Fibre Marketing

Author: Chloe

The Complete Rundown of Google’s Algorithm Updates 2020 (so far)

Posted on by Chloe

Google makes thousands of changes to search each year – in fact, it was reported that in 2018, Google conducted 3,234 updates alone.

While we await the total for 2019, it is still clear to see that, when it comes to managing your website, you should not sit idle. Studies have shown that between 70-80% of users research a business online before making a purchase, meaning that being found online is vital for your company. As Google continues to roll out algorithm updates, it’s important to adjust your website as needed in order to boost your search visibility and gain first page rankings.

But with so many changes being made throughout the year, it can be hard to keep up. So, we’ve compiled a list of all algorithmic changes of 2020 so far, including the winners and losers, which we’ll update as time goes on.

January 13th – January 2020 Core Update

The first update of the year was announced by Google on January 13th, rolling out across the world and affecting all languages. Tracking tools showed high volatility for three days, with Google confirming that the update was ‘mostly done’ rolling out on the 16th.

Core updates do not target a particular industry, and anyone can be affected. They are designed to improve how Google’s systems rank content. The search engine giant explains this in more detail on their blog:

“…imagine you made a list of the top 100 movies in 2015. A few years later, in 2019, you refresh the list. It’s going to naturally change. Some new and wonderful movies that never existed before will now be candidates for inclusion. You might also reassess some films and realize they deserved a higher place on the list than they had before. The list will change, and films previously higher on the list that move down aren’t bad. There are simply more deserving films that are coming before them.

Winners and Losers

Towards the end of 2019, most updates saw YMYL (your money or your life) sites as the most affected. This update was no different, particularly for the health and finance sectors. Very Well Health was one of the top winners, according to multiple sources, as was Yahoo Finance. A few dictionary sites came out triumphant, too. Meanwhile, a further group of healthcare sites fell victim.

Overall, this update has been duped by many as large and fierce, causing great tremors throughout top ten rankings.

January 23rd – Featured Snippet Deduplication

While this wasn’t exactly an algorithm update, the deduplication of featured snippets was still a considerable change that majorly affected websites’ click-through-rates (CTR).

Previously, featured snippets (pictured below) were counted as their own, stand-alone search engine results page (SERP) feature, not an organic search listing. If a site obtained a featured snippet, the same URL would also appear in the listings below as an ordinary listing.

On the 23rd, Google announced that, if a URL is featured in a snippet, it would not appear on the first page of search results. Thus aligning this SERP feature with Google’s claim that a featured snippet is an organic entity, counting as position number one. Before this deduplication, a featured snippet counted as position zero.

Winners and Losers

In this case, there were no obvious winners and losers to be precise, but many sites did report losses of traffic. This deduplication led to many site owners having to decide which they’d rather lose: a first-page ranking, or a featured snippet. Moz tried conducting a CTR study to see which loss would have a bigger impact, but unfortunately, it is impossible to decipher if clicks to a URL were from the featured snippet or the organic listing.

Overall, this major change was met with confusion and outcry and sparked much discussion over the future of featured snippets.

February 9th – Unconfirmed Search Ranking Update

While a core update has been denied by Google, we have decided to include it in this blog as there were significant amounts of chatter and tracker tools were off the charts for five days – longer than the standard algorithm updates.

From the February 9th, discussions of a suspected search update started to arise on Twitter and various web forums. SEO spokesperson Barry Shwartz reported the fluctuations as ‘really big, maybe even massive’ changes that were taking place. Many sites experienced severe traffic drops and spikes.

On the 13th, Google’s Danny Sullivan stated, ‘We do updates all the time’ in response to this speculation. This suggests that algorithmic changes were made during this time, just not on the same scale as a core update.

Winners and Losers

Unfortunately, it’s hard to decipher a clear sector that either benefitted or suffered the most following these changes. The suggested update occurred across the globe, and there were both winners and losers in a range of industries. There was even some speculation that several updates actually took place, as many of the sites that saw drops then experienced traffic increases a few days later. The one thing that was certain following the confusing five days was that some sort of changes were made – it’s just unclear what exactly those changes were.  

May 4th – May 2020 Core Update

The second core update of the year began rolling out on May 4th and appeared to have mostly ended by the 7th. Rank Ranger dubbed this update as an ‘absolute monster’ as the effects appear more brutal than those which occurred in January. Furthermore, this update took place amidst the Coronavirus pandemic, which had already significantly affected a wide range of sites and caused a change in search patterns.

Winners and Losers

Unlike many other updates, the May core update appeared to have less focus on typical E-A-T areas and was broader than usual updates, making it harder to detect a clear winner or user. Marie Haynes claimed that Google is getting better at recognising which links are ‘truly recommendations for your content and which are self-made for SEO reasons.’

It was interesting to note that Spotify took a hit, despite it progressing steadily over the last few years.

As of today, 15th May, information surrounding this update is still rolling out, and so we will continue to update our blog with our findings.

June 23rd – Suspected Federal Update

On June 23rd, there were reports of another algorithm taking place, although Google is yet to comment. The SEO trackers were showing high volatility in the SERPs, and many reported significant gains.

