is it easier to be an seo for a small business or a big business?

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

[email protected]


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


Part 1

How SEOs in small businesses can

compete with SEOs in big businesses


The advantages that small businesses have

They can make decisions quickly



They can change their site quickly



They can multitask


The SEO is the content marketer

In small businesses the SEO is the content marketer and the

content marketer is the SEO


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

http://www.analyticsseo.com/blog/social-media-platforms/

http://www.analyticsseo.com/blog/social-media-platforms/

http://www.thisweekinorganic.com/


It should be like this…

Source: http://www.searchdecoder.com/

http://www.searchdecoder.com/




But it’s actually more like this…

http://www.thesaleslion.com/content-marketing-vs-seo-google-search/




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




Small businesses can leverage live events

They can report on niche events, live


Small businesses can leverage live events

Many niche news blogs appear in Google News


Be controversial – Have an opinion!


Try to be seasonally strategic


Partner up! It’s a team game…


Use every tool at your disposal


Leverage your time!

Here’s how we do SEO...


Moving from link building to link fostering


Broadcasting our own show means that we can publish replay pages


And replay pages published in the right format means…


How to get links: Show listings


How to get links: Featured guests


How to get links: Friends of Featured guests


How to get links: Social shares


What does this mean for link growth?


What about keyword rankings?


Part 2

How SEOs in big businesses can

compete with SEOs in small businesses


Re-optimize existing, authoritative pages


Build with the future in mind


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


That’s just before this happened…


You will be out of business or irrelevant in 3 years


We need to show everyone why SEO isn’t dead…

Source: http://www.huamarketing.com/

http://www.huamarketing.com/




As long as if we don’t explain SEO like this…

Source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/


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


Relate with your audience!


Bake the SEO cake

Ref. https://www.seroundtable.com/photos/seo-google-cake-14668.html


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”…


For us SEOs we need to drill deeper…

Host – BluePage – GreenKeyword – Brown


Understanding the related nature of the marketplace

Host – BluePage – GreenKeyword – Brown


True Total Marketplace


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


Explaining the value of big data to in-house marketing

directors

Communication: An essential task for SEOs in big businesses


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.


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


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


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)


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:


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:


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:


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?


And bigger businesses have bigger budgets!


Bigger budgets mean that you areless reactive and can plan for the future!


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.



It depends on you. But learn off each other!



David Bain

HostThisWeekInOrganic.com

Head of GrowthAnalyticsSEO.com

[email protected]

is it easier to be an seo for a small business or a big business?

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