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Editor’s note: “Ask an SEO” is a weekly column by technical SEO expert Jenny Halasz. Come up with your hardest SEO question and fill out our form. You might see your answer in the next #AskanSEO post!
Today, our Ask an SEO question comes from Michelle K. via Facebook. She asks:
Probably not.
The H1 is generally known as the item on the page that has the most weight, but this is based on old school rules of HTML.
Enter SEO pros and their penchant for breaking the rules.
Some figured out that they could code anything as an H tag, but use CSS to control the size and position of the text. So search engines still used this classic signal, but became wary of it. Over time, this signal became less and less important.
I still recommend that clients try to have a single H1 that uses their core keyword and at least one H2 that does, because why not do it? It helps to structure your page visually and provides important clues about the topicality of the page.
But Bing (through Duane Forrester) went on record stating that they only look at the H1 and the first H2 in terms of assigning additional weight, and Google has indicated (although not said as clearly) that they use a similar strategy.
With the increase of Angular, other JavaScript based coding languages, and less reliance on traditional HTML, this recommendation carries a lot less weight than it used to.
If I were you, I’d use the H1 and the H2, but it’s not a deal-breaker.
Make sure:
The topic of the page is clear.
The text is presented well.
It renders well on mobile.
By doing this, you’ll have handled three things that carry a lot more weight than the header tag.
Have a question about SEO for Jenny? Fill out this form or use #AskAnSEO on social media.
Image Credits
Featured Image: Image by Paulo Bobita
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How Will Inflation Affect The Economy In 2023?
How Will Inflation Affect the Economy in 2023?
Photo by iStock/primeimages
Listen Now
How Will Inflation Affect the Economy in 2023?You can also find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and other podcast platforms.
As we look forward to 2023, the health of the domestic economy remains a concern as high costs linger, hiring slows, and salaries stagnate. Many industries in the United States and abroad have increased costs due to supply chain issues and other factors, leading to some of the highest inflation in recent memory. In this episode Doug Most and Laurence Kotlikoff, a Willam Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor and a College of Arts & Sciences professor of economics, discuss inflation and the changing economic landscape, domestically and globally.
Have a question or topic idea for a future episode? Send an email to [email protected]. Bonus points if you attach a voice memo with your question.
Takeaways
Inflation was high in 2023, but most economists now agree 2023 will show lower figures. Kotlikoff stresses that we will not be entering a recession unless we “scare ourselves into a recession.” The stock market thrives on confidence, so the media’s reporting around economics issues can affect real outcomes.
Despite high holiday spending, Americans are hurting financially, as real wages are down while inflation continues to rise. Despite low wages, we are also currently seeing low unemployment, very high demand for workers, and increases in employment from month to month nationwide.
Kotlikoff sees the economy recovering in the short term, but encourages diplomacy between the United States and China to ensure long-term economic prosperity. Moving forward, the economy will only continue to globalize and large economic players must figure out how to continue working together despite political disturbances.
TranscriptSophie Yarin: This is Question of the Week from BU Today.
Laurence, thanks so much for joining us today.
Laurence Kotlikoff: Great to be with you, Doug.
Doug Most: So let’s jump right into it. This was sort of not a pretty 2023 when it comes to the economy—this was an ugly year. Do you expect in 2023 it’d be much of the same or do you anticipate perhaps a little bit of easing of the inflation? And so where do you see things going?
Laurence Kotlikoff: I think most of the inflation was due to supply side disruptions, supply chain bottlenecks. China is often on production due to their zero COVID policy, which now seems to be lifting to the war in the Ukraine, where it’s impacted wheat and other grain prices and also, well, energy prices. But if you look at the price of oil today, it’s lower than it was when Putin invaded. If you look at the price of wheat today, it’s lower than when Putin invaded. So what we’re seeing is that there’s other sources of supply and there’s also been a reduction in demand.
Like in Europe, there’s about a 15 percent, 20 percent reduction in the use of gas, which is quite amazing that factories and households can get by with so much less gas. But there has also been warm weather in the US and Europe that’s reducing the demand for gas. So I do believe we’ll probably have more like a 6 percent, 5 percent inflation and going down to 3 percent and 2 percent, well, 3 percent. Long-term, the markets suggest they’re looking at about a 3 percent long-term inflation rate, three years, two and a half. If you look at long-term regular interest rates on 30-year treasury bonds versus inflation index treasury bonds, the differentials are telling you about inflation.
Doug Most: It’s been interesting sort of how Americans have responded to inflation, because spending has still been sort of substantial. Americans sort of talk about their worries of inflation and yet sometimes you feel like how their spending doesn’t always equate with their fears. Why is that, do you think? Why do you think that Americans, even though we talk about being scared of inflation, being unhappy with inflation, being worried about inflation, and yet we still seem to be spending at a good clip—is there a disconnect there?