What’s interesting about this update is that it seemed to target .gov sites, along with other YMYL industries, a trend which appears to be mirrored across the globe. This pattern is what led Barry Shwartz to label is update as ‘The Federal Update.’

Winners and Losers

.gov sites were not the only winners of this update; health and news sites were also affected. But it is clear to see that government sites were the ones impacted the most. It’s possible that Google now prefers these sites over other domains, due to their authority. Authority is part of the E-A-T metric that Google refers to in its Quality Rater Guidelines, so it’s only natural for .gov and .org sites to experience a boost in search visibility.

July 6th – Small Search Ranking Update

A small search ranking update may have taken place on 6th July, lasting until the 8th. While there wasn’t as much chatter surrounding this update as the last, some webmasters still detected some changes in their site traffic. This algorithm update targeted niche websites, and our SERP volatility tracker reported nothing more than a slight increase in movement amongst rankings.

Winners and Losers

It’s harder to say who the winners and losers were with this update, as only a small number of sites were affected. Education sites reportedly saw some movement, but it’s highly likely that a particular niche of sites was amongst those most affected, due to the small amount of volatility.

July 24 – Suspected Search Ranking Update & What SEO’s Get Wrong About Google’s Updates

Not long after the previous suspected update, another one came along. Only this time, it was much bigger, with our volatility tracker showing fluctuations amongst the SERPs for most industries.

To add to this, a few days later (28th July), Barry Shwartz published an article on Search Engine Land exploring what SEO’ers often get wrong about Google algorithm updates. Shwartz promotes the idea that we should stop obsessing over what Google is changing each time an update rolls out and focus on our websites instead. This is because most people blame their drops in traffic on updates, when, in reality, it’s because their websites usually aren’t up to scratch. The time spent trying to crack the algo updates should be spent on improving content, UX, link profiles and other ranking factors.

This coincides with a statement Google made in August 2019. They stated that, when it comes to improving your site following updates, ‘There’s nothing to fix.’ Nothing really changes when Google rolls out updates, only how they assess content. The search engine giant then followed this up with ‘We suggest focusing on ensuring you’re offering the best content you can. That’s what our algorithms seek to reward.’ Shwartz’s advice, therefore, aligns with Google’s own – but what do you think?

Marie Haynes chimed into this discussion, offering a few tips to help you decipher if any traffic losses are the result of a recent update. You should start by looking at any recent changes made to your site, as well as the number of pages that were affected. If a noticeable drop in traffic occurred within 48 hours of an algorithm’s start date, then that was likely the cause.

Winners and Losers

Many industries experienced some fluctuations, according to our volatility tracker. The sports, news and arts & entertainment industries saw drastic changes. According to SEMrush, victims included WorkingTitleFilms.com, Marvel and Talk Sport, whereas winners included GuitarWorld, Teen Vogue and TheStage.com.

August 10th – August 11th – 2020 Google Glitch

On Monday afternoon, Barry Schwartz reported one of the largest Google updates many had seen for a long time. He commented that it looked like there was “a big Google search ranking algorithm rolling out”, although it was not confirmed by Google.

By Monday night, many in the SEO community were noticing huge discrepancies in search results. Content that was once high-ranking suddenly seemed to drop several pages, while other low-ranking sites started popping up in the first pages of the SERPs.

However, it was soon revealed that this was not an update, but in fact a glitch.

Fortunately, things seemed to revert to normal by August 11th, and Google’s John Mueller later posted on Twitter that the glitch had been fixed.

On August 11th, Google commented on the glitch, “On Monday we detected an issue with our indexing systems that affected Google search results. Once the issue was identified, it was promptly fixed by our Site Reliability Engineers and by now it has been mitigated.”

Winners and Losers

Technically, there weren’t really any winners or losers in this scenario – as it was a glitch – but it was certainly interesting to see which sites temporarily ranked higher.

According to Marie Haynes, sites who experienced a boost in traffic included medical articles that did not include supporting references or links to authoritative sites. These articles referenced natural remedies that were not backed by scientific facts. Haynes also commented that many of the sites that started ranking high included unnatural links.

But, on August 15th, it appeared the glitch trauma was not over. Strong amounts of chatter picked in the SEO community following significant changes being reported in the SERPs, similar to those seen during the initial glitch. But by the 16th, things seemed to have calmed down, leading to speculation of another issue from Google’s side.

The amount of fluctuations were captured by our volatility checker, which was off the charts throughout the 15th.

If this is another glitch, this mirrors the pattern that’s been forming recently when it comes to indexing. Speculation was rife in May with more indexing issues, although  Google’s John Mueller stated that there wasn’t a bug, at most a few minor glitches. There were also reports in June, when Google experienced more problems. Furthermore, throughout 2019, there were many problems with content being de-indexed, and at one point, new content wasn’t being indexed at all.

If your website has been affected by an algorithm update and you’re struggling to find a solution, get in touch with us at Fibre Marketing, and we’ll help you get back on track.

Google Rolls Out May 2020 Core Update

Posted on by Chloe

Google is constantly making updates – thousands a year – although more extensive core updates understandably play a greater role in how search results will be generated. On the 4 May, 2020, Google announced that they rolling out a core algorithm update, the second one of its kind for this year.

