Content audits: the brief report generated as part of your pitching process and then forgotten about, or perhaps a small section of your broader SEO audit. These two words will mean different things to different marketers, and the time you assign to this project will also vary depending on how much value you put into your content strategy.
It's true that copywriting and content marketing fall under the umbrella of SEO, but if you want to get the most out of your efforts, you need to look at content creation as a department all its own. While it can aid SEO, PPC, and social media strategies, content has its own set of roles and goals to accomplish. Therefore, a content audit and a content SEO audit are two very different things, in my professional opinion.
I’ve been working in digital marketing for six years, helped to build an SEO department from scratch, and have probably written more content than Marcel Proust. My current role is 100% content focused, and while I do incorporate SEO techniques to give my work the best chance of success, my focus is first and foremost on the quality of what I write.
With that in mind, most of this piece revolves around the importance of, and how to carry out, content audits. However, I’ve also included a few ways these can be used to help your SEO team.
A content audit done once to highlight current issues with a website as part of the pitching process, and then consumed by a wider strategy, will have a short shelf-life of usefulness. However, a content audit that is continuously updated and used to guide next steps has multiple uses, including:
When you take on the management of a website, you might not have the opportunity to speak with the person who managed it before you. You may be able to gain some insights from the site owner, but it is extremely rare that you get the full picture.
A content audit can help you piece together some additional information. The call-to-action on the page, for example, will show what the previous content manager was hoping to achieve.
Where the content is placed on the site will also give you some information:
Top-level pages will rarely be end-funnel pieces
Product pages will often be sales-orientated
Blog posts with internal links will show what pages your predecessor was trying to strengthen.
Etc.
Reviewing historic content topic concentration can also guide you on which product type or services were the most important to either the previous manager or the business owner. This can help you ascertain whether it’s a focus worth continued investment, or if you should move on to something else entirely.
It’s easy to write-off (see what I did there?) a content project as failed if you don’t see success in the first few weeks or months of publication. However, as with PR, you may find that a piece that wasn’t considered successful at the time of publishing gets picked up later down the line. Understanding how long pieces take to become “successful” by your standard of measurement will help guide future strategies and prevent current frustrations growing.
Understanding what worked well previously offers a fantastic insight into what your target audience is looking for. Are there specific trends that you can glean and utilize within your current strategy? Does your target audience respond more to a particular structure or topic?
From the analysis, you will be able to gauge quick wins, whether it's reworking pieces that you believe can perform better, utilizing other marketing methods to promote certain pieces, or scrapping something entirely and starting again. Likewise, you can determine topics to stay away from if necessary.
You can also highlight topic gaps in the current content and discuss these with your client. Perhaps there are certain angles they don't want you to take but forgot to mention. Or your client may give you the go-ahead to create new content to fill these gaps and measure the impact.
It's worth mentioning that you should carefully consider the metrics you’re using to evaluate content performance. There is no point in measuring a top-level informational or educational page against ROI alone, as it will always fail when compared to pages that focus on bookings or purchases. For higher-funnel pages, measuring engagement metrics and assisted conversions will give you better insight into how the page is actually performing.
While the initial creation of a content audit can be a time-consuming task, maintaining it takes minutes. With that said, we all know that minutes are valuable, and they stack up. Additionally, some clients will always prefer hands-on tasks to be completed and will struggle to see the value in these “admin” types of projects.
Using the audits as part of your reporting will save you time at the beginning of the month (or whenever you send out your reports), particularly if you add an analysis and next steps to your audits ahead of reporting week. That's what I call a winner-winner, vegan chicken dinner situation.
I reviewed the top-ranking content for the topic "How to do a content audit". I wanted to see what they had in common. While they all made their own points, there were some common recommendations:
This chart essentially works as a step-by-step guide on carrying out an effective content audit already, however, these were largely focused on analyzing content for SEO purposes.
The following audit recommendations can have some applications to SEO (and I do add a few suggestions of my own at the end), but the main aim is to provide insights into your content's quality concerning the reader's experience, and the SEO implications of those, rather than concentrating on ranking or backlinks, for example.
Before you even think about exporting and diving into a pool of data, you should first speak with your client. I mentioned earlier that content audits can be time-consuming and that some clients may not be keen on you spending a bulk of your time on this type of analysis.
To get your client on board, I suggest discussing the following:
There are multiple reasons you may want to carry out an audit. Are you trying to:
Guide your content strategy?
Remove outdated content or update it to boost performance as a quick win?
Learn what type of content your audience responds best to?
Understanding what your client will find most valuable and acting on that will reduce the time you spend on your audit and increase the likelihood of getting the go-ahead.
This is an excellent route to take if the site you’re working on is extensive, as you'll no doubt want to carry out tasks that will move the needle as well as conduct your audit. Speak with the client and decide together whether you should start by analyzing blog posts, e-books and guides, service pages, category or product pages, and create a schedule to work from.
Breaking up your audit by content type will allow you to tackle chunks of the analysis and reporting while still having time to undertake other tasks and add to your content strategy month-over-month.
Ask your client what the main website goals are and dig deeper than merely "more sales". In addition to content that targets end-users, there will — or should be — pieces that target every stage of the marketing funnel to either guide a website user to a desired action, or solve their problem or question both pre- and post-sale.
Additionally, understanding what metrics your client cares about most will help hone your audit and any strategies that stem from it.
