It is an almost universal experience for consultants and internal SEOs who have worked on numerous organic search campaigns. The first 3-6 months (more if the site is very large or complex) of SEO effort are almost always dedicated exclusively to fix bugs, improve existing problems, adjust and tune to the most optimal, and generally close the gap between what is current and current best practices.
The beautiful part of SEO is that, once completed, these efforts can have benefits and compounding for months or years to come. New pages that are accessible and optimized begin to gain ranking and traffic, generate more links, more exposure, more sharing and more business. If you have content and a competent development team continually checking a list of actions (and not creating many new ones), little by little the list of actions will disappear. I like to call this “the SEO plateau.”
Existing parts of the site have been optimized. The processes for creating content are now efficient and updated to SEO standards. That huge SEO to-do list is now a stable and manageable list. Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing time to be in. There are a lot of companies that don't make it to this point.
But this also creates its own problems, mainly the frustrating question "What am I going to do now?".
Sadly, responding with “Are you kidding me?!” SEO simply increases the 10X your traffic, streamlines the conversion process, and brings in more than half of all new customers!” It's just not enough. That is why we have to look at the 5 opportunities that almost all organizations have to launch from the “high SEO growth plateau”. Not each of these will make sense for every site, but each one deserves analysis and investigation.
For this post, I'm going to assume that you are a moderately advanced SEO and have already optimized things like SEO on-page, meta titles and meta descriptions, fixed technical issues, gone through a few rounds of keyword research and done content creation/amplification. This process is about what comes next.
The 5 SEO growth opportunities:
- New Keywords and content
- New Verticals and SERP Features
- Additional SERP Domination
- Move through the Buyer funnel
- International Orientation / Multilanguage
If you're reaching that plateau, and find year after year that organic search traffic growth has plateaued, explore the descriptions below and make an intelligent decision about what deserves your attention for the coming year. Sometimes that choice may not be obvious, in which case: experiment, iterate, measure, and then determine how to prioritize.
1.- New Keywords and content
This option appears more frequently when search traffic growth starts to plateau, but rankings are still high. Growth-focused organizations aren't satisfied dominating rankings for the keywords they already own, so they chase an ever-growing list of terms and phrases that could bring valuable traffic.
The thing is, a lot of the time, this makes sense. It's an obvious move, but this is apparently one of those times when what's obvious and what's right often don't line up.
The keys to success with keyword list expansion (and content creation goals) are:
1) Understanding the audience and the keywords that will really drive value
Unfortunately, sometimes we are so focused on ranking and traffic that we forget that alone, these are useless. If your fresh SEO boost brings a ton of new visits with little measurable impact on short- or long-term conversions (even to the next stages of the funnel return visits or email signups or a visit to product pages), it It is possible to be barking up the wrong tree.
It's okay to treat some traffic as purely brand-focused and some content to earn links, but unlikely to convert into visitors. But if this gets out of control, it's your job to rein it in and return it to its sensible direction.
2) Know the ranking capacity of your domain
In niche after niche, there are some powerful sites that can put up even mediocre content and rank well for it. In essence, they have trained Google (and search engines) to prefer their content on those topics. But, this power takes an incredible amount of time and energy to earn. Thanks to our recent acquisition of SERPscape, you can actually quantify this:
Technically this is the work of Russ Jones (thanks buddy!), but the numbers make it clear. The vast majority of sites only rank for a small handful of keywords, and there are only a few that consistently achieve high rankings across a broad set of commercially valuable SERPs.
If you have this goal (anyone trying to dominate a sizable market), you'll have to follow this crazy, healthy mix of "I'm not going to get that rank" thinking, comfortable goals, and easy access. The Domain Authority is a metric that can help, but given the complexity of topical authority on Google these days, there's also a sixth SEO sense that needs to be applied, too.
3) Hit the sweet spot for amplification and links
We have recently learned that social media almost never functions as the only source of links that help gain positions. But, we also know that without links, it is very unlikely to rank content. Therefore, the content we produce has to target the types of amplification that can drive traffic and direct value, as well as the types that can gain links and rank. That's a challenge for almost all content creators, especially those who are also trying to make content fit a promotional or revenue-driving goal (a very rare and impressive achievement indeed).
In my experience, the content that has the best chance of fitting is going to be at the intersection of three things: content that you (the content creator) have great passion for, content where you can add unique value that has not previously been existed (or has not been easily explained) on the web, and content that resonates with the public and creates an emotional desire to share and expand.
2.- New Verticals and SERP Features
The list of verticals available through Google is staggering, but Mozcast can be relied upon to help resolve noise through the signal:
If a vertical has less than 1% of the search results, it is probably not much of a goal unless you have a very specific market niche where the penetration of that feature is considerably higher.
