How to Lead in Organic
Search Engine Optimization in Vancouver... with website design tips from Google
& Bing
Leading in organic
search results for local Vancouver businesses means winning the SEO race with
content and it can be a hard slog… but preparation, “comfy shoes” (ie. Getting the
basics right to start) and sufficient and healthy semantic SEO copy as nourishment
will enable reaching the goal – High rankings in Google and Bing or bust!!
In the past year
or so, organic internet search results have seen major changes – but mainly for
websites that exploited loopholes in the existing Google algorithms.
For example, in
2013, there was the Hummingbird infrastructure launched in Google Search and we
experienced the end to keyword data in analytics due to 100 percent SecureSearch. Google's Panda launch also became a staple feature on the search
algorithm landscape for Vancouver based searches by becoming a rolling update –
Guaranteed to keep the local SEO services companies on their toes!
There have been additional
expansions to the Knowledge Graph and the way it displays information in
organic searches in Google too, leading to improvements like Google's new voice search
and results from Google local search carousel displays featuring prominently on the SERPs.
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| New Google Local Search SERPS with Carousel Vancouver |
But even with
all these changes to the SEO landscape, many of us in the website design
industry of Vancouver realize that thankfully some things never change - like
the tried and tested meticulous and “best practice” approach of SEO and content
marketing - we're just dealing with new ways of delivering quality semantic seo
content – and in ways that cut down on the often overseas element of SEO link cheating
building… (oops, was that my “outside voice” there?)
In the past few months, there
have been many published interviews from companies like Adobe, Google, Bing, Macy's,
Adidas and Seagate Technologies and here with 2iiS Marketiing I’ve assembled
some of the more pertinent SEO related ones to find out what brands and those
close to the search industry think about the changes we've seen, how to work
with them and for hints of what's on the optimization horizon. Let’s face it –
as SEO Services Vancouver Professionals, we have to keep firmly abreast of
developments in search!
The SEO Semantic Content Rich Landscape: Ch Ch Ch Changes and Their Impact on SEO
It’s inescapable
that some of the changes to Google, Bing etc in the past couple of years are
among the biggest ever, with a far reaching impact on SEO service providers,
Website Designers & SEO Copywriters.
Bing's Duane
Forrester, head of its webmaster program, points out that while there have been
many changes in formulating search results at Bing, there are also some things
that remain the same, like high quality well written content. "This past
year will be remembered as the ‘Year of Content.' (There has been) so much
conversation around how important content is, people moving budgets towards
content efforts and so on," Forrester says. "And yet, for all that
talk and action, content has always been important. Finally, though, businesses
are starting to understand the downside to implicit or explicit shortcuts in
this area." – Which as Vancouver professionals in the area of sustainably
high organic search results, 2iiS Marketiing applauds.
Over at Adobe, Dave
Lloyd, senior manager of global search marketing agrees "This is my 14th
year in the industry and the pace of change has never been greater," even
so, he adds, "The search marketing industry continues to evolve. Let's
face it: SEO performance relies on a business solid foundation and adapting
regularly to changes in the industry." Again, positive change and
evolution in internet search results is something we completely agree with –
nobody likes “Black Hat” SEO – especially when used by competitors to gain an
unfair advantage.
Industry experts
agree, if brands have been approaching SEO in a smart way, the changes have
less impact and are easier to respond to – requiring adjustment rather than
wholesale website changes. 2iiS Marketiing Development Director, Robert J.
Pierson, explains, "Every year, the changes in algorithms seem to be
designed to surprise and upset, but only if you were “gaming the system” to
start with. Well designed websites based on a solid foundation of well written
and SEO optimized infrastructure & content with a preference for a semantic
approach stay much more consistently placed in the SERPs – and that’s a fact. Those
websites that treat SEO as an afterthought, or, even worse in isolation, are
suffering more and more with every update, and frankly for those of us well
established professionals in the SEO and Website Design industry, that’s a good
thing..."
