is it easier to be an seo for a small business or a big business?
TRANSCRIPT
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Is it easier to be an SEO for a small business or a big business?
David Bain
HostThisWeekInOrganic.com
Head of GrowthAnalyticsSEO.com
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
What we’re going to explore today
1. How SEOs in small businesses can compete with SEOs in big businesses
2. How SEOs in big businesses can compete with SEOs in small businesses
3. How we can learn off each other
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Part 1
How SEOs in small businesses can
compete with SEOs in big businesses
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
The advantages that small businesses have
They can make decisions quickly
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
The advantages that small businesses have
They can change their site quickly
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
The advantages that small businesses have
They can multitask
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
The SEO is the content marketer
In small businesses the SEO is the content marketer and the
content marketer is the SEO
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
The challenge with SEO & content marketers in big businesses
Source: http://www.analyticsseo.com/blog/social-media-platforms/http://www.thisweekinorganic.com
“I conducted research interviewing about 70 or 75 very top level, Fortune 100, Fortune 500 CMOs, SVPs, Heads of Digital, and I asked them what their priorities were with content marketing. Only one of them mentioned SEO.
…currently it’s senior executives, senior marketers that have their eyes on bright, shiny objects, very much at the expense of the fundamental toolkits. And as a result I’m seeing content marketing copywriters who have absolutely no training or background in SEO, videos going up with none of the optimisation concerns that we discussed, transcripts, titles, keywords research in the tagging. And it’s time to marry the two practices back together again.”
REBECCA LIEB
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
It should be like this…
Source: http://www.searchdecoder.com/
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
But it’s actually more like this…
http://www.thesaleslion.com/content-marketing-vs-seo-google-search/
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Think like an artist and a scientist at the same time!
“science is looking for answersand art is looking for questions”
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/aug/21/collaborations-between-artists-and-scientists
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Small businesses can leverage live events
They can report on niche events, live
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Small businesses can leverage live events
Many niche news blogs appear in Google News
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Be controversial – Have an opinion!
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Try to be seasonally strategic
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Partner up! It’s a team game…
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Use every tool at your disposal
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Leverage your time!
Here’s how we do SEO...
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Moving from link building to link fostering
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Broadcasting our own show means that we can publish replay pages
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
And replay pages published in the right format means…
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
How to get links: Show listings
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
How to get links: Featured guests
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
How to get links: Friends of Featured guests
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
How to get links: Social shares
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
What does this mean for link growth?
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
What about keyword rankings?
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Part 2
How SEOs in big businesses can
compete with SEOs in small businesses
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Re-optimize existing, authoritative pages
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Build with the future in mind
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Many people in large organisations have a certain perception of SEO
“I'm beginning to believe that search engines are a dead-end technology andfretting over where your site comes up is a big waste of time.”
Online Advertising Discussion List1997
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
That’s just before this happened…
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
You will be out of business or irrelevant in 3 years
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
We need to show everyone why SEO isn’t dead…
Source: http://www.huamarketing.com/
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
As long as if we don’t explain SEO like this…
Source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Here’s a simple way to explain the value of SEO…
RD
P
P
PKW
KW
KW
KW
KW
CP
CP
KW
KW
KW
The competition!
KW
KW
CP
CDYou
SEOopportunities!
CD = Competing domainsCP = Competitor’s pages
RD = Ranking domainP = Your pageKW = Keyword
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Relate with your audience!
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Bake the SEO cake
Ref. https://www.seroundtable.com/photos/seo-google-cake-14668.html
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Explore the “unknown unknowns”
“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know.There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know.But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.”
Donald Rumsfeld
“There are also unknown unknowns”…
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
For us SEOs we need to drill deeper…
Host – BluePage – GreenKeyword – Brown
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Understanding the related nature of the marketplace
Host – BluePage – GreenKeyword – Brown
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
True Total Marketplace
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Structuring big data into meaningful clusters
As SEOs, we need to base our work on Google’s view of the relationship between the structure of the web and search intent.
Based on this, we can model related keywords and ranking URLs; then segment the data into groups revealing natural clusters of search topics.
We then need to prioritise actions based upon short-term vs. long-term gain & ROI.
