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5 Amazing Landing Page Examples To Inspire Your Own

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5 Amazing Landing Page Examples To Inspire Your Own

Landing pages – they’re powerful, aren’t they?

When we click on an ad, it’s the landing page that helps us decide what to do next.

Ideally, it makes you do a double-take and proclaim, “I must have this!”

It can also fall flat and go viral for all the wrong reasons. (I’m looking at you Rainbow capitalism.)

The design of a good landing page is an intersection of art, marketing, and psychology.

And, if you’re reading this article, that means you’re looking for guidance and inspiration to improve your own landing pages.

That’s exactly what we’re going to do.

We are going to share the features of what makes an amazing landing page and break down five examples to learn from.

Features Of An Amazing Landing Page

The hard truth: Getting people to opt in is tricky.

Even when the tech is amazing and the product is innovative.

If you send visitors to a webpage that fails to communicate the value, all of your market research and product development efforts go right down the drain.

The good news is this article is all about helping you create amazing landing pages that encourage more conversions – and, ultimately, generate more customers.

Improve your success rate by weaving these six features into your landing page design.

Poppin’

Landing pages should be distraction-free in order to focus on the task at hand – getting the visitor to convert.

This means that top navigation can be ditched in favor of a sleek, one-page design. Just be sure to leave a clickable logo in case users want a way out but still want to interact with your brand.

Revealing the product with clear annotated product visuals, helps visitors picture themselves using it.

Most importantly, the page has to pop! An eye-catching hero image and visuals help to capture the visitor’s attention and convey what the offer is in a way our brains can process quicker.

Free Of Fluff

The copy on a landing page is one of the most important elements. It’s what convinces website visitors to convert.

Great landing page copy uses strong headlines, clear value propositions, and explains “why” they matter.

Content should focus on user benefits over product features and address any doubts so visitors don’t leave.

The copy should be focused and free of fluff; every word should serve a purpose.

FOMO

FOMO is real. One of the most powerful persuasion techniques that landing pages can use is social proof.

If we see that others (we respect) are doing it, we are more likely to do it, too. This is the business equivalent of your mom asking you, “If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you?”

…Yes, yes I would.

You can create FOMO by featuring testimonials from happy (relatable) customers or including statistics about how many people are using and loving the service or product.

Ready, Set, Go

A landing page shouldn’t feel like trying to break out of an escape room.

You need a strong call-to-action (CTA) if you want the visitor to convert.

A strong CTA is clear, concise, and explains why it’s important for the visitor to take this action.

A clear and concise call-to-action is just one action and the button contrasts with the page – this is so users can’t miss it.

Need For Speed

Page speed is how quickly a webpage loads. Basically, make sure it loads fast so people don’t leave. That’s it.

5 Examples Of Landing Pages

An amazing landing page is one that helps website visitors feel that this is the right company (or the right product) for the job.

And, there’s no better way to learn about what makes an amazing landing page than by exploring real-world examples from some of the best landing pages on the web.

Here are five examples of amazing landing pages.

1. ASOS

British online retailer ASOS is among the world’s most valuable apparel brands, competing with Nike, Adidas, and Zara.

This means there must be something really special behind those marketing strategies that online retailers can learn from.

Let’s see what they’re doing right.

I searched for [wedding guest plus size dresses] and saw a search network ad from ASOS which took me to a landing page for women’s plus size dresses for U.S. web visitors.

Screenshot from ASOS, June 2022.

For starters, the ad took me directly to a landing page related to my search query – I love when that happens.

The full-length thumbnails of plus size models, moving in the dresses, helps me immediately know that I’m in the right place and I can begin to imagine myself in the product.

Top navigation breadcrumbs let me know exactly where I am on the site, so if I want to go back and see all the curve clothing, that’s really simple to do.

Filters are front and center for me to further refine my search by how new it is, eco-responsibility, color, price, and more.

Sales copy is free of fluff allowing the user to focus on the product (clothes). Description of the category page does include reference to which brands to check out for trending styles.

