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How to
Supercharge Your
SEO Strategy
About the Author Jeff Quipp is the founder and CEO of
Search Engine People Inc. (SEP). He is very passionate about
content, content strategy, SEO, PPC, social media, and the
entire inbound marketing process. From humble beginnings
in 2001, Jeff has built SEP to become the most reputable
digital agency in Canada, with more than 100 full-time experts
on staff. Jeff has a BA in Economics and an MBA.
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action-oriented messaging and remarkable content.
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The
following
eBook will
outline...
Introduction
5
What Has Changed?
7
8
The Relevancy Arms Race
Why Rankings Aren’t Everything
10
The New Way to do SEO
14
14 The Creation of Remarkable, Relevant Content
16 Content Promotion
17 Don’t Overlook Conversion Optimization
18 Provide Awesome User Experience
19 Optimize for Local Search
20 The “7 Pack”
21 Optimizing your Google + Local Listing
Conclusion
22
4
Introduction
The SEO game is rapidly changing. What were once
industry best practices – surefire ways to help boost a
website’s performance in Search Engine Results Pages
(SERPs) – are now cripplingly ineffective, and may even
serve to damage overall online visibility. Things like
meta-keyword tags, heavy reliance on anchor-text, and
article syndication – once legitimate, common SEO tactics
– have become practices that should be avoided like the
plague. Furthermore, the introduction of new algorithms
(Panda and Penguin) by Google, and their subsequent
updates and data refreshes have completely reworked
the manner in which pages rank, leaving website owners,
marketers and SEOs struggling to adjust.
These dramatically sweeping changes can be attributed
mainly to two things. The first, not surprisingly, is financial.
Essentially, the search engine market is a relevancy arms
race. Google and its competitors want to direct their users
to the most relevant, useful content in relation to search
queries, which ultimately helps them increase their
revenue through advertising. The faster people’s
questions are answered and the better the relevancy of
those answers, the better search engines do monetarily.
The second reason is inextricably linked to the first, and
we are partially to blame for it. Ever since it was realized
that there was a direct correlation between ranking
well on SERPs and a company’s bottom line, people
have been trying to game, trick, and manipulate search
engine algorithms to get pages ranking higher. This led
to a number of black hat SEO practices that included link
farms, link buying schemes, spamming and a plethora
of methods that are too numerous to name. Google,
in turn, has consistently been updating and modifying
their search algorithm in order to render these practices
ineffective, because they affect the relevancy and
quality of search results and thus revenue.
5
For years, it has been a back and forth of people trying
to game the algorithm and Google reacting by cracking
down on these practices. And they do a damn good
job of it, so take warning Google has more PhD’s than
NASA, and if you try to cheat the system, there will be
long term consequences. Unfortunately, for the majority
of marketers and SEOs who have been playing by
Google’s rules and building online visibility organically
through accepted practices, the fallout from algorithmic
updates affects all of us. This means that everyone –
not just those using disingenuous, black-hat tactics
– are left with the task of trying to adapt and adjust
to these changes. And in the current environment,
success requires that we completely rework the way we
perceive SEO.
This eBook will equip you with the knowledge and
information you need to Supercharge your SEO Efforts
so that you can achieve predictable, sustainable results.
It will cover:
How SEO has transformed; why you need to completely
rework your perspective of SEO; why rankings should
not be your main KPI for measuring the success of SEO
performance; and finally, the approach you should take
going forward to ensure consistent, long-term results for
your brand online.
6
What Has Changed
Trying to nail down what exactly qualifies as a strong SEO
practice is kind of like trying to shoot a moving target blindfolded
with a broken gun. If you are ranking well for certain terms,
it means that you are doing something right at that particular
moment in time. However, this could change at the drop of a
dime. The rules of the SEO game transform and evolve at a
frenetic pace, and staying up-to-date is often a practice in futility.
• In recent years, Google has changed, modified and updated its
algorithms an astonishing 550 times per year on average
• Search engines, and Google in particular, hold their cards close to
their chest. They don’t disclose specific information on how particular
changes and updates will affect search rankings, meaning the best
we have to work with is educated speculation.
• Since the pace of change is rapid, and the changes themselves are
somewhat clandestine, it’s very difficult to insulate yourself from
being penalized. Many practices that were once rewarded are now
the very reason websites are experiencing declines in performance.