Laurence Kotlikoff: Yeah, I’m surprised because nominal wages haven’t kept up, so real wages have gone down. And I would think that people are shying away from going to restaurants as much because the prices are so crazy high compared to pre-COVID. So I am surprised that that’s the case, but it may be that there’s also people that are really hurt and people that are benefiting from inflation.
If you’re a debtor and you have a mortgage, you’re paying back in inflated and watered-down dollars, right? So you’re making money off of the inflation. On the other hand, if you own short-term, medium-term, long-term regular debt from the government, maybe you own treasury bills or treasury bonds, well, you lost 8½ percent in real terms over the last year because of the inflation if you’re on a fixed pension. Like maybe you’re a retired policeman in Detroit and your pension was already cut, through, say 40 cents on the dollar, already because of the bankruptcy of Detroit, and now it’s fixed in nominal terms. And you’ve lost 8 percent purchasing power, so somebody must be getting it in the next year in the country. So I don’t know what the aggregate numbers are telling us, but we know that some people must be hurting a lot because of this.
Doug Most: Yeah, the Fed has certainly come under criticism for how it’s handled this. Do you feel like they could have taken different measures or perhaps approached inflation sort of with a different strategy? Or do you feel like they did the best they could with obviously challenging times—the pandemic, the war, so many factors sort of and the supply chain, as you mentioned? What have you thought about the Fed’s handling of this?
Laurence Kotlikoff: I think it’s been quite good actually, I think what we’ll want to do is adjust the economy to deal with this temporary, basically supply side–driven inflation, index the tax system, get the social security system indexed. So people aren’t being taxed additional amounts because of inflation, because of the level beyond once your benefits are taxed. The level of what’s called modified adjusted gross income is fixed in nominal terms. So more and more people, just because of inflation, are subject to taxation on their benefits. And so we want to fix that, we want to live with inflation, not kill the economy, so we can get inflation down. I think that’s an appropriate economic view, and I don’t think how Jerome Powell, the [current] chairman of the Fed, is listening to somebody’s responding, but he’s basically not increasing interest rates that much.
Doug Most: We’re coming into the holidays, and I’m curious how much of a bellwether is holiday spending? Because obviously the holidays come right at the end of the year, how much of a bellwether [is it] for what’s to come in 2023? Or holiday spending at the end of 2023—should we not pay that close attention to it? In other words, if holiday spending is way up and if the numbers are tremendous, could that be a good sign of what’s to come in 2023? Or is it sort of a little misleading and wrong—don’t read too much into those numbers?
Laurence Kotlikoff: On December—the last quarter probably represents about 40 percent of your total spending across the year [and] it’s really high, so it’s a big deal. So if a lot of companies suffer much lower sales than expected or than last year, then that’s a signal that the economy is potentially going into recession. There’s potential, if we have enough people talking ourselves into recession, we will have recession, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Laurence Kotlikoff: Well, I think the fact that the Fed has done so little really, relative to the inflation, is really accommodating inflation. The market gets that, and they realize that they also know that this is a basically temporary supply side, I think, so that they’re happy with the Feds’ policy. I think they didn’t do too much, they didn’t do too little, it’s kind of just the right [amount]. As for stability, Biden is a mature, stable guy, I think he’s going to go down as one of the best presidents of the postwar. Maybe the best in terms of what he’s accomplished even in a difficult political environment.
What happened in the election is that people that were radical, that thought the election was stolen, that they thought [or] think it’s okay to suspend the constitution, to move to autocracy, that our country’s democracy is up for grabs, they were systematically defeated. So what this message in the market is that things are likely to be much more stable. And therefore, the risk premium of investing in, let’s say, the stock market has gone down, so people are willing to add more insurance if they are going to get decent returns. And we want to have somebody who’s very elastic, who wouldn’t want a civil war or anything, at the switch erupting in our country, and we will. So I think that what’s happening was actually good for the market. It’s [going] to reduce the level of risk to the future, and that’s why I think you see the market basically going back up.
Doug Most: Do you see yourself as sort of a glass is half full or glass is half empty [person] when you look at the economy, and looking at 2023, do you see more signs for optimism? Or do you see more signs for sort of concerns and a little pessimism?
Doug Most: Okay, we’re out of time, but this has been enlightening, and I’m hopeful. I appreciate your optimism, glad to hear the optimism. So I appreciate your insights and your thoughts on this, it’s an important topic and weighs on every Americans’ mind, especially coming into the holidays, going into the new year. So I’m glad we were able to connect with you and talk economy, talk inflation. So thank you for your time today—we really appreciate it.
Laurence Kotlikoff: My pleasure; let’s do this more.
Doug Most: Yes, absolutely. Thanks again.
Laurence Kotlikoff: Yeah, and happy holidays to everybody.
Doug Most: Thanks, happy holidays to you.
Andy Hallock: This episode of Question of the Week was edited by Doug Most and produced and engineered by Andy Hallock. For more information about inflation and economic policy, be sure to check out the links in the show notes. Thanks so much for listening and we’ll see you again soon.
