Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is far more complicated than the typical dentist or other small business owner knows. But how do you find a qualified dental SEO expert?

It is sad to see so many hiring unqualified “SEOs” who could be anything from blog comment spammers to private blog network (PBN) operators.

Read on to find out why you must be very cautious about who you hire — and how to evaluate their abilities.

For best results, they should know your business and what is important to your patients and potential new clients or customers.

Types of SEO Expertise

Beyond the incompetent, there are individual and SEO agencies who have expertise in and knowledge about:

• • Technical SEO
  • Local SEO
  • Google My Business (GMB) – now also known as “Business Profile Manager” (BPM) — but most still refer to it as GMB
  • Particular niche industries

Every good SEO should have a working knowledge of technical SEO including Core Web Metrics.

And they should also know local SEO unless they specialize only in online sites with no physical location.

Niche SEO Knowledge

But do they know anything about your niche? Whatever niche your small business is in, faster results come from hiring someone who already knows your industry.

The other option is to hire someone willing to learn about your business and niche. But that takes time that will cost you.

For the purposes of this discussion, I’ll use dentistry because there are available case studies with details to support results from particular strategies.

But these concepts apply equally well to any small business niche.

Why a Dental SEO?

While most people have been to the dentist, they aren’t experts in what types of dental services dentists offer.

How can they even know what keyword phrases are relevant to your practice if they know nothing about dentistry?

Specializing in a particular niche leads to years of experience knowing what works — and just as importantly, what does not work.

Why pay for a dental SEO to gain experience at your expense when you can hire one that already knows your business?

Dental Practice SEO Strategy

Dental SEO Justin Morgan, who founded the #1 dental SEO company DentalMarketingGuy.com, shared niche dental case studies and his specific strategy for ranking dentists at the top of page one in the SERPs.

His four step process used to successfully rank dentists even when they launch a new brand and domain is:

1) Assessing Your Competition

Researching phrases your competition is ranking for is a shortcut to discovering what to focus on.

Premium SEO tools are used to compare how your content, traffic, and rankings compare to your competitors.

But knowledge of the industry is critical to using these tools. That is especially true if your SEO is running ads for you.

You never want to be paying for impressions or clicks on keyword phrases that are not relevant!

2) Marketing Analysis

The point of an SEO marketing analysis is to look for opportunities to increase your income using SEO.

What services do you offer? Are they mentioned on your website? Do you have pages or blog posts that rank for those services?

Unless you can bring in new patients, there is no point in spending money on SEO.

The good news, though, is that local SEO and especially Google My Business (GMB) / Business Profile Manager (BPM) are a gold mine for local businesses including dental practices.

3) Setting an SEO Strategy

Two dental offices offering the same services in the same city may need very different dental SEO strategies.

This is because of the way GMB / BPM works, and also how many dental practices are in your immediate area.

For example, if you’re in a small town and few other dentists are located near you, ranking might be fast and easy.

But the larger the city and the more dentist offices you’re competing with, the more time and money it will take to rank.

Gaining visibility is even tougher if your practice is located further from the center of a city than your competitor’s offices.

I once had small business clients whose location was centrally located equidistant from three major cities.

But because of that, they could not appear on any of the maps for those cities where their buyers were located.

That same issue can occur even in cities if you have many competitors closer in than you are.

An excellent dental SEO can often overcome those challenges.

4) Implementation

Unless you have an unlimited budget, it is of utmost importance to prioritize when implementing your strategy.

Focus first on what will increase income in the shortest amount of time. Creating and optimizing your GMB listing is a great place to start.

But that alone will not allow your business to rank if you have much competition.

Also, keep in mind that SEO for each specialty within a niche can vary substantially.

For example, are you a dental specialist such as a prosthodontist or oral surgeon whose patients come from referrals?

If yes, your target audience is other dentists rather than the public.

Are you a pediatric dentist? Your target audience is probably a mom who will be researching. So you don’t need to rank #1 because moms will be calling multiple dentists to choose one!

Always keep your intended audience in mind when deciding on an SEO strategy to adopt.

SEO Requires Continuous Improvement

You will need a long-range plan of continuous improvement. That plan would include:

• Regularly updating your GMB listing with new content and offers
• Creating listings in trusted local directories
• Claiming your social media profiles
• Installing a blog and publishing quality content regularly

Some SEOs offer all of the above services within their agency or by working with freelancers.

Others may refer you to experts they trust for the above services and those mentioned below.

Additional Strategies to Consider

Even if your SEO does not offer all of these, they may advise adding them to your marketing mix:

• Email marketing: Few small businesses build and utilize their mailing lists properly. The easiest person to sell to is an existing patient, client or customer!
• SMS marketing: Fill last-minute cancellations by offering last-minute discounts to existing clients who can fill those spots!
• Upselling: Do your dental hygienists set new appointments? Are you collaborating with them to encourage patients to complete treatment plans?