You may want to focus on content published up to a year ago, or you may want to go back as far as possible, but what does your client want? How much budget are they willing to allocate to this project? These are essential questions to ask before you do any audit work.
Remember that this audit is for content purposes only. While the SEO team can add their own columns to the spreadsheet afterwards so that all of the information is in one place, you won't necessarily be looking at metrics like backlinks, page speed, or rankings.
Using whichever tools you prefer to find content published during your pre-agreed time-scale.
This could be any function from the marketing sales funnel and will give you insight into what other departments to approach when it comes to content improvements.
For example, pages targeting people in the exposure phase of the funnel that already have quality and engaging content but aren't performing could benefit from optimization from the SEO team. In contrast, you could reach out to the CRO team for pages targeting the conversion phase.
Assign each of these to every page based on the conversation you had with your client. If you struggle to assign a function or a goal, then this is content that can immediately be labelled "to be improved".
Color is an excellent visual aid to understand each page’s health based on your assigned metrics. If, for example, a page doesn't target the call-to-action you set, that cell would be colored red. Once the issue has been resolved, you can change the cell to green. Make sure you download the original so that you have quick evidence of the work you’ve done.
You'll want to include the usual metrics based on the assigned page function so that you can analyze how the pieces are performing. These metrics can be traffic, conversions, new or returning users, etc., and color code these, too, based on how well they’re doing.
You may want to implement a sliding color scale and organize it from best-performing to worst-performing, to better show whether a specific topic outperforms or underperforms.
It's also a good idea to include information such as publish dates and authors to find any trends that you can replicate. For example, if one author seems to produce continually high-performing content, perhaps you could speak to them about their process to see if your writers can replicate it.
Your initial content audit could look something like this, and you should be able to pluck out some next steps to incorporate into your content strategy.
This is my favorite part of the audit, where you give your overall opinion of each page. You can be as detailed or succinct as you like. Here are a couple of examples to give you an idea of what you could look for:
You may find that a product page has very clinical information and could be improved by adding in some emotive content.
Or perhaps a blog post has some really great content, but it is clunky and hard to read; which could easily and quickly be resolved with some restructuring.
A service page may be improved by incorporating content that targets People Also Ask Boxes; answering questions you know a searcher is seeking.
These notes will also give you an idea of the time-frame required to improve these pages. I like to color code the notes in red, amber and green:
Initial content audits should be extremely flexible. The amount of information you include is entirely up to you and can change from client to client. Notice that I don’t focus on performance metrics. I do look into performance metrics and use these to guide my notes, but as we are dealing with such a large volume of pages with an eclectic variety of goals; I don’t include them in the actual audit to prevent unnecessary comparisons and overcomplications.
Initial audits are perhaps the most time-consuming, as you’re working with unfamiliar pages, but they’re incredibly valuable and well worth the time and effort.
Maintaining monthly audits — whether in the same spreadsheet or a stand-alone document — is a fantastic (and quick) way to measure the success of any content you create or adapt moving forward.
They can also work as a checklist to ensure your team is producing consistent content if you want. You could include checks in your monthly audit such as:
Whether images were used
What alt tags were used (remember they have functions other than communicating with Google)
What internal links were added
Specifying what CTA was included
Another great thing about monthly content audits is that they can be used as part of your monthly reporting; killing two birds with one stone. Here’s how I experimented with monthly content audits:
If you’re only producing one piece of content per month, you’ll most likely be able to report on the success of each piece every month for a year. But the chances of that are unlikely. Therefore, it's good to agree with your team and client on how long you’ll measure your content's success.
Perhaps, after some research, you’ve discovered that most blog posts in this particular audit take three months to reach their peak. If that's the case, you’ll want to look at success metrics once the piece has been live for three months. This cuts out unnecessary time spent updating the audit and will also prevent awkward conversations with clients about why the content isn’t performing yet.
Alternatively, you may have created evergreen content and want to monitor this piece every month.
Whatever avenue you choose to go down, ensure that your client is clear on the plan to set expectations.
Later down the line, whether your client, a team member from another department, or even you are viewing the monthly audit, you should be able to see key information within the first few seconds such as:
The title of the piece
Type of content: a how-to guide, listicle, case study, etc.
Function
Goal
The author of the piece
The department the page is assisting: content marketing, SEO, social media, etc.
How long the content took to produce: this will help your client understand how much of their budget was allocated to each task.
Date published: this is particularly important if you aren’t responsible for uploading the content to the site.
Performance metrics: based on the function and goal of the page. This should help you establish whether or not a piece of content succeeded or requires additional investment.
If a piece performs exceptionally well, you can analyze what made it so successful and try to duplicate the results. For example, if you notice that your how-to guides were the highest performers, include more of these in your content strategy moving forward, or perhaps update an underperforming piece into this format to see if things improve.
Likewise, if a piece doesn't perform how you hoped it would, you should consider whether it’s worth improving it. Should you try re-structuring it? Perhaps you could advertise it via social media or PPC? Or maybe it's best to leave it behind and adapt your strategy to ensure similar pieces aren’t created?
All together, your monthly content audit could look something like this:
Finally, the annual audit. These make yearly reporting a snap as you already have a lot of the information in your monthly audit. Once you've copied and pasted the initial information, all that's left is to update it with the latest performance data and write an in-depth analysis to be included in your report. This can consist of showcasing the best performing pieces and highlighting any patterns.