The process is simple: if a vertical or feature appears in a substantial number of search results around the world and/or in a considerable number of the SERPs you care about attracting visitors, it is almost certainly worth a little effort. Google News, Shopping, comments, images, knowledge panels, Tweets, local boxes, and much more, all have the potential to drive a lot of clicks that would normally go to the “classic blue links” in the results. If you can own this real estate SERP before your competition, your traffic growth opportunities have much more room to climb.
An important note: YouTube in its own search engine is the second largest in the world. If videos don't seem like a great opportunity for you, think again! For almost every niche there is a good chance that video can bring audience attention and branding, even if the traffic is not as direct as from Google itself. Video SEO has changed since Google's move from snippets to non-YouTube content, but it's still a massive search channel.
3.- Domination through multiple results or slight ranking increases
Many, many times, I have looked at a set of competitive results in the top 3 of the Moz rankings and thought, “We're good here; “Maybe I’ll target another goal.” But, that mentality may be costing me some real opportunity:
Multiple appearances in the same set of search results isn't just about getting more presence, it's about driving traffic and click-through rates for both. Some analyzes (which unfortunately I can't locate anymore and I didn't mark them in the bookmark) have shown that two ads in search results can have a higher position CTR than position X + position Y. Like great romances, the effect of dual listings is greater than the sum of its parts.
Likewise, thinking that position #2 or # is “good enough” is probably costing me the opportunity to climb in search traffic considerably. Depending on the CTR curve that you like the most, position #1 averages 1.5x-2.5X as much traffic as #2, and in SERPs where verticals or SERP features intrude, it could be even higher.
Don't pay attention to the Traditionalist SEO in your head They pause the keywords where they are already in the top 3 or top 5, and focus on the SERPs where they are inches away from 1st place (or another large part of the content away from a double ranking).
4.- Move in the Buyer's funnel
I can't count the number of times I've started helping an organization think through SEO and discovered that the only keywords they pursue are the ones that lead directly to conversions.
Repeat with me: “SEO is not PPC (pay per click).”
That means that in SEO, you don't need to limit your keyword targets to only those with a given conversion rate. Your ROI equation may be years away, because organic search will continue to send you visitors for years if you gain and maintain high rankings. It also means that your keyword and content pairs should not be limited to those that convert at all. At Moz, for example, we know that The road to conversion can be long and winding.
A couple of years ago, we found that the average person who takes a free trial of our software had visited the website 7.5X before signing up. SEVEN AND A HALF! Plus, those who visited more times before they became customers tended to be better customers who used more features, were less likely to cancel, and were more likely to participate in our community, too. It's been wonderful to learn that the goal of most of our content is simply to highlight the fans of the people who interact with it, not necessarily convert visitors into buyers as quickly and efficiently as possible.
This lesson doesn't just apply to us, you should also be thinking about where your customers' journey begins and what they are looking for long before they consider your product (or any solution) to their problems:
The advantages of moving your keyword research and content creation up the funnel are twofold:
#1 – It tends to be much less competitive to target terms and phrases that have lower commercial conversion.
#2 – The universe of keywords and content are positioned higher up the funnel expanding exponentially, giving you much greater opportunities for search traffic growth.
Imagine you are helping a local roof repairman in Seattle, WA with their SEO. Your current keyword options are probably very limited and highly competitive (for example, “roof repairer seattle,” “roof leak seattle seattle,” “roofing contractor seattle,” and so on). But, go up the funnel and suddenly a whole world of possibilities (“roof protection”, “roof sealant comparison”, “weather resistance for Seattle roofs”, “best roof shingles in wind storms”, etc. ). I know small local businesses that have built their entire funnel around educational content published through photo tutorials on their website and videos on YouTube. They end up focusing on traditional conversion-focused keywords by gaining a loyal audience that amplifies their work through recommendation, often when they haven't even been a direct customer!
Additionally, even though it technically falls under the paid search umbrella, RLSA (Remarketing List Search Ads) It means that if someone has visited your site once and you know you want to reach them again if they search for more keywords, you can bid higher and more effectively for them in Google AdWords.
5.- International Orientation / Multilanguage
For large organizations looking to expand their markets, growing beyond their local country and/or local language can be an avenue of great opportunity. It's not easy, and in SEO, it may require starting almost from scratch (depending on how you are pursuing international expansion of new TLDs vs. subfolders, etc.). This isn't my area of expertise, by any means, but I love what Eli Schwartz says about practicing in his position: don't assume, and don't stereotype.
Do your keyword and market research first! Don't assume that a practice, product, service, or niche will be equally big in a market simply because it has similar economics, population, or even language. The English love Marmite, but it's not going to the USA (or really any other country for that matter). American television producers looking to export City X's Desperate Housewives will likely run into problems. And Bavarian wall painting services will be hindered practically everywhere, but not in Bavaria (which is sad because I find them a delight).
Note: This list is obviously not for all forms of web marketing or even all types of channels. Content, email, social media, paid social media, etc. could be worthy of all consideration. But if your team is focused on SEO or if you believe that organic search is where the best opportunities lie, the tactics you want are probably contained within these.
Source: moz.com
