SEO

7 Ways To Tweak Your Content For Better SEO

Published

2 years ago

May 20, 2022

Every marketer will tell you – creating high-quality content is no easy feat and getting page views, shares, and conversions is even harder.

But useful, engaging, and easy-to-find content is critical to successful digital strategies – so where do we start?

Defining high-quality in this space is essentially about the balance of two things: the art of the writing itself and the approach to optimization.

Each piece of content designed for your company’s website should be considered with an SEO lens before you publish.

Applying a search lens atop your content strategy helps to ensure that the content you create supports not only the customer journey (the starting point for your content strategy), but also creates cost efficiencies.

How?

Focusing on SEO from the outset can support improved Google Adwords scores. This results in lower cost-per-click (CPC) rates for paid search marketing, for example; and cost savings are something the C-suite always loves.

In this article, we’ll share seven tips to help you make the most out of your content.

1. Ensure Great Content And Structure

Ensuring great content is all about planning.

Do your homework first.

Think about what it is your customer wants to know, and where you are (the expert who can provide them value). From there, decide what you want to say, and where, when, and how your customers will engage, then map out your plan.

An editorial calendar is a great way to get and stay organized. Amid the constant change that defines the current consumer environment, pivots will be needed, but that’s no reason not to plan.

Once you’ve got a calendar that sets out your content needs, you’ll want to set your writers up for success.

Detailed content briefs that outline the user intent or inquiry you’re seeking to address are a good standard practice to adopt.

Process, supported by clear and distinct roles and responsibilities, is important here, too.

Subject matter experts are not necessarily writers; writers may make for great editors, but self-editing is problematic. In short, ensure you’ve got a plan for publication that lets your people do what they do best.

Content comes in many forms and creating content in a variety of formats will help you reach a wider audience.

Check out this article for 100 types of content you can create (with examples).

Format aside, your structure should be simple and intuitive; an introduction followed by a body (where the main content is) and a conclusion sets the standard.

A simple way to think about this is the news approach to content: Say what you’re going to say (introduction), say it (body), and say what you said (conclusion).

2. Show Your Layout Some Love

You’ve thought about structure already, but have you considered the visual experience?

Visual variety is a key component of high-quality communications across platforms and channels.

From text layout and use of whitespace to headings, paragraphs, and imagery, make sure you think through the visual experience of your customer as well.

Paragraphs and headings with a clean layout help readers scan through text, and the use of subheadings throughout will further simplify navigation for your reader.

A good clean layout will supplement the intuitive structure you’ve already planned.

But remember, a sentence does not make a paragraph no matter how you feel about the look of a new sentence on a new line! Each paragraph should cover a single idea or subject, keeping things concise and linking out for more on the topic wherever it makes sense (more on links later!).

From the image perspective, the advice is simple: Use them.

A picture is worth a thousand words, or a bar chart, a graph, a process diagram, a quote of particular importance given prominence through varied font size and script … you get the idea.

In short, use images wherever they help to simplify subjects and as a good way to break up text-heavy content.

Whenever you use images, make sure to optimize them. Here are a few simple tips:

Add alt text: Supporting accessibility for customers using assistive screen readers, alt text also helps search engines to identify content on your page.
Apply logic to your image names: Image filenames should be readable and simple. They can also be used as alt text.
Size does matter: You want to keep your site simple and agile to ensure your pages load quickly. Keep your images under 500 KB and page sizes to less than 5 MB.

3. Optimize The Right Way

Images, of course, aren’t the only part of your page that needs optimization.

The structure and layout already outlined give way to lots of optimization options and the right kinds.

Back in 2011, Google launched the Panda update with the aim of eliminating black hat SEO tactics.

What exactly that means is a long story. Click through for a summary of the why, what we know about the algorithm and a complete timeline.

But the short version is that black hat SEO tactics are ones that aim to increase a site or page’s rank in search engines by violating search engine guidelines (think dirty tricks like invisible text for a simple example).

The right kinds of optimization are in fact simple enough, so there’s no need to get crafty.

Once you focus on optimizing your site information (think site title, site description, page descriptions, and page and title formats), you’re on the right track.

You want to keep things clear and concise. Fifty to 300 characters should provide a relevant readable description of the content on the site and each of the pages using simple and relevant terms.

Length is another key consideration for optimization and not just within your site information sections.

Google likes long articles, but remember, your customer should be at the center of your strategy, so think about their needs and go from there.

We’d suggest a minimum of 300 words for a topic, which can make for a 1,000-word article easily. What you don’t want is something so long it scares readers away.

Nobody wants to read 2,000 words of keyword-stuffed filler (and again, Google won’t thank you for it). Your content should provide value to the reader and need to be fit for your purpose.