You can also highlight what was learned from the worst-performing pieces, as these will also offer valuable insights.
Complete the audit with ideas of how you can use the data to increase performance next year and set some benchmarks.
Many of us wear both SEO and content hats as part of our role, and I appreciate that merging the two audits is both a time-saver and helps form a holistic strategy. But I do urge you to look at your content as more than just a means to an SEO end, and I hope this post has highlighted the value of doing so.
Right, let’s talk about how you can use your content audits for SEO purposes:
When gathering data for historic content, use your favorite tools to identify what search terms the pieces are ranking for. You can then (temporarily) reorder the spreadsheet from A-Z by search term and see if any URLs are competing for the same terms.
You can then incorporate resolving these issues into your SEO strategy. There’s a fantastic piece that goes into this in much more depth here.
Additionally, once you know which search terms you want to target for any pieces moving forward, a quick check of your records will tell you whether you or a predecessor has already tried this. If so, you can decide whether to create a fresh piece and redirect the original which will hopefully bring with it some backlinks, or update the old piece (which will take a lot less time and effort).
By tracking how the search terms for each piece are ranking, you’ll be able to identify any content that is teetering at the top of page two, or on the lower side of page one.
From here, you can identify if the problem is content- or SEO-related. Do you need more backlinks to strengthen it, some schema markup added, or does it need to be updated word-wise? Perhaps you’re better off targeting a featured snippet or people also ask boxes to get you up where you want to be?
When I carry out a content audit, I read every single page. Time-consuming? Yes. Pointless? Far from it. You see, by reading through older posts, I learn so much about the products and services the client offers. I also learn about the history of the industry and any questions that pop into my head as I read, I jot down and use them in my content strategies. If I’m asking the question, chances are someone else is too.
This not only puts me ahead of the game when it comes to content strategy creation, it cuts down on research time when I'm tackling a writing task and improves the way I interact with my clients.
And I also know from experience what will take the piece up another notch. Perhaps the headers aren’t optimized or the piece has excellent bones but the copy is just a bit cringy — we all remember adding .gifs into our content whenever possible to make ourselves look “cool” and “with it” (and the fact that I just said “cool” and “with it” shows I'm not). But the point is, I get a good sense of how to make things perform better by reading everything.
Add any quick wins to your strategy and grab that low-hanging fruit.
I love internal links. I love internal links more than I love backlinks. And while I agree that not every piece should be linking to an end-of-the-funnel page, I do think that content audits are an excellent opportunity to connect newer pieces with older pieces for better overall synergy. It also improves the user experience.
I know exactly what you’re thinking. That's a lot of work to do for every single client. But I truly believe that it’s worth the effort. Not only will you be able to ensure your content stays fresh, relevant, and has more chance of performing well, but you will be saving time (and your client’s money) by not creating content that your audience isn’t interested in.
Just three examples of how really getting to know your web content can fuel your performance before I wrap up:
When done well, content audits are a fantastic tool to have in your belt. They will not only help guide your strategies and get results, but they will also help you bond with your client too, which is a more than welcome side-effect if you ask me.
The laws and best practices around website accessibility can seem forbiddingly complex at first sight. Unhelpfully, there are also several myths and half-truths in circulation, which can muddy the waters and give companies a false sense of security about the accessibility of their digital content. It’s vital to make sure your website is accessible to people with disabilities, so the goal of this short blog post is to bust some of the more common myths and get you on track for compliance!
Website accessibility is the practice of making your website usable by the widest possible group of people, regardless of their ability. Generally, online accessibility refers to functionality designed for individuals with disabilities — those who may have a visual impairment, an auditory limitation, motor control difficulties, neurological disorders, a learning disability, or age-related ability impairment.
If your site is not created to properly function with Assistive Technology (AT) — such as a screen reader — people with disabilities will essentially be blocked from engaging with your content. In the physical space, this would be the equivalent of building a restaurant with no wheelchair access. It’s against the law, and it’s uncommon.
The same standards should apply to website accessibility. As we deepen our dependency on online interactions — paying bills, virtual education, shopping, even socializing — all individuals of every ability deserve the right to a barrier-free interaction.
There’s also a compliance driver. More and more frequently, U.S. federal courts are ruling that website accessibility is a requirement stipulated in the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). This means website accessibility is not only a moral obligation, but also a legal one.
This is the biggest myth out there, and it most likely stems from the invisibility of many disabilities. Disabilities may present no obvious physical signs to the untrained eye, and of course many disabilities make it difficult for people to take part in the same activities as people without disabilities. The net result? Many people are simply unaware that a large number of their fellow citizens are living with a disability.
The numbers may surprise you:vv In the US, the proportion is larger still: the CDC estimates that 26% of US adults are living with a disability.
The truth is, making a website compliant and immediately more accessible does not have to take a significant amount of time or cost a lot of money.
Our research suggests that around two-thirds of accessibility issues can be uncovered and resolved using automated technology, which massively accelerates and reduces the costs of remediation. Signing up with a provider of digital accessibility services can mean your website is protected from the first day of installation, with artificial intelligence (AI) technology immediately finding and fixing hundreds of the most common errors.
More than 65% of companies surveyed by AudioEye believe simply adding a toolbar to a website makes it accessible. More than half think AI, or automation, alone equates to a site that is fully functional for all users.
