8 Things CMO’s Need to Know About SEO Right Now

  Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become one of the primary marketing functions which every marketer needs to perform in this content-driven digital era. In the context of SEO, the only thing constant is change, and the SEO trends keep on changing on a regular basis and try to follow the Best SEO Techniques to Rank #1 in Search Engines. As a marketer, you need to be up-to-date with the latest trends in SEO, and follow them meticulously. But there are a few trends which every marketer needs to follow irrespective of these changes, which every CMO would find relevant. Here are 8 SEO tips which CMOs would find relevant and can ensure that it gets implemented in their SEO strategy:

#1. The concept of ranking does not hold good anymore.

This was the old way of doing SEO by the marketers, where their main aim was to utilise a handful of “golden keywords” that would generate huge traffic to the site. For example, a shoe manufacturing company which makes handmade leather shoes would try to rank for keywords like “hand-made leather shoes”, or “hand-made shoes”. And every month, their SEO team would do an evaluation and see where they ranked for these keywords. If their ranking was up, it meant success for them. Similarly, if their ranking was down, it was time for them to re-think and re-evaluate their SEO strategy. There are plenty of reasons why this doesn’t work anymore. Here are a few of the important ones:

• Google is increasingly customizing search results based on location, device and the user as well. It ranks local results higher than organic ones, according to the location and device of the user.
• Voice search is being widely opted by users now with the introduction of tools like Google Now and Siri. It is a hands-free approach and highly futuristic, making it extremely convenient for users to use. No wonder its popularity is only increasing and is not going to diminish anytime soon. This means that the search terms of the users consists more of “natural language” in a conversational tone. In these situations, focusing on long-tail keywords is more feasible, since they yield faster results due to low levels of competition. It also allows you to target customers with highly customised content that will increase the rate of leads and sales.

#2. SEO requires a long term effort

If your company is incurring losses, and if you are considering to save the situation by increasing sales in a short time through SEO, then you are putting your efforts in the wrong direction. SEO is not a short-term strategy which you can use to boost your sales or website traffic in a small span of time. It is more of a long term investment, in which you have to put in your time and efforts every day in order to reap the reward of your hard-work.

#3. The best links are earned, not built

Earlier, Google used to consider links as an important ranking factor for SEO. That still holds true today, but what has changed is that Google has updated is algorithms so what matters today is the quality of the links rather than their quantity. This means that the best links come from sites where it is not easy to get links like, for example, from some news website or some reputable bloggers. These links are earned by creating good content which these reputable sites consider worthy to be linking to.

#4. SEO and content marketing are inter-related

This is an undeniable fact. Both are like two sides of the same coin and individually cannot be successful without each other. If you want to target long tail keywords, then you need to create great content for it. Traditional SEO is still very important, but its long term strategy is broadly content marketing. Hence, if you do not have a great content marketing strategy in place, your SEO strategy is not in place either.

#5. Social Media plays an important role in SEO

Many business brands today are taking advantage of various social media platforms to promote their content. Platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are used to create a profile for brands. These platforms play a crucial role in boosting your online presence and promoting the content on your website. This will not only help you reach a wider audience, but also send ranking signals to the search engine bots. Hence, using a social media platform that is relevant to your industry will not only build your online presence, but it’ll also boost your ROI.

#6. Fresh Content is important

Earlier, the quality of content on the web did not matter and businesses used to deliver sub-optimal content to their consumers. But this is not the case anymore. Today, without considering the quality of the content and the keywords used, it is practically impossible for any business to rank at the top of the search engine results page. Search engine algorithms are becoming smarter than ever, and you need to constantly update your content accordingly to the rank at the top of the results page. The quality of content is given prime importance by search engines today, and it is the most crucial factor for top ranking at the search results page.

#7. On-site optimization - a crucial factor

Not many marketers are aware of this, but on-site optimization plays a very crucial role so that the website receives acceptance from both the users and the search engines. In order to optimize your site, the right keywords, website pages’ tags and key phrases need to be considered. These factors are used by search engines such as Google to determine how to rank various websites. According to the 2015 Business Buyer’s Guide to SEO, a majority of business leads come from internet sources, referral traffic, direct advertising and/or online searches. In case of online searches, search engines need to know the subject matter of your website for it to be recognized using various web pages by finding the topics covered and keywords used.

#8. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) has no effect on SEO

Many businesses are inclined to pay-per-click advertising as it is considered to be one of the most crucial factors of an online marketing campaign. However, this strategy has no direct effect on the ranking of websites on search result pages. This is simply because SEO is more concerned with organic listings on the results page rather than the paid listings. Paid advertisements may be a great way to attract more visitors to your site during the launch of your site, but it doesn't help to improve the ranking of your site.

Conclusion

The SEO trends keep on changing constantly, with Google updating its algorithms a few times every year. Hence, a digital marketer needs to keep optimizing his site according to the latest trends in SEO, otherwise the company would face the risk of being pushed down to the very bottom of the search engine results page. So, to implement his SEO efforts, a prudent digital marketer should always be well informed about some of the best practices of SEO, so that his SEO strategy can reap rewards for the company.