are for lead generation or information-based sites. They form a core part of the trifecta of SEO: content, technical SEO (UX), and links. Many eCommerce websites target high-intent and high-competition terms in order to attract as large an audience as possible from search engines. While backlinks alone are unlikely to make or break your online store’s SEO, relevant, high quality backlinks from highly authoritative websites can better instill trust amongst your potential customers and search engines alike. Combined with good technical SEO and content that adheres to search intent, they are the winning formula for just about any eCommerce SEO strategy. Before we move on to the best ways to build links for your online shop, let’s first go over the relevant techniques and the pages you’ll want to apply them to. eCommerce link building techniques There are many different ways to gain links, but here are some of the most common techniques that SEO professionals use for eCommerce link building eCommerce page types and appropriate link building techniques eCommerce websites are generally made up of the following types of pages: Homepage: Links to your homepage can help you grow branded keyword rankings, increasing brand visibility across the web. This can attract more potential customers to your site while showcasing your expertise in your niche. Category and subcategory pages: These often target the most competitive keywords. Driving more authority to these pages can help to enhance your search visibility for non-branded keywords. Product listings pages (PLP): These also typically target competitive keywords so additional authority can help these pages rank. Links can also help Google to discover these pages, which may be a few clicks from the homepage depending on the site’s architecture. Product detail pages (PDP): PDP’s are becoming more important in SEO with the rise of generative AI (i.e., Google’s Search Generative Experience) and the additional visibility this may give them for competitive keywords. Blog posts: These are often highly resourceful and can capture informational intent, which is a key opportunity for eCommerce stores to help nurture customers at the start of their conversion journey. Gaining links to these pages can help improve their prominence in SERPs. With strong internal linking within blogs to priority pages on the site, you can also pass authority on to those target pages. For some eCommerce stores, PLPs and category/subcategory pages are the same (which is why I cover them in the same section of this article). Certain approaches to link building have a higher success rate for certain types of eCommerce pages. Let’s break down the most appropriate link building techniques per eCommerce page type to give you a jump start for your next campaign. Link building for eCommerce homepages The homepage is the most commonly linked page of most eCommerce websites. Naturally, the homepage holds more authority—to take advantage of that authority, you need to ensure your proper internal linking between your homepage and your most important category and subcategory pages. Relevant link building techniques: You can use a range of methods for homepage link building, including: Expert commentary (HARO, etc.) Reactive campaigns Data-led campaigns Creative campaigns Link insert Journalists often attribute a comment or backlink to a creative campaign with a brand name, making them more likely to link to your homepage. Top tip: There are many instances where your brand name may be mentioned but without a link to your eCommerce site. Use tools such as Mention, Google Alerts, and BuzzSumo to identify these mentions and reach out to the writer or website manager to try to turn these into links. Some publications have guidelines against linking out to other sites, but you are likely to see some of these converted to links simply by reaching out to the right individuals. Be aware: Ensure the sites that link back to you are relevant and that the stories that mention your products are positive. While many SEOs will see a link as the end goal, ensuring any exposure about the brand is positive can help you achieve the wider brand awareness benefits. Link building for PLPs and category pages A PLP or category/subcategory page displays many products, showcasing a broad range within a section of your site. PLPs and category pages typically include: Product thumbnail images Faceted navigation (allowing users to refine the product type and features they are searching for) Basic product information (i.e., product name, pricing, star ratings, etc.) Ancillary content and FAQs (usually below the fold) Relevant link building techniques: The types of link building that work best for these pages include guest posts and expert commentary (when related to a specific product type). Most journalists will not offer an “inner” link, and will naturally link to the homepage, so be prepared to ask nicely and negotiate for this. Top tip: Always explicitly include the inner link with your press release/outreach. Don’t rely on writers/journalists to find the most appropriate link, as they will generally link to your brand’s homepage. Be aware: Many publications have begun adding tracking links to their external links. This can dilute the SEO value of that link. Try to negotiate a direct link where you can. Link building for product display pages (PDPs) A product display page (or just product page), houses one product and all of the essential information related to that product. PDPs typically include: Product description Shipping information Specifications Pricing Reviews FAQs Related products Relevant link building techniques: One of the most effective ways to drive authority and traffic to your PDP is by getting it featured in a relevant listicle