All in all, it’s a clean, well-organized landing page that keeps attention directly on the product.

ASOS may want to test adding social proof to their landing page by adding a filter based on user reviews or engage FOMO by highlighting that an item is selling fast.

2. DRIFT

B2B commerce startup Drift is a conversational marketing and sales technology company, well known for its live chatbot.

It is one of the only Latino-founded companies to ever achieve a valuation over $1 billion.

“Our purpose as a company remains simple and consistent: Build a platform that makes it simpler for customers to buy from you,” Drift CEO David Cancel said in a statement.

Let’s see how simple Drift makes their product to buy and check out their live-chat landing page.

B2B SaaS landing page exampleScreenshot from DRIFT, June 2022.

Ok, I am geeking out over the bright and minimalistic design (slight 90s vibes); it looks so sharp on all devices.

Above the fold, we see a big, bold headline immediately addressing how the app helps business owners “engage and convert” with Drift’s solution “live chat.”

Below the headline, the content block explains why users are not engaging or converting: “Today’s buyer doesn’t want to wait.”

Nice contrasting color on the CTA inviting web visitors to “Get a Demo.”

The header image uses the product as the example which is 10x better than a stock photo.

And, I have to call out the shield icon in the bottom left-hand corner that opens privacy settings. This small addition provides site visitors with a subconscious affirmation that the company takes data privacy seriously.

As we scroll down the page, we see social proof with a video review by the senior director of a global marketing operations and technology company.

Video testimonial on landing page exampleScreenshot from DRIFT, June 2022.

If you can get video reviews, do it! They are way more engaging than a standard text review because they’re really hard to fake.

Continuing to scroll down the page, the content teeter-totters between sharing different use cases with a summary and image or .gif and social proof in the form of a text quote or case study.

At the end of the long-form landing page, there is a solid call to action “start conversations with your website visitors now.” With a contrasting button, “Get a Demo.”

Bottom of page CTA landing page exampleScreenshot from DRIFT, June 2022.

When you click on “Get a Demo” it launches the product itself and you interact with the Drift bot to book a demo.

Drift’s live chat page checks off all the features of an amazing landing page, making it extremely easy to buy from them.

3. LawnDoctor.com

Lawn Doctor offers lawn maintenance and pest control services, but it’s not your run-of-the-mill landscaping company.

This lawn care brand has grown to more than 630 locations, increasing its year-over-year sales by 16% in 2020.

Local service providers can learn a lot from Lawn Doctor’s landing page. Let’s take a look at how they’ve designed their landing page to attract new customers.

local service provider landing page exampleScreenshot from Lawn Doctor, June 2022.

Lawn Doctor is such a great example for local service companies.

The color palette uses the rich color of green consumers wants to attain with a hero image featuring what the site visitor wants, a beautifully landscaped backyard.

Social proof is visualized with the 4.7 star average Google rating overlay on the image. The exact number of 4.7 is helpful because it feels like a real number and not an approximation.

The estimate form is available at the top; users don’t have to go scrolling for it, and a phone number is available in the top right corner for those that don’t want to wait.

When I enter my zip code into the form, the city and state are automatically populated for me which is awesome because I get lazy and don’t want to enter every detail.

Sales copy gets right to the point; the header explains you’re getting customized lawn care with a scientific approach.

The word choice “custom” and “scientific” makes me think that I’m getting a better service than I would from anyone else.

Below the header image but above the fold, Lawn Doctor upsells me services that are highly relevant to the current season.

I can click on that CTA to learn more or I’m more likely to ask about it when a sales representative calls me.

Just in case a user had any hesitation, there is a 100% refund if I’m not fully satisfied, followed by Google reviews for social proof.

The only thing this page is missing is the fear of missing out which Lawn Doctor could do with a countdown discount timer.

4. Flywheel

Flywheel was acquired by WP Engine in 2019.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed but in an interview, Heather Brunner confirmed Flywheel’s annual recurring revenue was $18 million at the time of acquisition.

