SEO
The Three Pillars Of SEO: Authority, Relevance, And Experience
What do you need to compete in SEO?
Some say more inbound links, others better content, while some might emphasize a technically healthy site.
Experienced SEOs know that the most successful sites when it comes to organic search have the right mix of high-level fundamentals.
In recent years, there has been a lot of attention around E-A-T (Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness) as mentioned in Google’s Search Rater Quality Guidelines.
Some have come to think of these as the most fundamental aspects of SEO.
However, as important as E-A-T maybe for some sites, it only addresses one aspect: content.
A holistic SEO program needs to include more.
Over the years, I’ve come to think that SEO can be reduced at its most fundamental level to building three things into a site and its pages:
- Authority.
- Relevance.
- Experience (of the users and bots visiting the site).
The sites that pay attention to all three of these are more likely to be valued by both search engines and users, and attract more organic traffic over time.
Notice that one of my categories, Authority, overlaps with an E-A-T category.
That’s because I believe at the highest level of SEO, expertise and trustworthiness are really parts of what makes a site or page authoritative.
Let’s dive into each of these A-R-E categories to see how they should be incorporated into a holistic SEO program.
Authority: Do You Matter?
In SEO, authority refers to the importance or weight given to a page relative to a given search query.
Modern search engines such as Google use many factors (or signals) when evaluating the authority of a webpage.
Why does Google care about assessing the authority of a page?
For most queries, there are thousands or even millions of pages available that could be ranked.
Google wants to bring to the top the ones that are most likely to satisfy the user with accurate, reliable information that fully answers the intent of the query.
Google cares about serving users the most authoritative pages for their queries because users that are satisfied by the pages they click through to from Google are more likely to use Google again, and thus get more exposure to Google’s ads, the primary source of its revenue.
Authority Came First
Assessing the authority of webpages was the first fundamental problem search engines had to solve.
Some of the earliest search engines relied on human evaluators, but as the world wide web exploded, that quickly became impossible to scale.
Google overtook all its rivals because its creators, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, developed the idea of PageRank, using links from other pages on the web as weighed citations to assess the authoritativeness of a page.
Page and Brin realized that links were an already-existing system of constantly evolving polling where other authoritative sites “voted” for pages they saw as reliable and relevant to their users.
Search engines use links much like we might treat scholarly citations. The more scholarly papers relevant to a source document that cite it, the better.
The relative authority and trustworthiness of each of the citing source come into play as well.
So, of our three fundamental categories, authority came first because it was the easiest of the three to crack given the ubiquity of hyperlinks on the web.
The other two, relevance and user experience, would be tackled later, as machine learning/AI-driven algorithms developed.
Links Still Primary For Authority
The big innovation that made Google the dominant search engine in a short period was that it used an analysis of links on the web as a ranking factor.
This started with a paper written by Larry Page and Sergey Brin called The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine.
The essential insight behind this paper was that the web is built on the notion of documents inter-connected with each other via links.
Since putting a link on your site to a third-party site might cause a user to leave your site, there was little incentive for a publisher to link to another site, unless it was really good and of great value to their site’s users.
In other words, linking to a third-party site acts a bit like a “vote” for it, and each vote could be considered an endorsement, endorsing the page the link points to as one of the best resources on the web for a given topic.
Then, in principle, the more votes you get, the better and the more authoritative a search engine would consider you to be, and you should therefore rank higher.
Passing PageRank
A significant piece of the initial Google algorithm was based on the concept of PageRank, a system for evaluating which pages are the most important based on scoring the links they receive.
So, a page that has large quantities of valuable links pointing to it will have a higher PageRank, and in principle will be likely to rank higher in the search results than other pages without as high a PageRank score.
When a page links to another page, it passes a portion of its PageRank to the page it links to.
Thus, pages accumulate more PageRank based on the number and quality of links they receive.
Not All Links Are Created Equal
So more votes are better, right?
Well, that’s true in theory, but it’s a lot more complicated than that.
PageRank scores range from a base value of one to values that likely exceed trillions.
Higher PageRank pages can have a lot more PageRank to pass than lower PageRank pages. In fact, a link from one page can easily be worth more than one million times a link from another page.