In the
new world
of SEO...
There is one clear message: you need to
EARN your position. While it is near
impossible to discern how Google will
change and update their algorithm, it helps
to know what they strive to provide: the
most relevant, useful content to their users
in relation to the questions they are asking
in their search queries.
7
The Relevancy Arms Race
Since Google strives to provide the most relevant
content in response to its users search queries,
it is constantly reinventing and transforming itself
in order to achieve this goal. From providing
suggestions while you type queries into the search
bar, to localized and personalized results, every
Coffee
Panda
addition Google makes aims to be faster, more precise,
and more relevant.
Let’s take a look at some of the more impactful
changes, updates and modifications that Google has
made to its search algorithm in the last few years.
Penguin
Hummingbird
8
Coffee
Penguin
Completed in 2010, Caffeine marked a massive
infrastructure change to Google’s search results
ranking algorithm. This change was designed to
speed crawling, expand indexing and integrate
indexation and ranking in nearly real-time.
According to Google, it provided 50% fresher
(more recent) results for web searches than their
last index.
Rolled out in 2012, Penguin was essentially a
webspam update, adjusting a number of spam
factors such as keyword stuffing and other overoptimization tactics. The focus on creating highquality, remarkable content carried over from
Panda.
Panda
Hummingbird
Released in 2011, the Panda algorithm aimed to
lower the rankings of sites that were deemed to
have low-quality and “thin” content. With Panda’s
release, the impetus to create relevant, highquality content became known among SEOs
and marketers.
Introduced very recently, Hummingbird was
dubbed the biggest change to Google’s algorithm
in the past 12 years, focusing on better responding
to “conversational” and more complex search
queries that Google was receiving from searchers.
Again, this move was aimed to provide faster, more
precise results.
What do all of these changes have in common? They have all – either directly or indirectly – increased the importance of
creating high-quality content and ramping up user experience. Being a successful digital marketer today means expanding
efforts beyond search rankings to incorporate many elements. The reason why so many companies were so disastrously
impacted by these algorithmic updates is simple – they have been looking at rankings as the KPI for gauging their SEO efforts
and neglecting a number of other important aspects of overall online performance.
9
Why Rankings Aren’t Anything
Discussions centered on SEO very rarely deviate
from one key topic: rankings. They have long been
understood as the quintessential result of properly
performed SEO. Clients and management across
all industries in every type of business imaginable
have looked at their websites rankings in Google
or on other search engines as the key performance
indicator through which to measure the success of
their SEO efforts. While rankings are important, this
approach is fundamentally misinformed.
In the new SEO landscape, looking at only rankings
as a means to measure performance is both onedimensional and short-sighted. If you do this, you put
your eggs in too few baskets. What if Google makes
changes to their algorithm and you have only been
targeting a few keywords without much focus on
many other aspects of your overall online presence?
Your brand will disappear. Today, SEO is a marathon,
not a sprint. While ranking for targeted keywords is
great, SEO is part of a much more complex ecosystem
than your position on a search page. Businesses
are looking for predictable, sustainable revenue and
growth, and rankings aren’t the way to achieve this.
10
Unconvinced?
Here are seven reasons why rankings should not
be the main KPI for measuring SEO performance at
your organization:
1 Algorithm Changes and Updates
Google updates, modifies or in some manner changes
its algorithm an astonishing 550 times per year (in recent
years). This means that the way in which rankings are
determined is constantly in flux. Consequently, rankings are
essentially a snapshot in time, impermanent and unstable.
When algorithms change, site rankings fluctuate, particularly
when these updates are major, as in the cases of Panda
and Penguin. Companies cannot control rankings, they can
only affect them. If you focus solely on rankings, you will be
constantly clambering to recover every time a change or
update is made to a search algorithm.
2 Too Much Risk
Concentrating on rankings pigeon-holes companies into
focusing on a handful of “head terms” to attract prospective
customers, which can be a high-risk, high-return strategy.
However, it is also a very narrow, one-dimensional strategy.
You would be better served by diversifying your online
marketing tactics: content, long-tail keywords, public relations,
social media and more not only bolster your presence online,
but also safeguard you against future ranking fluctuations.
This is a much more holistic and effective strategy for
producing long-term, predictable results.