This is a broad update which will affect everyone regardless of location, industry or language – but what does it mean for your business? Part of our work at Fibre is to properly understand exactly how these updates affect our clients, and how they can position themselves to stay ahead. We’re here to answer a few questions about the upcoming changes.

What are core updates essentially for?

Though the hundreds of smaller updates throughout the year go by largely unnoticed, core updates cause changes that can be very noticeable, internationally, and are likely to have obvious effects on the way your business shows up in search results.

This may not be a bad thing however – at Fibre we’ve noticed that some sectors are more negatively impacted while others will actually see a gain in their search rankings. Updates generally aim to improve content relevancy for users, but this does mean that businesses need to routinely reappraise their SEO strategy and be aware of how any updates affect their visibility. 

How long does the update take to have effect?

Though the rollout is live currently, it’s likely still too early for businesses to notice any major effects. Typically, updates of this size take around a week or two to be established fully. Google’s first core update of this year was in January.

What kind of content will fare better after the update?

Google’s algorithms are designed to reward content that is more likely to satisfy users’ queries. If your content has dropped in relevancy since the last core update, its new search ranking will reflect this. On the other hand, some content will in fact perform better. There are no hard and fast rules – every business needs to do a careful assessment of pre-existing content to find out what’s working and what isn’t.

Wouldn’t the Coronavirus prevent Google’s updates?

The straightforward answer is no. Google have confirmed that scheduled updates will take place regardless. This could be worrisome, especially for those businesses who are already experiencing some volatility. Though some are choosing to essentially pause during lockdown and hold off on making strategic changes to their search marketing plan, it’s worth remembering that the new algorithms have not paused, and any losses experienced during this period may be difficult to recoup after lockdown lifts.

The unavoidable truth is that the Covid-19 pandemic has significantly altered not only consumer behavior but also online search behavior, with Google reporting, for example, that searches related to the virus have been the single most popular topic in the search engine’s history. Even casual users will have noticed the many changes Google has made to provide accurate information and data, as well as prioritise certain helpful content in the public interest.

Thus, Google’s update has rolled out as planned, but the criteria for “relevant” is greatly impacted by the needs of a world ravaged by the Coronavirus. The May core update may prove to be disruptive primarily because people’s searching behaviour is vastly different from what it was just six months ago. Some unexpected content topics are gaining in relevance while previously high performing ones will take a knock.

What you can do

In Google’s constant attempts to refine their search algorithms, businesses are forced to respond by increasing the quality of their sites. Though the changes can seem intimidating, many of the old rules still apply: businesses should always seek to be an authoritative and trustworthy source of truly valuable information, and reassess continually to make sure they’re hitting the mark.

A flexible SEO team can help you narrow down an intelligent strategy that exploits rising trends – such as increasing mobile use, the decline of text-rich content in favour of other formats, the rise of Google My Business and a growing focus on a more local perspective.

Link Building During The Coronavirus Outbreak

Posted on by Chloe

Coronavirus hasn’t just affected the daily lives of billions of people across the globe.

It has also forced businesses to make numerous changes in the way they operate. Many have been forced to adjust to social distancing regulations, figure out remote working, and understand how they can keep their heads above water.

That’s why, we’ve been sharing with you several SEO tips over the last few weeks that can help your business get through these challenging times. Hopefully, they’ll also help you to see the glimmer of opportunity that lies in this crisis and help your business thrive.

So far we’ve covered what the coronavirus means for your SEO and why you need to keep creating content during the outbreak.

Today, we’re going to turn our attention to link building and explain why it matters, and which factors you need to take into consideration now.

What is link building?

You can think of link building as a way of building connections online.

Put simply, it involves asking another website to add a hyperlink to your website as a valuable resource for their users. Usually, the better the website that links to you, the better your rankings.

These are just some of the reasons why link building forms such an important part of any search marketing strategy.

How do you build links?

Building effective, high-quality links isn’t an easy task, despite how we’ve made it appear above. Changes to the search engine algorithms mean that digital marketers are constantly adjusting their strategies according to what is getting the best results.

Some of the main ways to build links include:

  • Outreach. Just tell someone else in your niche you have content that they might love then share it with them, then hope that they’ll share it with their readers. That’s it. This can be a great way to earn a natural link.
  • Guest posting. Guest posting involves approaching a high-quality website in your chosen niche and offering to create content for them for free. You’ll earn a link back to your website and help boost your traffic too.
  • Content marketing. Content marketing involves creating content, contributing to expert publications, collaborating with other experts in your field and repurposing your existing content.

There can be a significant overlap between these so most digital markers use a combination of several to help their  clients achieve the results they are looking for.

Why does link building matter?

As we’ve mentioned above, link building is a great way to help improve your rankings. But that’s not all it can do. It’s also an excellent way to build relationships with other experts in your niche, build trust, increase your referral traffic and establish you as an authority in your niche.

Because of coronavirus, link building has become more important than ever. We need the support of community, of other professionals and businesses in our niche if we want to survive these difficult economic times.

Four great tips to help you navigate link building during coronavirus

Although many bloggers and marketing departments have been furloughed, links are still being built. In fact, many businesses and organisations are viewing these times as an opportunity to reconnect with their audience, tune in to the unique needs of their audience, add extra value, and position themselves as experts in their niche.