4. Use The Right Keywords & Topical Alliance

Speaking of keywords, do your homework.

SEO insights represent the best real-time representation of your customer’s voice, so before you start writing keyword research is critical.

Users search for all sorts of different reasons.

By figuring out what terms your audience is searching for and the intent behind their search, you can customize your content to bolster your search results.

You will want to ensure that you use a mix of long-tail keywords, as well as head terms.

Long-tail keywords address searcher intent while tending to have low search volume, associated low competition, and high conversion.

Conversely, head terms are popular search words representing a broad topic.

Going back to our previous notes on optimization, using focused keywords together with simple substitutes and related terms is an easy win.

Search engine algorithms assess the topic of your content by recognizing your content’s keywords, their associated synonyms, and related terms (back to Panda here – it’s essentially about ensuring that the content you’ve developed has real value to it).

You can think about this as an ingredient list versus a recipe. Your ingredient list might be all the search keywords you need, but it won’t get dinner made without associated instructions, while your step-by-step recipe is the content that provides real value to the reader, bringing much-needed context.

For more information on how best to use keywords, check out this advice from Google.

And if you’re looking for more detail on search intent, we’ve got you covered here.

A quick reminder: Search intent is all about focusing on the why (informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional).

So by first researching keywords broadly and then seeking to understand how the content you’re developing will serve your user’s needs, you’ll be better positioned to maximize value (both for your customer and your Adword budget).

Understanding intent and combining that knowledge with other keyword metrics like search volume, CPC, and difficulty will enable you to serve up the right content at the right times.

How?

Take note of search engine results pages (SERPs) features by keyword, and from there, match your content to compete with the top ones.

5. Master The Art Of Meta Description Copywriting

Displayed on SERPs below the title of the page, meta descriptions don’t directly influence rankings, but they are a key piece of optimizing click-through rates.

Make sure yours are used to accurately describe the content on your page clearly and concisely and make them engaging. Treat your meta descriptions as copy, just like you would ad copy.

A well-written meta description can entice your audience to click on your listing over others that may not be quite as interesting, thereby improving click-through rates.

Let’s be clear here: Well-written is always important, and getting it right across the board (that is across your entire website and each of its pages) is the goal.

But with quick wins in mind, optimizing meta descriptions (which are short in nature at somewhere between 156 and 165 characters recommended) is a must.

Plus, a site-wide review can be a great place to flex your writing and editing muscles, ensuring a consistent brand character and tone across your site in the process.

For a deeper dive on meta descriptions, why they’re important, and how best to approach them, including some winning examples, check out this article.

The TL;DR version: Keep these seven tips top of mind:

Know what your competitors are doing.
Map your customer’s journey.
Use your brand voice.
Incorporate the right keywords.
Take advantage of trends.
Target specific intents.
Refresh your copy.

6. Make Sure You’re Relevant

Discussing keywords and synonyms, as well as search intent, we’ve touched on relevance already, but let’s take a moment to dive deeper.

After all, doing so has the potential to increase our credibility as an expert in our field, and thus the source and top search hit.

Bringing us back to basics, let’s agree that search engines analyze web content to assess whether a particular page contains information that might be relevant to a user based on that user’s search term.

Once we take that simple statement as the basis for the use case, we then must place ourselves in the mind of our users and their needs.

To do the job efficiently, a search engine must assess a user’s search term based on certain key factors.

That being the case, relevance becomes situational in nature; therefore your optimization goals should be, too.

The short version: You cannot be all things to all people.

In general terms, key ranking factors are openly shared by Google and include the meaning of the query (think intent, determined using language modeling), content quality and usability, as well as context and setting.

The specifics (well, don’t get us started on the challenges of SEO), but broadly speaking, let’s just say that you should think about your content and its relevance in the same way you’d want your search results to respond to your personal needs.

Be your own artificial intelligence. Assess the environment, and then lean into the places you are most relevant to maximize your ROI.

Ranking systems are designed to sort through all available content and serve up the most useful to the searcher, as such, they are not one single algorithm, but rather made up of a whole series of algorithms.

In addition to seeking the terms used in your search entry, ranking systems will evaluate source expertise and consider geographical location, for example.

As a basic relevance criterion, location information provides an incredible opportunity for niche businesses with great content to maximize ROI.

By establishing a site as a reliable source within a certain radius, a credible thought leader in their space with the right blog content (read timely in nature and regularly providing thoughtful commentary on trending topics), an organization can focus content development dollars on a targeted area with the aim of local brand awareness with demonstrable impacts, leveraging click-through as a key performance indicator.

7. Leverage Your Links

Straight off the bat, let’s agree that it’s possible to perform well in SERPs without backlinks, even Google’s John Mueller says so himself.