Some knew they
were “taking advantage” of loopholes – others – usually the unsuspecting
clients of unscrupulous low budget SEO services – didn’t, but one thing is certain –
All were negatively impacted in a huge way. Either they slipped down the SERPs
into virtual obscurity – or they were hit by a penalty and sent to the Google
sandbox for a “time out”.
Here at 2iiS Marketiing – all we can say is “Good!”
None of our client’s websites were negatively penalized – but strangely some of
our former clients were, and they soon took the opportunity to get back in
touch on their knees (You know who you are ;0)
Thankfully in
the marketing world, most agree the changes in SEO are for the better. In fact,
Macy's director of SEO and organic content, Lauren MacPhail, said "Secure
search changed all of that by forcing SEOs to put more focus on ranking and
start examining page performance with a greater level of detail. While many see
this as a positive change, it has had the largest impact on SEO analysis and
reporting in years,"
The ability to
track keyword performance within website analytics used to be the nirvana of demonstrating
SEO success and principal method of identifying new opportunities for
optimization – but this meant many SEOs had moved away from relying on SERP
rankings for success in favor of a more conversion-driven approach. Here at
2iiS Marketiing though, it’s worth pointing out that our priority has always
been to design websites that balance all aspects of e-marketing.
“Get clients to find you,
engage them when they look at the website, make sure they find what they were
looking for by the time they spend on there, then motivate them to contact you
or to buy – this is a complete visitor flow, and without it, your website is
failing to maximize it’s potential” Says Pierson.
How Brands Are Adjusting to Changes and How You Should Too
Lloyd says Adobe
is optimizing "for the customer experience" because the SEO and search
engine is now a means to the end – prospect contact and purchases. "SEO must
first optimize to your future customer where they increasingly spend their time
on mobile, in social media and in search engines," he adds.
SEO Content may
be King, but functionality and usability gets the taxes paid! Pierson, “We often explain
to clients, we would willingly trade 1000 website visits a day for 10 new
client contacts – visits by themselves are irrelevant and Organic SEO results
are only the first part of the process of getting a Website to Work”
Bing's emphasis
is also related to quality content, but with more concentration on “the story”,
Forrester said. "Our focus
is almost entirely on content (with) very little around what we all think of as
traditional SEO. Yes, technical SEO gets looked at, but maybe not to the depth
you might think," he said. "The goal in everyone's mind is clear: we
know our target persona so how do we serve them best?"
In addition to
tracking and measuring content, Forrester says Bing is training for
storytelling and enabling a wider spectrum of people to have internet voices
and impact.
Alison
MacDonald, digital marketing manager of global marketing at Seagate
Technologies, says her company has mitigated changes in part by focusing more
on the customer. "We are
spending more time understanding our customers, which is not only allowing us
to rank better, but also helping us create better products and speak to a
customer in a manner they understand," MacDonald says. "Secure search
simply forced us to do what we should have been doing from the beginning: using
our internal knowledge to communicate with our external customers."
All we would add from a web
designers perspective at 2iiS is that many of the most competent technical companies
we have worked with are amongst the world’s worst at achieving website goals –
proof that you can sometimes “know too much” and why you should leave the
website design to the professionals!
Extra Hints for Winning in Content and Search Optimization
Hunting out industry
interviews with brands leads to additional tips for modern SEOs who want to be
ahead of the game. For example,
Lloyd at Adobe, who says, "SEOs today must continue to focus on aligning
to content strategy and inbound marketing while striving and innovating to add
value to the lead quality being driven through the funnel."
MacPhail, of
Macy’s, gives an alternative view and says good SEOs need to start thinking
more like traditional marketers, though, "on the other end, I feel like
SEO has gotten more technical than ever and the landscape is changing quickly,
so the need to keep up is imperative."
