SEO

Building An SEO Business Case Your Boss Can’t Say No To

Published

2 years ago

April 12, 2022

Building An SEO Business Case Your Boss Can’t Say No To

Scientists may tell you the last dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago, but they haven’t met your boss.

The very definition of old school; she’s the kind of person who only begrudgingly accepted email because she’s still convinced the internet is a fad.

But she’s the decision-maker and the person who controls the purse strings. How do you convince her of the importance of SEO?

How do you build a case for adding it to your marketing plan and allocating the resources to make it successful?

If only there was some sort of handy guide you could refer to… oh wait. We’ve got just the thing.

Why SEO Should Be Part Of Every Marketing Plan

In 2021, American consumers spent $870.78 billion online, or roughly 19% of total purchases. And that’s not even including all the in-person sales that were driven by web research and awareness.

Quite simply, every business needs a website.

And because websites with no visitors are of no use at all, every business needs SEO as part of their marketing plan.

This article will give you a step-by-step process to build a business case to add search engine optimization to yours.

Why You Need A Business Case

A business case is a formal justification for undertaking a project. It evaluates the benefit, cost, and risk of alternative options and provides a rationale for a specific solution.

Too many small businesses, overwhelmed by the enormity of day-to-day operations, completely forgo business cases.

But without one, you’re probably wasting valuable resources on projects with little benefit, losing sight of project goals, and struggling with proper prioritization.

This is something you don’t want to do with SEO, particularly if you’re trying to convince someone else of its importance.

You need a good business plan to make your case, one that describes the following:

The opportunity.
The problem in the current system.
The solution.

This doesn’t have to be overly long; in fact, being concise is often better.

But it does need to clearly describe the vision and goal of your SEO strategy, the data to support your contentions, and the technological tools you’ll need.

You need to include financial projections about cost and return on investment, ideally on a month-by-month basis for the first year, as well as information about when you believe your SEO project will become cash-flow positive.

Building Your SEO Business Case

Below, we’ll work you through the process and help you develop a case your boss will have to sign off on.

Conduct A Website Audit

Like any good plan, your business case should start with research. And this means a comprehensive website audit, which will provide your team with a performance baseline.

Begin by evaluating your current SEO status and strategy, if you have one.

Determine what’s working at bringing in traffic to your website.

Do you have common keywords that are leading to your site? What pages are visitors landing on most?

Identify the opportunities that your strongest pieces of content provide.

Look at both on-page factors like keyword density, optimized images, headers, and URL names, and off-page factors like backlink quality, site structure, internal linking, and 404 errors.

Knowing where you’re starting from will help you accurately forecast the results your SEO campaigns will generate.

Intimidated by this process? Don’t be. There are numerous free tools you can use for site audits that will give you the information you need.

Do A Competitive Analysis

SEO is a zero-sum game. The traffic you’re landing is the traffic your competitors aren’t. And vice-versa.

With this in mind, it’s absolutely crucial that you know exactly what they’re up to, so you can find why they’re outranking you and discover opportunities to swipe visitor clicks from them.

But beware – your biggest SEO rivals may not be your biggest industry competitors; they may be only tangentially related companies that use similar keywords.

Figure out who you’re up against with an SEO competitive analysis. You’ll want to ask (and answer) questions like:

What keywords do competitors rank for?
Which keywords are they not utilizing effectively?
How are they promoting their content?
What is their SEO strategy?
How is their on-page content optimized?
What is the quality of their backlinks?
Are they using paid ads? To what effect?

Not sure how to find all this information?

Aside from the always helpful articles you’ll find on this website, there are also a number of essential tools you can use to figure out just what the competition is up to.

Speak To Your Target Audience Based On Intent

In a digital world, it can be easy to forget that there are actual people on the other side of your campaigns and that you’re not just creating content for search engines.

Take some time to identify your target audience persona and research why this hypothetical person is visiting your website. You should identify:

Who is a typical target?
What do they want?
What keywords or phrases are they searching for?

Some people find it helpful to create a character or characters to whom they can then speak directly to with content.

For example, an online hardware store may have a persona called Jim, based on an imagined customer:

Jim is a middle-aged man from the Midwest. He has a good job, but not enough disposable income to hire a professional for home repairs, so he does things himself. He knows his way around tools. He is a family man who enjoys sports, barbecue, and watching television.

By envisioning Jim as a real person, some writers find it easier to speak directly to him, using language he would feel comfortable with, which in turn leads to better results.