What made Flywheel so successful? Aside from being a great managed WordPress hosting platform, the company’s marketing was dialed in. Take a look!

eBook landing page exampleScreenshot from Flywheel, June 2022.

Top navigation is not present, helping the page visitor to stay focused on the content you want them to.

The logo reminds site visitors where they are and is clickable providing an easy escape back to the main domain.

The beautiful color scheme with the calm business blue and contrasting money green call-to-action button above the fold.

The headline includes the word “free” letting visitors know they won’t have to pay for the download.

Text is broken up into chunks making it easy to read on mobile.

ebook landing page example_show the productScreenshot from Flywheel, June 2022.

Below the fold is a mini-preview of the chapters so I know what I’m exchanging my personal information for. Gives me a sense of whether or not it’s worth it to me.

The final CTA at the bottom of the landing page reinforces that the ebook is completely free and filled with secrets! The download is a quick and simple company email.

ebook landing page example_bottom of the page ctaScreenshot from Flywheel, June 2022.

Form completion confirmation takes me to the product home page to further explore the product. All in all a beautiful ebook landing page that lead gen companies can learn from.

The only suggestion here is to add social proof near the bottom CTA to “seal the deal.”

5. Breathwrk

Breathwrk is a female-founded startup that raised an undisclosed amount from a total of 10 investors including Demo Lovato and BAM Ventures.

The breathing exercises app has over 1.2 million users worldwide.

Let’s see if the landing page can reduce our stress and improve landing page design?

The search query for this landing page was, “how to handle stress at work.”

App landing page exampleScreenshot from Breathwrk, June 2022.

The main Navigation is simplified, which keeps the users focused on the information you want them to look at.

But if they click the “More” button a drop-down list of additional pages (Science, FAQ, Blog, and more) is available.

The color palette is calming tones of blue and green with a contrasting CTA button “contact us” in purple.

Just like Drift, Breathwrk shows the product which allows site visitors to see what they’re going to get.

The headline starts with the main idea, “Improve your workplace,” and the subheading tells us how to “help your employees reduce stress and improve focus…”

Followed by the FOMO by showcasing the companies who are using the Breathwrk app for their employees.

As we scroll down the landing page, Breathwrk does a brilliant job explaining the app’s features from the perspective of the user.

App landing page example_explaining features as user benefitScreenshot from Breathwrk, June 2022.

A user doesn’t really care that there’s an option for breathing exercises before meetings but a user is interested in reducing employee stress and improving focus between back-to-back meetings, and before a big pitch.

The sales copy minimizes objections by explaining that the app is easy to set up and easy to manage.

App landing page example_reduce objectionsScreenshot from Breathwrk, June 2022.

This is important because the last thing an organization needs is stress setting up an app to reduce stress.

Easy onboarding, ongoing support, and user analytics (so you can see if employees are using the app and how they’re using the app).

Breathwrk provides social proof in the form of text review quotes right before the CTA “Get Breathwrk for your team” and form fill.

App landing page example_social proofScreenshot from Breathwrk, June 2022.

An amazing example of an App landing page. It grabs attention, shows the product, and explains how it creates value for the site visitor.

Final Thoughts

Overall, an amazing landing page helps site visitors decide what to do next.

Some features to consider when designing a landing page is:

  • The design captures visitors’ attention and keeps it on the end goal.
  • Copy is focused and free of fluff.
  • Use social proof and FOMO.
  • Minimize objections and have a clear CTA.
  • Make sure it loads fast.

And, don’t forget to set up Analytics to measure and learn from user activity. Testing is going to be your secret to success.

More Resources:


Featured Image: Mila Supinskaya Glashchenko/Shutterstock



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The Lean Guide (With Template)

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The Lean Guide (With Template)

A competitive analysis (or market competitive analysis) is a process where you collect information about competitors to gain an edge over them and get more customers.

However, the problem is that “traditional” competitive analysis is overkill for most businesses — it requires impractical data and takes too long to complete (and it’s very expensive if you choose to outsource). 