6 Underrated Seo Areas That Will Improve Your Video Performance
The success of your video marketing strategy often lies in the details you overlook
No one would be surprised to learn that videos have become an essential marketing tool across all industries.
We’ve been experiencing sustained growth in demand for video content for quite some time now and you can see it all around. Consumers interact more with it, social platforms are switching to video-first approaches, and companies of all sizes are jumping onto the video bandwagon.
Download our Individual Member Resource – Video and YouTube marketing guide
Our guide shows you how to review the full opportunities from video marketing whether you are a company looking to integrate video marketing more into your campaigns or a marketing agency looking to improve your video marketing services.
Access the Video and YouTube marketing guide
Recent research projects that videos account for 78% of all mobile data traffic this year alone, a single data point on a long list of stats that evidence video content’s relevance. Add to those the fact that about 500 hours of video content gets uploaded on YouTube each hour and you can see that most people are on the same page.
All that means that even though the audience is there, anyone trying to get noticed in today’s video-saturated world has a tough job ahead of them.
Creating quality videos is a significant first step, but you need to pair them with every SEO trick in the business to have that charming whiteboard animation or brand new testimonial reaching your audience.
Pick the right home for your videosWhenever marketers or business owners get a shiny new video in their hands, they often rush to upload it on YouTube and share it from there. And that’s fair enough – Google’s video platform is, after all, the second biggest search engine on the planet.
So, chances are, your target audience is there… somewhere.
The problem, though, is that focusing exclusively on YouTube will have you missing a bunch of opportunities along the way.
Consider your goals for the piece and think of other platforms that might suit those goals better. Platforms like Vimeo, DailyMotion, or Veoh have all particular strengths that warrant looking into – less competition being the obvious one. But how about natively uploading your video on the social platform you plan to use the most?
Meaningful titles, useful descriptionsI know what you are thinking, these are two of the most common SEO elements to consider when uploading a vid and are found on any SEO tips list. And yes, that’s true. The underlying idea is that people find content through keywords, so, by all means, go right ahead and include those keywords in your titles and descriptions.
But, is that it?
Titles and descriptions are there to do so much more than just serve as keyword holders!
Take titles, for example. Your audience might be looking for a particular video, say, about how to make their smartphone’s battery last longer. They’ll probably use keywords like “battery,” “duration,” “how-to,” and the smartphone’s model. If you had a video that addressed that issue, you might as well go with a keyword-packed title like “How to increase your smartphone battery duration.”
That sounds fine and all, and it does work for some people.
However, you should always try to come up with creative, compelling titles that appeal to humans as much as they do to search algorithms. Titles that tug at your audience’s curiosity and needs. After all, “Quick and simple hacks to extend your battery life” is probably going to perform better in the eyes of your audience.
As for descriptions, they are hardly there just to describe your video’s content!
Yes, do provide a brief summary. But once that’s out of the way, move on to recommend your other pieces of content. Include effective CTAs to motivate viewers to take further actions. Heck, even include a list of places online where people can reach out and find you.
You’ve got some space, so you might as well put it to good use!
Be very picky with thumbnailsThumbnails are one of those things that people often neglect when uploading their videos – a problem made worse since platforms started offering to pick or auto-generate them for their users.
Pro tip: Letting an algorithm choose your video’s thumbnails for you? Not a good move.
Why? Even above titles, thumbnails are often the first point of contact users have with your content. If you have a lousy one, chances are they will be the only point of contact.
So, here are a couple of elements to account for when creating your thumbnails:
Colorful imagery
Human presence
Text
Subtitles and transcriptsHave you ever scrolled through your Facebook or Twitter timeline and gotten your attention piqued by a vid you can’t hear at the moment? Maybe you are in a noisy place and can’t hear, or in a real quiet one with no headphones around…
It is a situation that speaks to a lot of mobile users most often than not. So much so that companies and savvy marketers are starting to include subtitles and transcripts as a baseline part of their content.
Not only does having transcripts and subtitles contribute to your SEO by including a bunch of your keywords in text form, but it’s also an excellent practice for accessibility.
But hey, don’t take my word for it. See how SEO experts do it:
Make the most out of your video content through intelligent placementPeople are watching more video content now than ever before, and that trend’s graphic keeps ticking up. Meaning that you probably want to keep your video content in your marketing spotlight.
What’s the spotlight? First and foremost, your website. Since people will end up there eventually to learn more about what you offer, featuring your videos in prominent spots of your website is vital. However, that’s not to say that all your videos should be treated equally, or that they all have the same potential.
The best way to utilize your video content in your marketing wheel is to pick a handful of them to place strategically in pages like your home, about us, and most importantly, funnel landing pages. In fact, using a video per landing page is a Google-approved technique that you should definitely follow.