You don’t have to go this far, though the more you understand who you’re targeting, the better your SEO campaigns will perform.

Create A Monthly Content Plan

Now that you know who you’re targeting, it’s time to start planning to reach these people.

Create a month-by-month plan outlining your content.

Determine what you will focus on. This could be a theme like the holiday season or a product you want to push. Not everything needs to stay on theme, but it’s generally easier to plan a month’s worth of content when it’s all related.

Next, review your calendar to identify key dates like events, product launches, and affiliate promotions.

Armed with this information, it’s time to create a high-level content plan that presents the big picture of what you’ll be doing for the month.

Map out promotions and core content like blog posts.

Not sure what your priorities should be? We can help with that.

Want to go even further in-depth and develop an SEO strategy for the entire year? We have a free ebook that’s just what you need.

List Your Keywords

Of all the parts of SEO, perhaps the most important is keywords.

The foundation of an overall SEO strategy: it tell search engines what your content is all about and why it’s the perfect solution for their needs.

So, how do you find the keywords that are most useful for your goals? By this point in building your SEO business case, you should be well prepared to identify them.

There are a number of tools and techniques you should use, beginning with brainstorming a list of topics relevant to your content.

Come up with a list of seed keywords and then use a good keyword research tool to identify others.

Because you have already identified user intent, this will be helpful in finding long-tail keywords.

Likewise, your previous work investigating the competition will come in handy here by helping you figure out what keywords are working for them, so you can use them yourself.

Build The Workplace Relationships You Need

Now that you’re armed with the plan for a winning SEO strategy, it’s time to start assembling the resources to put it into action.

You don’t have to hire an SEO specialist or hire an outside firm to get started (though that can be a very good idea), because you likely have many of the pieces you need already in your organization.

Marketing, IT, and sales should all be brought into the fold.

While some people may be less than thrilled by what they’ll perceive as more work for them, explain they you’re all on the same team and working toward the same goal.

Build rapport with them by showing them how their individual contributions will make your SEO undertaking more successful.

Spend some time educating them on the process and be sure to highlight the importance of each of their roles.

Strengthen Your Case With Facts And Data

At the end of the day, most executives only care about one thing: Does it provide a return on investment?

That’s what’s great about SEO – it provides a wealth of data points you can use to show not only that what you’re doing is worthwhile, but that it’s paying off too.

And there is ample evidence to show why you need an SEO plan.

For example, you’ll surely want to mention that Google is responsible for 92% of web searches, with more than 267 million unique visitors in the U.S. alone. Or that 56% of web traffic comes from mobile devices.

If you’re promoting a paid component to your overall SEO plan, be sure to highlight that for every $1 a business spent on Google ads, they made an average of $2 in revenue.

Using this data, you can tell a compelling story that covers more than the black and red of a balance sheet and encourages buy-in.

Measure And Track Your Success

SEO is a long game and not one that will reap immediate rewards. You need to make this clear to stakeholders right from the start.

But with a solid strategy and a little old-fashioned elbow grease, you’ll soon start seeing measurable results.

Google is great at providing you with factual support using key metrics like:

Organic traffic.
Keyword ranking.
Click-through rate.
Bounce rate.
Conversion rate.
Time spent on page.

By carefully tracking your performance, you’ll get a better understanding of where and how you’re succeeding, as well as identify areas for improvement.

Conclusion

SEO is a good investment for any organization, but it requires an investment upfront in both time, budget, and resources.

While results are not always predictable, SEO is one of those fields where you get out what you put in.

If you throw together a slap-dash plan without much thought, you’re not going to get the quality results you would get from a more methodical approach.

But by developing a carefully thought out business case for SEO and highlighting its potential, it’s very difficult for even the most curmudgeonly boss to deny its value.

From increasing your customer base to driving new sales, there is no question a quality strategy will help achieve company-wide goals.

Now get to work – you have an SEO business case to build.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Indypendenz/Shutterstock

Related Topics:boss building business Case seo

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SEO

brightonSEO Live Blog

Published

16 hours ago

April 25, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Hello everyone. It’s April again, so I’m back in Brighton for another two days of ~~sun~~, sea, and SEO!

Being the introvert I am, my idea of fun isn’t hanging around our booth all day explaining we’ve run out of t-shirts (seriously, you need to be fast if you want swag!). So I decided to do something useful and live-blog the event instead.