A solution to that is a lean approach to the process — and that’s what this guide is about. 

In other words, we’ll focus on the most important data you need to answer the question: “Why would people choose them over you?”. No boring theory, outtakes from marketing history, or spending hours digging up nice-to-have information.

In this guide, you will find:

  • A real-life competitive analysis example.
  • Templates: one for input data and one for a slide deck to present your analysis to others.
  • Step-by-step instructions.

Our template consists of two documents: a slide deck and a spreadsheet. 

The Slide deck is the output document. It will help you present the analysis to your boss or your teammates.

The spreadsheet is the input document. You will find tables that act as the data source for the charts from the slide deck, as well as a prompt to use in ChatGPT to help you with user review research.

Competitive analysis template — spreadsheet sneak peek.Competitive analysis template — spreadsheet sneak peek.

We didn’t focus on aesthetics here; every marketer likes to do slide decks their own way, so feel free to edit everything you’ll find there. 

With that out of the way, let’s talk about the process. The template consists of these six tasks: 

  1. Identify your direct competitors. 
  2. Compare share of voice. 
  3. Compare pricing and features.
  4. Find strong and weak points based on reviews.
  5. Compare purchasing convenience.
  6. Present conclusions.

Going forward, we’ll explain why these steps matter and show how to complete them. 

1. Identify your direct competitors

Direct competitors are businesses that offer a similar solution to the same audience. 

They matter a lot more than indirect competitors (i.e. businesses with different products but targeting the same audience as you) because you’ll be compared with them often (e.g. in product reviews and rankings). Plus, your audience is more likely to gravitate towards them when considering different options. 

You probably have a few direct competitors in mind already, but here are a few ways to find others based on organic search and paid search ads

Our basis for the analysis was Landingi, a SaaS for building landing pages (we chose that company randomly). So in our case, we found these 3 direct competitors. 

Slide 1 — direct competitors.Slide 1 — direct competitors.

Look at keyword overlap

Keyword overlap uncovers sites that target the same organic keywords as you. Some sites will compete with you for traffic but not for customers (e.g. G2 may share some keywords with Landingi but they’re a different business). However, in many cases, you will find direct competitors just by looking at this marketing channel. 

  • Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer and enter your site’s address. 
  • Scroll down to Organic competitors
  • Visit the URLs to pick 3 – 5 direct competitors.
Top organic competitors data from Ahrefs.Top organic competitors data from Ahrefs.

To double-check the choice of competitors, we also looked at who was bidding for search ads on Google.

See who’s advertising 

If someone is spending money to show ads for keywords related to what you do, that’s a strong indication they are a direct competitor. 

  • Go to Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer.
  • Type in a few broad keywords related to your niche, like “landing page builder” or “landing page tool”. 
  • Go to the Ads history report. 
  • Visit the sites that have a high presence of ads in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). 
Ads history report in Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer.Ads history report in Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer.

Once you’re done checking both reports, write down competitors in the deck. 

You can also take screenshots of the reports and add them to your deck to show the supporting data for your argument. 

 Slide 2 — direct competitors by organic traffic. Slide 2 — direct competitors by organic traffic.

2. Compare share of voice

Share of voice is a measure of your reach in any given channel compared to competitors. 

A bigger share of voice (SOV) means that your competitors are more likely to reach your audience. In other words, they may be promoting more effectively than you. 

In our example, we found that Landingi’s SOV was the lowest in both of these channels. 

Organic: 

Slide 3 — share of voice on Google Search.Slide 3 — share of voice on Google Search.

And social media:

 Slide 4 — share of voice on social media. Slide 4 — share of voice on social media.

Here’s how we got that data using Ahrefs and Brand24.

Organic share of voice 

Before we start, make sure you have a project set up in Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker

Create a new project in Ahrefs' Rank Tracker.Create a new project in Ahrefs' Rank Tracker.