Here at Fibre Marketing, we’re proud to help that happen. Here are four tips for link building during COVID-19, based on our personal observations and research.

1. Show that you care

Real human connections and mutual support is more important now than ever before.

Because regardless of whether you’ve fallen sick or not, coronavirus will have taken its toll on your life.

That’s why it’s so important to stay friendly, approachable, and human when creating content for link building purposes and doing outreach. Provide real value to your audience. Make a difference to their lives.

Remember, link building isn’t just about hyperlinks- it’s also about building relationships and providing value to your audience. What better opportunity than now?

2. Choose who to reach out to, carefully

Although there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to who to approach for link building, we do have a few tips to share based on what seems to be working.

For obvious reasons, healthcare links haven’t been an issue as they are very timely and can work well if you’re a specialist in a certain field with facts to share.

When it comes to other industries, we’ve seen a bit of a mixed bag.

For example, although travel is an industry that has been hard hit, there have been a few publications wanting new travel content to stoke the flames of wanderlust. But note that this hasn’t applied to every site in the industry.

Again, this is likely to change over the coming months and years as we come out of lockdown and adjust to the new realities of the economy.

3. Consider the most effective topics

We’ve noticed that certain topics have become very popular over the last few weeks and are worth focussing your efforts around. This includes anything relating to gardening, mental health, and working from home.

Clearly, these are very general ideas and could spark any number of possible content titles that would resonate with the audience in question. To narrow down these ideas, first consider whether your business has a unique angle to offer, advice to give, or can provide further value to your target audience.

It’s also worth having a look at what people are talking about. Topics that seem to work well during coronavirus seem to be related to:

  • Social distancing
  • Helping the sick and those in need
  • Positivity and self-development
  • Parenting/homeschooling during a pandemic
  • Technology: how it can help your business to continue and maintain social connections

4. Use what you have

Do you have any existing content that has resonated with your audience in the past and is relevant to the current situation?

If so, consider using this content for link building purposes or editing/rewriting it to provide even more value.

This could help you save valuable time and money and could also help you build your authority as an expert in your niche.

Summary

Navigating the current coronavirus pandemic isn’t easy for any of us. But that doesn’t mean that your digital marketing efforts have to crumble.

There has never been a better time than now to build those valuable connections with your community, demonstrate your expertise and support your audience.

Coronavirus Outbreak: Resources For Your SEO

Posted on by Chloe

Right now, we are living in a period of uncertainty. The outbreak of coronavirus has changed the world in ways that many of us never thought would happen, and various industries have been affected, including the search industry.

As we all try to navigate our way through this outbreak, we’ve put together this list of resources to help you through these circumstances, including tips for your SEO, updates from Google and links that may be valuable to you.

We will update each section as we continue to post tips and tricks on our site and social media channels.

Our recent posts exploring the effects of coronavirus on SEO:

What you can do to help your SEO:

Link building (internal & external):

Update site security:

Create and repurpose content:

Update your GMB:

Google’s updates:

All local updates including social media, TripAdvisor, and Yelp here.

Resources for local businesses:

Health organisations

What people are searching for during the coronavirus outbreak

Working from home:

 

Follow us on Twitter and Linkedin for daily updates on all things SEO. If you’re struggling with your SEO efforts right now, please get in touch here. 

 

Internal Link Building: What Is It, And Why Does It Matter?

Posted on by Chloe

Every site has – and should have – internal links. Though they’re easily forgotten, they’re a fundamental way of improving your site’s performance in search engines. To put it simply, internal links are what they sound like – hyperlinks that go from one page to another on the same domain or website. We’ll be looking at what they are in a little more detail, show you the SEO benefits and give you a quick rundown of how to use internal links on your own site.

What internal links do

They’re most commonly used in main navigation and allow your users to move around the domain according to a hierarchy that makes sense for your site. They also help distribute link equity/ranking power across websites. Though external links are important – those “backlinks” that take visitors to other sites – internal links are another – and arguably easier – way to significantly boost your site’s performance.

How they help your SEO performance

To put it simply, a search engine like Google has “spiders” or web crawlers that trawl the content and pathways of a site when deciding to direct visitors there. If you publish new content that isn’t on the sitemap and has no internal or external links, then the search engine has a harder time “seeing” it, potentially ignoring entire chunks of content simply because it cannot quickly locate a path to them. In other words, link equity will be unevenly distributed across the site.

Internal links can be a clever way to get traffic to pages you can’t naturally link to in any other way. A properly organised and logically hierarchical site distributes the ranking power evenly, resulting in a better ranking overall for each page. The more internal links, the more trust and equity for your site.

