Anyone who has built and launched a website has likely encountered an oft-repeated acronym: SEO (search engine optimization). And while you might not have ever done SEO yourself, you've benefited from it in the past: Every day, search engines like Google employ complex algorithms to sift through more than 400 billion web pages and deliver the most relevant results.
Website owners like you use SEO techniques and strategies to get their websites to the top of the search results for relevant user queries. But SEO is not a one-time endeavor — Google and other search engines change often, and ongoing SEO ensures your website stays in front of the people you want to reach. Just as a physical storefront requires regular maintenance and updates to stay competitive, your website needs ongoing SEO to remain visible amidst the ever-changing digital landscape.
The ABCs of SEO: What is Ongoing SEO and Why Does It Matter?
Don't let the techy jargon intimidate you. HubSpot — considered one of the gold standards for SEO and digital marketing advice — defines SEO as simply a collection of strategies and tips that "expand a company’s visibility in organic search results'' and help "drive more visitors to the company’s website, increasing their chances for more conversions which leads to more customers and more revenue."
SEO Connects the Search Engine Algorithms With Your Website's Content
Regardless of your website's goal or industry niche, all SEO techniques have one thing in common: They look at ways to optimize your website's content, keywords, and links to help search engines rank your website higher in the search results when someone searches for something related to your keywords, content, or brand name.
According to HubSpot, SEO needs to address the key factors that all search engines use to determine the value of your website's content — and therefore how high in the search results your website or specific landing page should appear:
- The intent or meaning behind why someone is searching for a specific term or question
- The relevance between what someone searches for, and the content on your website
- The quality of your content (for instance, a website about physical exercise written by certified personal trainers is deemed by Google to be higher quality than a website where the articles are written by non-experts)
- The performance of your website, such as how long it takes a page to load and whether it works well on mobile devices
Static SEO Versus Ongoing SEO: Why It Matters to Stay Fresh and Keep Your SEO Updates Current
As users' web behavior changes and technology evolves, search engines proactively adjust their algorithms.
If you aren't conducting ongoing SEO maintenance and upgrades, a well-optimized website today can quickly become obsolete tomorrow, causing your search rankings to drop and attracting fewer organic visitors. Google itself updates its algorithms several thousand times per year, including significant "major" changes every few months that dramatically change how it crawls and ranks content. For example, Google's infamous Panda update changed how it ranked how-to lifestyle content on the Internet, causing one major content publisher to lose a whopping $6.4 million of traffic and advertising nearly overnight.
How Ongoing SEO Influences Your Website Strategy
Staying abreast of changes to SEO techniques and strategies provides important guidance to your content, marketing, and overarching website strategy. For example, it can dictate or influence:
- How much content you publish, and the content's format, length, and focus
- How you incorporate other forms of media on your website, including images, video, and audio
- How you organize content on your site, including landing page layouts and your site's navigation
- What keywords and target users your website focuses on
Embrace the Power of Ongoing SEO
Caroline Forsey, an expert in thought leadership and marketing content, looked at the survey results from more than 400 of the world's leading web analysts to predict the biggest SEO trends of 2024. According to her data, some of the top changes in SEO strategies this year include:
- A heavier emphasis on expertise, meaning the content on your website should come from experts in your related field (including bylines and author bios that demonstrate the author's credentials and experience on the topic they're writing about)
- A renewed emphasis on first-person, credible content, especially as more websites generate high volumes of low-quality AI content (Google itself has announced upcoming changes to tackle low-value articles created by AI)
- A priority on websites that are deemed trustworthy, such as e-commerce sites with well-rated customer service, or content sites that do a good job of citing trustworthy research and statistics
- Bonus points on content that is creative and original and doesn't simply rehash content found on other sites
Of course, these SEO trends will inevitably change every year, and ongoing SEO will keep you competitive no matter what Google, Bing, and other search engines do. No matter your website's industry or content strategy, ongoing SEO requires that you:
- Focus on keeping your content fresh and high quality, including new blog posts or regularly refreshing and updating old product descriptions or articles
- Conduct keyword research often, since the terms or phrases that your core audience uses will evolve over time
- Maintain your website's overarching performance, such as mobile-friendliness as mobile devices evolve, and page load speed
- Build a diverse portfolio of high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites within your niche, which may include outreach campaigns, getting others in your industry to write guest blogs, and participating in online forums or communities
- Keep on top of technical and performance metrics, such as scanning your site for broken links (and fixing the links you uncover) and using tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track organic traffic, keyword rankings, click-through rates, and conversion rates
- Stay on top of algorithm changes so you can adapt your SEO strategy in real-time
Some website owners think of SEO as the first step of their promotional strategy. But it's less a first step, and more an ongoing journey to ensure you, your brand, and your content stay relevant in such a competitive atmosphere. Whether you choose to go it alone and take a DIY approach to SEO, or you choose to consult with a digital marketing and SEO agency, check in often and make sure your SEO evolves as the world around you evolves.