Now: 

  • Go to Ahrefs’ Competitive Analysis and enter your and your competitors’s sites as shown below. 
Create a new project in Ahrefs' Rank Tracker.
Create a new project in Ahrefs' Rank Tracker.
  • On the next screen, set the country with the most important market for your business and set the filters like this:
Content gap analysis filter setup.Content gap analysis filter setup.
  • Select keywords that sound most relevant to your business (even if you don’t rank for them yet) and Add them to Rank Tracker
Common keywords found via Ahrefs' Competitive Analysis.Common keywords found via Ahrefs' Competitive Analysis.
  • Go to Rank Tracker, open your project, and look for Competitors/Overview. This report will uncover automatically calculated Share of Voice
Organic share of voice data in Ahrefs.Organic share of voice data in Ahrefs.
  • Add the numbers in corresponding cells inside the sheet and paste the graph inside the slide deck. 
Filling the share of voice template with data.Filling the share of voice template with data.

It’s normal that the numbers don’t add up to 100%. SOV is calculated by including sites that compete with you in traffic but are not your direct competitors, e.g. blogs. 

Social share of voice 

We can also measure our share of voice across social media channels using Brand24.

  • Go to Brand24.
  • Start a New project for your brand and each competitor. Use the competitors’ brand name as the keyword to monitor. 
  • Go to the Comparison report and compare your project with competitors. 
Using Brand24's Comparison tool for competitive analysis.Using Brand24's Comparison tool for competitive analysis.
  • Take a screenshot of the SOV charts and paste them into the slide deck. Make sure the charts are set to “social media”.
Social media tab in share of voice report.Social media tab in share of voice report.

3. Compare pricing and features

Consumers often choose solutions that offer the best value for money — simple as that. And that typically comes down to two things: 

  • Whether you have the features they care about. We’ll use all features available across all plans to see how likely the product is to satisfy user needs.
  • How much they will need to pay. Thing is, the topic of pricing is tricky: a) when assessing affordability, people often focus on the least expensive option available and use it as a benchmark, b) businesses in the SaaS niche offer custom plans. So to make things more practical, we’ll compare the cheapest plans, but feel free to run this analysis across all pricing tiers.

After comparing our example company to competitors, we found that it goes head-to-head with Unbounce as the most feature-rich solution on the market. 

Slide 5 — features vs. pricing.Slide 5 — features vs. pricing.

Here’s how we got that data. 

  • Note down your and your competitors’ product features. One of the best places to get this information is pricing pages. Some brands even publish their own competitor comparisons — you may find them helpful too. 
  • While making the list, place a “1” in the cell corresponding to the brand that offers the solution.
Filling data in the spreadsheet.Filling data in the spreadsheet.
  • Enter the price of the cheapest plan (excluding free plans). 
Adding pricing data inside the spreadsheet.Adding pricing data inside the spreadsheet.
  • Once finished, copy the chart and paste it inside the deck. 

4. Find strong and weak points based on user reviews

User reviews can show incredibly valuable insight into your competitors’ strong and weak points. Here’s why this matters:

  • Improving on what your competitors’ customers appreciate could help you attract similar customers and possibly win some over.
  • Dissatisfaction with competitors is a huge opportunity. Some businesses are built solely to fix what other companies can’t fix. 

Here’s a sample from our analysis: 

 Slide 6 — likes and dislikes about Competitors. Slide 6 — likes and dislikes about Competitors.

And here’s how we collated the data using ChatGPT. Important: repeat the process for each competitor.

  • Open ChatGPT and enter the prompt from the template.
ChatGPT prompt for competitive analysis.ChatGPT prompt for competitive analysis.
  • Go to G2, Capterra, or Trustpilot and find a competitor’s reviews with ratings from 2 – 4 (i.e. one rating above the lowest and one below the highest possible). Reason:

businesses sometimes solicit five-star reviews, whereas dissatisfied customers tend to leave one-star reviews in a moment of frustration. The most actionable feedback usually comes in between.

