SEO: Forget Keywords. Think Topics

 Search engine optimization (SEO) keeps evolving. It’s still about showing up in search, making your website more visible to those who are looking for the solutions that you provide. But the techniques to improve your rankings have changed, and it has to do with those notorious algorithms that are constantly on the move. Search engines have grown more sophisticated; they’re now using updated algorithms and practices to determine the contextual meaning behind keyword-based searches.

Search engines exist to solve your problems . . . 

And they’re getting much better at predicting what you want. The old days of randomly filling up a page with keywords is over—search engines recognize this for what it is—shameless keyword stuffing. Good content is nonnegotiable. In order to rank you, search engines look for title tags, keywords, image tags, internal link structure and inbound links. Also figuring in are navigation structure and site design–these are things we can easily execute ourselves. 

Build your SEO strategy around topics, not keywords

Keywords should feel natural, not forced, but your focus should be on the intent of your audience. Build your SEO strategy around topics, not keywords. If you do that, you’ll be naturally optimizing for keywords. For example, if you’re writing about planning a wedding, you don’t need to list every single wedding detail—champagne, catering, food, cake, flowers, photographer, music and all the other details. Google, in all of its wisdom, knows this. It understands the topic of wedding planning.

It’s not just about your website; building backlinks

Search engines work on your overall web presence, and backlinks are an important component. Any link from someone else’s website to yours (or any other site) is a backlink. Backlinks help Google find new pages on your site faster, and they’re associated with increased credibility and trust. 

How to build backlinks? Look for opportunities to be a guest blogger and include a link back to your website. Links should be from websites and content that are relevant to your focus. A really easy way to build links is to post your blogs to your Google Business Page. You can post a blog excerpt with a Learn More button and link back to your website. Easy. 

Your social channels are an important part of your SEO value 

Social can have a big impact on your organic search. Think about what goes on with our social activity—sharing posts, tweeting and retweeting. It could be through a Facebook friend, Twitter follower, a connection through another social network or something totally unrelated. Sometimes social search will even prioritize content that has been shared by an influencer. 

Our challenge is creating search experience optimization. We want users to not only find our websites but to stay there, drill down through our content and come back later and become a customer.

Does an SEO analysis and upgrade of your website need to be part of your marketing strategy? Contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and digital marketing specialists. 

YouTube Ads Increase Sales

I’ve been doing YouTube advertising for one of my clients for six months, and it’s increased our business by an estimated 10%. While I had done Google and Facebook pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, I was new to video. Viewers are now spending up to six hours/day watching video, so the time is right. 

Be prepared for a learning curve 

The YouTube ads creation tool is the same as that for Google ads. But there are significant differences and some subtle nuances. I did a lot of reading as I was working on this. It’s also helpful to watch videos that explain processes. 

We created a series of explainer videos

Our videos were about 60 seconds or less. I wrote the scripts, and this is key—keep them crisp and focused on a single topic. A quick how-to that explains a process or, in our case, the benefit of using a product/service. 

Professional-looking videos can get expensive, but I turned to Fiverr—a website that hosts contractors offering a wide range of services. I found a graphic designer from Pakistan who created our videos for between $100-200/each. The quality of these is excellent. We’ve developed a good working relationship, and it helped that he’s creative and clearly takes a lot of pride in his work. Turnaround time is generally a week or so. 

I also made a few of my own little videos using Promo.com

I love this little application. Easy to use, you can produce a polished video with music and three-five frames in a couple of hours. Keep your message simple and focused. 

Keywords are critical to the success of our ads

This is where it starts. Keywords are fundamental to a successful campaign. I use Google’s Keyword Planner. You want to use words and phrases for which there is a significant amount of search, but relatively little competition. Identify how much you want to spend per day and per view. 

Your keywords/phrases need to be grouped into adgroups.

Ad groups  organize your ads by a common theme—the types of products/services you’re advertising. An ad group contains one or more ads that share similar targets. Set a bid, or price, to be used when an ad group's keywords trigger an ad to appear. 

Identify your target audience

Really think about age, gender, education and interests. Think about where your audience is hanging out. These will be the websites where you place your ads. You can also create custom audiences based on these values. 

Measuring success: Make sure you’re tracking your website traffic with Google Analytics

I created a landing page to sign up for our newsletter, monitored Google Analytics and watched our numbers increase for our range of services. We were clearly driving traffic to our website. By synching your Google Ads account with Google Analytics you can see the effectiveness of your campaign from a single sign-in that streamlines your effort.

Interested in YouTube/Google advertising? Contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing specialists.