Picking a video for these places can be a little bit challenging, as you should choose the ones that are among your top-performers or the ones that fit the page’s purpose best. For instance, using an explainer video for a landing page of your battery improvement app would be relevant, informative, and provide value to visitors.
Each situation might call for different types of videos, and that can make the whole “using video effectively” in your marketing a bit daunting. Just keep in mind there are plenty of resources and skilled video companies out there that can help you figure it out!
Just make sure to match the right video content with the right pages, and you’ll be golden.
Remember that video SEO is still SEOVideo-focused optimization is critical to get your content ranking and improve its reach. But you shouldn’t forget that this shouldn’t come without an already sensible general SEO strategy. Meaning that you shouldn’t ignore more traditional practices like page optimization, load speeds, metadata, etc.
But those are just “the usual suspects.”
You should also keep in mind that new SEO trends pop up regularly. Things like voice searching and mobile-first indexing can be utilized to give your audience more avenues to find your video content.
So, keep a finger on the pulse of optimization developments, and test those that you feel can give your video content an edge. Most of the time, you won’t walk away disappointed.
Wrapping upVideo SEO might be just a piece in your whole marketing strategy, but it’s definitely one worth investing time into. As a leading type of marketing content, ensuring your videos reach a larger crowd will result in better returns for your efforts.
However, do remember that SEO (video or otherwise) isn’t a one-time thing – it’s an ever-evolving aspect of creating and sharing content. In that light, you’ll definitely need to revise and adjust your strategy periodically to guarantee long-term performance.
So, what are you waiting for? It’s time to implement these tips and start bringing your excellent video content in front of more people’s eyes.
6 Hacks That Will Improve Your Facebook Ads
These Facebook ad hacks are designed to improve your ad creative, offering unique ways to make an ad more attractive and convertible. So often an ad can fail simply because it’s creative wasn’t thought out as much as the targeting was.
Hack #1: Stock Videos Are Better than No VideosTired of hearing that you need to create videos but have no idea where to begin? You aren’t alone.
A video on Facebook receives on average 135 percent more organic reach than a Facebook photo. Photos used to be the most engaging type of creative on social media, but video has quickly surpassed images and is now the thing.
So here’s the solution:
Stock videos.
Quickly and easily put together a video for your next Facebook ad campaign with these steps:
Head over to Adobe Stock’s video selection and start there. Adobe has one of the largest selections of stock video footage to choose from, meaning they have something for every type of industry.
Make the video your own with branding. No one needs to know that you didn’t spend thousands of dollars and hire an entire production team to produce this video. Simply add a logo or a text overlay to the video and a call to action slide with the company’s information at the end and voila!
Hack #2: Avoid Using the Color Blue in Ad CreativeFacebook’s primary color is blue — #3b5998 to be exact. Using images and videos that have blue tones in your ad campaigns isn’t going to help your ad stand out in the News Feed.
By the way, I’m not referring to a solid blue image with text. I’m talking about anything that has a blue hue to it such as a sky background, ocean waves, or a person standing in front of a blue wall. These blue tones will make the ad blend in with the News Feed, which is exactly what we don’t want an ad to do.
Instead of focusing on blue tones, try using colors that match your brand especially if they’re vivid colors like orange, green, and red.
Orange is blue’s complementary color so not only will it stand out, but it will look darn good in the News Feed.
Hack #3: Be a Fun Ad & Include Emojis in the Ad CopyEveryone loves a good emoji these days, so why not include one or two in your ad copy? There are two rules to live by when using emojis in your ad copy:
Do not overuse emojis.
Only use emojis that make sense with the copy.
No one will appreciate four rain drop emojis, two poop face emojis, and the cat with heart eyes next to copy about booking a winter vacation. The emojis need to be relevant to the action you want the user to make and the emotion you’re trying to convey.
Take this ad for example. They used the speaker emoji to communicate “turn on your sound.” These emojis make for an extra awesome addition because so often people watch videos on social media without their sound on.
By having a little extra encouragement in the ad copy with the speaker emojis, it’s telling users you’re not going to want to watch this without sound. So turn it up!
Hack #4: Don’t Just Rely on the Button for Website TrafficFacebook ad objectives should be something easy for users to do, and something they’ll actually want to do.
One way of accomplishing both of these things is by including a link to your website/landing page in the ad copy.
Sure, the call to action button will direct users there, but the button can really feel “ad-like.” What I mean by that is just about everyone knows if a Facebook post has “Sponsored” on it and a call to action button, then it’s an ad.
Aside from the “feelings” side to this reasoning, adding the URL in the ad copy also gives the user the option to act quickly. If they like what they’ve read and want to respond, give them the option to do so without having to get all the way down to the button.
Hack #5: Design an Ad Your Audience Will Be Attracted ToNot only does your ad copy need to speak to your demographic, but your imagery and video, too. Let’s dissect Facebook’s example.