That’s out of the way, so let’s align that Domain Authority (which predicts how likely a website is to rank in SERPs) is impacted by the credibility granted to your content by other credible sources linking to it.

You can measure your Domain Authority with SEO tools like Moz and Ahrefs.

We’ve been talking about external promoters, but let’s not forget the importance of internal links, as well.

Ahrefs has you covered here, too, with internal backlinks reporting supplying a measurement of your internal linking efforts.

Your site structure should be set up to optimize internal links.

It makes sense from not just an SEO perspective, but from the client experience perspective that a well-structured site will enable your user to click through your site in line with their information appetite.

Conclusion

Great content is key to an ever-growing list of client experience strategies.

From broad marketing strategies to targeted client acquisition and public relations plans, to search across sectors and specialties, great content has a role to play in every business’s digital strategy.

For your content to attain higher rankings, you need to consider every area of optimization.

If you’re only focusing on body copy, you’re missing out.

While the setup may seem time-consuming, an investment in SEO optimization – truly knowing your audience and delivering accordingly – is well worthwhile.

Outside of the knowledge that planning effectively will yield better customer-centric content, you can rest assured that doing the thinking around SEO optimization will also provide value to your digital budgets.

In time, and through great effort and consistency, following tried-and-tested optimization tips, your new (and improved) content may just appear on the first page of your soon-to-be newest clients search.

More Resources:

Featured Image: VectorMine/Shutterstock

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SEO

What It Really Is & How to Build One

Published

2 hours ago

November 29, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Building a personal brand is undeniably hard work, but it isn’t as tricky as you might think.

I spoke with two influencers—Wes Kao and Matt Diggity—for their best tips on establishing a name for yourself online.

A personal brand is how people perceive you and what you’re known for. It’s the skills, experience, and values that give you an edge over others.

Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman is one example. He helms and hosts the science/health podcast Huberman Lab, lectures at Stanford Medicine, and has earned media mentions from the likes of BBC, TIME, and more.

Andrew’s personal brand is built on his credibility and areas of expertise. Many of his posts attract thousands of likes and hundreds of comments on X and LinkedIn.

If we want to dig deeper, Maven and altMBA co-founder Wes Kao has a somewhat alternative take on the definition:

In my opinion, it’s better to reframe ‘personal branding’ into ‘personal credibility.’ Personal branding has a superficial undertone. It assumes you have your work, then you tack on an artificial layer of ‘branding’ to shape perceptions.

She suggests that personal credibility is about substance: Showing people what you do, how you think, and how you can contribute. Wes adds:

In this way, you build deeper connections with people who believe in your work—which means stronger relationships, more control, and more opportunities.

In this podcast interview snippet with Nick Bennett, SparkToro’s Amanda Natividad echoes Wes’ sentiment:

People generally don’t like the term [personal brand] because it sounds disingenuous and icky. Acknowledging the existence of your personal brand is admitting that you care what others think about you, and that you find ways to manage those expectations at scale.

Wild as it sounds, building a solid personal brand gives you more control over your life.

A strong following could:

Expand your realm of influence, particularly in your area of expertise (i.e., be viewed as a subject matter expert).
Boost your credibility, in turn allowing you to promote your company/product better.
Build a loyal following independent of the company you’re working for (or if you own that company, create more positive sentiment towards it).
Open doors to job, networking, and investment opportunities.

Chiangmai SEO conference founder Matt Diggity shares some excellent points in his Facebook post on the topic, too.

Excerpt from Matt Diggity's Facebook post on the benefits of personal branding.

There’s no linear path to building your personal brand.

As a precursor to the below steps, let’s first talk about finding your “voice.”

Wes and Matt both emphasize the importance of staying true to yourself. That means not crafting an online persona of who you think you should be.

I try to write like how I sound in person. Talking and writing are different media, so you shouldn’t try to match the two in a literal sense, but you want to capture your overall spirit. For example, I have a hint of snark in my writing because that’s how I sound in person.

Matt echoes this sentiment:

How I talk on the internet is how I talk IRL. If I’m not having a f**king blast on my YouTube videos, I won’t do them. It has to be fun.

Keep this idea in mind as you go through the steps below.

Step 1: Position yourself

Think of yourself as a product: What are your strengths, obsessions, and areas of expertise?

If you’re well-versed in technical SEO or a seasoned entrepreneur, these might be your unique selling points.

From there, double down on something you would be excited to think, write, and talk about for years—because “it will likely take years to get to where you want to go,” says Wes.

As an (optional) next step, consider solidifying your position with a spiky POV—a term coined by Wes, and which she cautions should be used with care.