article (as shown in the example below). Journalists can reach out on platforms like HARO or Qwoted, or even X/Twitter (often using #journorequest). In some cases, they may already know your product offering and may naturally include it. Don’t hesitate to reach out to journalists who are looking for products similar to what you offer on your website. A strong affiliate partnership or influencer campaign can also effectively drive traffic to your website as well, but this doesn’t have a big impact on your SEO. Top tip: Take advantage of seasonality when looking to drive traffic to these types of pages. Big shopping holidays like Valentine’s Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas are the best times to find journalists looking for products to include in their articles. Also, monitor the news cycle to identify reactive link building opportunities to include your product in articles. For example, if you’re a jewelry brand and a popular celebrity gets engaged, and you offer a product similar to the proposal ring, a campaign around this could generate both links and conversions. Be aware: This type of link building is one of the most difficult, particularly for smaller brands. This is why a more creative angle for a product can be the most effective way to gain relevant links. Link building for eCommerce blogs eCommerce blogs are important because they capture specific search queries and long-tail traffic, which can attract shoppers that are close to converting. Relevant link building techniques: The Skyscraper technique and creative campaigns perform best when link building for eCommerce blogs. Identify the types of linkable content and assets (whether on competitors’ sites or other successful eCommerce sites, like Amazon, etc.) to get an idea of the type of content that you could create to pitch to website owners (if using the Skyscraper technique) or promote (in the case of creative campaigns). The top-performing types of blog content generally include data-led content (i.e., surveys, reports, etc.) and infographics, but this could vary depending on your niche. Use tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to identify top performing content from your competitors to discover opportunities for you to create something better. Cross-check URLs that drive high volumes of traffic and ranking for high-volume keywords. Top tip: Niche down to appeal to a smaller, but higher-intent audience, which can also help you increase engagement and ranking opportunities. Being hyper-focused on your target audience can lead to them sharing your blog within their own communities, and it will give you a template of content types to create regularly for different audience groups. Be aware: It’s important to analyze top-performing content, but not to copy it. Your content should always be unique—whether that’s a new angle, new dataset, or different approach. What works for a competitor or someone else in a similar industry isn’t necessarily going to resonate with your audience. How to prioritize and optimize your eCommerce link building Now that you know what link building techniques work best for your various eCommerce page types, let’s look at the factors you need to consider when evaluating backlink opportunities and how you can leverage them to achieve the greatest SEO gains. Authority (backlink quality) As with any form of link building, always prioritize quality over quantity. Gaining one link from a highly authoritative, relevant site will be more impactful than gaining 10 links from mediocre, irrelevant, low-traffic domains. This is where link building techniques like digital PR can be exceptionally powerful for your site, significantly benefitting your SEO. Popular databases like MuckRack, Cision, and Roxhill can help you identify journalists and bloggers that work at these high-authority publications and websites. Niche relevance Signal relevance to Google via backlinks (among other SEO techniques) to help it understand what your website is about. This, in turn, can help you rank higher for keywords related to your niche, service, or product offering. The best way to do this is to pursue backlinks from websites in your niche or in a complementary niche. Other relevant websites can indicate that you are an authority on that particular topic or industry, which can help improve your site’s organic visibility across the board. Contextual significance is important as it highlights the topical authority of your site, reinforcing your website’s relevance for certain topics or keywords. Prioritize websites that closely align with your business. For example, if you sell kitchenware, you would consider home and food-related websites to be a directly relevant link. However, you may also extend this further to mommy blogs, fitness sites (if you’re selling products focused on nutrition), or even finance if your products are a more affordable option on the market. Links from less-relevant websites can still be powerful, but they may not carry as much weight when it comes to your search rankings. Competitor backlink gap Analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles to identify: How many links they’re gaining Their rate of link acquisition (also referred to as “link velocity”) The domains that link to them The techniques they use to build links Their high-performing assets or pages This data can help inform your strategy, indicate how far ahead (or behind) your competitors are, and identify the types of publications that you should reach out to. There are a number of tools that you can use for a competitor backlink gap analysis. Ahrefs’ “Link intersect” report can help you uncover linking patterns (i.e., sites that link to your competitors regularly) as well as the sites that link to your top competitors but