11
3 Personalization
As Google aims to provide more relevant, useful search
results to its users, personalization has become a
more salient tenet of the search experience. The way
websites are found and ranked is predicated upon users’
search history, preferences and location. Local search in
particular is hugely important in this respect. Now, users
are more likely to be provided with local listings and
companies by Google, which bump out results that would
normally have a higher ranking.
5 Distraction from Easier, Bigger Wins
A strict desire to see improvement in rankings also
distracts companies from focusing on other, highly
valuable tactics, such as website optimization. This is
a huge oversight – such tactics could result in returns
that far exceed what increases in rankings may provide,
meaning companies are missing out on a wealth of
opportunities.
4 Penalties
Focusing solely on rankings leaves you highly
susceptible to Google penalties. When the end
goal is ranking very high on the SERP, this goal is
usually accompanied by an attitude of “by any means
necessary.” This attitude is extremely risky and ultimately
harmful, as it encourages the use of risky tactics in order
to service this demand. When you use these kinds
of tactics, the chances of getting hit with a penalty by
Google is that much higher.
6 Short Term vs. Long Term
One of the most harmful aspects of measuring success
based solely on rankings is that it is short-sighted. When
rankings are positioned as the be all and end all, energy
is focused on practices like link-building (short term) as
opposed to practices that will ensure long term success,
like content creation. Focusing on creating and adding
valuable content to your site allows you to not only
attract the right visitors to your website, but also take
advantage of the cumulative benefits of content. Highquality, unique content will elicit higher traffic results
than will link-building.
12
7 Rankings Scams
If a company tells you that they can guarantee rankings,
you should avoid going into business with them at all costs.
Many SEOs sell companies by promising them rankings for
numerous terms. Many of these terms, however, have no
search volume, meaning they are both very easy to rank for
and of absolutely no value (since nobody is searching for
them). As already mentioned, we cannot control rankings, only
affect them. Google itself warns users of such companies,
stating: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.
Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege
a ‘special relationship’ with Google, or advertise a ‘priority
submit’ to Google.”
For the above reasons, rankings are not a good means of
evaluating your SEO efforts. It’s not that they are completely
unimportant, but rankings only reflect performance at a
specific point in time. Looking at rankings as an indication
of success does nothing to ensure sustainable, long-term
success. In today’s SEO landscape, you should focus your
efforts not on short-term wins, but on employing strategies
that will increase your brand’s long-term performance online.
For these
7 reasons,
Rankings are not a good means of evaluating
your SEO efforts. It’s not that they are
completely unimportant, but rankings only
reflect performance at a specific point in
time. Looking at rankings as an indication of
success does nothing to ensure sustainable,
long-term success. In today’s SEO landscape,
you should focus your efforts not on shortterm wins, but on employing strategies
that will increase your brand’s long-term
performance online.
13
The New Way to do SEO
The more dramatic among us have been quick to
jump the gun and proclaim that SEO is dead. In
reality, nothing can be further from the truth. SEO
is still paramount to online visibility and website
performance, though it has taken on a radically
different form. In the new landscape, SEO doesn’t
simply mean optimizing your website for search
engines; it is part of a much greater and more
dynamic ecosystem. Nowadays, achieving a strong
online presence requires implementing a multifaceted, cohesive and integrated strategy. Here, I will
talk about what areas you should focus on in order to
supercharge your SEO efforts and ensure your brand
has a killer online presence.
The Creation of Remarkable, Relevant Content
Content is perhaps the most crucial element of SEO as it exists
today. Why? Because Google ranks content, not companies.
Remember, Google is constantly looking for ways to provide
its users with the most relevant, useful results, and it’s unlikely
that this will change. When people perform a search, they
are essentially looking for an answer to a question. The more
detailed that answer is, and the more superior it is in relation
to other similar answers, the more useful it will be to Google’s
users. If Google views your content as useful and relevant,
then it will rank better in search results, plain and simple.
Google ranks content,
not companies.
14
The question is, then, how do you create content
that is relevant, remarkable and useful?
Here are a few tips:
Provide a solution to a problem, an answer to a question,
or some offer of help.
Become the go-to, authoritative source for information in
your industry. Though your competition may focus on
self-promotion and selling products and services, you
should focus on being helpful.
Be unique.