To the left, you’ll see an ad for a restaurant that focuses on a cocktail. This ad is targeting a younger, millennial type of audience that most likely has a 9-to-5 job and enjoys going out with coworkers at the end of the day for a drink. This is a very specific type of person, even though we can probably all relate, and the ad is created just for that part of the restaurant’s demographic.
The photo to the right is by the same restaurant but is targeting their older demographic, the portion of their customer base that comes in just for the food. If the restaurant had used the same cocktail photo to attract that older audience, say 50+ years old, they may have turned the audience away by looking too much like a bar atmosphere and not a restaurant.
Hack #6: Ask a Question Right Off the BatWe’re all here to provide some sort of solution to our customers, right? Right!
By addressing the issue in the beginning of an ad, you’re stopping a user in their tracks from continuing on with their regularly scheduled News Feed.
Need help bulking up, but don’t know which protein powder is right for you?
Tired of spending your mornings sorting through emails?
Worried the IRS is going to come after your business?
Each of these questions speaks to a unique audience and addresses a primary concern for them. It gives each user a reason to keep reading the ad, look at the imagery and/or watch the ad’s video.
Don’t believe an ad hack can be as simple as inserting a question at the beginning of the ad copy? A/B test your next ad objective with Ad A asking a question at the beginning of your ad copy and Ad B not asking a question anywhere in the copy.
SummaryThe next time you’re working on a creative for a new Facebook ad campaign, try implementing these six hacks and watch your conversions soar.
Image Credits
In-Post Images: Screenshots by author. Taken June 2023.
10 Advanced Seo Skills To Level Up Your Career
Many of us get to a stage in our careers as SEO professionals where we feel a little bit stagnant.
We’ve been optimizing sites for a while and feel pretty confident that we can do it well.. but there’s that nagging thought there’s more we could be doing.
That there is another layer of expertise that would make us more efficient, employable, and confident.
In this article, you’ll find 10 skills that can level up your SEO competency.
These aren’t necessarily essential skills for all SEO experts (you’ll find those here).
1. Intent AnalysisIntent analysis is the decoding of a user’s intention behind the keyword they enter into a search engine.
When someone types [pizza restaurant] into a search engine, what is the end result they are hoping for?
Do they want to know what pizza restaurants are nearby?
Are they in the market to open a pizza restaurant?
Are they looking for a job in a pizza restaurant?
Developing your understanding of the psychology behind what searchers want is a critical skill for those wishing to go further in their SEO competency.
This will help you both satisfy a user’s need when they land on a page and also increase your page’s likelihood of being ranked in their search.
It can’t just stop there, however.
You must also understand what the search engines perceive users to want from the content they are searching for.
This is followed by the Map Pack and then a mix of review and editorial sites and restaurants’ websites.
If I am trying to rank a website all about the history of pizza restaurants in my country, I might struggle.
Google has identified the user intent as being either navigation – wanting to go to a local restaurant – or comparative, as in wanting to compare options in the local area.
Resources To Learn More 2. CodingThere is no question that understanding HTML, CSS, and JavaScript can help you to ensure your websites are set up in a bot-friendly manner.
Although SEO experts do not need to be fully-fledged developers, having an understanding of code can help you to identify issues with rendering, indexation, and crawlability.
There are times when knowing the basics of how code is created, or being able to read code that already exists, can help your SEO.
It can aid your communication with the developers who may need to change it.
It can assist you in pinpointing incremental improvements to your site’s performance.
Learning to code is not a prerequisite for SEO, but it is arguable that knowing the fundamentals of these three commonly used languages is going to set you up well for your career.
Understanding the syntax of code, how it is formed, and being able to see how elements relate to each other can also help you get better at writing and debugging schema.
Learning Python and SQL can also help you to streamline your SEO processes by enabling you to automate labor-intensive activities such as mapping URL redirects and keyword research.
Resources To Learn More
Websites like CodeAcademy and w3schools offer courses.
You can also read up on Javascript fundamentals, Python, HTML, and machine learning for inspiration and tips.
3. Understanding Server ManagementNo SEO professional should really be the one responsible for ensuring that a server can handle a load of visitors to a site.
However, understanding the basics of how servers can impact the crawlability, load speed and reliability of a website can propel your technical SEO understanding forwards.
The use of CDNs instead of static servers can aid in speeding up content loading, but without understanding the limitations of fixed location servers it will be difficult for you to argue the need for a CDN.
A better understanding of how web hosting can affect a user’s experience of your site and also Google’s ability to access it is necessary for strong technical SEO foundations.
You need to understand how aspects like uptime and location can impact your site’s performance in the search engines.
This is only the beginning of how knowledge of servers can aid your SEO efforts.
Better knowledge of server codes beyond the standard 404 and 301 can help you to communicate to those in charge of your servers where there are critical issues.
Know what a 502 error is?
Encountered a 504 status code before?
If not, this might be a quick and easy area for you to brush up your knowledge.
A 5XX status usually means there is something wrong with the server that is preventing the processing of a request from the client.