Let’s use our intuition for a moment.
Imagine you have a page that’s selling a book, and it gets two links. One is from Joe’s Book Store, and the other one is from Amazon.
It’s pretty obvious which one you would value more as a user, right? As users, we recognize that Amazon has more authority on this topic.
As it turns out, the web has recognized this as well, and Amazon has a much more powerful link profile (and higher PageRank) than any other site involved in selling books.
As a result, it has a much higher PageRank, and can pass more PageRank to the pages that it links to.
It’s important to note that Google’s algorithms have evolved a long way from the original PageRank thesis.
The way that links are evaluated has changed in significant ways – some of which we know, and some of which we don’t.
What About Trust?
You may hear many people talk about the role of trust in search rankings and in evaluating link quality.
For the record, Google says they don’t have a concept of trust they apply to links (or ranking), so you should take those discussions with many grains of salt.
These discussions began because of a Yahoo patent on the concept of TrustRank.
The idea was that if you started with a seed set of hand-picked, highly trusted sites, and you then counted the number of clicks it took you to go from those sites to yours, the fewer clicks the more trusted your site was.
Google has long said they don’t use this type of metric.
However, in April 2018, Google was granted a patent related to evaluating the trustworthiness of links. But the existence of a granted patent does not mean it’s used in practice.
For your own purposes, however, if you want to assess the trustworthiness of a site as a source of a link, using the concept of trusted links is not a bad idea.
If they do any of the following, then it probably isn’t a good source for a link:
- Sell links to others.
- Have less than great content.
- Otherwise don’t appear reputable.
Google may not be calculating trust the way you do in your analysis, but chances are good that some other aspect of their system will devalue that link anyway.
Fundamentals Of Earning & Attracting Links
Now that you know that obtaining links to your site is critical to SEO success, it’s time to start putting together a plan to get some.
The key to success is understanding that Google wants this entire process to be holistic.
Google actively discourages, and in some cases punishes, schemes to get links in an artificial way. This means certain practices are seen as bad, such as:
- Buying links for SEO purposes.
- Going to forums and blogs and adding comments with links back to your site.
- Hacking people’s sites and injecting links into their content.
- Distributing poor-quality infographics or widgets that include links back to your pages.
- Offering discount codes or affiliate programs as a way to get links.
- And many other schemes where the resulting links are artificial in nature.
What Google really wants is for you to make a fantastic website, and promote it effectively, with the result that you earn or attract links.
So, how do you do that?
Who Links?
The first key insight is to understand who it is that might link to the content that you create.
Here is a chart that profiles the major groups of people in any given market space:
Who do you think are the people that might implement links?
It’s certainly not the laggards, and it’s also not the early or late majority.
It’s the innovators and early adopters. These are the people who write on media sites, or have blogs, and who might add links to your site.
There are also other sources of links, such as locally-oriented sites, such as the local chamber of commerce or local newspapers.
You might also find some opportunities with colleges and universities if they have pages that relate to some of the things you’re doing in your market space.
Relevance: Will Users Swipe Right On Your Page?
You have to be relevant to a given topic.
Think of every visit to a page as an encounter on a dating app. Will users “swipe right” (thinking, “this looks like a good match!)?
If you have a page about Tupperware, it doesn’t matter how many links you get – you’ll never rank for queries related to used cars.
This defines a limitation on the power of links as a ranking factor, and it shows how relevance also impacts the value of a link.
Consider a page on a site that is selling a used Ford Mustang. Imagine that it gets a link from Car and Driver magazine. That link is highly relevant.
Also, think of this intuitively. Is it likely that Car and Driver magazine has some expertise related to Ford Mustangs? Of course, they do.
In contrast, imagine a link to that Ford Mustang from a site that usually writes about sports. Is the link still helpful?
Probably, but not as helpful, because there is less evidence to Google that the sports site has a lot of knowledge about used Ford Mustangs.
In short, the relevance of the linking page, and the linking site, impacts how valuable a link might be considered.
What are some ways that Google evaluates relevance?
The Role Of Anchor Text
Anchor text is another aspect of links that matters to Google.