  • Copy and paste the content of the reviews into ChatGPT (don’t hit enter yet). 
  • Once you’re done pasting all reviews, hit enter in ChatGPT to run the analysis.
Sample of ChatGPT output with charts.Sample of ChatGPT output with charts.
  • Paste the graphs into the deck. If you want the graphs to look different, don’t hesitate to ask the AI. 

There’s a faster alternative, but it’s a bit more advanced. 

Instead of copy-pasting, you can use a scraping tool like this one to get all reviews at once. The downside here is that not all review sources will a have scraping tool available. 

5. Compare purchasing convenience

Lastly, we’ll see how easy it is to actually buy your products, and compare the experience to your competitors. 

This is a chance to simplify your checkout process, and even learn from any good habits your competitors have adopted.

For example, we found that our sample company had probably nothing to worry about in this area — they ticked almost all of the boxes. 

Slide 7 — purchasing convenience.Slide 7 — purchasing convenience.

Here’s how to complete this step:

  • Place a “1” if you or any of your competitors offer convenience features listed in the template. 
  • Once done, copy the chart and paste it into the deck.

Step 6. Present conclusions

This is the part of the presentation where you sum up all of your findings and suggest a course of action. 

Here are two examples: 

  • Landingi had the lowest SOV in the niche, and that is never good. So the conclusion might be to go a level deeper and do an SEO competitive analysis, and to increase social media presence by creating more share-worthy content like industry surveys, design/CRO tips, or in-house data studies.
  • Although the brand had a very high purchasing convenience score, during the analysis we found that there was a $850 gap between the monthly full plan and the previous tier. The conclusion here might be to offer a custom plan (like competitors do) to fill that gap. 

We encourage you to take your time here and think about what would make the most sense for your business. 

Tip

It’s good to be specific in your conclusions, but don’t go too deep. Competitive analysis concerns many aspects of the business, so it’s best to give other departments a chance to chime in. Just because your competitors have a few unique features doesn’t necessarily mean you need to build them too.

Final thoughts 

A competitive analysis is one of the most fruitful exercises in marketing. It can show you areas for improvement, give ideas for new features, and help you discover gaps in your strategy. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that it’s fundamental to running a successful business. 

Just don’t forget to balance “spying” on your competitors with innovation. After all, you probably don’t want to become an exact copy of someone else’s brand. 

In other words, use competitive analysis to keep up with your competitors, but don’t let that erase what’s unique about your brand or make you forget your big vision. 

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Critical WordPress Form Plugin Vulnerability Affects Up To +200,000 Installs

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Critical WordPress Form Plugin Vulnerability Affects Up To +200,000 Installs

Security researchers at Wordfence detailed a critical security flaw in the MW WP Form plugin, affecting versions 5.0.1 and earlier. The vulnerability allows unauthenticated threat actors to exploit the plugin by uploading arbitrary files, including potentially malicious PHP backdoors, with the ability to execute these files on the server.

MW WP Form Plugin

The MW WP Form plugin helps to simplify form creation on WordPress websites using a shortcode builder.

It makes it easy for users to create and customize forms with various fields and options.

The plugin has many features, including one that allows file uploads using the [mwform_file name=”file”] shortcode for the purpose of data collection. It is this specific feature that is exploitable in this vulnerability.

Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Upload Vulnerability

An Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Upload Vulnerability is a security issue that allows hackers to upload potentially harmful files to a website. Unauthenticated means that the attacker does not need to be registered with the website or need any kind of permission level that comes with a user permission level.

These kinds of vulnerabilities can lead to remote code execution, where the uploaded files are executed on the server, with the potential to allow the attackers to exploit the website and site visitors.

The Wordfence advisory noted that the plugin has a check for unexpected filetypes but that it doesn’t function as it should.

According to the security researchers:

“Unfortunately, although the file type check function works perfectly and returns false for dangerous file types, it throws a runtime exception in the try block if a disallowed file type is uploaded, which will be caught and handled by the catch block.

…even if the dangerous file type is checked and detected, it is only logged, while the function continues to run and the file is uploaded.