From here, you can identify whether it is an issue with the client or the server and find a fix accordingly.
Resources To Learn More 4. Content WritingYou may not be a great wordsmith yourself.
However, in order for you to better brief in copywriting for your colleagues who are, you need to understand what goes into a good piece of writing.
It isn’t enough to know that copy needs to be compelling and have sufficient relevancy to search terms used to discover it.
Get familiar with the process your copywriters go through in researching, writing, and editing their work.
This will help you to better ideate your own requests for copy.
EditingEditing is another good skill to develop when working with content.
In many organizations, it is the job of the SEO specialist to take content created by others and optimize it further for the search engines.
In practice, this sadly can often result in well-written copy being butchered.
Adding keywords into the first couple of paragraphs to make them more keyword-rich might help you a bit with your rankings, but it could destroy your conversion and brand loyalty.
Learn how to take well-written copy and enhance it, not ruin it.
You may also benefit from having a conversation or two with your SEO copywriters and asking them for details of their process.
Better understanding how they go about copywriting could improve your abilities.
It could also streamline your processes when working together.
Resources To Learn More 5. ReportingBeing able to expertly communicate your progress, results, and reasoning behind your SEO work is crucial to being successful in the industry.
As an SEO expert, you are always juggling the needs and expectations of stakeholders, whether you’re working in-house, agency-side or freelance.
You will find gaining buy-in and budgets considerably easier if you know how to demonstrate the impact of the work you do.
Reporting isn’t just a case of adding labels to a graph or even noting down the cause of increases and decreases.
Truly good SEO reports allow readers to understand the context of the results, draw conclusions and make business decisions from them.
SEO professionals need to get really good at helping stakeholders understand the priorities and limitations of the work they recommend (as well as mistakes to avoid when reporting).
They also need to help their interested parties recognize how the work will benefit them via data visualizations and their objectives in the long run.
All of this can be achieved through well-constructed, clear, and truthful reports.
Resources To Learn More 6. SEO ForecastingSimilar to the need to be good at explaining past results, experienced SEOs need to develop the ability to calculate likely outcomes.
SEO forecasting is a complicated science.
There are a lot of external factors that are hard to isolate and predict.
A change in competition, the market, or political situations could all cause well-thought-out estimations to go awry.
We should not be putting pressure on ourselves to accurately predict the exact volume of traffic, or visibility, our work might gain.
However, being able to put reasonable estimates and likely ranges into our recommendations can make the budget-holders a lot more reassured by the work we are proposing.
It isn’t enough to shrug our shoulders and cross our fingers when asked about outcomes.
We’re often requesting a lot of time, money and resources go into the activity were recommending.
SEO forecasting is a skill that will not only set you apart when looking for new roles or opportunities, it will also significantly improve the quality and reliability of your work.
Resources To Learn More 7. Log File AnalysisLog file analysis is the process of understanding the records of who or what has accessed your website.
They can tell you when people have visited a page as well as what device they were using to do so.
They can also tell you when bots access your website.
This is particularly helpful in understanding Googlebot and other search engine crawlers’ behavior on your site.
By analyzing log files you can better understand what pages search engine bots can or can’t access.
You can identify where there may be spider traps on your site or the frequency at which certain sections of your site are being crawled.
Log files can appear daunting if you have not spent much time around them.
Thankfully there are some great tools available that make analyzing them a lot simpler than just wading through the naked log files.
Understanding what to do with the information once you have it is the real skill. If you know that a certain area of your site is rarely crawled by Google that should inform your technical SEO next steps.
It should raise questions about your internal linking structure.
Getting familiar with log files is a great first step but to improve your skills make sure you are analyzing the files and drawing actionable conclusions from them.
Resources To Learn More 8. Website MigrationsGetting good at planning and executing website migrations is not easy. It really does take experience.
Many SEO professionals who have worked exclusively brand-side may find they simply have not had the opportunity to carry out that many website migrations.
If you face a particularly complicated one, such as multiple websites merging, it can be very daunting.
Chances are if you have spent any length of time in an SEO agency, you will have migrated a website or two.
It may have been a smooth process but more likely there were unforeseen complications that made the processing time and resource consuming.
There are not really just one or two skills involved in website migrations.
They are usually a complicated mix of stakeholder management, communication, planning, processes-driving, technical understanding, and knowing when to say no.
But the skills you develop during website migrations will help you enormously with the rest of your SEO career.
Participate in one if you get the chance.
It can give you a great (albeit high-pressured) opportunity to see multiple moving SEO parts in play at once.
Resources to learn more: 9. Optimizing For Other Search EnginesWe can often fall into the trap of thinking only about the traditional search engines when discussing SEO skills.
If we limit our training and experience to just these then we could be missing out on a much larger opportunity.
Traditional International WebsitesMany search engines work on similar principles, but with their own specific nuances.
Traditional search engines more prevalent outside of your home region may be unfamiliar to you.