The anchor text helps Google confirm what the content on the page receiving the link is about.
For example, if the anchor text is the phrase “iron bathtubs” and the page has content on that topic, the anchor text, plus the link, acts as further confirmation that the page is about that topic.
Thus, the links act to evaluate both the relevance and authority of the page.
Be careful, though, as you don’t want to go aggressively obtaining links to your page that all use your main key phrase as the anchor text.
Google also looks for signs that you are manually manipulating links for SEO purposes.
One of the simplest indicators is if your anchor text looks manually manipulated.
Internal Linking
There is growing evidence that Google uses internal linking to evaluate how relevant a site is to a topic.
Properly structured internal links connecting related content are a way of showing Google that you have the topic well-covered, with pages about many different aspects.
By the way, anchor text is as important when creating external links as it is for external, inbound links.
Related to internal linking is your overall site structure.
Think strategically about where your pages fall in your site hierarchy. If it makes sense for users it will probably be useful to search engines.
The Content Itself
Of course, the most important indicator of the relevance of a page has to be the content on that page.
Most SEOs are aware that assessing the relevance of content to a query has become way more sophisticated than merely having the keywords a user is searching for.
Due to advances in natural language processing and machine learning, search engines like Google have vastly increased their competence in being able to assess the content on a page.
What are some things Google likely looks for in determining what queries a page should be relevant for?
- Keywords: While the days of keyword stuffing as an effective SEO tactic are (thankfully) way behind us, having certain words on a page still matters. My company has numerous case studies showing that merely adding key terms that are common among top-ranking pages for a topic is often enough to increase organic traffic to a page.
- Depth: The top-ranking pages for a topic usually cover the topic at the right depth. That is, they have enough content to cover the topic to satisfy searchers for a query, and/or are linked to/from pages that help flesh out the topic.
- Structure: Structural elements like H1…H2…H3, bolded topic headings, and schema structured data may help Google better understand the relevance and coverage of a page.
What About E-A-T?
Of course, Google encourages all site owners to create content that makes a visitor feel like this is authoritative, trustworthy content written by someone with expertise appropriate to the topic.
But how much they do or are able to evaluate those categories is still a topic of debate.
The main thing to keep in mind is that the more YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) your site is the more you should pay attention to E-A-T.
YMYL sites are those whose main content addresses things that might have an effect on people’s well-being or finances.
If your site is YMYL, you should go the extra mile in ensuring the accuracy of your content, and displaying that you have qualified experts writing it.
Building A Content Marketing Plan
Last, but certainly not least, create a real plan for your content marketing.
Don’t just suddenly start doing a lot of random stuff.
Take the time to study what your competitors are doing so you can invest your content marketing efforts in a way that’s likely to provide a solid ROI.
One approach to doing that is to pull their backlink profiles using tools that can do that.
With this information, you can see what types of links they’ve been getting and then based on that figure out what links you need to get to beat them.
Take the time to do this exercise and also to map which links are going to which pages on the competitors’ sites, as well as what each of those pages rank for.
Building out this kind of detailed view will help you scope out your plan of attack and give you some understanding of what keywords you might be able to rank for.
It’s well worth the effort!
In addition, study the competitor’s content plans.
Learn what they are doing and carefully consider what you can do that’s different.
Focus on developing a very clear differentiation in your content for topics that are in high demand with your potential customers.
This is another investment of time that will be very well spent.
Experience
As we traced above, Google started by focusing on the ranking pages by authority, then found ways to assess relevance.
The third evolution of search was the evaluation of user experience.
In fact, many SEOs (and I’m among them) prefer to speak of SEO not as Search Engine Optimization, but as Search Experience Optimization.
Google realized that authoritativeness and relevancy, as important as they are, were not the only things users were looking for when searching.
Users also want a good experience on the pages and sites Google sends them to.
What is a “good user experience”? It includes at least the following:
- The page the searcher lands on is what they would expect to see given their query. No bait and switch.
- The content on the landing page is highly relevant to the user’s query.
- The content is sufficient to answer the intent of the user’s query but also links to other relevant sources and related topics.