How to use internal links

The best way to build a high-performance hierarchy that’s navigable for both users and search algorithms, is to create internal links and supplementary URL structures. The links can be images but are more commonly anchor texts that the user sees and clicks. Try the following tips to boost performance:

  1. Structure your hierarchy with the most important pages at the top, going down the pyramid in importance. Create “silos” or logical subcategories to organise pages that naturally belong together – each topic cluster is linked to the main hub and so to the rest of the hierarchy. You want natural, relevant links, which will perform better than simply trying to shoehorn various keywords into content. When in doubt, it’s better not to link than to create an irrelevant link.
  2. Use good anchor texts – they don’t need to be an exact match. Make the text clear, specific and as natural as possible in context. Make sure to keep internal links in mind every time you publish new content, and avoid using the same anchor text over and over again.
  3. Conduct a comprehensive site audit to find any broken links, links pointing to blocked or deleted pages, “orphan pages” (those with no links), links going to irrelevant pages, or links written in the wrong format. Alternatively, audit tools are simple to use and will help you understand your redirect traffic.
  4. Don’t overdo it. It can be a bad idea to have too many internal links. Prioritise your user experience and link only when it’s natural and helpful to do so – 10 or so is a rough limit (this page has 8).
  5. Remember that your site needs to be user-friendly, too. Regularly check that your site architecture, user experience and navigability is what it should be, especially if the site is expanding.
  6. You could conduct your own Google search to help you decide exactly where to link from. Use the search operator site:yourdomain.com “keyword or phrase related to page” to see how often the phrase appears in your site’s posts. If you find a keyword with no link – put a link there. Your SEO team can help with this.
  7. Identify your power pages: those pages that have the most backlinks and highest authority. Your most important sites should have the most internal links to tell web crawlers how important it is. A tool like Screaming Frog can help you filter out your top pages.

At Fibre Marketing, we’ve found that Internal link building is simple once you understand the basic principles. As with most SEO, you’re essentially finding ways to make your site as visible, relevant and valuable to users as possible – and this is a question of understanding the rules search engines use to determine this.

How to Create Great Web Content for SEO

Posted on by Chloe

There is no doubt that the coronavirus pandemic that is going on at the moment is changing the ways that we are working and running our businesses – both temporarily and perhaps in the long-term. Although fewer businesses are able to operate as they normally would, it is important that we all prepare ourselves for when the outbreak is over and the world gets back to ‘normal’.

Despite the fact that you might not be able to do your ‘normal’ work, there is plenty that businesses can be doing in the meantime to be able to bounce back strongly from the impact of COVID-19. And one of those is content marketing and SEO.

This ‘downtime’ can give you the time that you need to create some great web content for your business, give your SEO a boost, and ensure that you are ready to take off again when this is all over.

When you are creating content, there are a few aspects that you should consider to ensure that your content to be as effective as possible:

Write for the User

To determine which web pages rank highly on the SERPs, search engines such as Google have algorithms that will find the pages most relevant to the searcher. The search engines want people to continue to use their services, and so the most important thing for them is to display the pages that are the most relevant and informative to their searchers.

This means that your pages should be written for users and NOT for the search engines. By putting out good quality, informative, and useful content you are more likely to be rewarded with a higher ranking in the SERPs.

Keyword Research

When you are planning a content marketing strategy it is important first to carry out some keyword research.  This means researching the terms that people are likely to use to be able to find your website. There are plenty of tools that you can use to help you to carry out this keyword research, or you can speak to an SEO consultant.

From this keyword research, you can then go on to plan your content, ensuring that these terms or questions are covered in it. It is important, however, that you don’t ‘keyword stuff’ your content – search engines don’t like this and will penalise you for it!

H1 and H2 Tags

It is important that, when you publish SEO copy, you use H1 and H2 tags to help your content to be organised. H1 tags are like the title of a book, and H2 tags are used to break up the content like subtitles. They can help to organise content and ensure that searchers can find what they are looking for quickly and easily – and this is always beneficial in terms of SEO.

You should have just one H1 tag per page and use H2 tags sparingly whilst being as descriptive as possible.

Your Pages

There are several different ways that you can work on your SEO content. You should first ensure that your website is properly optimised. This means making sure that you have up-to-date information, properly optimised product pages, a good ‘about’ page, and a blog section.

Once these pages are fully optimised, you can then go on to think about blog content. The golden rule here is to make your content interesting, informative, entertaining, or authoritative (or preferably all of them!). Some blog ideas include:

  • Articles
  • Interviews
  • Lists
  • Guides
  • Videos
  • Infographics

E-A-T for Good SEO

When it comes to creating the best content for SEO, you should try to comply with the E-A-T rules.

E-A-T stands for:

Expertise – You need to show that you are an expert in your field. You need to show that you know what you are talking about, and this is especially important for professional businesses as opposed to gossip or celebrity websites, for example.

Authoritative – You can use your expertise (or the expertise of your writer) to show that you are an authority in your area. From this, you will become the go-to person for your readers (and potential customers).

Trustworthy – You should make your readers feel that they can trust you – especially if you are hoping that they buy from you! Keep your website strong and clear, informative and secure.

Old Content

Re-purposing your old content is a great way to freshen up your website and help with SEO. You can update any out-of-date information, helping with SEO and making it more attractive to searchers. We also know that Google loves new content – even if it is just re-purposed old content! This also gives you the chance to correct spelling or grammatical errors, fix technical issues like broken backlinks – and add new ones, add other media, and add new keywords.

In this time when your other workload might be low, it is the ideal moment to get your website content perfect, to ensure that it is working efficiently for your business through SEO. By incorporating these fundamentals, you can ensure that you are ready to go again as soon as you need to.