not to you. Semrush also offers a similar function with its Backlink Gap tool, providing insights on which prospects are “Best,” “Weak,” “Strong,” “Shared,” and “Unique.” Anchor text Anchor text refers to the clickable text containing a backlink or internal link. This element can provide important context about the linked page to both users and to Google. So, it makes sense to strive for descriptive and relevant anchor text in your backlinks. You have a lot of control over the anchor text if you’re publishing a guest post. However, over-optimization is a common mistake that SEOs make, assuming it will signal more relevance for a particular keyword. While this practice did work in the past, too many of the same anchor text/link combinations (particularly an unnatural one like [wedding dresses summer], for example) can be counterproductive and actually signal link manipulation. Link attributes A link attribute can contextualize backlinks for search engines, which can affect how search engines evaluate them when ranking web pages. There are a number of link attributes to be aware of: rel=“sponsored” — This attribute identifies advertisements or paid placements. rel=“ugc” — This identifies user-generated content, such as comments or forum links. rel=“nofollow” — This should be used when the other values don’t apply and you do not want Google to associate your site with, or crawl, the linked page. Learn more about nofollow links and when to use them. Be aware that there is no such thing as a “dofollow” or “follow” link attribute. Links that do not feature one of the above attributes are automatically a “follow” link. Natural links vs. Manipulated links Keeping your link profile natural is important—and easy to do if you’re building links organically (read: not attempting to cheat the search algorithm). Many sites have been penalized in the past due to link manipulation techniques, which can negatively affect your search visibility and, ultimately, revenue. While backlinks are important, you should always be ethical with your tactics to avoid future issues and potential manual or partial actions on your site. Avoid suspicious link building patterns (like those associated with simply paying for links) and ensure the links that you are actively pursuing are from high-authority publications and reputable sites. Branded vs. Unbranded link building With link building there are two opportunities to harness: branded and unbranded links. Branded link building typically points to the homepage of your website using your brand name as the anchor text. Other pages can also be referenced using your brand name. Unbranded links can point to your homepage or any other page on the site (e.g., an asset or product) and use a keyword, related phrase, or combination of both as the anchor text. Both are equally important and can help to keep your link profile natural. Brand authority (via branded links) can help to drive trust as well as overall search visibility. Unbranded links can help your other pages rank for relevant keywords, which could bring in more potential customers and conversions. Agency vs. In-house link building Your online store’s goals and resources will influence whether you should outsource your link building to an agency or do it in-house. Here is a breakdown of the pros and cons associated with each method: Learn more about how to hire an SEO agency to help with your link building and other strategic efforts. Link building for eCommerce: Tip the scales in your favor At the end of the day, customers typically only end up buying one product from one website. That means a large portion of your success hinges upon successfully differentiating yourself from the competition. In the search results, where similar brands often show up with similar content, backlinks could tip the scales in your favor, working to distinguish your content with better rankings. Use the framework I’ve laid out above to seize this advantage for your online store. Sophie Brannon - SEO Specialist Sophie is an SEO specialist with 7 years of agency experience. She's led strategy, implementation, and communication for local campaigns through to multi-language international campaigns. She's also an industry speaker and led the Web Almanac 2022 SEO chapter. Twitter | Linkedin

Updated: March 31, 2023 Author: Crystal Carter Millions of web pages are created every day, making it more and more difficult to find original ideas for content marketing campaigns. With many SEOs and digital marketers using similar keyword research and AI content writing tools, the process of discovering truly unique topics for blogs and web copy can get tough. What if we could simplify the ideation process? What if we could uncover free sources of content ideas that will improve search engine optimization, serve your audience, add brand value, and build trust in your business? In this article, I outline how speaking with your team, thinking consciously about your own search experience, and listening to your customers can help you identify original ideas for user-first SEO content topics and keywords phrases. I also share a Google Sheet template to help you organize it all. How does user-centric content help your SEO? SEOs should look to create content in order to add more value to their websites for users and for search engines. With the introduction of it’s Helpful Content algorithm system in 2022, Google announced changes that incentivize publishers to “create content for people, not for search engines.” In the documentation, the company explained that its goal is to ensure that when users visit a website, they encounter “original, helpful content written by people, for people,” and that the site offers a “satisfying experience” for visitors. While the overall impact of the Helpful