- The page loads quickly, the relevant content is immediately apparent, and page elements settle into place quickly (all aspects of Google’s Page Experience Update).
In addition, many of the suggestions made above about creating better content apply to user experience as well.
In summary, Google wants to rank pages that satisfy the query and make it as easy as possible for the searcher to identify and understand what they were searching for.
Putting It All Together
Search engines want happy users who will come back to them again and again when they have a question or need.
The way they create and sustain that happiness is by providing the best possible results that satisfy that question or need.
To keep their users happy, search engines must be able to understand and measure the relative authority of webpages for the topics they cover.
When you create content that is highly useful (or engaging or entertaining) to visitors – and when those visitors find your content reliable enough that they would willingly return again to your site, or even seek you out above others – you’ve gained authority.
The search engines work hard at continually improving their ability to match that human quest for trustworthy authority.
As we explained above, that same kind of quality content is key to earning the kinds of links that assure the search engines you should rank highly for relevant searches.
That can be either content on your site that others want to link to or content that other quality, relevant sites want to publish, with appropriate links back to your site.
Focusing on these three pillars of SEO – authority, relevance, and experience – will increase the opportunities for your content and make link-earning easier.
You now have everything you need to know for SEO success, so get to work!
Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
SEO
Top 3 Ways To Build Authority By Going Beyond Just Link Building
You want your online business to thrive. One of the best ways to do this is to establish website authority – and the key to successful authority building is to increase trust with your audience.
With the rise of AI tools, you must publish high-quality content that stands out from your competition, who may be using tools like ChatGPT.
On March 15, I moderated a webinar with Sabrina Hipps, VP of Partner Development, and Jeremy Rivera, Director of Content Analysis at CopyPress.
Hipps and Rivera demonstrated how content promotion, link building, and authentic subject matter expertise could help you rank higher on SERPs and elevate your online authority.
Here’s a summary of the webinar. To access the entire presentation, complete the form.
1. Create Unique Content With First-Hand Experience – Avoid AI, The “Fancy Parrot”
In the world of content creation, where good content creators are showing their expertise, there are certain key things AI can’t do.
- AI can’t have first-person experience. They can’t think for themselves the same way humans can.
- If the AI follows a generative model, and it can’t yet distinguish the truth. If you fact-check some of the information, you’ll find it doesn’t exist.
The counter to AI content is unique content that shows this truth, expertise, and first-hand experience.
[Learn how this helps build your authority] Instantly access the webinar →
2. Highlight Quality Authorship
High-quality content encompasses everything from accuracy and mistake-free writing to clearly displaying expertise.
Ensure Your Content Is Error-Free
In many cases, low-quality content, or posts with false information and repetitive issues, can lead to being devalued on SERPs or accidentally containing duplicate content.
Add More “E” To EAT – Experience
The Issue: To combat low-quality SERPs, Google seeks first-hand experience.
The Solution: Invite a subject matter expert to review the content, check for factual inaccuracies, and add that extra layer of expertise to the content.
Bridge The Write ≠ Expertise Gap
The Issue: It’s important to recognize that the ability to write is not synonymous with expertise; just because someone can write doesn’t mean they are accurate or a subject matter expert.
The Solution: Try pairing a subject matter expert with a strong writer who can interview and interject quotes helps build better content.
Ask Questions
The Issue: Sometimes, you may not have the in-house subject matter experts you need for a piece of content.
The Solution: Conduct outreach to gather expertise to boost your content quality. First, consider what your audience wants to know. Then, generate three to ten questions to ask a professional.
[Learn a tactic that works] Instantly access the webinar →
Tap Social Media
The Issue: Where do you find the professionals you need to interview for your next piece of high-expertise content?
The Solution: With so many experts creating on social media, it’s a great platform to leverage. Here are essential outreach steps you can do:
- Observe.
- Participate.
- Engage.
- Network.
Doing this can also be considered link-building in another sense. Because link building is marketing, and marketing is about building relationships.
Find Allies Who Are Also Targeting Your Audience
Combining outreach efforts with the Nexus approach helps you create relationships and connections beyond just the link.