Follow below for talk takeaways and (very) mildly humorous commentary.

SEO

Google Further Postpones Third-Party Cookie Deprecation In Chrome

Published

19 hours ago

April 25, 2024

Max

Close-up of a document with a grid and a red stamp that reads "delayed" over the word "status" due to Chrome's deprecation of third-party cookies.

Google has again delayed its plan to phase out third-party cookies in the Chrome web browser. The latest postponement comes after ongoing challenges in reconciling feedback from industry stakeholders and regulators.

The announcement was made in Google and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) joint quarterly report on the Privacy Sandbox initiative, scheduled for release on April 26.

Chrome’s Third-Party Cookie Phaseout Pushed To 2025

Google states it “will not complete third-party cookie deprecation during the second half of Q4” this year as planned.

Instead, the tech giant aims to begin deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome “starting early next year,” assuming an agreement can be reached with the CMA and the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

The statement reads:

“We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers, and will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem. It’s also critical that the CMA has sufficient time to review all evidence, including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June.”

Continued Engagement With Regulators

Google reiterated its commitment to “engaging closely with the CMA and ICO” throughout the process and hopes to conclude discussions this year.

This marks the third delay to Google’s plan to deprecate third-party cookies, initially aiming for a Q3 2023 phaseout before pushing it back to late 2024.

The postponements reflect the challenges in transitioning away from cross-site user tracking while balancing privacy and advertiser interests.

Transition Period & Impact

In January, Chrome began restricting third-party cookie access for 1% of users globally. This percentage was expected to gradually increase until 100% of users were covered by Q3 2024.

However, the latest delay gives websites and services more time to migrate away from third-party cookie dependencies through Google’s limited “deprecation trials” program.

The trials offer temporary cookie access extensions until December 27, 2024, for non-advertising use cases that can demonstrate direct user impact and functional breakage.

While easing the transition, the trials have strict eligibility rules. Advertising-related services are ineligible, and origins matching known ad-related domains are rejected.

Google states the program aims to address functional issues rather than relieve general data collection inconveniences.

Publisher & Advertiser Implications

The repeated delays highlight the potential disruption for digital publishers and advertisers relying on third-party cookie tracking.

Industry groups have raised concerns that restricting cross-site tracking could push websites toward more opaque privacy-invasive practices.

However, privacy advocates view the phaseout as crucial in preventing covert user profiling across the web.

With the latest postponement, all parties have more time to prepare for the eventual loss of third-party cookies and adopt Google’s proposed Privacy Sandbox APIs as replacements.

Featured Image: Novikov Aleksey/Shutterstock

SEO

How To Write ChatGPT Prompts To Get The Best Results

Published

2 days ago

April 24, 2024

Max

How To Write ChatGPT Prompts To Get The Best Results

ChatGPT is a game changer in the field of SEO. This powerful language model can generate human-like content, making it an invaluable tool for SEO professionals.

However, the prompts you provide largely determine the quality of the output.

To unlock the full potential of ChatGPT and create content that resonates with your audience and search engines, writing effective prompts is crucial.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the art of writing prompts for ChatGPT, covering everything from basic techniques to advanced strategies for layering prompts and generating high-quality, SEO-friendly content.

Writing Prompts For ChatGPT

What Is A ChatGPT Prompt?

A ChatGPT prompt is an instruction or discussion topic a user provides for the ChatGPT AI model to respond to.

The prompt can be a question, statement, or any other stimulus to spark creativity, reflection, or engagement.

Users can use the prompt to generate ideas, share their thoughts, or start a conversation.

ChatGPT prompts are designed to be open-ended and can be customized based on the user’s preferences and interests.

How To Write Prompts For ChatGPT

Start by giving ChatGPT a writing prompt, such as, “Write a short story about a person who discovers they have a superpower.”

ChatGPT will then generate a response based on your prompt. Depending on the prompt’s complexity and the level of detail you requested, the answer may be a few sentences or several paragraphs long.

Use the ChatGPT-generated response as a starting point for your writing. You can take the ideas and concepts presented in the answer and expand upon them, adding your own unique spin to the story.

If you want to generate additional ideas, try asking ChatGPT follow-up questions related to your original prompt.

For example, you could ask, “What challenges might the person face in exploring their newfound superpower?” Or, “How might the person’s relationships with others be affected by their superpower?”

Remember that ChatGPT’s answers are generated by artificial intelligence and may not always be perfect or exactly what you want.