This means that attackers could upload arbitrary PHP files and then access those files to trigger their execution on the server, achieving remote code execution.”

There Are Conditions For A Successful Attack

The severity of this threat depends on the requirement that the “Saving inquiry data in database” option in the form settings is required to be enabled in order for this security gap to be exploited.

The security advisory notes that the vulnerability is rated critical with a score of 9.8 out of 10.

Actions To Take

Wordfence strongly advises users of the MW WP Form plugin to update their versions of the plugin.

The vulnerability is patched in the lutes version of the plugin, version 5.0.2.

The severity of the threat is particularly critical for users who have enabled the “Saving inquiry data in database” option in the form settings and that is compounded by the fact that no permission levels are needed to execute this attack.

Read the Wordfence advisory:

Update ASAP! Critical Unauthenticated Arbitrary File Upload in MW WP Form Allows Malicious Code Execution

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Alexander_P

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How SEOs Make the Web Better

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How SEOs Make the Web Better

SEOs catch flak for ruining the web, but they play a crucial role in the search ecosystem, and actually make the internet better for everyone.

Let’s get the criticism out of the way. There are bad actors in SEO, people who seek to extract money from the internet regardless of the cost to others. There are still scams and snake oil, posers and plagiarists. Many parts of the web have become extremely commercialized, with paid advertising and big brands displacing organic and user-generated content.

But while there are situations where SEOs have made things worse, to fixate on them is to ignore the colossal elephant in the room: in the ways that really matter, the web is the best it’s ever been:

  • It’s the easiest it has ever been to find information on the internet. Searchers have a staggering array of tutorials, teardowns, and tips at their fingertips, containing information that is generally accurate and helpful—and this was not always the case.
  • Bad actors have a smaller influence over search. Search is less of a Wild West than it used to be. Once-scam-ridden topics are subject to significant scrutiny, and the problems and loopholes in search that need fixing today—like big brands and generic content receiving undue prominence—are smaller and less painful than the problems of the past.
  • More people use search to their benefit. Online content is the most accessible it has ever been, and it’s easier than ever to grow a local business or expand into international markets on the back of search.

SEOs have played a crucial role in these improvements, poking and prodding, building and—sometimes—breaking. They are Google power users: the people who push the system to extremes, but in doing so, catalyze the change needed to make search better for everyone.

Let’s explore how.

SEOs help regular people benefit from search

SEOs are much-needed intermediaries between Google and the rest of the world, helping non-technical people acquire and benefit from search engine traffic.

There is a huge amount of valuable information locked up in the heads of people who have no idea how to build a website or index a blog post. A carpet fitter with a bricks-and-mortar business might have decades of experience solving costly problems with uneven subfloors or poor moisture management, but no understanding of how to share that information online.

SEOs provide little nudges towards topics that people care about and writing that’s accessible to people and robots. They help solve technical problems that would hinder or completely block a site from appearing in search results. They identify opportunities for companies to be rewarded for creating great content.

It’s a win-win: businesses are rewarded with traffic, searchers have their intent satisfied, and the world is made a little richer for the newfound knowledge it contains.

SEOs turn helpful standards into real websites

SEOs do many things to actively make the web a better place, tending to their own plot of the Google garden to make sure it flourishes.

Take, for example, the myriad standards and guidelines designed to make the web a more accessible place for users. The implementation of these standards—turning theoretical guidelines into real, concrete parts of the web—often happens because of the SEO team.

Technical SEOs play a big part in adhering to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, a set of principles designed to ensure online content is “perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust” for every user. Every SEO’s fixation with Core Web Vitals fuels a faster, more efficient web. Content teams translate Google’s helpful content guidelines into useful words and images on a page.

(Case in point: check out Aleyda Solis’ Content Helpfulness Analyzer.)

Screenshot: Aleyda Solis' helpful content GPTScreenshot: Aleyda Solis' helpful content GPT

There is a lot of overlap between “things that help users” and “things that improve search performance.” Even if the motive behind these changes is as simple as generating more traffic, a well-optimized website is, generally speaking, one that is also great for real human beings trying to engage with it.