[Learn what the Nexus approach is] Instantly access the webinar →
3. Use Other Authority Builders, In Addition To Links
One way to increase brand queries is through influencers, knowledge panel (which becomes part of a brand’s search results), and mentions.
To increase mentions:
- Use HARO & Terkel.
- Publish unique industry data.
- Do something distinctive that stands out.
- Connect with publishers with significant traffic, not for links but for visibility & mentions.
- Leverage influencers and industry experts.
[BONUS: Get a step-by-step branded keyword strategy] Instantly access the webinar →
At the end of the day, when you publish unique, relevant, and authoritative content, it gets referenced and cited by others.
[Slides] Discover The Top 3 Ways To Build Authority By Going Beyond Just Link Building
Here’s the presentation:
Join Us For Our Next Webinar!
Google Shopping: 5 Ways AI Can Increase Ecommerce Sales and Profit
Join Malin Blomberg, CEO of Bidbrain and Google Shopping expert, as she shares the best hacks for digital marketers and ecommerce business owners to maximize conversion value.
Image Credits:
Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
SEO
Microsoft Introduces Category-Based Targeting For Search Ads
Microsoft has unveiled a new approach to search advertising that aims to help businesses more effectively reach their target audiences in the retail media space.
This innovative category-based targeting solution aims to address the limitations of traditional keyword targeting while leveraging the power of keywords to optimize campaign performance.
Moving Beyond Keyword Targeting
Although keyword targeting has been a cornerstone of search advertising for years, it has limitations.
By focusing solely on keyword targeting, advertisers may miss out on valuable opportunities to promote their products, which can negatively impact a campaign’s performance and limit revenue potential.
Retailers and advertisers are beginning to realize that shoppers browse digital aisles on retailer websites rather than solely searching for specific products using keywords.
As a result, strategies limited to keyword targeting don’t adequately address their needs.
Unlocking The Power Of Category-Based Targeting
Microsoft’s new solution targets shoppers based on their browsing categories, utilizing keywords to boost campaign bids.
This approach allows advertisers to capitalize on both audience behaviors, resulting in a stronger performance.
By boosting bids with keywords, advertisers can increase their chances of converting purchase intent into sales.
Retailers can optimize the site experience for shoppers through product taxonomy, making it easier for customers to find what they want.
Microsoft PromoteIQ’s AI-driven algorithms can then deliver more relevant ads by layering keywords as a booster in addition to categories.
This new approach simplifies campaign management for advertisers, as they only need to test and retain a few high-performing keywords.
For retailers, this efficiency translates into increased demand.
Proven Results: Higher CTR & RPM
Tests have shown that this unique solution delivers impressive results.
Campaigns that utilize category-based targeting and boost bids by keywords have a 320% higher click-through rate (CTR) than campaigns without keyword bid boosting.
Retailers also benefit from this approach, achieving 8x higher revenue per thousand impressions (RPM).
The Future Of Search Advertising?
Microsoft PromoteIQ’s new category-based targeting solution is a significant shift in search advertising.
By addressing the limitations of traditional keyword targeting and maximizing the value of both audience behaviors, this innovative approach can potentially improve performance for advertisers and retailers alike.
As the advertising landscape continues to evolve, embracing solutions like this is crucial for staying ahead and delivering an exceptional shopping experience for customers.
Featured Image: sockagphoto/Shutterstock
Source: Microsoft
SEO
10 Strategic SEO Insights & Tactical Advice For 2023 And Beyond
I’ve written about search engine optimization (SEO) for over 20 years.
So, I wasn’t shocked when the editors asked me to refresh an article I wrote on October 21, 2020, titled “3 Strategic SEO Insights & Tactical Advice for 2021.”
But looking back at what I’d written two-and-a-half years ago, I realized that my actionable insights now need to be thoroughly updated in this era of constant change.
The advent of OpenAI’s ChatGPT on Nov. 30, 2022, has triggered a “code red” at Google, which rushed out a new experimental conversational AI service called Bard in response to Microsoft’s AI-enhanced Bing.
UBS estimates that ChatGPT reached 100 million monthly active users in January, 2 months after its launch. According to the Swiss bank’s analysts, it would be the fastest-growing online application in history.