Here’s the fact: Artificial intelligence is sophisticated and getting better. But automation on its own will never identify and fix every accessibility error. A computer simply cannot interpret intent or contextual meaning. The limited scope of even the most advanced automation will leave many compliance issues unresolved and your company at risk.
That’s not to say automation and toolbars are useless. These are vital elements in an accessibility tool kit that should include regular monitoring, manual testing led by human experts, reporting, analytics, and a method by which users can report barriers they encounter. A hybrid approach that combines technology and people is a great way to achieve and maintain an accessible online experience.
Most believe that a visual impairment is the most prominent disability impacted by an inaccessible website.
The fact is, mobility problems and cognitive issues impact a higher percentage of the population than visual impairments. This means website accessibility is essential for those who are not able to move their hands or arms and require a switch device, as well as those who have dyslexia and need the option to switch to a more legible font to easily read your online information.
Accessibility also impacts aging users, including those who experience declining vision and need a higher contrast or a larger font, have difficulty hearing, or struggle with motor control.
Bottom line: an accessible digital experience benefits users of all abilities. And design doesn’t have to suffer in the process.
While it's true that the US has one of the strongest legal frameworks around digital accessibility — including both federal and state laws — most developed countries around the globe have enacted legislation to protect the rights of users who have a disability. The legislation is particularly well-developed and far-reaching in the European Union, Canada, Australia, the UK, and Israel.
Depending on what your organization does, how it is funded, where it is headquartered, where it operates, and whether it offers a transactional website, you may be required to comply with one or more of these laws.
According to Title III of the ADA, discrimination is prohibited in any “place of public accommodation". Legal precedent in numerous cases has firmly established that websites are regarded as places of public accommodation, just as much as physical stores. And while there are certainly some nuances in how the law is interpreted, especially around the status of non-transactional websites, any business with an internet presence needs to comply with digital accessibility legislation — or run the risk of costly legal action and reputational damage.
The reference to “place of public accommodation” in Title III of the ADA makes no special exemptions for small companies. You can't claim that your business is too small to be able to comply, nor can you plead ignorance of the law: the ADA is a “strict liability law,” so there are no excuses for non-compliance. Besides which — see also myth 2 — compliance needn't be excessively costly or time-confusing.
In ethical terms, individuals of all abilities deserve the right to barrier-free use of the web. And as we’ve seen, there are strong legal incentives for ensuring that your website is as accessible as possible.
But for businesses, perhaps the most convincing arguments are those that concern the bottom line. If you don’t take accessibility seriously, people with disabilities will essentially be blocked from engaging fully with your content — and that’s potentially one-fourth of the US population! Don't be fooled by myths and misconceptions: invest in accessibility for your website.
At AudioEye, we believe in equal access for all, and we want to help you achieve it. Start your free trial of AudioEye today.
Hiring SEOs has never been more necessary and more competitive. The pandemic catapulted e-commerce growth, with online spending up 44% in 2020.
As more businesses rely on their online presence, the more necessary SEOs become to help them grow their visibility. The proof is in the data: SEO job postings increased significantly during the pandemic.
Source: Backlinko SEO Jobs Report
But the supply does not appear to be keeping up with demand. In a recent Twitter poll, I asked if there was a shortage of SEO talent. The results skewed “yes”, and comments from industry veterans showed this is likely the case.
Yes!
— Kevin_Indig (@Kevin_Indig) March 3, 2021
I think this is the hottest market we’ve had in awhile. A lot of exciting jobs and opportunities right now
— Jackie Chu (@jackiecchu) March 4, 2021
With the demand being this high, where do you find good SEOs? Hiring an experienced SEO is top of mind for many companies, but isn’t always an option due to budget and increased competition for talent.
Consider this instead: Businesses can hire and train entry-level marketers to become the new, experienced SEOs.
This may sound simple, but I know firsthand the level of work that goes into finding and training the right candidates. In the past year, I’ve helped our agency, Uproer, hire four incredible entry-level SEO analysts and interns, all of whom started adding value right away.
In this article, I’ll share unique places to source talented entry-level SEOs (none of which include Indeed or LinkedIn Jobs), and tips to support their growth once they’re hired.
Not surprisingly, most open SEO positions are for more tenured candidates. Backlinko’s 2020 SEO Jobs Report shows that the two most popular SEO job post titles are Senior SEO Manager and Head of SEO.
It’s clear that businesses want a senior-level hire to start getting work done from day one. The idea of training someone up who’s rather green might not be all that appealing to a business looking to move fast.
However, hiring entry-level SEOs might actually be the better option. Consider these factors:
There’s a huge pool of candidates to grow into the position. Entry-level candidates can be sourced from many different majors and backgrounds. They have fresh perspectives, new ideas, and are adaptable. They don’t come with processes from previous workplaces baked into their working style. And if you're hiring from the Gen Z pool, they know a thing or two about digital. And they pick up new things quickly.
They fit more budgets. Considering the average Sr. SEO Manager makes around $90,000 USD, a business might not have the financial resources to hire a more senior candidate. Opening up the position to entry-level candidates can meet most small business needs without breaking the budget.
We need to increase racial and gender diversity in the industry. Recent surveys found 68% of SEOs are male, and 71% of SEOs are white. Hiring only from this group keeps these statistics locked in place. Prioritizing diversity when hiring entry-level candidates builds a more inclusive, diverse workforce.
OK, cool. Now we know a few reasons why entry-level SEOs can be a great option for your business... but where does one find them? Below are several unique ideas to source entry-level SEO talent:
What better place to meet talented students and young professionals, who are actively looking for careers in their chosen field?