There are some great resources available to get you started in understanding the differences between them and the search engines you’re more familiar with optimizing for.
Nothing beats practice, however.
If you want to refine your knowledge and understanding of unfamiliar search engines then you need to try to rank a site in them and see what works and what doesn’t.
YouTubeFor search engines like YouTube, the mechanics may be more familiar to you.
You will, however, still need to learn more about the algorithms in play to ensure you are carrying out the right activity to optimize your video content for the platform.
Other Non-traditional Search EnginesTake a look at some other search engines, like Pinterest and TripAdvisor.
These sites may not fit into your current remit as an SEO expert.
They are however still search engines that you can influence the success of your content in.
Resources to learn more: 10. International SEOOne of the most complicated projects an SEO might be involved in usually includes international elements.
It’s a complicated task because there are a lot of factors at play.
To optimize your website for international audiences you will need to employ technical SEO, digital PR, and on-page optimization skills.
There will be a range of questions you’ll need to ask yourself when you are considering expanding a website to international audiences.
These will include questions around the structure of the site – separate sites, sub-folders, or sub-directories?
Do you want to translate or localize the content? Do you want to target geography at the site or page level?
There are a lot of strategies and technical knowledge required to get international SEO right.
You may also need specific language skills or local knowledge resources.
Google has helpfully created an introduction to managing a multi-region website. It is a good place to start to identify the sorts of questions you should be asking.
You can also use it as a jumping-off point for further training or research.
This can help deepen your knowledge of the subject and sharpen your skills.
Resources to learn more: ConclusionThese are just a few of the skills you can develop to become a more pragmatic SEO professional.
Even if you don’t want to learn all of them, it helps to have an understanding of what they all are.
Even more so, how they can help round out your skill-set as an SEO expert.
More resources:
Featured Image: Alexander Supertramp/Shutterstock
Top 8 Seo Myths That Can Penalize Your Site
Introduction to SEO Myth Tips
Over the years, many misconceptions and SEO myths about search engine optimization have emerged. SEO Myths can start quickly and become pervasive over time. Following those SEO myths can cause severe damage to your website. There are also a lot of tips on driving traffic to your site. Some SEO tips will be great, while others are just a waste of time. Given below are a few SEO myths and a few SEO tips on effective ways to drive traffic to your site through SEO.
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Top 8 SEO Myths You Must Beware ofFollowing are the Myths explained in detail:
SEO Myths 1 – the Good website will bring good trafficA good website will help you with content marketing. An excellent website with original SEO content writing will bring the required traffic to your site.
Is it true? Not at all
SEO Myths 2 – Link building is a past techniqueLinks are dead. What? Yes, buying SEO backlinks from link farms is dead. Now, you will be penalized if you purchase links from outside for your site.
But the original seo backlinks built are still alive. Conduct an SEO link-building campaign rather than a link-buying campaign. It would help if you had links to bring traffic to your site.
Search engine spiders crawl to your site if you have inserted links to your site. SEO backlinks will help the search engine read all your site’s pages.
If you need to improve at SEO building links to your site, hire an expert to give you an SEO plan for acquiring links naturally. A link builder will give you many innovative ideas to get links naturally. Creating links has become a crucial part of SEO, so handle it carefully.
Let’s move to the following SEO myths.
SEO Myths 3 – Purchasing email listBut purchasing such email lists is an utter waste of time and money. The reasons are as follows
By the time you get the list, most of the email id’s will be out of date
You don’t know whether your emails are reaching your target customers
Many of the recipients will not be interested in your product
Many recipients will send your mail to their spam box if the mail you send is in no way to help them
SEO Myths 4 – Google analytics lets Google spy on youIs it true?
Yes, it is in the following cases.
If you have used Google Analytics for your old site and started a new one without fixing the senior site, the Google Analytics code will also apply to your new location.
And if you have created multiple domains and all have the same Google Analytics code, it acts as a spy on your site.
There is also a No to this fact
Google does not use Google Analytics as a factor to rank your site
Because many sites do not use Google Analytics, and if Google uses this factor to determine the position, it will not make any practical sense.
SEO Myths 5 – Social media is the new link building technologyYes, social media can create links but not from sharing itself. It is because Google had friction with Facebook and Twitter as the companies were unwilling to give Google access to their fire hose. So Google does not include social media links in its ranking algorithm. Social media can create links but have yet to make new connections.
Let’s move to the following SEO myths.
SEO Myths 6 – XML sitemaps increase your rankingsThe XML sitemap is essential to make your site crawlable by search engines. So we already know that sitemaps help search engines to crawl and index your site faster.
A sitemap does not affect your site rankings. It will make your site more visible to the searchers, but it does not guarantee rankings in search engines.
SEO Myths 7 – Top level domains increase rankingsAnd if the creator gives the site a .us extension, it will quickly show up for the searchers from that country.