Changes in the organic
search environment also pose considerable challenges. 2iiS Pierson
sees some of those challenges to be specific to ownership of content - and
that's something he says SEOs need to bear in mind. "One
challenge in the future is the fine balance between providing your intellectual
property for crawling whilst preventing it being used against you by both real
and virtual competitors," Pierson says. "This is a new & very
real emerging threat in the SEO content world of 2014. It's all very well to
have the widest range of data on which to search, for example, but quite
another to have Google collate all the data from you and your competition and
present SERPs that never even give the viewer a need to cross your virtual
front door. As an example of this recognized threat to business is the European
courts judgment against Google in relation to Copiepresse and the Google “News”
SERPs – Copiepresse are a royalty-collection company for French and German
language press publishers" see details
of Googles appeal here
Schema markup should
also be encouraged, Pierson says. "Schema is
a future-proofing tactic that will serve websites and e-marketing well," he
says, "as search providers increase us of marked-up data to ensure richer
consumer experiences. The winners from these experiments in SERP shuffles, UX, etc.,
will still be seen in the long term, but remember, web administrators, you've
got to be marked up to play."
And while
content is the trend for SEO recently, Forrester of Bing says, "Don't
think for a second we've turned a corner on this topic. The importance of
content is right at the top of the pile and should remain there indefinitely; right
there next to usability."
The principal
then is to be objective about your brand's progress in its content copywriting
and don't forget that the SEO basics still matter so much to successful SERPs ,
he says. "While it's
tempting to think you've mastered content and to seek what's new and cutting
edge, I'll suggest that a lot of sites still have work to do on the
basics," he adds.
What's in the Future for SEO: Content, Mobile and Customer Engagement
Darren Pleasance
from “Customer Acquisitions” at Google, says the latest trends in website content
are just as important as the basics. "There is a
new phase of content development forming with in-app and mobile
experiences," he says. "Content is being developed and tailored for
device types that fundamentally improve the overall experience. It's surprising
to still see people just digitize content but not actually tailor it for
mobile."
From an
interestingly Google-centric viewpoint, Pleasance says there is "huge
opportunity in shifting brand dollars from TV to digital whilst, with balance,
capitalizing on the synergy between the two channels."
The Google strategy in what Pleasance reveals is that brands that traditionally advertise on TV are being encouraged to
shift dollars to digital and e-marketing - "Technologies are emerging that
allow advertisers to use products like video and display to reach and influence
customers much earlier in their decision process. This has historically been
the domain of TV, print and radio, and (they) still capture the lion's share of
advertising spend today - TV spend is more than two times all online advertising
spend combined, and twenty times all online video spend - but some of this
spend will clearly be migrating online over the coming years due to the
improved ability to target and track the impact of this spend."
Organic Search Engine Optimization for Vancouver Businesses in 2014 – The
Conclusion
2iiS E-marketers
are a creative and responsive breed, so if our Web marketing strategies are
surviving the test of time, it's a testament to our strong SEO foundations and a
semantic approach to SEO, content and digital marketing for our clients here in
Vancouver & Worldwide.
As we are now in
the second half of 2014, we also have new tools, strategies and ways of looking
at the Organic Search conundrum to get our clients websites visible on searches,
but we must also remember to keep the basics of SEO solid and create a great
online experience for our clients site visitors so they are motivated to
interact, to get in touch or to buy online. “When we increase client leads or
online sales for our customers, and demonstrate an actual measurable ROI, then
we know we nailed it.” Says Pierson. “Search is in transition, because internet
use is moving onto mobile, into social with increased mobile high speed
internet coverage and larger devices like the upcoming IPhone 6 & Galaxy Alpha. Where the customer leads, we follow. So it's the customer (and their stats) who
ultimately tells us how we're doing with our SEO efforts.”
Here at 2iiS
Marketiing, we are well seasoned in e-marketing, SEO optimized website design
and the power of well written semantic enhanced copywriting – so the changes we
have weathered, and those to come in the SEO landscape are actually ones we
relish – we like the challenge, we appreciate the search engine giants making
it harder to game the SEO results, and we love to learn – but most of all, we
love to win the race… Think to Join our growing number of clients – and you can
win too!
Article written
by: Karen Pierson
#marketiing #seoservicesvancouver #websitedesign #vancouver #marketing #ecommerce