Start building relationships with professors and students at local (or non-local) universities. A good place to start is your alma mater, but you can also reach out to other universities to offer your knowledge. To get you started, many professors are on LinkedIn and their contact info can be found on the university website.
Some great ways to work with universities:
Ask to be a guest teacher. Offer to speak about SEO in marketing, communications, or business classes and student organizations. Many students may not be familiar with search marketing, and introducing them early is a great way to generate long-term interest. And guess who they might be interested in working with? Yeah, that’d be you.
Mentor students. Some ambitious students may want to continue the conversation outside of class. Support students by sharing your experiences and offering advice about their career. Not only are you helping the next generation of marketers, but you’re building relationships with potential hires.
Connect with university career centers. This is one key place students look to find open internships or full-time positions. Get your job description in front of more students by sharing with the career centers. Also share with the professors of classes you’ve taught and ask if they’d send it to their students.
Ask the students and professors you meet about existing marketing programs for students and recent grads. This is an amazing place to find candidates, as the people involved generally have natural leadership skills and ambition.
To get involved, you can often apply to be a mentor or speaker for the group, or sponsor the program. A couple great examples are Camp Adventure or BoundarylessMN, which offer free advertising experience for students and recent grads.
Career-focused organizations are a fantastic way to meet people in the industry. You can meet folks with a year or two of experience, or more seasoned professionals looking for a change of pace.
Attend the org’s events, like monthly meetings, happy hours, or conferences. These meet-ups are a great place to share your open role and meet new people in the industry. Many have job boards that you can leverage as well. A few marketing organizations include:
MnSearch and other local search meetups
The people already on your team may be a gold mine of referrals. If you’ve recently hired a new grad, chances are they have peers who are still on the job hunt.
Simply ask your team members if they’d be willing to share the job description with qualified candidates or their alma mater. You can offer an incentive if you really want to step it up.
Share your SEO knowledge at conferences, local events, and webinars, especially those that are beginner-friendly. This raises awareness for your company and provides a platform to broadcast your open role. You never know who might be looking for that next opportunity!
Important: As you meet people from these various efforts, you’ll want to keep track of those who stand out. Create a “Talent to Watch” list so you know who to reach out to when it comes time to hire.
For greener folks, “soft” skills are often much more important in an SEO role than actual experience. (And while we’re here — can we nix that term for good? “Human” skills feels much more accurate.)
Some crucial traits to look for in these hires include:
Curiosity
Strong written & verbal communication
Eagerness to learn
Positive attitude
Demonstration of leadership
These “human” skills may seem trivial to some, but they can be a far better predictor of success than having years of experience. Site audits can be taught — curiosity and motivation are inherent.
Important: Be open-minded to folks with different experiences and degrees, because there’s really no linear path to SEO. Need proof? This Twitter thread found that SEOs come from many different paths, whether it be sales, IT, or (my personal favorite) a World of Warcraft guild leader.
Once you have a solid group of candidates, you’ll need a solid job description.
Making job descriptions more inclusive and less intimidating for women and people of color is a must. Here are some guidelines for inclusive job descriptions that can help you craft a welcoming and unbiased message. These include:
Removing gender-coded words (think “aggressive”, “rockstar”, “outspoken”)
Swapping “cultural fit” for “value alignment”
Eliminating requirements that are not essential or labeling them “preferred”
Adding in salary range
Now onto the final step. You’ve put in the work, and have found the perfect new hire. They're motivated, curious, and eager to get started in this grand world of SEO.
But your work does not stop there, my friend. In order for your new hire to be successful, managers need to invest in their continued growth. Here are several ways to do this:
The search marketing world has resources galore. In fact, that’s how so many people have taught themselves SEO. Create a document with your team’s go-to resources for learning SEO. These should probably be on that list:
Moz’s Learning Center
Aleyda Solis’s learningseo.io
Make sure to give your new teammate dedicated time for reading in their weekly schedule. You can also consider offering a budget for courses, especially if you don't have a senior SEO to mentor them. Which leads us to our next point...
New hires should have a go-to person to ask questions and talk through things with.
If your team doesn’t have a mentor in-house, here are a couple places that offer SEO mentorship:
Women in Tech SEO Mentorship Program (free for women SEOs and marketers)
Mentor Cruise (paid)
If an opportunity arises to take on a big project or lead a pitch, consider passing it to your hire. This gives them a chance to put their own spin on the process and start building valuable strategic skills.
Similarly, ask if any team members will pass on speaking engagements to the new hire once they’re feeling comfortable in the role. This can build their confidence and allow them to share all the cool things they’re learning and testing.
This one doesn’t happen overnight. Ongoing steps must be taken to create an inclusive work environment for your staff.
A few ways to work on this:
Offer a flexible work environment
Advocate for gender and pay equality when hiring
Build up your team’s confidence with regular feedback and recognition
Ask your team members what holidays they observe, and celebrate as a team
The new generation of marketers are ambitious, capable, and motivated. They can become experienced SEOs and add value quickly if we shift our mindset from “must have 5+ years of experience" to “must be motivated and curious".
SEO talent is truly everywhere, if we take even a small amount of effort to seek it out. So with that, go forth and hire!
Where should you start with technical SEO?
