Smart Scientific SEO Strategies for 2017

It’s been a fair few weeks since we managed to post anything on our blog and frankly I’m amazed at how fast the year has gone so far, and at the rate at which things seem to be changing, not to mention a lot of really useful software that has become available. The post we’ve highlighted today (see below) comes from a series published by a well respected Web Design and SEO company called AimInternet. It is certainly a useful piece and highlights the fact that the information in Google’s Webmaster Tools (now called Google Search Console) is very very useful. The main reason I say this is that Google (for reasons of privacy they say…) stopped reporting the keyword phrases used by any visitor to a site in Analytics. You can tell they come from Google, but not what search words they used. All very annoying when trying to work out what words are converting and what are resulting in a high bounce rate. Google Search Console fills this gap, to a degree in that it gives you a good idea of the phrases being used, the number of times a phrase has resulted in someone seeing a Google listing for the site, the Click Through Rate (very useful this, as it gives you an idea if your Title and Meta Description are well tuned to get clicks) as well as the average position in Google. But, it does not tell you what page they land on or whether they stay or ‘bounce’. You can start extrapolating the data to make some intelligent guesses about what is going on (there is software that will do this for you) but they are only guesses (you could always run an Adwords campaign to check, but that is another story). But to get back to what the article is about. Scientific Organic Search Strategy In the article AimInternet mention that they had increased the ‘number of keywords present’, by which I think they mean the number of different search phrases (or ‘Queries’ in Google Search Console speak) that were associated with a site. They made a big difference (something that we too pride ourselves on being able to achieve), increasing the number of associated phrases from 300 to 800. What this really means is that the ‘footprint’ of the site on Google has more than doubled, hence it is more likely to be seen and thus get a click ! All very good. The process by which they reached this point is covered in earlier posts and no doubt they follow the same ‘Scientific’ path as we do. If they do they will first carry out research to find the words being used by people searching for their customers services and products. Then they will weave these into the site and construct content that supports the drive for rankings for the chosen target phrases. What they ‘might’ not do is to check on the sites that currently have the best positions for these target phrases and then ‘Reverse Engineer’ them. By following that path you ‘know’ the words that Google likes to see and can thus use them in the content. This system also gives you a list of all the similar words and phrases that should be used, which avoids keyword stuffing and gets the ‘message’ across to Google in the way that we know it likes. Add some links (that themselves have to be intelligently added – there is software that helps with that now too) and the site WILL, like Eagle, be associated with more query phrases, get better rankings and thus more traffic. But the trick is in carrying out each of these phases in a controlled scientific manner… One very interesting point that Aim made is that once you have a list of the phrases that Google associate with a site, that you should build on this and write content (about these phrases) that will make the site that bit more interesting and helpful. This will not only cement your position with Google but will no doubt improve the rankings for the site and, more importantly, give your readers more reasons to come back for more, and even, hopefully, buy from you. They also make the point that visitors don’t always come in through the front door (the home page) so you should make your interior pages interesting too. This is not really new though, in that most of the pages on a site should be doing their best to engage with viewers by providing useful content, each page targeting a different set of keyphrases. So a very interesting article. To read the whole post on A Smart Organic Search Strategy please click the link How We Use A Smart Organic Search Strategy To Get Our Clients On The First Page Of Google This week we expand on looking at how to get your website on the first page of Google by using a smart organic search strategy. In our last blog, we looked at the importance of getting on the first page of Google. And, we examined how our methods of using local marketing tools are driving traffic to the homepage – and producing fantastic results – for a client of ours. This week, we’ll expand on part of that methodology – using an organic search strategy to drive traffic to particular product pages or blog pages which then link through to specific product pages. We also do this via Adwords, although this is something we’ll look at in more detail in following blogs. What Is An Organic Search Strategy? In brief, an organic search strategy consists of finely keyworded product pages or blogs, which get picked up by Google each time one is published on a website. At this point, you might be thinking “I’ve already got all the information about the products or services I offer on one page of my site so I’ve nailed it, right?” or “I make rubber plugs, why the heck do I need a blog about those, who is going to read it?!”. OK, so you might not be totally wrong about the last point (but hey, you never know, there might just be a rubber plug enthusiast out there who would LOVE to read your blog about them!). Getting back to business… Creating separate product pages on your site and posting blogs is all part of your organic search strategy. Simply, doing so creates more pages on your website containing the relevant keywords that you want your website to be found for, which Google can then index. The more relevant and unique pages and content you have on your site, the more shots on target you have at being shown on the first page of Google. The important things to note here are relevant and unique. Google is smart and will penalise your site if you post up a load of duplicate pages and content. The same goes if you keyword stuff (make your content unintelligible by jamming in too many keyword phrases) your posts and pages. We won’t go into it here but recommend that you take some time to familiarise yourself with good content practice. That includes following referencing protocols if you are using content from another site. For example, you might choose to do a blog post which rounds up the “5 best things about rubber plugs” and which uses information from other websites. That’s