So, what strategic SEO insights and tactical advice could I share with you today that will still be relevant a year from now?
What critical data or search trends would encourage you to display a motivational poster on your wall that advises everyone to “Keep Calm and Carry On”?
By the way, that last piece of advice is not half bad.
Google was launched on Sept. 4, 1998, and didn’t pass AltaVista to become the leading search engine until the second half of 2002 – about 4 years later.
And even the Panda Update, which shocked the SEO industry and effectively ended the “content farm” business model, only impacted 12% of queries, according to the History of Google Algorithm Updates.
The Penguin Update, which downranked websites that engaged in aggressive webspam, only impacted 3.1% of English queries.
And it’s worth recalling that the first iteration of the Panda Update started on Feb. 23, 2011, but was followed by 27 more adjustments until the final update on July 17, 2015. And the Penguin Update, which began on April 24, 2012, didn’t end until Sept. 23, 2016.
It may take more than four years to know the full impact of Google’s Bard AI or the new AI-powered Bing search engine.
So, SEO professionals would be well advised to “Keep Calm and Carry On.”
That means I can confidently share 10 strategic insights, bits of critical data, pieces of tactical advice, or search trends that will impact SEO in 2023 and beyond without losing too much sleep over the fact that 30% of them may not be relevant a year from now.
(After telling you why “the fundamental things apply as time goes by,” I’ll circle back to explain why a 70% success rate is the right benchmark.)
SEO remains an essential element of any digital marketing strategy.
And even though the search industry is constantly changing, Google is still the leading search engine.
According to Similarweb, Google.com got 3.2 billion unique visitors in January 2023, making it the most visited website globally. The search giant also got 88.3 billion visits in January 2023.
So, don’t bet the farm on Google going away anytime soon.
And if you need to keep other people within your company, or at one of your clients, from rushing off to panic stations, then show them the chart below from Google Trends, which displays worldwide web search interest over the past 90 days for the search terms Google, ChatGPT, and Bing.
You can calmly explain that the dips in interest for Google occur on weekends.
Screenshot from Google Trends, February 2023If Google remains the dominant search engine for the foreseeable future, then SEO pros don’t need to be retrained or replaced.
Why? Because they’re already familiar with Google Search Essentials (formerly Webmaster Guidelines).
And they’ve successfully navigated through the 22 Google Search ranking updates.
This is why I’m confident that more than 70% of SEO pros will continue successfully navigating the uncharted areas of keyword maps that bear the phrase: “Here be dragons.”
1. Focus On User Intent
One of the most important aspects of SEO is understanding user intent.
Google’s algorithms have become more sophisticated, and they’re now better able to understand the intent behind a query.
So, SEO pros should focus on creating content that satisfies user intent rather than just targeting specific keywords. This means creating content that is not only relevant to the user’s search query, but also provides helpful information or a satisfying experience.
Now, I realize this strategic insight isn’t breaking news.
But you still might benefit from re-reading my article, The Future of SEO Lies in the ‘Messy Middle’ of the Purchase Journey.
According to research by Google’s Market Insights team in the U.K., the “messy middle” is where people decide what to buy.
Among other things, this research found:
“People look for information about a category’s products and brands, and then weigh all the options. This equates to two different mental modes in the messy middle: exploration, an expansive activity, and evaluation, a reductive activity. Whatever a person is doing, across a huge array of online sources, such as search engines, social media, aggregators, and review websites, can be classified into one of these two mental modes.”
Let me translate this “big idea” into counter-intuitive tactical advice: SEO pros must create and optimize at least two pieces of content to address the user’s different intents in the “messy middle” of the purchase journey.
And, if your company or client is targeting half a dozen different segments, then you need to create and optimize at least a dozen pieces of content.
Creating and optimizing one page for each target segment is so 2019.
2. Create High-Quality Content
Content is still king, but if SEO managers want to become prime ministers (or presidents) someday, then they need to create more original, helpful content written by people, for people.
How can you ensure you’re creating high-quality content? By following Google’s long-standing advice and guidance for core updates to create content for people, not for search engines.
So, let me suggest you re-read my article, What Is A Content Marketing Matrix & Do We Need One?