With so much information available on every subject
imaginable, the key to breaking through the noise is
providing something that is different. Yes, it’s likely that the
topics you focus on have been covered, but there is ample
opportunity to carve out your own niche or give your
audience something unique. Make your content different.
Add value to similar content that others have already
done. Add images, videos, infographics and more.
Do it DIFFERENTLY!
Don’t be boring.
Even if you are in an industry that seems dry or vapid,
there is always room for you to be stimulating and creative.
Branding is hugely important to this end, as is providing a
variety of content in multiple formats: webpages, blog posts,
videos, images, infographics, whitepapers, social snippets
– make sure you mix it up! Not only will this elicit stronger
engagement with your brand, but it will also ensure that you
fill any content gaps.
15
Content Promotion
Equally important to content creation is content promotion.
The more effectively you seed the content you create, the
more of an impact it will have. Today, there are 4 methods
that are integral to promoting your branded content online.
1 Social Media
Social media is a valuable resource because it creates
exposure, awareness and helps to build brand authority.
Furthermore, social signals (which I will discuss further
later in this e-book) such as Likes and Shares are critical
factors in improving your organic search positioning.
2 Outreach
You should always be striving to build relationships
with key influencers in your industry. If you can get well
respected individuals and websites to carry, publish,
distribute or promote your content, it will vastly increase
the reach of your content, and by association, your brand.
3 Public Relations
Similar to outreach, PR can increase traffic, create
awareness and help to bolster your brand messaging. By
leading with high quality content, PR efforts can ensure
that your brand messaging resonates with your audience,
converting them into brand ambassadors.
4 Paid Advertising
While promoting your content organically is critical,
paid campaigns are still a very important facet of SEO.
Whether display advertising, paid social or pay-perclick, paid content promotion is an invaluable tool for
improving online brand presence.
16
Don’t Overlook Conversion Optimization
Conversion optimization is one of the most overlooked
aspects when it comes to boosting online performance.
When people focus too much on rankings, they fail to
recognize the effectiveness and simplicity of ensuring that
conversion paths on their website are optimized. This is a
costly oversight, as conversion optimization allows you to
maximize the traffic you are receiving from your other SEO
efforts by encouraging visitors to take particular actions
on your website. It allows you to guide leads further along
the sales funnel by providing a useable, logical path for
visitors to follow. For example, if a lead has viewed a page
with top-of-the-funnel content, you can provide a call to
action that directs them towards middle-of-the-funnel
content, and so on.
Conversion optimization is useful because higher
conversion rates mean that you can gather more data,
which you can then use to specifically target leads through
marketing automation. Automating marketing workflows is
advantageous because it has the potential to dramatically
increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts by
developing relationships with visitors to your website. This
could take many forms – a conversation on social media, the
distribution of content throughout all stages of the buying
process, email marketing, remarketing, and so on. You even
have the opportunity to help leads frame their RFP, and
naturally, you can build it to mirror what you can offer.
If you haven’t yet optimized the conversion paths on your site,
you should identify the top 5 high-traffic pages and begin there.
Q: Are your call-to-actions prominently placed?
Q: Is the language actionable?
Q: Do they entice people to click through?
Q: Are the offers being presented relevant to
the content of the pages?
17
Provide Awesome User Experience
If somebody visits your website and you are unable to
make them convert or perform a desired action, you
have lost a huge opportunity. You have let a prospective
customer bounce away, and with so much competition,
this is something you can’t afford. So, how do you
ensure that visitors to your website advance through the
desired conversion path, rather than taking their search
elsewhere? You provide awesome usability and user
experience.
Usability and UX are important because search engines
like Google use data to determine how people interact
with websites, and this gives them an idea of the quality
of the site. And the higher the quality is, the better the site
will perform. Our friends at Moz have noted that websites
which consistently perform well on search engine ranking
pages have the following traits in common:
• They are easy to use, navigate and understand
• They provide direct information relevant to the query
• They are well-designed and respond properly to modern
browsers
• They deliver remarkable content
Websites that provide superior usability and user experience
are more likely to have lower bounce rates, higher amounts
of time spent on the site, and more links, shares and cites.
Google uses signals like these to make inferences about the
popularity and quality of a site, because they indicate that the
site is likely valuable to users. If you can provide your visitors
with a positive experience, they are more likely to link to
your site, share it across their social media circles, and return
frequently, all of which can boost performance on search
engine results pages.