absolutely fine, but just remember to acknowledge and reference your sources correctly. Why Do This? How many pages are currently on your website? Probably not that many? So, if you currently have one page that discusses your 10 different products, by separating them out into individual pages you just added 10 extra pages to your site virtually overnight. You’ll be able to expand the content around each product, and so the mentions of the relevant keyword, too. So, whereas on the original page, you may have only listed the type of products you sell, you can now go into more detail about each one on their own page. This naturally allows for an articulate way of including more of your desired keywords on your site – avoiding the extreme no-no practice of keyword stuffing. Google likes new and relevant content. Each page becomes a new way for traffic to come to your site. Of course, once the core pages of your site are done it’s likely that you won’t be updating those that often. Which is why, as part of any organic search strategy, we advise our clients to do regular blogging. And, in the case of blogging, the more regular you post the better. Employing an organic search strategy such as this might mean that traffic enters your website not via the traditional route of arriving at the homepage. Instead it might enter on a product page or a blog post page written around a specific topic, which then links to a product page. Typically, we notice that customers will land on one of the product pages of our client’s websites, because of the organic search that we’ve set up for the client. If you’re in the pressed parts trade you might do a search in Google for “copper plating”. Google will take into account your location (it gets this information from your settings) and present to you the most relevant results. Let’s say you’re Midlands based, as is EC Williams. As a result of this search, people enter EC Williams’ site on the Copper Plating product page. Once on the page, you are presented with all of the information you need about “copper plating” along with some important trust points about the company. Our analysis shows us that from landing on this entry point people also then navigate to other pages on the site. From this example in particular, we can see that “zinc plating” is the next most popular page. Once on their website, this alternative page is now easily found in the navigation bar above, under “Plating Services”. From our research, most people stay on the “zinc plating” page, as they’ve found what they want. But, if they want more depth they’ll go onto “zinc nickel plating”. The point of this is that once on the EC Williams’ website, the customer is presented with everything they need to make a purchasing decision. And, if you were that person looking for a company who were experts in the field of coating pressed-parts, then, bingo – you just found them. Straight away, serious buying customers get what a snapshot of relevant information once they are on the site. Because of the trade they’re in (pressed parts), they become interested in making an enquiry straight away. We’ve measured this extensively on EC Williams’ site plus many others’, and know that it works. You need to make it easy for your customers to find information on your site and this method works by doing just that. Everything has be there for the user so that they’re not having to look for things too much. How Organic Search Strategy Works Most people will find you through a long-tail keyword search. These are keywords that tend to be more specific. Your website content should be driven by the keywords that your SEO advisor gives you. They need to advise your outsourced content providers of these keywords so that they can write content around them. Take a look at www.eagleplastics.co.uk. They are another client of ours. Again, you can see that similar to www.ecwilliams.co.uk, everything a customer requires is there easy to find on the homepage, above the fold. From an SEO perspective, when we started working with Eagle Plastics, the number of keywords we had to work with was much less than it is now. The site was receiving much less traffic that it does today which meant that there were nowhere near as many clicks or impressions being recorded. This impacted on the number of keywords being presented to us by Google. At the time we were only getting about 300 keywords presented, yet a year or so on, Google is now presenting 800 keywords. This is as a result of the organic search strategy we have implemented, like that we discussed earlier. Traffic gets signposted to the Eagle Plastics website all based around these 800 keywords. And, now we have more of those, we can start creating content based on different keywords and keyword phrases. Through testing the blogs, we are able to determine which keyword phrases are the most successful by analysing which ones have the best impressions. On Eagle Plastics, “High Impact Polystyrene” is a key term for them. We know that this keyword phrase works well for them so we use it regularly in their blog headlines, in the h2 sub-headers and throughout the blog text. Of course though, we ensure we use it professionally and never keyword stuff. As a result of this organic search strategy, we are providing more content to Google. This is recognised by them and results in Google starting to suggest more keywords which are relevant. We then create content based around these suggested keywords and their variations. As we post regular content which uses those keywords, Google views this as quality content and so provides us with even more relevant keywords. We then use these to continue to push the search and content strategy. The result is more traffic. But more than that, in getting more traffic, Google rewards you for quality content. And so it continues… As little as five years ago, most searches were conducted using use two keywords. Today people use an average of five words per keyword search term. What was once a keyword search for “plugs” is now a more unique phrase of “the best luxury rubber plugs”. As you can see, the one word keyword has become a keyword phrase made up of multiple words. Searches are now more unique and these long-tail keyword phrases more specific. Ultimately, it’s important to remember that every keyword search represents an intent by someone to find some information out. Long-tail keywords help you to better address that user intent by creating unique tailored content. Statistics show that of 3 billion searches a day, 20% of every search is unique. That’s a heck of a lot of unique searches – and to get displayed on the first page of Google, you need a successful organic search strategy to be found amongst all of that noise.

For more information on Smart Scientific SEO Strategies for 2017 talk to Serendipity Online Marketing Ltd