The Importance of Creating Content During the Coronavirus Outbreak

Posted on by Chloe

The coronavirus pandemic that the world is experiencing at the moment is affecting everything about our daily lives – from how much we can see our loved ones, to how we are working.

For many businesses, this is a worrying time as they try to contend with changes in people’s consumption and spending habits, to looking after their staff and protecting them both in terms of their health and financially, and of course, considering the implications of potentially having high percentages of staff off sick at any given time.

Although it might not be ‘business as usual’, it is important for businesses to prepare for when the outbreak is over. Just because you might not be able to operate as normal, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be working on certain aspects of your business – and that your competitors aren’t sitting around idle!

The world of marketing, for example, doesn’t stop. In fact, online marketing has never been more important as more people begin to operate and communicate online. And one major aspect of online marketing is content creation.

Content Creation for Marketing During COVID-19

As fewer people are travelling, fewer people are out of the house and fewer people are visiting events, offline marketing is becoming less effective than before. Likewise, the world as a whole is spending more time online, looking for information and to be entertained – in other words, looking for content.

Content marketing concerns the creation of content, firstly enabling businesses to communicate clearly and accurately with their customers – and potential customers, but also to help them to establish themselves as a source of useful and reliable information, getting to the top of those all-important SERPs, and building their reputation. Content marketing is a great way to ensure that you are effectively marketing your business, not being left behind your competitors, whilst also being able to communicate effectively with your customer base.

Keep Customers Informed

It is important to keep your customers informed as to how your business is reacting to the coronavirus outbreak. It is not only good business practice but can also help to build relationships with your existing and potential customers. There are several ways that you can do this through your website, including:

  • Making announcements on your website with regards to the measures that you are taking to help your customers and staff to get through this difficult time
  • Adding to your FAQ section to cover questions that customers might have regarding how your business is dealing with COVID-19 – food hygiene or customer contact questions, for example
  • Updating opening hours, delivery options and contact phone numbers or emails to avoid frustration
  • Consider what people might want to know about your business in relation to COVID-19 and answer these queries in your content

Google My Business, Local SEO and Reviews

Google has also changed some of its rules for the duration of the outbreak and it is important that you adapt to these changes.

They have announced that they are changing Google My Business profiles, so that businesses can now change some of the details about how they are operating, including their opening hours and whether they do deliveries.

Google has also disabled the ability for people to write business reviews. It is important to allow your customers to communicate any problems that they have directly to you, so you should consider a different solution for the time being.

Social Media

Social media is a great way to show the more personal side of your business to the world. It is an excellent way to engage with your customers and reach out to new ones and show your fun side. Some of the most successful businesses in terms of social media are devising ways to get their customers involved, respond quickly to actions and if they’re lucky, go viral…

Email

Email gives you as a business direct access to someone’s letterbox and this can be a very valuable tool. What you need to do, however, is make sure that any emails that you send out are not deleted before they are even read, and stand out from the rest of the many emails that most of us receive each day about ‘what we’re doing about coronavirus’…

Try adding a personal touch, making it light-hearted, interesting, and human. Remember that a lot of people have a bit more time on their hands than normal and take this all into consideration when you are thinking about what you are going to put in your email.

Although your business might not be functioning as it normally does, it is important that you adapt how you are working to help your business to still be as effective as possible, and still be seen. And content marketing is a great place to start.

Coronavirus: What It Means for Your SEO

Posted on by Chloe

In a short space of time, Coronavirus is having a massive impact on the world. We are seeing changes in how people are using the internet – whether it is for communication, ordering food, looking for information, or entertainment whilst they are isolating themselves. We are also seeing businesses – and indeed industries – having to adapt, with more people working from home and a greater focus on deliveries.

SEO is an important part of any marketing strategy in the world today and it is closely linked to trends and local, national, and international events. It is inevitable, therefore that Coronavirus is having an impact on the success of the search marketing for your business.

Changes in Searches

With changes in the way that people are conducting their lives, we are seeing a change in the searches that are being made. We already know, for example, that there are fewer searches being carried out for many industries, especially around travel and luxury goods, for example, but massive growth in searches related to media, food, healthcare, and finance. This is mainly centred around the general public’s quest for the latest information, help, and guidelines.

Here’s an example from Google Trends, which shows increases in search frequencies for terms ‘elderly care coronavirus’ (blue) and ‘elderly care’ (red):

But drops for ‘coach holidays’:

The conversion rate also appears to be mirroring these changes, with people less likely to be spending money on travel and holidays, for example, and more on food, cleaning products, and media.

When it comes to Pay Per Click, it seems that we haven’t seen much of a change in the cost per click, but as we have seen people holding back on some purchases, the cost per conversion is going up generally – unless you are selling ‘essential’ items like baked beans or toilet roll.

Google SERPs

Google is adapting their search engine results pages by doing what they can to ensure that accurate and up-to-date information is ranking highly. This means that in addition to the search results given as a result of their normal algorithms, they are prioritising data from informative and objective organisations such as the World Health Organisation, the NHS and the government.

They have also launched a new search experience to help people find information more easily.

It seems that at this unprecedented time, Google is doing what they can to ensure that accurate, objective and helpful information is circulated.