A spiky POV is not about a contrarian hot take for the sake of it. In 2023, social platforms are flooded with hot takes and generic advice. I think about respecting the intelligence of my audience and teaching them something they don’t already know. A true spiky POV is rooted in deep expertise, including recognizing the limitations and counterpoints of your idea. This builds your reputation as someone who is rigorous and worth the time to engage with.

Here’s a LinkedIn post by Wes that combines all of the above: a unique perspective backed by her personal experiences, with a takeaway for the audience too. In other words—a spiky, worthy POV.

Step 2: Start sharing publicly

You already knew this, but social media platforms are one of the best ways to get growth and build your name. It’s your chance to build your reputation in a public arena.

Wes, Amanda, and Matt each utilized a combination of online channels to promote their voice and content. It’s one of the first things you should do—because your content is really only as good as its reach.

This is the first thing I did to build a personal brand and authority in the SEO industry, and I still do it to this day…

Take an hour a week, go to SEO social media hangouts (SEO Facebook groups, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) and go from top-to-bottom answering people’s questions.…

— Matt Diggity (@mattdiggityseo) September 27, 2023

This doesn’t mean cross-posting your content across more platforms than you can manage, of course.

Study where your target audience spends most of their time, then hone in on those platforms (ideally, stick to no more than 2-3).

In Matt’s case, his followers are primarily on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube—and that’s where his SEO-led content thrives.

If creating whole posts from scratch seems daunting, start by commenting thoughtfully in relevant online communities. Obviously, do it with heart:

This is the first thing I did to build a personal brand and authority in the SEO industry, and I still do it to this day…

Take an hour a week, go to SEO social media hangouts (SEO Facebook groups, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) and go from top-to-bottom answering people’s questions.…

— Matt Diggity (@mattdiggityseo) September 27, 2023

Here are some simple ways to start.

LinkedIn: Contribute to a collaborative article

You might have seen these articles floating around LinkedIn—perhaps even been invited to add your insights to them.

These blog posts are similar to Wikipedia pages: LinkedIn users build on each AI-generated article with their perspectives, and readers can choose to react to these additions or engage with the content.

Example of a collaborative post on LinkedIn

Here’s an example of what a contribution looks like:

Reddit: Weigh in on discussions

Go to a relevant subreddit, e.g. r/bigSEO
Sort by “Top” and “This Week”
Browse the questions or discussions and offer your two cents where relevant.

Popular post from the /r/bigSEO subreddit

Ride on trending topics

Found an interesting insight on X or someplace else? Turn it into a poll, question, or post. (Be sure to also tag and credit the author!)

Our repurposed ChatGPT for SEO post on LinkedIn

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SEO

SEO Salary Survey 2023 [Industry Research]

Published

8 hours ago

November 29, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

SEO Salary Survey 2023 [Industry Research]

How much do SEOs earn? I wanted to know, so I ran a survey at Brighton SEO and asked 111 attendees what they earned.

Editor’s note

We realize that this is a small sample set and not representative of all SEO salaries as it’s focused on UK and EU data. If you want to be part of the next Ahrefs salary survey, you can submit your details anonymously here.

Here are the top takeaways:

The median annual salary for SEOs we polled was $49,211
The highest annual salary we polled was $229,652
To earn the higher salaries in SEO you need be a technical SEO expert—Heads of SEO, SEO Directors and SEO Leads all said that their main specialization was technical SEO
Only 5.4% of respondents learned SEO through a course—most learned on the job (52.3%) or by themselves (42.3%)
36.9% described themselves as content specialists, 30.6% described themselves as technical specialists, 6.3% described themselves as specializing in link-building
49.5% of respondents worked in SEO agencies, 42.3% in-house and 8.2% were self-employed
Most respondents (28.8%) worked in companies that had 11-50 people
The average SEO experience of our respondents was 6.9 years
Self-employed SEOs earned the most on average ($60,232k)—the median annual salary for in-house roles was slightly lower at $56,789, and agency SEOs had the lowest median annual salary at $44,169

There were also a few surprises:

Few SEOs in our survey said that they specialized in link building compared to technical and content. This is despite the fact that links are still one of the most important Google ranking factors.
The average level of experience between SEO Directors and Head of SEO is not that different—10.4 years for a SEO Director and 10.6 years for a Head of SEO—but the salary difference between the roles was ~$11,552—quite substantial.

Overview

Role	Median annual salary ($USD)	Average experience (years)	Main specialization	Main work location
Head of SEO	$92,988	10.6	Technical SEO	Agency and in-house
SEO Director	$81,436	10.4	Technical SEO	Agency and in-house
SEO Lead	$38,289	7.4	Technical SEO	Agency
SEO Specialist	$49,229	5.8	Content	In-house
SEO Account Manager	$43,850	4.2	Content	Agency
SEO Consultant	$49,240	6	All-rounder	Agency
SEO Executive	$31,956	3	All-rounder	Agency
SEO Analyst	$56,393	5	All-rounder	In-house

Here’s how annual salaries broke down across our respondents:

According to the SEOs we polled, most of them learned SEO on the job or were self-taught.