Sales And Marketer's Guide To Virtual Events
It’s no secret that physical events offer a terrific opportunity for marketers to make face-to-face interactions with peers, vendors, and often prospects. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many in-person events have been canceled.
Most enterprises are now turning to virtual events to engage with their audiences. This guide provides sales and marketing professionals the know-how of executing successful online events.
Brand your virtual event
If you are planning for a canceled or postponed in-person event, you must stay on brand to the canceled onsite event. Use similar logos, fonts, and complementary colors for brand continuity. If the virtual event is a new idea that you want to brand separately, use colors, themes, and fonts that speak to your audience, industry, and evoke the intended audience reactions.
Prepare attendees for virtual events
Don't make assumptions on how digital-savvy your attendees are. It is best practice to send out an event guide before the event. It should direct them on how to access the event, the sessions, and more. If possible, let the attendees be able to test and interact with the virtual event beforehand. This will ease stress during your event and contribute to the success of the virtual event.
Have the right tools
Dedicated event landing page
A dedicated event landing provides a "home base" for your virtual events. This creates a sense of realness to virtual events. Virtual events draw audiences from social media, email marketing, sponsor recommendations, etc. An event landing page provides a central place for all these attendees to access information about the virtual event.
Event registration technology
Event registration must be secure, intuitive, seamless, and mobile-friendly. Aim to have these five items for the registration; attendee information, levels of access, session choices, a summary of choice, and the payment page. It is also wise to ask attendees how they learned about the event during registration.
Live-streaming and Webinar software
Most virtual events are live-streamed, partly or entirely. Check into the right software to enable keynote speeches, seminars, virtual networking, training, product rollouts, small networking events, and performances.
Reliable WiFi or Internet Source
Ensure the source point for the live stream has reliable WiFi and power supply during the virtual event. Check and confirm that the WiFi is strong at the virtual event command center. Similarly, ensure that speakers, hosts, and other key event stakeholders have reliable WiFi.
Event marketing software
Your virtual event promotion strategy should enable people to register and show up at the intended time. Event marketing software should help with scheduling emails, social media posts, and paid ads. It should also help send reminders to people who are yet to register, send reminders of the upcoming event, track the open rate of event emails, track social engagement and run A/B tests for social media posts, emails and ads.
Leverage social media across platforms
Social media platforms present limitless ways for sales and marketing professionals to promote their virtual event. Consider using Facebook Events, LinkedIn Company Pages, LinkedIn Ads, and LinkedIn Groups. A Twitter hashtag will come in handy for Twitter promotion. Other social media strategies include Instagram marketing, discussion forums, and using social media influencers to help drive conversation and increase excitement around your virtual event.
Partner with sponsors and stakeholders to market the event
Your virtual event marketing could be exponentially pushed by your event partners and sponsors. This strategy benefits all stakeholders (and is referred to as lead-sharing). Provide your partners and sponsors with affiliate links, social media links, and newsletter links. Share graphics, social hashtags, announcements, and other content related to your virtual event.
Attendee engagement and networking at virtual events
You might think that because the event is virtual, there is no leeway for engagement. Wrong! You can include live-polling in keynotes and Q&A in presentations. If you have a mobile app or web app, enable messaging capabilities to allow attendees to engage with each other and set up meetings with each other, sponsors, exhibitors, or even the host company. A dedicated networking time slot will encourage interaction
Leverage social media too via event hashtags to drive engagement and conversation. Have attendees share their experiences of the virtual event on social media. This will enhance a sense of community.
Follow-up after the virtual event ends
Stick around after the event is over
Just like after a live event, don't be quick to leave the Livestream or webinar. Stay online for some time to answer any attendee questions and provide any additional information. It is also an excellent opportunity for networking and getting immediate feedback on how your event was.
Set up a link with a full recording of the event
Depending on the success of your virtual event, your attendees will want to watch it again and share insights with people and colleagues who were not able to attend. It would be great to have a full recording of the event and supply this link to attendees and anyone else who had expressed interest. Also, share the link on your social as well as when promoting future events.
Send out post-event surveys and polls
Measuring the success of your virtual event is important. Send out a follow-up survey to your attendees to get insight on what you did right, and also areas that you could improve on. Find out what the attendees liked or did not like and keep a record of this feedback.
Finally
Running a virtual event successfully requires the same care and attention as any physical event. You need to promote the event, engage your audience appropriately, and create memorable moments for attendees.
Try out the above tips in your next virtual event, and share your results with us.