Reviews

Google has also announced that during the outbreak, they are suspending new reviews, replies and Q&As on Google My Business (GMB) listings. This means that you should be taking this into account when you are thinking of your content strategy and local SEO especially. It may be worth re-auditing your listings to see if any improvements can be made in the meantime.

What can you do?

You might be working from home, or your work might have dried up during these difficult times, but it is important to remember that we will come out of this the other side. You can be preparing your business for this time and the one thing that you shouldn’t be doing is ignoring your search marketing efforts, as this is vital to ensure that you’re not being left behind your competitors.

When it comes to organic search, it doesn’t matter how your industry is doing as a whole, what is important is how you are doing compared to your competitors. There is, of course, the chance that budgets or time is tight, but it can be very useful to use this time to get ahead with your online marketing.

With this in mind, here are some ideas of what you can be doing to help your search marketing now, and in the future, and get your business ready for when things begin to pick up again.

  • Think about content ideas – maybe you could interview employees or think about what kind of FAQs you have. Coming up with content ideas now will help in the future.
  • Consider webinars or videos – these are a great way to boost your SEO and reach out to new customers
  • Think about how you can respond to both positive and negative reviews thoughtfully whilst getting your brand messaging across
  • Ensure that any changes in your businesses due to Covid-19 are explained on your website – changes in opening times, whether you are delivering, contact numbers, etc.
  • Remember that while many people aren’t going out, they are spending a lot of time online, so consider cutting back on your offline marketing and focusing on your online efforts

The Covid-19 pandemic is dominating the world at the moment, but it can be useful – for both your business and for your own mental health – to focus on the end of it. It is important for search marketers to be up-to-date and aware of the changes that are happening, as they happen so that the SEO strategies can adapt and your business will be ready to shine as we come out of this difficult time.

Back to Basics: Building Your Content Marketing Strategy

Posted on by Chloe

Developing a rock-solid content marketing strategy is essential when it comes to marketing your business online. It helps you to focus on the unique needs of your customers, allows you to connect with them more effectively and get the results that you are looking for.

Without it, there’s simply no way you can be sure of success.

Even if your content is smoking hot and provides a ton of value to your target audience, there’ll be no way of knowing if you’ve invested your time and money wisely. It’s akin to playing roulette with the future of your business.

However, we understand that it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the mere thought of building a content marketing strategy. That’s why we’ve decided to put together this short guide for you. You’ll learn how to get the fundamentals of building a content marketing strategy so you can reap the rewards.

Here’s what’s we’ll cover:

Step 1: Outline your goals

Step 2: Decide how you will measure your performance

Step 3: Create buyer personas

Step 4: Assess your current position

Step 5: Decide on your content channels & content types

Step 6: Identify and allocate resources

Step 7: Create a content calendar

Let’s look at each of these in more detail.

Step 1: Outline your goals

Start by deciding what is most important to your business and developing a set of content marketing goals.

Do this and you’ll develop a laser-like focus on what matters most to your business and increase the chances of achieving what you set out to do. You won’t waste time. You won’t waste money. But you will get results.

Your goals depend entirely on the unique needs of your business and where you currently are in terms of growth. Startups, for example, will often develop a vastly different set of goals to an established business with a great reputation.

That’s why it’s so important to consider what matters to you at this point in time. Do you want to increase revenue? Drive more business to your website? Boost engagement? Build authority in your field?

Whilst doing this, it’s a good idea to consult your team for suggestions on how you can grow your business. They usually have insight into specific areas of your business that you might not.

Once you have put together a few ideas, also consider how these could potentially benefit your clients and your business.

Step 2: Decide how you will measure your performance

The only way to understand whether you are achieving your goals is to develop a series of KPIs (key performance indicators) that will tell you whether all that hard work is paying off. These usually include measuring things like:

  • Mentions, shares, likes and comments
  • Time on page
  • website/ webpage traffic
  • Newsletter sign ups
  • Lead magnet signups
  • Revenue targets

By tracking this data, you will also be able to better develop your content marketing strategy and display the right information if you need to develop regular reports.

Step 3: Create buyer personas

You’d never try to teach a 10-year-old kid about the water cycle by using the kind of language or even content you’d find in a university lecture hall for adults, would you?

The same goes for when you create your content.

You need to understand exactly who you’re talking to and what they need so you can create your content with them in mind and become more strategic. It also vastly improves your chances of getting results.

This idea is echoed by content marketing experts The Content Marketing Institute who say;

“In light of what your customers likely look for in the content they choose to consume — not to mention Google’s ever-changing algorithms that aim to keep online content relevant and of a high quality — you can’t go wrong if you follow this golden rule: Write compelling content about the things your target audience would be most interested in.”

In content marketing, you do this by creating something called a buyer persona or customer avatar.

By gathering data on a range of factors such as key demographics (age, gender, education, income, etc) and factors such as interests, problems, preferred social media channels and so on, you’ll be able to better understand your customer and create content for them. You can find this kind of information from any analytics your business currently uses. Customer feedback, reviews and surveys also play a big part in the process.

Step 4: Assess your current position

By now you’ve figured out your goals, key metrics you want to track and who your customers are. Your next step is figuring out where you’re starting from.