Chart displaying how individuals learned SEO.

Most of our respondents had a couple of years of experience under their belts. The amount of experience Head of SEOs had versus SEO Directors was not that different, at around 10 years.

Across all respondents, the average experience was 6.9 years
For Head of SEO, the average experience was 10.6 years
For SEO Director, the average experience was 10.4 years
For SEO Lead, the average experience was 7.4 years
For SEO Account Manager, the average experience was 4.2 years
For SEO Consultant, the average experience was 6 years
For SEO Executive, the average experience was 3 years
For SEO Analyst, the average experience was 5 years

Technical and Content were the two top skills that SEOs we surveyed specialized in.

The proportion of SEOs that said they specialized in links was much lower despite links being a major ranking factor.

Our survey showed an almost 50/50 split between the UK and Europe. 48.6% of respondents were from the UK—perhaps not surprising given that BrightonSEO is based in the UK.

Most of the respondents we spoke to worked in agencies or in-house. It does mean, however, that our salary data was mainly focused on these two employment types.

Across all respondents, the most common company size was 11-50. A large proportion of SEOs also worked for substantially larger companies that had over 1000 employees.

Here’s the full breakdown of each role.

Head of SEO salary

It’s probably not too much of a surprise that the Head of SEO role was our highest-paying SEO role surveyed. What’s more of a surprise was the variation in salary—our survey showed that a Head of SEO can earn anything from ~$25k to ~$229k.

head-of-seo-salary

Average experience

According to our survey, a Head of SEO has ~10.6 years of experience.

Type of company

46.7% of respondents worked for an agency, and 46.7% worked in-house. 6.7% were self-employed.

Education

66.7% of respondents said they were self-taught, 26.7% said they’d learned on the job, and 6.7% said that they had learned SEO from a course.

Specialization

40% said that they specialized in technical SEO, 33.3% in Content, and 13.3% said they were a generalist. The remaining 13.4% said they focused on people management.

This is surprising, as it implies that 73.3% of people in Head of SEO roles are actively providing SEO services for their clients rather than focusing on managing a team.

Company size

There were two company sizes that were most popular for Head of SEOs to work in. 40% of respondents said they worked in companies with 11-50 people, and 20% said they worked in companies with over 1001 people.

Location

40% of respondents were from the UK, 13.3% were from the Netherlands, and the remainder were from mainland Europe.

SEO Director salary

The salary variation wasn’t quite as extreme for SEO Directors, but salaries ranged from ~$42k to ~$121k—still quite a difference.

Average experience

SEO Directors in our survey had 10.4 years of experience on average.

Type of company

There was a 50/50 split between SEO Directors’ backgrounds, with 50% from agency and 50% from in-house

Education

62.5% of SEO Directors described themselves as self-taught, and 37.5% said that they learned SEO on the job.

Specialization

75% of them specialized in technical SEO, whilst 25% described themselves as generalists or Other.

Company size

According to our survey, SEO Directors typically work in medium to large companies. 25% said that they worked in companies that had over 1000 people, and 25% said they worked in companies that had 51-100 employees.

Location

Most SEO Directors we surveyed were from the UK (62.5%). The rest were equal splits between India, the U.S., and Germany (12.5%).

SEO Lead salary

SEO Leads typically have a lot of experience, but our survey shows that they only earn slightly more on average than SEO Specialists.

Average experience

SEO Leads in our survey had 7.4 years of experience on average.

Type of company

50% of SEO Leads came from an agency background, 41.7% came from in-house, and 8.3% were self-employed.

Education

69.2% learned on the job, 23.1% were self-taught, and 7.7% learned SEO through a course.

Specialization

30.8% of SEO Leads specialized in technical SEO, 23% specialized in content, and 23.1% specialized in links. 15.4% described themselves as generalists. The remaining 7.7% described themselves as specializing in SEO strategy.

Company size

46.2% worked in companies that had 1001+ people, and the remaining 53.8% worked in smaller companies.

Location

23.1% of SEO Leads came from the UK, with the remainder coming from the Netherlands, Italy, and Sweden (15.4% each) and 30.7% from other European countries.

SEO Specialist salary

SEO Specialists we surveyed had around 5-6 years of experience, but they typically got paid better than SEO Leads. Based on my experience, this may be due to in-house roles paying better than agency roles in the UK.

Average experience

SEO Specialists in our survey had an average of 5.8 years of experience.

Type of company

41.2% of SEO Specialists came from an agency background, while 58.8% said that they were from an in-house background.