It shows you how to use a content marketing planning tool to generate ideas for enchanting content that changes hearts, minds, and actions. That’s how you become the VP of SEO.
3. Prioritize E-E-A-T
On Dec. 15, 2022, Google updated its search rater guidelines – adding an extra E for Experience to the concept of E-A-T: Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
Although these guidelines don’t directly influence ranking, they are useful for anyone who works in SEO because they give us an idea of where Google wants its algorithms to go.
To improve your content’s E-E-A-T, someone with first-hand life experience on the topic should produce it.
If you can’t convince someone with experience to produce this content in-house, you need to find a freelance writer – or content creator – who has used your product or service, visited a place, or influenced brand purchases.
Unfortunately, many SEO pros still don’t think this is their job – even though the first mention of E-A-T occurred in 2014 when Google added the concept to its Search Quality Guidelines.
Even Google said:
“These are not fundamentally new ideas. And we’re by no means abandoning the fundamental principle that Search seeks to surface reliable information, especially on topics where information quality is critically important.”
If you’d like some practical advice, read How To Find Talented Writers To Fuel Top Quality Content Creation, which includes my interviews with a couple of thought leaders in this field.
4. Optimize YouTube Content
According to the Video & Visual Storytelling Survey by Content Marketing Institute (CMI) published on Oct. 27, 2022, 73% of marketers said videos have become more important to their business in the last year; 27% said they are about the same in importance; and, no one said videos have decreased in importance.
Why should SEO pros lose sleep over this critical data?
Because the content marketing department, not the SEO department, is jumping on this trend.
And that means many of the videos cranked out in 2023 and beyond won’t be optimized for search – let alone integrated into an overall SEO strategy.
So, here’s some tactical advice: first, read Sam Hollingsworth’s guide, YouTube SEO: How To Optimize Videos & Rank Higher.
Next, invite the content marketing department to a brown bag lunch to discuss ways to create great content together.
5. Earn High-Quality Links
Links continue to be one of Google’s most important ranking factors. And at least 70% of SEO pros have already read articles like:
Unfortunately, the lion’s share of chief communications officers (CCOs) and public relations officers (PROs) haven’t read articles like these.
So, only a handful of organizations use one of the most effective techniques to earn links to help your website rank higher on search engines.
Ironically, the biggest barrier is not journalists. Pogo once observed, “We have met the enemy and (they are) us.”
This means you might need to invite your CCO or PRO to a swanky restaurant to discuss link building instead of hosting another brown bag lunch.
But this is a better use of your time and money than trying to figure out a clever way around Google’s December 2022 link spam update, which can now detect both sites buying links and those used to pass outgoing links.
6. Optimize For Local Search
Brick-and-mortar businesses serving specific towns, cities, regions, and states know local search is important.
When done correctly, local SEO enables people to find information about their business, putting them one step closer to making the cash register ring.
And SEO pros specializing in local search know a consistent Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP), local links, local reviews, and star ratings, as well as optimized Google Business Profiles, are important parts of Google’s local search and Local Pack algorithms.
But, to learn the latest trends and tips to help your local business grow using local search optimization, local marketing, and local advertising, read Search Engine Journal’s A Guide to Local SEO, which tackles what you need to know about optimizing for local search.
7. Keep An Eye On Multisearch
In April 2022, Google introduced an entirely new way to search using text and images simultaneously.
With multisearch in Lens, users can go beyond the search box and ask questions about an object or refine their search by color, brand, or visual attribute.
To learn more about this, read Matt G. Southern’s article, Google Multisearch: A New Way To Search With Text & Images.
Then, read Roger Montti’s article, How Does Google Multisearch Affect SEO?
So, keep an eye on multisearch in 2023 and beyond.
8. Keep Your Ear To The Ground For Voice Search
According to Roger Montti’s article, Google: Voice Search Is Not The Future, Google’s Martin Splitt shared his opinion that voice search is not the future and that there will be no need to optimize for it.
