Important SEO Topics and Concepts
In the past, when consumers were looking for a firm and wanted to obtain information about its offering, they would use the firm directory. In the UK, they would most likely look for firms in the Yellow Pages, a big volume telephone directory of businesses organized in categories. That was in the past. Today, consumers Google the information they require. Google is a search engine which in a similar way to Yellow Pages, provides consumers with information about firms and their offerings. Consumers can type a keyword or key phrase into the search box, press enter, and access information they need.
This is a simple process from a consumer point of view. However, for firms, search engine marketing is often a challenge. This is because firms have to ensure that their page appears high on the search result page. This is important as research into eye-tracking has shown that consumers pay attention to the top results of organic listings, and they ignore other search results. This makes search engine marketing extremely competitive. Frequent updates to Google algorithms makes search engine marketing even more challenging for firms. Let's start from the beginning.
One of the major SEO Topics is web page optimization for Google
Let’s talk about Google and its role in helping web pages gain exposure online,
Google and SEO
Google is more than just a search algorithm. It is used to retrieve data from the search index and supply uses with the most accurate results that will meet the search query. Although this appears to be a relatively straightforward idea, such algorithms are very complex systems that rank webpages following the user's relevance in search engine result pages. Google is known to make frequent changes to its algorithms during a year. Most of them are hardly noticeable for users. However, they are necessary to ensure that its users received the most accurate and most relevant information. It also issued major updates in the past, which changed how results appeared on search engine ranking pages. One example update is known as Panda, which was introduced to reduce low-quality content and reward webpages, which offered uses with high-quality content. Panda updates to the Google algorithm, including quality classification, which ranked pages according to the page's relevance to the search query and considered the quality of content on the page. In essence, if firms pages matched search query, but its content had not been scored highly in terms of its quality, the page would not achieve the top position on search engine result pages. If firms wanted to retain their search engine result pages, they had to improve the quality of content on the web page. Page layout algorithm similar to Panda aimed to improve user experience on the page. It targeted webpages with too many ads above-the-webpage page fold. Those webpages force users to scroll down the webpage to access its content.
The update punishes webpages with too many ads, which ruined the user experience online. There were other major updates to the Google algorithm, including updates aimed at eliminating spam links and manipulative link building practices. Google also introduced updates that rewarded mobile-friendly webpages and focused on the search for local businesses. All those updates are important. They aim to provide a positive user experience and deliver the most accurate content that matches the search query. However, they present a challenge to firms that need to keep up with these updates and introduce changes to their webpages to ensure that they remain top on the search engine result pages.
And the process of getting into there is called search engine optimization. And, the difference, so the difference between these two is most companies will do both. And we'll spend a significant portion of their marketing budgets on both of these activities. Now, PPC, pay per click ads, everybody claims that they never click on the ads. It just isn't true. People click on them. The numbers prove otherwise. The other thing to consider that you might not have considered is that on mobile, everything appears on the screen when you first start that you have to scroll a long way down before you get to the natural listings. Now Google offers lots of different types of ads. So, we've got these here. These are shopping ads. If I try another one, flower delivery Edinburgh, we'll see that we have text ads. So these are ads here, ads, ads, ads. And then here's the natural listings starting down. To decide who gets in here, it's basically you just pay Google, and if you pay more, you will appear higher, in essence. And the question is, how much should you bid? And the answer to that one is always down to how much you're actually going to make at the ads. If you use a tool like Google Analytics, you can monitor how many of these clicks are turning into sales. And if you know how much a sale is worth to you, you can bid accordingly to make sure that you always make money and it becomes predicatively profitable. And you can just set up this nice stream, the constant stream of profitable customers, which is great. So that's the important thing there. Returning to SEO,...how do you get into the natural listings? Well, the most important tip I can give you is simply to offer the best answer to the search query that is being put in. So, if we are the best answer for flower delivery Edinburgh, or new road bike, whatever it is that we're trying to do, then we will be 90% of the way there to ranking for them, what Google is looking for is they're looking for popular and authoritative sites, that are very usable, they're fast, and a great user experience with new bikes, they've got a really good range of bikes. Lots of information about bikes and are really trusted, good reviews, all those sorts of things. And SEO is about doing all of that. It is not about quick fixes or tricks.