Content update was not as extreme as many SEOs predicted, it is clear that the update is part of an initiative to help surface content that is “made for humans” and not primarily to attract people from search engines. This follows previous updates (like the Panda and the Passage Ranking update) to surface web content from more diverse, primary sources. For SEO specialists, this may call to mind the question, “If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?” Or, to put it another way, “If I don't make content for search engines, will anyone ever see it?” Well, if you are making content that is responding directly to user needs, then yes, they will. The SEO benefits of creating unique user-first content Digital marketers that make user-first content based on research, ideas, and interactions with their audience can: Be certain their work addresses users’ needs. Share content directly with the users that requested it. Assess the value of the content with users before publishing more widely. Build robust, conversational relationships between the audience and their brand. Discover unique long tail keywords that engage with high-intent users. In this article, I outline how speaking with your team, thinking consciously about your own search experience, and listening to your customers can help you source ideas for user-first SEO content. What are the best sources for user-first keyword and topic research? If you and your team are regularly engaging with your target audience then you can find user-centric content topics for SEO by: Speaking to sale teams Reviewing customer care queries Identifying training gaps Identifying research gaps Addressing client/industry concerns Creating a resource for your team Reviewing site searches Answering GBP questions Answering Amazon product questions Replying to user comments Addressing reviews Asking your audience directly Blogs, videos, podcasts and other brand assets that are created from user-first sources are more likely to contain the kind of fresh approach that will help you to stand out on search. Speak to customer-facing teams to identify content gaps Stakeholders from across your brand understand the content gaps that shape their conversations with current and potential clients. To create more user-first content, you can take inspiration from a few sources. Sales teams The salespeople in your business work directly with customers everyday. They are all too familiar with competing brands and the content gaps that dissuade potential clients. Their proximity to users with transactional intent means that their insights can be particularly useful for discovering unique, high-conversion content. I usually ask the sales and customer service teams to record the questions they get from prospects and existing clients . . . . This, for me, is one of the best ways to create content without relying on volumes and, at the same time, create content that converts and generates leads.—Veruska Anconitano, international and multilingual SEO manager at Momentive.ai In my experience working with salespeople at businesses large and small, this team is likely to be very proactive in terms of providing ideas and ongoing feedback. They will also be able to offer insights into the content formats and SERP features that are most likely to connect with your audiences. To connect with this team, external SEO project leaders (like freelancers or agencies) may wish to book some time for qualitative interviews with sales team members using transcription software, like Otter.ai or even Zoom, to record the interviews for future reference. In-house teams and those managing enterprise SEO projects may be able to access CRM (customer relationship management) archives in order to surface this information at scale or to coordinate with sales teams to strategically manage content recommendations. “I usually ask the sales and customer service teams to record the questions they get from prospects and existing clients,” Veruska Anconitano, international and multilingual SEO manager at Momentive.ai, said, adding that she reviews the questions on a quarterly basis to identify customer-focused topics. Next, she identifies relevant existing content that can be refreshed and creates new articles to address any outstanding customer needs. “This, for me, is one of the best ways to create content without relying on [search] volumes and, at the same time, create content that converts and generates leads,” she said, noting that since the subject matter tends to be a fresh response to customer needs, “the majority of the topics coming out of this approach have zero or extremely low volume, but they have proven to have an incredibly high CTR and incredible conversion power.” Customer care and front-of-house teams Like your sales team, your customer relationship team handles real-time questions from a range of clients. This team will have a good understanding of content opportunities that can help you retain clients and build long-term trust. Discussions and questions from members in a community of practice or product [are a great place to source user-first content ideas]. If the company has its own community, the community manager is a great person to work with since they spend a lot of time engaging with members and have a pulse on topics of interest. —Shivani Shah, senior copywriter at Commsor Depending on the size of your business, this team may include dedicated customer care professionals, but also those who work closely with customers. Teams working on the shop floor, those attending promotional events, and community managers will be able to distill some of the common concerns they encounter. “If the company has its own community, the community manager is a great person to work with since they spend a lot of time engaging