Technical SEO work ensures that the time you’ve spent on on- and off-page SEO pays off — if a website can’t be crawled and indexed, the content on that site can’t rank no matter how high-quality or link-worthy it is. For that reason, SEO pros know that a comprehensive search marketing strategy should include periodic audits of a website’s technical health and its opportunities for improvement. But as you uncover these opportunities, how do you know which ones are most important? What information can you provide to your managers and web developers so that they know which issues deserve their time and attention?
Every website’s technical SEO situation is different, depending on platform, code base, history, and complexity. As the SEO Manager here at Moz, I use information from our Campaign tools to make recommendations about the urgency and predicted impact of our site’s technical SEO needs. Our devs use these insights to plan their sprints, making sure to prioritize the most pressing fixes and those that are most likely to move the SERP needle.
The Site Crawl tools within Moz Pro can help you identify a wide variety of issues that may affect the crawling, indexing, and ranking of the content you’ve worked so hard to develop. In this series of Daily Fix videos, we’ll show you where to find those issues and, just as importantly, how to use the tools’ sorting, filtering, and CSV export functions to organize them by the impact they’ll have on your overall technical SEO health.
How do you prioritize your technical SEO work? Let us know which metrics mean the most to you and your website in the comments!
Once the Moz crawler has finished its crawl of your website, the All Crawled Pages report will offer a full list of crawling, indexing, and content errors discovered during the process. With such comprehensive coverage, this list can be overwhelming!
Zac demonstrates how to filter and sort your full list of issues within your Moz Pro Campaign and using a CSV export, allowing you to focus on pages with the most issues or those with the highest Page Authority.
The Crawl Depth metric describes how many clicks it takes to get from your homepage to any other page within your site. Both search engines and users visit easy-to-reach pages more often, so it’s important that all pages with user value are quickly accessible.
Eli shows how to analyze your site’s architecture via crawl depth, so you can adjust your internal linking structure to ease access to your most important pages and save on valuable crawl budget.
The Content Issues tool within Site Crawl provides a fast and easy way to identify potential duplicate content on your site, which can cause search engines to index and rank the wrong version of a page.
Jo uses the Duplicate Content feature to find pages that would benefit from canonicalization, redirection, or rewriting of content to avoid SERP confusion.
As of June 2021, Google uses important site performance metrics called Core Web Vitals to inform its SERP rankings. Sites that load slowly or otherwise provide poor user experiences could get left behind in the wake of this newest algorithm update.
Using Moz’s robust Performance Metrics tool, Emilie shows how to audit your pages’ Core Web Vitals in bulk, saving you time and helping you understand where your site developers should concentrate their efforts.
Want to try the Moz Pro tool? First sign up for our 30 day free trial and then book a walkthrough with one of our onboarding specialists.
We would love to hear about your SEO goals and how we can help!
On-page SEO is when you blend the art of writing with the science of SEO to rank individual pages for specific keywords. On-page SEO includes everything from meta tags, content format, and keyword optimization to get your content found by search engines and move your audience to convert with you.
While it’s only one part of the equation, on-page SEO guides your content to match customer intent, user engagement, and tactics to increase conversions.
You need to have a map on you before you head out to the forest if you don't want to get lost. Just like hiking, you need to have a good idea of where you're going if you want to stay on track to your destination.
The same line of thinking can be applied to content production, because you should know how to structure content on your site to help sculpt search results and meet the needs of your customers to drive more conversions.
It’s not easy to write content that ranks in Google and drives conversions, but if you follow a few simple steps, you’ll be on your way to ranking, driving more clicks, and appealing to customers on all types of devices. Let’s take a look at three on-page optimization tactics that you can use to get the right message to the right people at the right time.
An SEO strategy has to be built around the needs of your customers to hit ranking factors and get your readers to engage with your content.
It’s tough to serve these two goals, but you can get the best of both worlds by formatting your content in a way that helps robots and readers scan content and focus on information on different devices.
While you can spend time with “SEO hacks,” the best way to improve your online visibility and increase conversions is to format content for readers and robots. Let’s take a look at how breaking up text, keeping paragraphs short, and bullet lists will make your content easier to read and boost rankings today!
One of the first things you can do to improve on-page SEO is to break up text with H2 subheaders. These headers allow you to insert keywords to fuel the technical side of SEO, and these headers also help your readers scan through your content when they first reach your site.
Here are a few quick notes to make the most out of your subheadings:
I like to add H2 subheadings every 300 words or so.
Insert H3 headers with an additional 50 words of content for each section when appropriate.
Use target keywords and exact-match questions in subheadings whenever possible.
I have found a lot of success with Google Search Console (GSC) when optimizing existing on-page content. You can open up a page in GSC to find first-party data on what Google is ranking your content for and then add keywords in the H2 and H3 sections of your site to see a good boost in rankings.
Make your content easier to read for humans and search engines by breaking up your content with H2 and H3 subheadings. Don’t forget to get the most out of this on-page SEO tactic by including keywords and exact-match questions in the section headings for maximum results!
If you want to engage your readers and drive more conversions, then you have to optimize every inch of your content based on the needs of your target audience. Large blocks of text are difficult to read, and this is especially true on a phone or tablet.
I like to limit paragraphs to only 2-3 sentences each to ensure content looks good on mobile devices and does not overwhelm a reader as they read through my content.
Bullet points are a powerful copywriting tool because they allow you to summarize information in a concise manner while also drawing attention to important data in a punchy format. Here are a few reasons to use bullet points in your content to boost on-page SEO:
Break content up and make blocks of text easier to read on mobile devices.