Importance of SEO framework
This is another important SEO topic. Google uses a huge amount of maths basically and data points. It's a big equation to decide what goes into the, you know, to decide which site should rank highest. So, it's, you know, it can get incredibly technical, and your site must be built in a way that Google can understand. It's got, all your content is well organized, well laid out. It's vital that, as part of SEO, you're building a very strong and differentiated brand. So lots of good marketing stuff and good technology all going into it to make it work. SEO is very much a long-term game, though. It takes time, and while the advantages of PPC over SEO is near-instant, you get great returns from SEO, probably better in the long run, but it takes a long time to get there was PPC, it's almost instant, and you can get return straight away, which is great. Now, I have obviously focused on Google today, and that's because Google is the massively dominant player. But I should also just mention passing Amazon, which you may not think of as a search engine. But next time you go into Amazon, you will probably start with a search. And you will be there probably trying to buy something.
So, there's searches with big intent. So as SEOs that if you're looking to do search engine optimization, you should not ignore Amazon. We will talk about the user experience based on our websites. This is part of the website design, but we think we need to take a few steps back to understand it fully. Our website is a product and just part of the story. Our end products should be designed for user needs. So, the research is so significant.
The target audience defines almost everything we design: the language we use, colors, graphics, all elements in the website. Our journey with the website was, was much easier as it was based on the experience from the previous website we had. The website's role with our business is trying to mirror changing technologies and services. Unfortunately, the story was so much complicated; after a time, it was not understandable for our users anymore. This was an impulse to make a change. We start from scratch, defining our target audience and later user personas. Once we had that we choose our message, we wanted to communicate and found the right channels to do so, based on our personal preferences. As you can see, social media is used along with the website in our communication channels. More often, people tend to read the article on LinkedIn than checking our website with any content. We used Medium to talk about technology, LinkedIn about [inaudible] which are events, and finally website to provide information about the company and its services and enable contact with potential clients.
In our website with our story, we start from the title and the background video. This is like a cover for a book or something to drag attention lightly. Please notice that the top navigation post asks for that usability. In this step, the user will learn we have prepared some platform with services useful for their businesses. We have separated those services into three categories with colors to enable an easier and more intuitive journey through the website. We also added some top navigation so that the user will not miss any of our services. The Knowledge Mapping section introduces the problem of the data, the opportunity it brings, and how we can help with that.
AI with SEO
Another popularly accepted SEO topic is Artificial Intelligence with SEO. AI Toolkit presents our technology. However, target audience research shows people are not interested in the technology for itself. They prefer to think of a solution to the problem. This is why we have prepared some use cases of how AI can solve today's world problems. The graphic below shows the problem being analyzed by the AI brain and drawn are the solution on the right side. As you can see, each section contains unified graphics in the same color as the service it represents. After talking about services, we now need to inform how we will provide it. Graphics and titles are used even in the business plan section to help users with memorizing the content. There's nothing left for the users but to contact us. We provide a different method of contact to satisfy different needs or preferences. If not convinced yet, they can check our social media for more information before allowing them to follow those external links that will provide information about what they will find there. Most important for the users is to try the company they will work with. So they will gladly check out about page.
This is the story, too, about how it all began, our mission and vision to demonstrate we have a plan for the technology, and partners who already trusted us. As you can see, the companies always combine with the design requirements of clear service explanation and provide contexts were met, and we are always responsive to the new feedback. Our website is an ongoing project due to development phases, business offer changes, reviewing the target audience, usability feedback, or even change in trends in the design. All firms operating in the marketplace provide consumers with a value proposition that aims to solve consumers' problems, satisfy their needs, and outperform competitors' offerings. Therefore, the value proposition refers to benefits a firm offers to consumers to solve their problems and satisfy their needs. It is a fundamental element of marketing strategy.
It underpins the digital marketing strategy, too. This is because it proves to be a useful approach to formulate marketing strategy and enables marketers to effectively compare and contrast their offerings to competitors. Online value proposition, just like value proposition offered offline, consists of four key components. Those are the set of tools that marketers use to pursue marketing objectives and set their enterprise apart. Value proposition indicates what the firm provides consumers with and the price consumer has to pay to obtain it. It also details how consumers can access it and how the firm communicates it to consumers. Let's explore the publishing firm's value proposition.