SEO Myths 8 – Hire an SEO agency to get top rankingsIt is the essential SEO Myth of all. An SEO agency might be helpful in keyword analysis and competitive auditing.
But how could any SEO agency guarantee top rankings in search engines when no one can predict tomorrow’s SEO keywords?
People need help to guarantee fast top rankings in search engines.
SEO is a long-term strategy. You can never achieve top ranking for your site in one night or within a few days.
You can hire an SEO agency for various reasons like
When you don’t have time to run your site
When you want to do keyword research
If you want to increase your search traffic
When you want an SEO training course from them
Ranking obtained in a short period will gradually slide and bring you a significant loss.
SEO Tips to FollowFollowing are some seo tips we need to follow:
KeywordsFinding the keywords is the first step in an SEO campaign. Given below are a few SEO tips regarding the keyword research
Select long tail keywords than shorter ones. Long tail keywords can drive more traffic and get seo ranking quickly.
Find keywords that search engine attributes to your site
Find SEO keywords from your customers. Do research on words your customers use to describe your product or business.
Do basic On-page optimizationOnce the keywords are all set for your site, start with your SEO on-page optimization. There are a lot of SEO techniques, and the important ones are listed below
Meta tags matter a lot in SEO. Meta tags include the Title tag, Meta description, and Headings.
Title tag: Use your primary SEO keyword in this title tag at the top of the SEO browser.
Meta Description: This is very important as it appears on the search result page to the searchers. Make it attractive, and remember to include your keywords.
Headings: The H1 tag is the main title for the page. Have only one H1 tag. Use other heading tags like H2, H3, etc., to divide the contents into smaller sections.
Use SEO keywords sparingly in your content or tags.
To add an SEO description to the image that has been put onto your website, use Alt tags. Use keywords in the report and a keyword as a file name for the idea.
Make sure your URL is short and descriptive. Do not include special characters or underscores in your URL. Your URL should be related to your business.
LinksThe next best factor that drives more traffic to your site is quality, inbound links. Here are a few SEO tips on building links
Natural and organic links will help you drive traffic, and search engines will give more value to such links. Buying links is a lousy SEO strategy; you will be penalized for that.
Have quality content on your site and create anchor text in a target SEO keyword. Anchor text remains a major ranking factor. You can also use your brand, URL, and generic keywords as anchor text.
Try to get links from sites that are relevant to your business. When you get more of such links, the search engine will decide that your site offers value to the visitors, and you can have authority on the contents of your site.
If any other person uses your images, contact them and ask them to provide a link for your site.
Set alerts on your site to track mentions of your company. Find such persons and request them to provide a link to their website in their article.
If you are providing a link to some other website, then make sure that it is a trustworthy source. If not, the search engine will not crawl to your site.
Blogging and Social MediaSocial media will help you connect to influencers who will help you promote your content. The SEO tips below will help you market your site through social media.
Actively participate in social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, and others. It will increase the number of followers for your business. Content shared on such social media sites will reach a large population.
Have a WordPress site. It acts as a blogging platform. It acts as a Content Management System for the entire website and thus it saves you a lot of time, money, and energy.
Please have your company blog updated frequently with the latest news. It is the best way to add fresh content.
Find out the hottest topic on seo blogs and write your article on that from a new point of view. This way, you can gain more attraction.
SEO StrategiesA few SEO strategies will help you get a higher ranking in search engines.
Always remember that SEO and branding are different. Think from the side of the customers and select your keywords. Focus on what they are searching for, instead of what you want them to search for.
Think like your customers and answer to yourself a few questions like how do they find your site? What search term will they enter? Does your site appear on the first page? If you need help with what keywords you should focus on? Answers to all these questions will help you achieve your target.
Use free SEO small tools to get the statistics of your site frequently. It can tell you how much traffic is to your site and what keywords are driving more traffic. It will also help you to do future forecasts and make changes to your site accordingly.
Answer your customer’s queries online. It will help to protect your business authority online and will have a direct impact on your business promotion.
Create local listings on social media sites and add your photos, videos, and links to your site. It’s essential to map your local online presence.
Research your competitors and find out their marketing strategies. Try to list out their strengths and weaknesses. This way, you can improve your SEO.
Use chúng tôi if you want a page to be blocked and not to be crawled by the search engine. Also, add a no-index tag.
There are frequent updates in SEO technology. A yearly site audit will help you avoid issues and penalties. You can hire an SEO agency to do the audit for you.
While Google is the first most significant search engine, YouTube is the second largest. Remember that videos often get greater visibility in Google rankings.
ConclusionWe have shared our fair share of SEO myths and SEO tips. Have you found any SEO strategy that will work for you?
All these SEO myths and SEO tips will help you grow your business online and reach your target audience more quickly.
Recommended ArticlesThis has been a guide to SEO Myths. Here we have discussed the basic concept, 8 SEO myths you need to beware of along with some major SEO tips to follow. You may also look at the following articles to learn more –
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