Highlight valuable points to increase conversions on service web pages and product pages.
Add internal links to bullet points to help guide customers through the buyer's journey.
Try to keep bullet point lists between 3-7 bullets each. Shorter lists look goofy, and long lists are difficult to read.
I like to include a bullet list in the first paragraph of each blog post to help readers understand my content, plus this bullet list can help secure a featured snippet (more on tha later). I also like to add a bullet list near CTAs to draw the attention of readers to drive more conversions.
Bullet points are just one example of how you can format content to help your readers and search engines- they are the perfect balance between content marketing and technical SEO tactics.
As online search changes, Google is constantly updating its algorithms to provide the right information to searchers as quickly as possible. A featured snippet is a bite-sized snippet of information that Google places above organic listings based on specific search queries.
Featured snippets are your best friend if you want to establish your brand's authority and drive more organic traffic to your site. Here are a few reasons to format new content and optimize existing content to trigger featured snippets:
Dominate "position zero" above paid ads and other organic search results.
Build your brand authority by ranking at the top of the Search Engine Results page for target keywords.
Drive more qualified traffic to your site.
Build more backlinks as more people click on and link to your content.
Push your competitor's online listings down in SERPs.
There are several types of featured snippets that Google can display based on search intent, search query, and search history. Let’s take a look at how you can format your content in specific ways to help secure the three major types of featured images.
Paragraph featured snippets show 40-50 word explanations based on a search query with a link to the source content. This type of featured snippets can be secured with proper on-page SEO and content formatting.
I like to summarize the answer and main point of my content in the first paragraph of my blog posts and online content to secure more paragraph featured snippets. I also like to create a concise summary of different sections to help trigger more featured snippets throughout my content.
You will notice that most types of “how-to” search queries will trigger a list featured snippet. This information is presented in either a numbered list or a bulleted list, and is a powerful way to generate more traffic for recipe sites or process-oriented content.
I like to add a bullet list or numbered list before I list out detailed sections to secure more featured snippets.
Google may include a table at the top of SERPs for search queries about pricing options, comparisons, and data. Most table featured snippets are 3-4 columns wide and 6-7 rows long.
I like to add a HTML table to my blog posts to summarize a process, show price comparisons, or just to provide a summary of different types of data. I’ve noticed that Google prefers HTML tables compared to tables made in CSS or other languages.
Structured data are bits of code that you can add to your blog posts and web pages to help Google understand your content. You can format your content along with markup language to spoon-feed search engines information about your content and shape your appearance in SERPs.
Once you add an FAQ section to the bottom of your content, you can get even more bang for your buck by adding FAQ schema to the backend of the content. FAQ schema offers a number of benefits for your SEO strategy like:
Boost impressions: FAQ schema will help drive more organic impressions, which can lead to a higher Click Through Rate (CTR).
More website clicks: As your pages get more impressions you will start to see more clicks to your web pages and blog posts.
Interlinking: You can add a link to each answer in your FAQ schema. Only point internal linking to non-sales content (like a blog post) to help drive more engagement.
Improve online visibility: FAQ schema makes your content more visible because it pushes your competitors lower on SERPs.
I like adding 3-4 common questions and answers at the bottom of each blog post and web page to help customers and search engines. I’ve found that FAQ sections at the end of my content helps with keyword rankings and allows me to implement FAQ schema to get found in search engines.
A winning SEO strategy is rooted in getting your message to the right people at the right time, and on-page SEO tactics can help you get found online and drive more conversions.
Use the tips in the above sections to make your content easier to read, easier to scan, and even sculpt your content in SERPs today!
Many marketers approach Search Engine Result Page (SERP) features from the wrong angle. Instead of asking what you can do to rank for SERP features, ask what SERP features can do to inform your content strategy. By flipping this thought process, you can build a successful content strategy that speaks to your audience at every stage of the buyer’s journey, using the most efficacious language and content format.
SERP features are designed to provide users with the most relevant answers to their questions, and they’re formatted to package this information in the best way possible. In other words, the exact language and format of each SERP feature is the most accurate representation of the type of language and content format that your audience seeks (at least according to Google). As a digital marketer, this is gold. With a little digging, you can now mimic the keyword topics, style, and format of the SERP features present for your target keywords, creating content that engages your audience exactly where they are in the buyer’s journey, and in the format they desire.
While chasing the sought-after SERP features, many marketers fall short because they overlook the most important clue: the SERP feature itself. SERP features contain meaningful knowledge about your audience and how they prefer to consume information. Here are a few of the most popular organic SERP features used on Google:
Knowledge Graph
Featured Snippet
Related Questions
Image Pack
Reviews
Video
In-Depth Article
In this next section, I’ll break down these features into stages of the buyer’s journey and explain how they can inform your SEO content strategy.
The top of the buyer’s journey is the awareness stage, where your audience is aware that they have a problem and will begin to conduct research to better understand and define this problem. At this stage, your audience is seeking a concise explanation of the problem and is not ready for a solution yet. SERP features that indicate an awareness stage audience include:
Knowledge Graph: often illustrates high-level biographical information and keyword cluster definitions. This feature is a staple of the awareness stage.
Featured Snippet: often provides concise keyword definitions and explanations of concepts or problems. This feature is also a staple of the awareness stage when it provides definitions or answers “what is” questions.