For example, the publisher aims to solve consumers' problems and provide them with books that they will enjoy reading. Those books are products which the publisher offers to the consumer. They are provided to consumers at a price, which has to be paid for the consumer to access the product and satisfy needs. This underpins the very nature of marketing, which is an exchange between a firm and consumers. Publisher exchanges books with consumers and consumers exchange payment for publishers' books. Value proposition also indicates how consumers access books offered by a publisher. For example, the consumer can buy books from a bookshop or sales agent. The final element of value proposition is promotion, which indicates how publishers' offerings are communicated to existing and prospective consumers.
Here publishers may introduce displays in bookshops to inform the sumers about this offering. Or they can provide consumers with leaflets or posters. If you'd like to learn more about the value proposition, please refer to our Introduction to a Marketing course. We discuss how firms can create a compelling value proposition during week three of the course and set their enterprise apart. With digital tools, the publisher can do the same as businesses operating offline and more. This is because the publisher can use digital tools to provide consumers with a value proposition or add digital value to its existing offering. With digital tools, the publisher can solve consumer problems with paper copies of books they offer. They can also introduce e-books and satisfy consumer's needs with the new digital products.
The consumer will be able to pay for them online, too; both paper copies of books and e-books can be accessed online. The publisher can introduce its e-commerce website and sell its books and e-books directly to consumers. It can also sell books to consumers via social media, referred to as social commerce or s-commerce, or develop a mobile application and sell books via mobile or m-commerce. The publisher can sell books to consumers directly or choose to distribute its products through intermediaries' websites or through online marketplaces such as Amazon or eBay. Finally, the publisher can promote its books online. Here the publisher can take advantage of digital platforms and promotes its products via own website or social media platforms. It can engage with paid advertising and sponsored popup posts on the third party's webpage. Or it can benefit from consumers' reviews and recommendations online. Its Digital provides firms with an opportunity to extend the value proposition to the online environment and, in fact, add digital value to their offering. Digital value can set the enterprise apart.
Role of SEO services marketing
Let’s explore the next SEO topic that is vital when you’re planning to pursue a career in digital marketing. The role of marketing is to provide consumers with a compelling value proposition. Product is its key component. What is the product? Product refers to attributes and characteristics of what firms offer to -consumers to solve a problem than I have. For example, if consumers want to make a phone call, they can address this problem and provide them with a phone. This is a simple view of what the product is. However, when consumers buy a phone, they do not only purchase a phone, but they buy all its features and functional elements: brand, after-sales service, and many more. All those additional elements are also part of the product. As you can see, the product is complex, and it includes many elements. Product refers to all attributes and characteristics of company offerings that aim to address consumers' needs. Those elements can be divided into core and extended elements of the product. If we take a phone as an example of the product, its fundamental features to address consumers' needs are what we refer to as a core product. In this case, the ability to make a phone call is a core product.
All additional features and benefits that consumers receive and core product features refer to the extended product. Using a phone as an example, we can say that its extended product includes its ability to receive a text message or check emails. The brand is an important aspect of the extended product. This is because a strong brand adds value to the product. There are many examples of extended products, including packaging, country of origin, warranty, after-sale, service, all of which add value to the core product. Companies can address consumers' problems with digital products or transform physical products into digital products or services in the digital age. For example, the customers' needs to make a phone call can be addressed by digital services. Our consumer can use Skype, make a call using Microsoft Teams, or use another online application which facilitates calls.
The ability to transform physical products into digital ones is one advantage of digital. Adding digital value to the existing product is another one. Firms can add digital value to their products, providing the consumer with new or additional information about the product or its features. Using a phone as an example, and the digital value can be derived from the online expert review or the review of product users. Those online reviews, testimonials, or maybe even product endorsements add value to an extended product element of the phone.
A video showing how to use the phone's new features is another example of how a firm can add digital value to its product. Firms can provide consumers with additional complementary products or services online. For example, consumers may purchase a phone along with new accessories and extend its after-sale service. The company can provide consumers with the mobile application, navigate through the phone features, or provide consumers with new app-based digital products or services that add value to the core product.
Conclusion
As you can see, the product is complex. It is not only what a firm can furnish consumers with to address the problem, but it includes everything consumers receive and its core features. Digital adds digital value to products. It adds to the core product, and it extends products, details, or attributes. Digital enables firms to add digital value to the existing offering and distinguish it from adversaries. Adding digital value can differentiate firm competitors and set an enterprise.