However, they can still be a great source of inspiration and help you start writing.

Must-Have GPTs Assistant

I recommend installing the WebBrowser Assistant created by the OpenAI Team. This tool allows you to add relevant Bing results to your ChatGPT prompts.

This assistant adds the first web results to your ChatGPT prompts for more accurate and up-to-date conversations.

It is very easy to install in only two clicks. (Click on Start Chat.)

Screenshot from ChatGPT, April 2024

For example, if I ask, “Who is Vincent Terrasi?,” ChatGPT has no answer.

With WebBrower Assistant, the assistant creates a new prompt with the first Bing results, and now ChatGPT knows who Vincent Terrasi is.

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

You can test other GPT assistants available in the GPTs search engine if you want to use Google results.

Master Reverse Prompt Engineering

ChatGPT can be an excellent tool for reverse engineering prompts because it generates natural and engaging responses to any given input.

By analyzing the prompts generated by ChatGPT, it is possible to gain insight into the model’s underlying thought processes and decision-making strategies.

One key benefit of using ChatGPT to reverse engineer prompts is that the model is highly transparent in its decision-making.

This means that the reasoning and logic behind each response can be traced, making it easier to understand how the model arrives at its conclusions.

Once you’ve done this a few times for different types of content, you’ll gain insight into crafting more effective prompts.

Prepare Your ChatGPT For Generating Prompts

First, activate the reverse prompt engineering.

Type the following prompt: “Enable Reverse Prompt Engineering? By Reverse Prompt Engineering I mean creating a prompt from a given text.”

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

ChatGPT is now ready to generate your prompt. You can test the product description in a new chatbot session and evaluate the generated prompt.

Type: “Create a very technical reverse prompt engineering template for a product description about iPhone 11.”

Reverse Prompt engineering via WebChatGPT

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

The result is amazing. You can test with a full text that you want to reproduce. Here is an example of a prompt for selling a Kindle on Amazon.

Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {product), capture the writing style and the length of the text :
product =”

Reverse prompt engineering: Amazon product

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

I tested it on an SEJ blog post. Enjoy the analysis – it is excellent.

Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {text}, capture the tone and writing style of the {text} to include in the prompt :
text = all text coming from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-bard-training-data/478941/”

Reverse prompt engineering an SEJ blog post

Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023

But be careful not to use ChatGPT to generate your texts. It is just a personal assistant.

Go Deeper

Prompts and examples for SEO:

Keyword research and content ideas prompt: “Provide a list of 20 long-tail keyword ideas related to ‘local SEO strategies’ along with brief content topic descriptions for each keyword.”
Optimizing content for featured snippets prompt: “Write a 40-50 word paragraph optimized for the query ‘what is the featured snippet in Google search’ that could potentially earn the featured snippet.”
Creating meta descriptions prompt: “Draft a compelling meta description for the following blog post title: ’10 Technical SEO Factors You Can’t Ignore in 2024′.”

Important Considerations:

Always Fact-Check: While ChatGPT can be a helpful tool, it’s crucial to remember that it may generate inaccurate or fabricated information. Always verify any facts, statistics, or quotes generated by ChatGPT before incorporating them into your content.
Maintain Control and Creativity: Use ChatGPT as a tool to assist your writing, not replace it. Don’t rely on it to do your thinking or create content from scratch. Your unique perspective and creativity are essential for producing high-quality, engaging content.
Iteration is Key: Refine and revise the outputs generated by ChatGPT to ensure they align with your voice, style, and intended message.

Additional Prompts for Rewording and SEO:
– Rewrite this sentence to be more concise and impactful.
– Suggest alternative phrasing for this section to improve clarity.
– Identify opportunities to incorporate relevant internal and external links.
– Analyze the keyword density and suggest improvements for better SEO.

Remember, while ChatGPT can be a valuable tool, it’s essential to use it responsibly and maintain control over your content creation process.

Experiment And Refine Your Prompting Techniques

Writing effective prompts for ChatGPT is an essential skill for any SEO professional who wants to harness the power of AI-generated content.

Hopefully, the insights and examples shared in this article can inspire you and help guide you to crafting stronger prompts that yield high-quality content.

Remember to experiment with layering prompts, iterating on the output, and continually refining your prompting techniques.

This will help you stay ahead of the curve in the ever-changing world of SEO.

More resources:

Featured Image: Tapati Rinchumrus/Shutterstock