Education

58.8% of SEO Specialists said that they had learned SEO on the job, 35.3% said that they were self-taught, and 5.9% said that they had learned SEO through a course.

Specialization

52.9% of SEO Specialists specialized in content, 29.4% focused on technical, 11.8% described themselves as all-rounders, and 5.9% described specialized in links.

Company size

41.2% of SEO Specialists said that they worked in companies that had 11-50 people. Only 17.6% of respondents said that they worked in companies that had 1001+ people. 23.6% said they worked in companies between 51-500 people. The remaining 17.6% worked in smaller companies with less than 10 people.

Location

23.5% of SEO Specialists said that they were from the UK, with the remainder from Europe.

SEO Account Manager salary

SEO Account Managers in our survey were one of the most consistent salary bands earning between ~$40k and ~$55k.

Average experience

SEO Account managers in our survey had 4.2 years of experience on average.

Type of company

85.7% of respondents worked for an agency, and 14.3% worked in-house.

Education

71.4% of respondents said they learned SEO on the job, and 28.6% said they were self-taught.

Specialization

42.9% said that they specialized in content, 28.6% described themselves as an all-rounder, 14.3% said they were technical SEO, and the remaining 14.2% said they specialized in links.

Company size

42.9% of respondents said they worked in companies with 11-50 people, and 28.6% said they worked in companies with over 1001 people. The remaining 28.6% was split equally between people who worked in companies with between 2-11 people or 51-100 people.

Location

85.7% of respondents were from the UK, and 14.3% of the remainder were from Europe.

SEO Consultant salary

SEO Consultants we surveyed earned up to ~$87k, which was lower than I was expecting—because our SEO pricing post suggested that SEO consultants charge between $100-150 per hour.

But as the data is UK-focused, the likely reason for this is the £85k VAT tax threshold.

Average experience

SEO Consultants in our survey had 6 years of experience on average.

Type of company

63.3% of respondents worked for an agency, and 36.7% worked in-house.

Education

45.5% of respondents said they were self-taught, 36.4% said they’d learned on the job, and 9.1% said that they had learned SEO from a course. The remaining 9% said they’d learned from other ways.

Specialization

27.3% said that they specialized in technical SEO, 27.3% in content, and 27.3% said they were a generalist. The remaining 18.1% said they focused on management and strategy.

Company size

SEO Consultants typically worked on their own or in smaller agencies according to our survey — 36.4% of respondents said they worked on their own, and 27.3% said they worked in companies with 51-100 people. The remaining 36.3% said they worked in companies with between 2-50 people.

Location

36.4% of respondents were from the UK, 27.3% were from the Netherlands, and the remaining 36.3% were from Europe.

SEO Executive salary

Average experience

SEO Executives in our survey had 3 years of experience on average.

Type of company

80% of respondents worked for an agency, and 20% worked in-house.

Education

80% of respondents said they were self-taught, and 20% said they’d learned SEO from a course.

Specialization

40% said that they specialized in technical SEO, 20% in Content, and 40% said they were a generalist.

Company size

80% of respondents said they worked in companies with 11-50 people, and 20% said they worked in companies with 1001 or more people.

Location

80% of respondents were from the UK, and 20% were from Belgium.

SEO Analyst salary

SEO Analysts typically had a few more years of experience than SEO Executives, but it looks like they earned roughly the same as them.

Average experience

SEO Analysts in our survey had 5 years of experience on average.

Type of company

33.3% of respondents worked for an agency, and 66.7% worked In-house.

Education

33.3% of respondents said they were self-taught, and 66.7% said they’d learned on the job.

Specialization

33.3% said that they specialized in technical SEO, 33.3% in Content, and 33.3% said they specialized in News SEO.

Company size

33.3% of respondents said they worked in companies with 101-200 people, and 66.7% said they worked in companies with over 201 people.

Location

SEO Analysts came from a range of locations 33% of respondents were from Portugal, 33.3% were from Brazil, and the remainder were from Serbia.

Sidenote.

We didn’t get many respondents for the SEO Analyst role—so take these results with a pinch of salt.

Final thoughts

SEO salaries aren’t often discussed in detail within the industry, so getting a snapshot of their current state from one of the biggest SEO conferences in the UK was insightful.

For our next salary survey, we’ll be opening it up to all SEOs. If you’d like to take part—you can enter here.

Got questions? Ping me on X (formerly known as Twitter)

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SEO

4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples]

Published

15 hours ago

November 28, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Many popular link building tactics produce low-quality links that don’t improve SEO performance.

Even if these techniques make an impact, it’s often for a short time, and Google can easily devalue them down the line.

Here are four tactics for building high-quality links that help you stay ahead of your competition, expose your brand to new audiences, and are less likely to be devalued in future algorithm updates.