Related Questions: when the inquiries begin with “what is” and “how to” they align perfectly with the educational aspect of the awareness stage.
Videos: FAQ videos and how-to videos indicate the high-level thinking of the awareness stage.
Images: often indicate a one-word or short-tail keyword query, in line with the awareness stage.
When creating content for an awareness stage audience, it’s important to remember that they have very little understanding about who you are, what you do, and why you do it. By addressing these high-level questions, you can introduce yourself in a way that frames your company as a thought leader in the industry. When doing so, pay close attention to the type of language you are using.
SERP features in the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey take advantage of clear and concise language, so make sure you do the same. Avoid flowery descriptions or rambling explanations, and keep your definitions short and to the point (ranging from 40-50 words).
Likewise, this is your chance to develop trust with this new awareness audience. Keeping your content informative and easy to understand helps build trust, illustrating that you care about educating your audience without bogging them down with complex industry jargon or heavy handed branding.
Questions abound at this stage in the buyer’s journey, and it’s a good idea to include a question and answer format when you observe it in the SERP feature. Use headers, bullet points, and/or numbered lists when possible, and make it easy for your audience to scan the content without committing a chunk of their time. Images are especially useful at this stage, but make sure to include an image alt tag.
The middle of the buyer’s journey is the consideration stage. At this point, your audience can identify and understand their problem (with the help of your educational awareness content), but they still don’t know the best way to solve it. They’re seeking information about various solutions, and want to learn more about how your solution can solve their problem. SERP features that indicate a consideration stage audience include:
Featured Snippet: when the snippet is formatted for lists or comparisons instead of clear cut definitions, it indicates the consideration stage.
Related Questions: “why” and technical questions belong in the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey.
Reviews: service or product reviews indicate that your audience is actively searching for and comparing solutions, which aligns with the consideration stage.
Videos: service and product videos belong in the consideration stage, as they explain why a specific service or product is a viable solution to your audience’s problem.
When creating content for a consideration stage audience, it’s important to focus on building a comprehensive and compelling argument. By using specific examples to frame your service as the most valuable solution to your audience’s problem, you can illustrate how and why they should consider investing in your solution.
SERP features in the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey allow for content that is longer than in the awareness stage, and the language also employs more descriptors. Technical language is appropriate at this point, and this is your chance to explain what makes your solution stand out.
However, staying true to your solution’s capabilities is critical here, because you don’t want to over promise results that aren’t actually possible. Instead, use this moment as a chance to build trust with your audience. Keep your reasoning authentic and your examples specific to the value that your solution can deliver.
Comparative language is also more prevalent in the SERP features at this stage, so include detailed reviews that demonstrate why your service or product is the best. When using video, make sure your content is also searchable on YouTube.
The end of the buyer’s journey is the decision phase, where your audience has already identified their problem, compared different solutions, and is now ready to commit to a final decision. At this point, your audience knows how to talk about the solution they’re looking for, and now they want to know exactly why they should commit to you. They want content that proves that other customers have had a positive experience with your solution, and are willing to commit more of their time to confirming their final choice.
People Also Ask: questions leveraging phrases like “the best solution’” or “most advanced solution” indicate users transitioning from the consideration to the decision phase of the buyer’s journey. Customers want to confirm that they’re making the right decision, and are looking for hard proof.
Videos: customer testimonial videos align with the decision phase, providing your audience with proof about whether they should commit to your solution or not.
Long-Form Content: long-form pieces of content range from 2,000-5,000 words.These pieces of content can appear as organic site links, scholarly articles, or in-depth articles. They tend to position themselves as thought leaders in the industry, and explain the overall problem and solution. Quite often they take the form of buyer’s guides, providing in-depth information about each solution and answering questions with long-tail keywords.
When creating content for a decision stage audience, make sure to address any questions that haven’t already been answered in your previous pieces of content. While this may sound intuitive, it’s an essential part of the process seeing as an unanswered question can trigger your prospect to leave your site and go to a competitor’s site to find the answers they’re looking for. At this point in time, don’t underestimate the depth and detail of information your audience is seeking.
SERP features in the decision phase of the buyer’s journey address the audience as pseudo-experts in the subject matter, as should you. At this stage your audience is able to string together long-tail keywords that include modifiers, and your content should provide detailed answers to these highly specific inquiries that address your audience as knowledgeable members of the industry.
Leverage compelling statistics and results-oriented examples that explicitly frame the value that your solution provides. By using clear data points and specifications, your audience can easily see for themselves how your solution can benefit them.
Technical language is widely understood, and the audience wants to hear the nitty-gritty details of your solution. Long-form content is encouraged at this point, so don’t shy away from a high word count. Cite your customers when possible, and consider using video to break up the heavy reading.
Google SERPs are designed to anticipate user needs, and the SERP features present for your target keywords are some of the most telling clues about the type of audience associated with your keywords. By taking note of the SERP features present for your target keywords and paying attention to the style and format of the content, you can leverage Google’s search engine algorithms to your own advantage.
Once you’ve identified the types of SERP features present for your keyword, you have also discovered your audience’s stage of the buyer’s journey and the keywords, style, and format of content they prefer. As a digital marketer, you can use this information to craft a content strategy that perfectly aligns with your audience’s desires. This takes the guesswork out of your content strategy and ensures that your content resonates with your audience exactly where they are in the buyer’s journey.
