5 Things Your Boss Should Know About SEO

Search engine optimization has progressed exponentially in the last decade and has become a staple in marketing efforts everywhere. If you’re doing in-house marketing in any capacity, you’ve likely justified many aspects of your marketing efforts… including SEO. Whether you’re reporting to a Director of Marketing or your CEO, there are a few things your boss should know about SEO and how it fits into your marketing efforts.

SEO is Marketing

Marketing goals and SEO goals often go hand in hand. When it comes down to it, you want your brand in front of more eyes and you want more leads or sales coming in. A good marketing mix will always include a search engine optimization strategy to position your website as the trusted source in the form of prominent rankings for your most valuable search queries.

SEO Isn’t Instant

While there may be a lot of opportunity for the initial setup of your website from an SEO perspective, a proper search engine optimization campaign takes time and is a constant process.  It’s important to note that results may not be instantaneous; this will depend on many factors including how the competitive your target keywords are. Even with highly niche keywords, it may take some time for your efforts to pay off, so it’s important to keep reasonable timelines and expectations for your campaign.

SEO Has Changed A Lot in The Last Decade

If your boss has limited experience with SEO, it’s important to steer clear of falling into the trap of outdated SEO strategies and tactics. With every algorithm change, today’s SEO landscape moves farther and farther away from the spammy tactics of yesteryear. No longer is a first position ranking a matter of who has more keywords shoved into their copy or who has a longer list of meta keywords. Now more than ever, social signals, website performance, and search intent will have a much larger effect on whether or not a user reaches your brand.

Link Building Isn’t a Thing Anymore

That’s a bit of a loaded statement, here’s a clarification. While the links that point to your content continue to be a significant factor in SEO, they need to be earned and not bought. In order to be of any value, links to your page need to be authentic and relevant. Links from websites that exist only to sell backlinks offer no value to your website and are actually often penalized. Gone are the days of backlinking schemes; create great, unique content, put in some legwork with your outreach campaigns, and your earned links will build lasting value.

Content is Still King

Through all the changes that we’ve seen over the years, content remains a constant. The value of your website is summed up by the content you are producing. At the end of the day, your website is valued by the content that lives within. Create good content combined with a great user experience, technical SEO, outreach, and social media support, and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a dominant authority on the web.

Creating a great resource and an even better experience for your users is the first step, but don’t let that work be in vain by neglecting SEO. Be smart; elevate results.