Digital PR is the process of creating content that appeals to journalists and promoting it to them.

If they like the content, they’ll write a feature about it or include it in a piece they’re writing. This can land you many high-quality backlinks from big sites and news publications for free.

Examples

In the months following ChatGPT’s release, Fery Kaszoni and his team at Search Intelligence compiled statistics about Open AI’s popularity since launching ChatGPT and compared it to other popular platforms like Instagram and TikTok.

The result? 60+ free link placements, including mentions on Yahoo News (DR 92), The Wrap (DR 84), and Time magazine (DR 92).

A few examples of backlinks earned by a piece of content about Open AI’s popularity since launching ChatGPT

In another campaign, Fery and his team calculated how much money beloved video characters would earn in real life. This campaign earned 20+ free links including a DR89 link from British newspaper, The Daily Express.

Example of a high-DR like from Daily Express

How to do it

Successful Digital PR requires some creativity, but this is the process in a nutshell:

Find a trending topic
Create relevant newsworthy content around that topic
Tell journalists about it

For example, AI has been a major topic of conversation in all industries since it launched. Any new data or insights about it would go well in news cycles while it remains a topic of interest.

Once you have a topic, you need to come up with interesting content ideas that are relevant to your business.

This is the hard part. It’s really a case of brainstorming ideas until you land on something you think could be interesting.

For example, here are a few random content ideas for a company that sells furniture online:

Have AI refurnish rooms from popular TV shows in new styles.
Have AI design a new item of furniture, create it, and sell it.
Ask 100 interior designers if they’re worried about AI taking their jobs, share the data.

After you find your winning idea, create the content, give it an attention-grabbing headline, and write a press release about the most interesting insights.

Then, promote your content to journalists. You can try services like Roxhill or Muck Rack to find journalists who might be interested in your content.

You can also use a tool like Ahrefs’ Content Explorer to find sites that have recently published content about your topic and reach out to them.

Here’s how to do that:

Enter your topic into Content Explorer
Filter for pages published in the last 90 days
Filter for pages on DR70+ websites (big sites that you probably want links from)

For example, if we do this for the topic of “chatgpt,” we see thousands of well-known websites that have recently published about ChatGPT including Business Insider, Tech Republic, and Wired.

Finding websites that recently published about a topic with Content Explorer

Data journalism is a way of enhancing or creating newsworthy content by analyzing unique data sets. It can fall under digital PR, though it typically requires more detailed research.

This technique works because reporters love a good statistic they can either quote or write an opinion piece about. Be the source of such data, and you can earn many high-quality links anytime your data becomes relevant to trending news topics.

Examples

Data journalism can be quite simple. For example, in another case study from Search Intelligence, Fery’s team used Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer as a data source for a cybersecurity PR campaign.

The study reveals the top UK banks where customers seek help with fraud, allowing journalists to report on which banks are more secure than others.

The data fuelling these insights is keyword search volume. That’s it.

Ahrefs' data that fuelled a cybersecurity PR campaign

This method doesn’t take very long, doesn’t need a data scientist and can very easily be replicated in other industries where search popularity can unearth interesting insights.

In another example (and perhaps one of our all time favorites), marketing firm Yard created a data study comparing the CO2 emissions of various celebrities and ranking the worst offenders.

Data study on the C02 emissions of celebrities

If you follow celebrity news, there’s no way you missed reports of Taylor Swift’s private jet emissions being among the highest compared to other celebrities.

Just a few of the thousands of posts about Taylor Swift's jet emissions following a successful data journalism campaign

Every single one of these news stories originated from the data study.

When the study was first released, it went viral and earned links from almost 2,000 referring domains within the first month.

But that’s not all.

This topic trended in news cycles again when rumours spread that Taylor Swift attended a Jets game to bury the original negative publicity about her private jet usage, earning Yard a well-deserved second round of links.

Google Trends data for "taylor swift jet"

Today, this post has 1,861 links from 1,155 referring domains, 77% of them are dofollow, and 38.4% are higher than DR 60.

DR distribution of backlinks to the celebrity C02 emissions content piece

Talk about drool-worthy results! That’s high-quality link building done right.

How to do it

Successful data journalism is similar to digital PR but relies on the intriguing, data-backed insights you can unearth.

In a nutshell, the process looks like this:

Find a data-driven content angle that gets links and media attention
Gather data to provide new or updated insights on the topic
Tell journalists about your findings

Start by considering “your money or your life” content angles that everyday folk care about. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking too narrow or pitching ideas only a small demographic may understand.

For instance, cybersecurity is not a sexy topic journalists or their readers will likely care about. There’s also not a high degree of literacy about the topic among the general population.

But everyone cares about whether their bank is secure and how safe their money is.