Even though I’ve written about Amazon’s Big Game Commercial: Mind Reader twice in the past year, I haven’t paid much attention to voice search until I was prompted to read a couple of recent articles on this topic, including:
And while writing this article, I re-read Kristopher Jones’ How Can Voice Search Benefit Your SEO? He wrote:
- 40.2% of Americans use voice search.
- 71% of people prefer using voice search to physically typing out a search online.
- 27% of the online population worldwide uses voice search on mobile.
- 58% of people have used voice search to find information about local businesses.
In other words, four out of five people with a veritable ton of E-E-A-T think that voice search represents a phenomenal SEO opportunity.
So, keep your ear to the ground for new voice search developments in 2023 and beyond.
9. Migrate To Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
I’ll bet Google sent you an email with the subject line: “We’ll soon configure Google Analytics 4 for you.”
It said:
“For any customer who does not set up a GA4 property with basic settings, starting in March, we will configure one with a few basic settings consistent with the existing Universal Analytics property; this includes certain conversion events, Google Ads links, and existing website tags.”
This means the chaos expected on July 1, 2023, when standard Universal Analytics properties will stop working, has arrived ahead of schedule.
And, as Sun Tzu once observed, “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”
In my article, Google Analytics 4 Should Trigger Reorganizations & Agency Reviews, I said the advent of GA4 would cause the marketing department to start “freaking out” if the web analytics team – which still sits in the IT department in far too many organizations – doesn’t respond to urgent requests for “help” within a week, a day, or even an hour.
So, this is the perfect time for you to make the business case for moving the analytics team out of the IT department and into the SEO department.
If there’s any pushback, remind decision-makers that 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic search, according to BrightEdge Research.
10. Build A War Room
If you’re a chief marketing officer (CMO) or vice president of Marketing and you move the analytics team into the SEO department, your team may ask to build a dashboard. Build a war room instead.
Why? Because “most dashboards tend to stink when it comes to helping the Executive make any decisions,” according to Avinash Kaushik, the Digital Marketing Evangelist for Google.
This is because the interpretation of the “easy-to-understand visuals” in most dashboards is left to the executive.
But most war rooms feature not only maps of the global market and charts of the company’s key performance indicators (KPIs), but also an analytics and insights manager with the experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness to interpret the trends and add context.
This “Analysis Ninja” can explain to executives why some key trends are up or down (in plain English).
And over time, executives will begin to ask their analytics and insights manager to recommend which actions or steps should be taken to move the dial.
And an Analysis Ninja can answer the question, “As a result of this trend (up or down) what was the impact on the company and its customers?”
Why Should SEO Pros Adopt The 70% Solution?
Now that I’ve shared 10 strategic SEO insights and some counter-intuitive tactical advice for 2023 and beyond, I’ll circle back to explain why a 70% success rate is the right benchmark.
Ty Kiisel’s article, 70% Solution: The Marine Corps Framework for Making Battlefield Decisions, should be required reading for every SEO manager who wants to become the VP of SEO someday.
The Marines teach their young officers what they call the 70% solution.
And it could be a good strategy to adopt for making decisions in situations where you don’t have all the information or resources you’d like.
In a perfect world, you’d have all the critical data you need to make informed decisions. But we don’t live in a perfect world.
Nevertheless, if you have 70% of the information you’d like to have, then you can still make good decisions – provided you accept the notion that you may need to adjust and compensate for the critical data you lack as you move forward.
And like battlefield commanders, most SEO managers never have all the resources they need to meet their objectives.
But it can sometimes be enough if you have good people and 70% of what you need. And finding creative solutions to challenges is a hallmark of successful SEO professionals.
Finally, are you 70% confident that your plan will succeed?
In other words, do you feel good about your plan’s success with the information and resources you have?
The Marines believe a well-conceived plan, along with taking the initiative, is more likely to succeed than doing nothing.
This is why I can confidently share 10 strategic insights, bits of critical data, pieces of tactical advice, or search trends that will impact SEO in 2023 and beyond without losing too much sleep over the fact that 30% of them may not be relevant a year from now.
The Marines have given us a framework for making decisions in less-than-ideal circumstances.
That is why you should “Keep Calm and Carry On.”
More Resources:
Featured Image: Monster Ztudio/Shutterstock
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