SEOs pressure-test Google’s systems

The biggest criticism leveled at SEOs is that they break things. And they do! But that breakage acts as a type of pressure testing that strengthens the system as a whole.

Abuse of spintax and keyword stuffing forced Google to develop a better understanding of on-page content. Today, that loophole is closed, but more importantly, Google is much better at understanding the contents of a page and its relationship to a website as a whole.

Hacks like hiding keywords with white text on a white background (or moving them beyond the visible bounds of the screen) forced Google to expand its understanding of page styling and CSS, and how on-page information interacts with the environment that contains it.

Even today’s deluge of borderline-plagiarised AI content is not without benefit: it creates a very clear incentive for Google to get better at rewarding information gain and prioritizing publishers with solid EEAT credentials. These improvements will make tomorrow’s version of search much better.

This isn’t just Google fixing what SEOs broke: these changes usually leave lasting benefits that extend beyond any single spam tactic and make search better for all of its users.

Illustration: how fixing problems leads to smaller future problems and improved search experienceIllustration: how fixing problems leads to smaller future problems and improved search experience

This is not to argue that blackhat SEO is desirable. It would be better to make these improvements without incurring pain along the way. But Search is huge and complicated, and Google has little incentive to spend money proactively fixing problems and loopholes.

If we can’t solve every issue before it causes pain, we should be grateful for a correction mechanism that prevents it—and more extreme abuse—from happening in the future. SEOs break the system, and in doing so, make future breakages a lot less severe.

SEOs are the internet’s quality assurance team

Some SEOs take advantage of the loopholes they discover—but many don’t. They choose to raise these issues in public spaces, encourage discussion, and seek out a fix, acting like a proxy quality assurance team.

At the small end of the spectrum, SEOs often flag bugs with Google systems, like a recent error in Search Console reporting flagged independently by three separate people, or Tom Anthony famously catching an oversight in Google’s Manual Actions database. While these types of problems don’t always impact the average user’s experience using Google, they help keep search systems working as intended.

At the other end of the scale, this feedback can extend as far as the overarching quality of the search experience, like AJ Kohn writing about Google’s propensity to reward big brands over small brands, or Lily Ray calling out an uptick in spam content in Google Discover.

SEOs are Google’s most passionate users. They interact with it at a scale far beyond the average user, and they can identify trends and changes at a macroscopic level. As a result, they are usually the first to discover problems—but also the people who hold Google to the highest standard. They are a crucial part of the feedback loop that fuels improvements.

SEOs act as a check-and-balance

Lastly, SEOs act as a check-and-balance, gathering firsthand evidence of how search systems operate, letting us differentiate between useful advice, snake oil, and Google’s PR bluster. 

Google shares lots of useful guidance, but it’s important to recognize the limits of their advice. They are a profit-seeking company, and Search requires opacity to work—if everyone understood how it worked, everyone would game it, and it would stop working. Mixed in with the good advice is a healthy portion of omission and misdirection.

Google Search plays a vital role in controlling the flow of the web’s information—it is simply too important for us to leave its mechanics, biases, and imperfections unexplored. We need people who can interrogate the systems just enough to separate fact from fiction and understand how the pieces fit together.

We need people like Mic King, and his insanely detailed write-up of SGE and RAG; Britney Muller and her demystification of LLMs; the late Bill Slawki’s unfaltering patent analysis; or our own Patrick Stox’s efforts in piecing together how search works.

Screenshot from Patrick Stox's presentation, How Search WorksScreenshot from Patrick Stox's presentation, How Search Works

Final thoughts

The web has problems. We can and should expect more from Google Search. But the problems we need to solve today are far less severe and painful than the problems that needed solving in the past; and the people who have the highest expectations, and will be most vocal in shaping that positive future, are—you guessed it—SEOs.

To SEOs: the cause of (and solution to) all of the web’s problems.



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