Natural clusters
Graph data example: Green = URLsBrown = KWsBlue = Domains
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Explaining the value of big data to in-house marketing
directors
Communication: An essential task for SEOs in big businesses
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Start off by looking at competing domains & how they achieve success
Mar
ket V
isibi
lity
Shar
e%
The initial ‘net casting’ shows that the top 19 biggest players account for 81% of the market. Note that these results are displayed prior to any filtering.
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Initial Market Share results for GreatBritishChefs.com
Market Keywords: Keywords you rank for:
Your Market Share
2.8%
113K 24K
Market Value
£6.1MYour Market Value
£115K
Market Searches
24.7MSearches for your keywords
4.8M
by visibility
Opportunity Keywords
89K
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Key to useful big data – Effective Filtering
Important filtering steps:1) Identify core niche
competitors2) Analyse the performance of
existing keywords and pages3) Suggest new keywords for
existing pages4) Suggest new keywords for
new pages
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
1) Identifying Core Niche Competitors
CORE NICHE COMPETITORS
NICHE COMPETITORS
POWERFUL MAINSTREAM COMPETITORS
FRINGE COMPETITORS
HIGH
LOW
HIGH
ORG
ANIC
SEA
RCH
VISI
BILI
TY
STRENGTH OF DOMAIN
GreatBritishChefs.com
Top 100 market domains shown. Bubble size = number of unique keywordsX axis: Strength determined by Majestic® metrics Y axis: Sum of estimated organic search visibility (log scale)
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
2) Existing keywords & existing content
LONG-TERM ROI
LOW/NO ROI
QUICK ROI
MAINTAIN ROI
HIGH
LOW
HIGH
LOW
ORG
ANIC
GRO
WTH
POT
ENTI
AL
AVERAGE RELATIVE STRENGTHBubble size = number of unique keywordsX axis: Average relative strength of clusterY axis: Sum of estimated organic traffic growth per cluster(log scale)
9,215 of your keywords have growth potential, clustered into categories below:
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
3) NEW keywords & existing content
LONG-TERM HIGH ROI
SHORT-TERM LOW ROI
SHORT-TERM HIGH ROI
SHORT-TERM LOW ROI
HIGH
LOW
HIGH
SUM
OF
ORG
ANIC
GRO
WTH
POT
ENTI
AL
AVERAGE RELATIVE STRENGTH – DOMAIN LEVELBubble size = number of unique keywordsX axis: Average relative strength of cluster determined by Majestic® metrics Y axis: Sum of estimated organic traffic growth per cluster(log scale)
43,449 keywords GreatBritishChefs.com could rank for that relate closely to existing content:
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
4) NEW keywords & NEW content
LONG-TERM HIGH ROI
LONG-TERM AVERAGE ROI
SHORT-TERM HIGH ROI
SHORT-TERM AVERAGE ROI
HIGH
LOW
HIGH
LOW
SEAR
CH V
OLU
MES
– K
EYW
ORD
CLU
STER
LEV
EL
RELATIVE STRENGTH - DOMAIN LEVEL
Showing clusters of new potential opportunitykeywords that are less related to existing content20,863 new keywords for content creation strategies:
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Once we define the true total marketplace we can be much more confident
at defining the true potential of SEO in a large
organisation
Why is big data so important for SEO in big businesses?
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
And bigger businesses have bigger budgets!
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Bigger budgets mean that you areless reactive and can plan for the future!
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
So in summary…SEOs in small businesses:
+ Aren’t restricted by having to report to a large organisation and need to get involved with content marketing too
- Will generally have a small budget and lower domain authority
SEOs in bigger businesses:
+ Will be able to work with higher-authority domains and spread the SEO word!
- It’s tough not being able to make all the changes you want to make as fast as you want. You’re also less likely to be actively involved with other marketing activities.
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Is it easier to be an SEO for a small business or a big business?
It depends on you. But learn off each other!
www.analyticsseo.com@analyticsseo
Is it easier to be an SEO for a small business or a big business?
David Bain
HostThisWeekInOrganic.com
Head of GrowthAnalyticsSEO.com