This concept needs no explanation and that’s exactly why data that helps answer the question “how safe is your bank?” worked exceptionally well as a link building tactic in the example above.

You can also use Content Explorer to gather more ideas like:

Evergreen yet stale topics that you can update with more recent data
Data you can visualize better or repurpose into a different content format
Trending angles in other industries you can apply to your industry

For example, on the topic of ChatGPT, we found Rand Fishkin’s post claiming usage has declined 29% between May and August 2023 and that 30% of its usage is by programmers.

Finding content ideas in Content Explorer

You don’t need original ideas to succeed. If you’ve got the data to back it up, you can easily take the angles of a “useage patterns” or “most popular audience segments” and apply them to popular tools in your industry.

Some decent data sources you can start with include:

Search data: Like Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer for uncovering interesting search patterns.
Historical data: Like Google Trends for highlighting growth or decline patterns over time.
Scientific research: Like on Google Scholar or in specific research journals.
Public niche data: For instance, Yard’s study used the CelebrityJets Twitter page.
Proprietary data: From within your (or your client’s) organization.

When you find an interesting insight or pattern worth sharing, write a press release about it and share it with journalists who frequently report on the topic.

Statistics pages are curated lists of facts and figures in a particular industry. These pages attract evergreen links for as long as the statistics remain relevant.

It’s one of our favorite link building tactics. Here’s how we’ve used it quite successfully over the years.

Example

We first launched a detailed list of SEO statistics in 2020 and it has been naturally earning high-quality links ever since.

Backlinks over time to our SEO statistics page

Currently, the page has:

5,787 backlinks
2,282 referring domains
82% “dofollow” links
37.7% from DR 60+ websites

While we used some outreach techniques in the early days, most of the success has come from the page’s ability to maintain top position rankings for competitive keywords.

Do it right, and this tactic remains wildly effective for earning links naturally for many years.

How to do it

Start by entering a few broad topics related to your website into Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer. For example, we might enter the following for Ahrefs:

SEO
Content marketing
Link building

Then navigate to the Matching Terms report and apply the inclusion filter for things like stats, statistics, facts, or figures. Make sure your filter is set to include any of these phrases.

Then it’s just a matter of checking out the results to find a relevant topic you want to write about.

We went for “SEO statistics”:

Finding statistics keywords in Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer

Once you pick your topic, it’s a just matter of curating linkworthy stats and publishing them on a page.

While you can earn some seed links with early outreach efforts, long term success comes down to keeping your content updated with the latest data. That’s the best way to compound performance year on year, earning many high-quality links with no ongoing outreach needed.

Relationship-based link building prioritizes long-term relationships with journalists, writers, and editors.

It is an effective addition to digital PR campaigns as you can shortcut the time it takes to find the right people to distribute your content.

Better yet, you can be a journalist’s first point of call when they write a story on topics you or your clients are experts in.

Example

Imagine having journalists contact you asking to feature your clients in upcoming stories. That’s exactly what growth marketing firm, EngineRoom, has achieved.

A journalist from Mamamia (DR 78) made a call out on Sourcebottle, the Australian equivalent of HARO, seeking expert advice on immigration law. EngineRoom’s link building expert, Don Milne, responded and won the story along with a high-quality link.

Example of a backlink built with relationship-based link building

Then, the real magic started.

Instead of ending things there, Don also shared a client list with the journalist in case they ever wanted to collaborate on future stories again.

Sure enough, a few weeks later, the journalist reached out, asking to connect with another client in the drug rehab space to develop a story on heroin addiction. The client is featured in about 30% of the completed article with detailed quotes from the founder and (of course) a link back to their website.

No pitching. No outreach. Just a genuine partnership and collaboration now earning multiple high-quality links for their clients.

How to do it

This technique is all about the follow-up after you collaborate on your first story with a journalist.

If getting the first foot in the door is where you’re stuck, you can check out our detailed guide on relationship-based link building by Irina Maltseva, the former Head of Marketing at Hunter.

Once you get that first story, make sure you keep the relationship going.

If you have a list of websites or clients you represent, create a professional document with a mini bio about each client. Make sure it’s also easily searchable for writers in a hurry and makes your contact details clear and easy to access.

Then, share it with journalists, writers, and editors you collaborate with so they can refer to it in the future if they need an expert on a specific topic for their content.

Final thoughts

Earning high-quality backlinks can be much easier than many people realize and cheaper too! All the examples shared in this post earned free link placements on high-authority websites and with minimal outreach.

These techniques have more staying power. They are also far less likely to be seen as “link manipulation” or devalued in future Google updates.

And, if you get your content angle just right, they also have the potential to be earning links many months, if not years, down the track!

Got questions? Ping me on LinkedIn.

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