Conduct a content audit, looking at what you already have including blog posts, guest posts, videos, and so on. Then consider how effective this content is by asking yourself:

This will enable you to better understand what improvements need to be made and help you identify your strategy moving forward.

Step 5: Decide on your content channels & content types

By doing this research, you should now understand who your audience is and what their needs are better. This will help you develop your content marketing strategy further and decide what type of content you should create and where.

Technology is continually developing, so trends are likely to come and go. However, blogging should remain a core part of your content marketing strategy, provided that you’re always creating highly actionable, high-quality and very useful content.

It’s also worth considering video marketing and live streaming as these look set to grow over the coming months and years.

Step 6: Identify and allocate resources

There’s no point creating a rockstar content marketing strategy if you don’t end up delivering the goods. That’s why you should make sure you plan the delivery phase as much as building your content marketing blueprint.

Yes, it might be dull, we know. But it’s the only way you can ensure you achieve those content marketing goals and continue to grow your business. Consider the following:

  • Who will be in charge of producing and maintaining the content?
  • What tools and resources will you need?
  • What will the workflow look like?
  • Are there any tools that you could use to simplify and streamline your workflow?

Step 7: Create a content calendar

The final step in building a content marketing strategy is planning the content itself. But beware- it’s not enough just to throw a few content ideas onto a spreadsheet and be done with it all. You need to be strategic.

Decide first how often you want to publish this new content and what channels you will be using to market this content. Once you’ve done this, you can plan exactly what to plan and when.

Many businesses are tempted to skip this step and end up struggling when they realise that they have just a day or two to come up with an idea and to create it. Don’t let this happen to you!

First gather your content ideas by brainstorming, looking at customer feedback, reviewing your FAQs, looking at keyword search terms and asking your colleagues. Then you can slot them into your content calendar and stay ahead, reduce your stress and be more likely to crush those content marketing goals.

Building a content marketing strategy can be complex and time-consuming. But any investment you make at this stage pays off significantly in the long term. Work through these steps and you will create a robust content marketing strategy that gets you results.

If you’d prefer to hire an expert, reach out to our team here at Fibre Marketing. We’d love to help.

A Day In The Life Of Search Marketing Specialist, Jamie Smith

Posted on by Chloe

We’re now into the third instalment of our ‘day in the life’ series. Our Search Performance Manager Ed and Content Marketing Specialist Chloe have shared their days with us, so now, it’s the turn of Search Marketing Specialist, Jamie Smith.

Local SEO plays a significant role in any search marketing strategy. In fact, 86% of people look up a business’ location on Google Maps, while 61% of mobile searchers are more likely to reach out to a local business if they have a site that’s mobile-friendly. And this is set to grow; last year saw the rise in Google My Business (GMB) features, a rare local SEO update, and only this past month did Google confirm that all sites will switch to mobile-first indexing by September. It’s therefore critical that a local search strategy is implemented for your business.

So without further ado, let’s hear from Jamie what it’s like to operate within the Local SEO sphere.

What does your morning routine look like?

The first thing I do when I get into work is go through my emails to check for any client queries. I read through industry newsletters and check for any important updates, paying particular attention to anything local-based.

Then, I review my clients’ ranking positions, assessing areas across each of my clients, and focus attention where required. As I specialise in Local SEO, this review will include both organic and Map Pack rankings.

What are you responsible for?

I’m responsible for monitoring each of my clients and am the head of Local SEO at Fibre. I regularly set objectives to ensure consistent good performance, ensuring that we are pursuing the correct keywords, optimising on-page content, and managing a site’s local presence.

Another of my core responsibilities is keyword research, which includes assessing key terms that users will search for and formulating a plan to target them, ensuring first position rankings.

What does a typical day at work look like for you?

Each day brings a new challenge – there is never a consistent day due to the constant changes within the industry.

Most of my days consist of assessing client websites; articles and on-page optimisation; reviewing of current strategies, and optimising for Local SEO (including GMBs, Bing Maps, and others).

There are many days that require full attention of keyword research or local planning, which includes reading around those topics and developing my knowledge around them.

What’s your most memorable work moment?

Watching a client improve organically due to my work is always memorable.

For this particular client, their website URL structure was changed in the previous year, resulting in a decline of organic sessions. After I picked the client up, I managed a strategy to restore and improve their organic sessions, which included on-page optimisation, building backlinks, and improving their local online presence.

The client is now 20% up for the period shown YOY (March – Feb), and saw their biggest month yet in Feb 2020!

What do you get up to after work?

I like to wind down from the day by socialising with friends, usually with a few drinks at the pub. Cheltenham’s great because it’s a thriving town that has lots to offer – The Miller is one of my favourite locations right now.

What do you want to achieve in your career?

Growing with Fibre has been a fantastic experience so far, and continuing to progress within the company is a core career goal. I want to be able to lead my own local team and continue to develop and further my knowledge of Local SEO.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to someone wanting to work in SEO?

Read! There are so many things that you need to know to work within SEO. The only way you can do this is to follow the industry experts and improve your knowledge, listen to podcasts, watch videos…try and learn as much as you can.

If you’re interested in SEO and want to know more about working in the industry, follow us on LinkedIn to see what we get up to here at Fibre. You can also find us on Twitter, where we share the latest updates within the search marketing industry.