with members and have a pulse on topics of interest,” said Shivani Shah, senior copywriter at Commsor. And, involving your customer support teams not only helps you source user-first content ideas, it also shows those teams that you’re working to facilitate them with resources that they can share when clients express a pain point. Simply put, engaging your front-of-house team(s) as part of the marketing for your SMB can help you add value for customers quickly and effectively. Training for juniors Training and educating junior talent is incredibly rewarding but can often be time consuming. Why? Because interns and new recruits don’t know industry jargon and they don’t know the historic context behind certain tactics, and so they ask questions. Lots of them. The questions that they ask will be very similar to the ones that new customers are likely to have and help you to address content gaps in your marketing funnel. If you don’t have an existing blog or content that you can reference when training juniors, then you should consider creating this content yourself and sharing it with your users. Keep track of these questions on a document then review them for keyword search volume to see if there are opportunities to add value for other users. Answering these questions could prove helpful for juniors, for your business, and for the wider web. Draw from your topical search experience Your user-first content can also be shaped by your experience as a user. The content you are able to find, the communities that you connect with, and the questions that you have can be a ripe source for original content that connects with similar audiences. Content you wanted but couldn’t find Have you ever ventured down a rabbit hole because you couldn’t find the information that you needed from your initial search? Did you have to read and understand multiple sources in order to get a complete picture? Congratulations, you’ve found a content gap. Me reading things or learning things and not ‘getting it’ [helps me identify potential user-first content gaps]. Once I do understand it, that's a prime content opportunity: help other people fill that same gap. —Tory Gray, CEO at The Gray Company Creating new (and needed) content that addresses the query will enable you to help your audiences while giving Google the content it needs to potentially point searchers to your brand. And, if the content is present but overly complex or full of jargon, then crafting something more readable from your findings can also be genuinely useful. Tory Gray, CEO at The Gray Company, uses this tactic regularly, explaining her content ideas often come from “reading things or learning things and not ‘getting it.’ Once I do understand it, that’s a prime content opportunity: help other people fill that same gap.” In some cases, identifying missing content based on a genuine connection to the topic can form the basis for an entire online project or website (as shown in the example below). Common client/industry questions Sourcing content from questions that people commonly ask online is something that Google, itself, does often. In John Mueller’s Ask Google Bot web series, he begins every episode showing that someone asked him the question he’s about to answer. In the example above, the question comes from a user on YouTube, but for the series, Mueller regularly takes questions from Twitter and other channels. You can also identify these kinds of queries on: Industry web forums Quora Reddit Slack communities Discord Facebook groups To hone in on the kinds of answers that best satisfy such questions, become an active member of your industry’s communities before you start crafting longer-form content like blogs or videos. Furthermore, many Q&A forums include options to “upvote” or “like” replies, so you can gauge responses before you invest resources towards making content. And, if you are replying to existing questions, then you can post your content to a grateful audience once it’s complete. Content you are likely to use again Have you carried out significant research and, as a part of that process, created a document with your findings? If you or your team use this document frequently, then it is a tried and tested piece of content. Sharing this with others via a blog, guide, or template can help drive organic traffic because it is satisfying a need. Listen to your customers Whether directly or indirectly, your customers will happily tell you what information they need or cannot easily find. Internal site searches When users visit your site and enter a query into internal site search, this may be a signal that you have content that is either difficult to discover or yet to be made. If you create content based on these searches, then you will absolutely be saving time for your customers and directing them to the answers they need. You won't even need an external third-party tool to provide you with this data, as you already own it. In the example above, we can see that Amazon took advantage of its position as the dominant platform for product-related searches by using that search data to inform decisions, such as launching its own line of skin care products. Google Business Profile questions When you create a Google Business Profile, you are also creating a means for the public to contact you directly, ask questions, leave reviews, and engage with your business. This is an incredibly valuable asset for local SEO keywords. Questions that users submit here can serve as recommendations for content that should be added to your GBP profile, GBP posts, long tail keywords for your website, or even a new business offering. Amazon product questions Amazon is a major player in eCommerce product search. One of the reasons why is that Amazon has always provided an outlet for users