18
Optimize for Local Search
Local search is among the most important trends
in search today, and it’s only becoming more
fundamental. In search engine results pages,
users are more likely to be presented with local
listings and companies, which bumps out results
that would normally have had a higher ranking.
Again, this is a result of search engines striving
to provide their users with the most relevant,
useful results in relation to their queries. And for
Google in particular, this move towards greater
personalization will continue to weigh heavily on
their ranking algorithm.
The following stats are quite illuminating:
73%
of all online activity is related
to local content (Google)
82%
of local searchers follow up with a
phone call or visit to your location
(TMP/Comscore)
40%
of mobile searches have local intent
(Google)
19
The “7 Pack”
On Google SERPs, the 7 Pack is the group of local websites/businesses that appear in page one in the local search
results. Similar to organic search results, Google takes into account several different ranking factors in its local algorithm
to determine whether or not your business will be included in this particular group.
Rankings factors for the 7 Pack include:
The level of brand popularity
The general assumption is that if a large
number of people are talking about your
business online, the likelihood that your
business will appear in the local search
results 7 pack increases.
Google + Local Profile
Formerly known as Google Places,
Google + Local allows business owners
to add, update and manage their physical
locations online. It is required in order to
rank in Google Local listings.
Business location
Google tries to provide relevant, useful
results. The more localized the results are,
the more valuable they are to the searcher,
particularly if the query is made to find a
service or type of business. (For example, a
chiropractor or an electronics store). To rank
well in local search, the business must have
a physical presence in the city or locale
being targeted.
20
Optimizing your Google + Local Listing
Because local search is becoming such an important
part of SEO, it’s paramount that you optimize for local
search. Ranking in the 7 pack can provide businesses
with tremendous exposure and increased visibility,
leading to opportunities for increases in traffic, phone
calls and conversions.
Here are some steps you can take to optimize your
Google + Local listing:
1 Adhere to Google’s quality guidelines
Among other practices that Google outlines, you should
make sure you’re actually authorized to manage the
listing, accurately represent your business, and use
precise location information.
2 Upgrade to Google + Business
Businesses have the opportunity to upgrade their
Google + Local profile into a Google + Business profile,
which combines the local and social features, providing
additional benefits from a marketing standpoint by
allowing business to include posts, videos, and build
a following on Google + while displaying their local
information to potential customers.
3 Make a complete profile
Make your listing as complete as possible, as profiles that are
100% complete are likely to display more prominently than
other listings. Be sure to include things like your website URL,
your phone number and hours of operation, email address
and a thorough, well-written description of your business.
4 Choose relevant categories
Select accurate categories that properly reflect your business.
The more detailed and specific your categories are, the better
users will be able to locate your business based on terms and
phrases that are relevant to the services you provide.
5 Encourage user reviews
Google takes into account customer reviews to determine
if a business can best solve a customer’s dilemma. Where
appropriate, encourage users and visitors to leave reviews.
This can be done via email and newsletters, or even
mentioned to customers in-store.
If you fail to focus attention on local search, you are missing out on a
tremendous opportunity. Given the volume of searches with local intent
that are conducted, optimizing for local search is paramount to success
– this is as true for large businesses as it is for SMBs. Improving your
performance in local search results can not only increase exposure and
visibility, but can also boost traffic, leads and conversion rates.
21
Conclusion
Today, SEO isn’t just about optimizing your website for
search engines; it involves a long-term, multi-pronged
and cohesive strategy geared at bolstering your overall
online presence. While rankings are still important, they
should not be the main indicator you use to measure
success. What is required is a strategy that will produce
consistent, sustainable results. Improving and maintaining
a strong online presence means focusing on the creation
and promotion of content, employing multiple marketing
strategies ranging from paid search to social media
to public relations, and providing unparalleled user
experience and website usability.
Essentially, you need to reinvent the way you perceive
SEO. Stop aiming for short-term wins, and instead focus
on creating a brand that will withstand the test of time
and continue to perform well regardless of the plethora
of algorithmic changes, updates and modifications that
Google is bound to make in the future. SEO is a dynamic
and ever-transforming industry; if you fail to adapt, your
chances of sustainable, long-term success are slim.
22
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