to ask questions and review products directly. This interactive relationship helps to build trust signals for brands and products. This also means that brands are expected to reply to customer questions. In the “Customer questions & answers” section of Amazon product listing pages, you can see some of the queries that users have about your product (and potentially similar products from competitors as well). By creating content that is optimized for these queries, you can empower users to make better decisions about the purchases or services they are considering. The questions asked here can help you add value to your eCommerce SEO efforts when you use this information to create effective copy for product pages and blogs. Content comments and UGC If you have UGC (user-generated content) on your blog or an engaged audience on social media, then make note of the questions that they ask to identify common keywords and phrases. Comments and questions on your existing content can offer incredible opportunities to pay service to an audience that has high informational search intent. When done correctly, this can become source material for content refreshes and topic cluster-related content. With some practice, savvy content creators can anticipate the questions that are most likely to arise and support users before they ask. For instance, the comments section on a recipe blog is often filled with questions about substituting ingredients. So, savvy recipe bloggers will build notes about substitutions into their copy before they publish (as shown in the example above). Reviews As well as helping to improve SERP visibility for local SEO and demonstrating EEAT, customer reviews allow you to understand what your customers genuinely value about your products. Reviews will tell you what information your customers require to be successful with your products or services. Sometimes negative reviews will talk about the product’s deficiencies, but many times they will include comments about customer service, delivery, and product instructions. I remember working with a client in the leisure industry where I was tasked with creating a strategy around golf. Though I have limited personal experience on the fairways, by looking at the reviews, I quickly learned the things that patrons really valued and saw as unique about the course. This helped me shape the kinds of content to recommend to clients in this industry while allowing me to find opportunities to refine keyword intent to better serve users. Chima Mmeje, founder of Zenith Copy, audits reviews to shape long-form content based on the problems that people repeatedly bring up about competing brands. This lets her differentiate her content while shaping it to also serve as a sales enablement asset. She explains that, for sales prospects, product comparison content can be “more valuable than a quick answer because it touches on the problem they faced with a competing brand.” For the purposes of SEO, user reviews can be particularly useful when the reviews contain requests or issues with something for which a solution already exists, but has not been communicated clearly. If you know how to solve some of those pain points, then you can improve your review ratings by making content that will help users get better outcomes. Then, you can reply to these reviews with a link to a blog or documentation created specifically based on their feedback. This can build trust with your customers and create an authentic relationship with your brand. Ask your audience There are a few ways to do this, but this most public example of this tactic comes from YouTube. Successful YouTubers do this all the time. Once viewers have been asked to “smash that subscribe button,” YouTubers look straight into the camera and ask their subscribers which topics they should cover next. Channels like Screen Junkies will often include the replies they received on older videos to frame the content of new videos (as shown above). Demonstrating that your brand listens helps to establish a relationship with the audience and encourages more recommendations, which ultimately means more ideas for user-first content. If you are not a YouTuber, then consider using more traditional methods of gathering customer insights, including: Customer surveys Client interviews Feedback forms Focus groups Each of these sources will help you assess and prioritize the content your customers need right now. JJ Nato-Pascasio, senior SEO strategist at Balsam International Unlimited, uses customer surveys to get “insights on what is currently working and is not working well with our customers.” Where they discover information gaps, Nato-Pascasio uses the notes to “create content, usually in an FAQ form or a full article with video and image guides, depending on the complexity.” Combine primary sources with keyword research tools to help more of your audience The primary sources that I have shared here help you create content based directly on user needs. This is not to say that third-party keyword research tools are not valuable—they are, but they should be used in tandem with more qualitative, user-centric sources of information. Keyword tools use historic data to show search volumes, and historical data can’t help you predict new ways your customers may be using your products or how your industry may evolve. So, taking this combined approach can help your brand serve customers now and in the future. Crystal Carter - Head of SEO Communications, Wix Crystal is an SEO & digital marketing professional with over 15 years of experience. Her global business clients have included Disney, McDonalds, and Tomy. An avid SEO communicator, her work has been featured at Google Search Central, Brighton SEO, Moz, DeepCrawl, Semrush, and more. Twitter | Linkedin