Always ask for referrals to a trusted provider whenever your SEO suggests a new strategy to add to your marketing plan.

Ready to Interview SEOs Now?

My goal in writing this post is to hopefully keep dentists and other small businesses from bad SEO practices.

Doing dental SEO wrong can severely damage your online presence and tank your income!

Be prepared when you contact an SEO. Many are very secretive, but if you ask direct questions hopefully you can get honest answers.

Write down your questions in advance. Ask them what SEO tools they use and what exactly they will do for you.

If someone says they “do SEO” and that is all the detail you can get out of them, give them a pass and find someone else!

SEO-optimized infographics are a blog post powerhouse.

They drive massive traffic to your site, get tons of engagement, build your brand, get lots of backlinks and more.

Most of all, they help your blog content land on Google’s first page consistently.

Not by luck, not once in a while, but intentionally and frequently.

Why does that matter? Because the average traffic share of Google’s first page is 91.5 percent (basically everybody).

And if you’re the first result?

The first result gets 32.5 percent of search traffic!

That’s a major leg up on your competitors.

So how do you do that? It’s not by writing a hundred blog posts with a hundred infographics (or even a thousand).

It’s by writing one blog post that features an engaging, SEO-optimized infographic!

That’s right, focusing on SEO-optimized infographics is a reliable way to drive traffic and grow your audience.

It’s something all content creators and business owners can do …but don’t!

What you need at your disposal is an understanding of how visual content and blog posts come together to land on Google’s first page of results.

That’s what this post is all about.

Everyone loves a budget-friendly content marketing strategy

You might be wondering why SEO-optimized infographics over other types of content?

Why not run paid ads on your blog to expand their reach? Create cool videos on YouTube? Sponsor conferences and networking events to get your name out there?

Two words: accessibility and scalability.

Learning a few SEO basics is free, and it’s very easy to design SEO-optimized infographics.

There are a lot of online design tools that provide you with easy-to-customize infographic templates, a simple editor and tons of educational design resources to help you out.

You’d be surprised at the kinds of professional designs bloggers can create on their own today.

On the other hand, paid ads get expensive very fast.

You can purchase links on other sites (sometimes for hundreds of dollars per link) at the risk of receiving a Google penalty.

Purchasing links goes against Google’s guidelines and if you get caught, it’ll drastically reduce your organic traffic for months!

Not worth it.

Hiring professional designers or graphic design agencies is not risky. But a single infographic design can cost you a few hundred dollars or a few thousand (and that’s just the design, not the research or SEO-optimization).

That’s not something you can really scale.

Understanding a bit of SEO, creating your own SEO-optimized infographics and getting free links is risk-free and budget-friendly.

Once you see that it’s working, you can also double (or triple, or quadruple) down on it to ramp up your results without any hassle.

Convinced?

Then let’s get to it!

What’s so special about SEO-Optimized infographics?

Convincing Google your post should be on page one is what SEO is all about.

When it comes to SEO, Google and other search engines have specific ranking factors – factors they use to determine the value of online content.

These factors aren’t a secret, and by following best practices, you can easily satisfy Google’s requirements.

Here’s where infographics come in.

In Brian Dean’s latest list of Google’s ranking factors, he shares a ton of factors that infographics easily impact. Here are just a few:

• Mobile optimized
• Keyword in description tag
• Number of backlinks
• Page loading speed
• Keyword in title
• Title tag starts with the keyword
• Keyword density
• Image optimization
• Keyword appears in H1 tag
• Bounce rate/Dwell time
• Keyword in the title tag
• Repeat traffic
• Keyword in URL

SEO-optimized infographics absolutely impact these ranking factors.

Let’s start with everyone’s favorite – backlinks.

Backlinks are just links on other pages pointing back to your content.

A solid, well-researched, informative and original blog post has high chances of being shared as a post or linked back to as a reference. And, guess what?

Infographics are one of the best, cost-effective ways to get quality backlinks.

Infographics are the most shared form of content online for a reason.

Since infographics are so popular and engaging, more publications are willing to syndicate them or share them in their own content without even being asked (over other types of content).

There are also some technical steps you can take to make your infographic SEO-effective.

Focus on a long-tail keyword and make sure you’ve placed it in the H1 tag, the body text of your infographic post, the URL and so on.

Now for the indirect ways SEO-Optimized infographics influence SEO factors.

Infographics are visual and captivating. That’s how they affect dwell time (the length of time people spend viewing your post), along with repeat traffic (how often they return).

The more time people spend viewing your content and coming back to it, the more relevant and valuable it appears in Google’s eyes.

Social media shares don’t directly impact SEO since Google doesn’t factor in shares and likes.

Of course, with more shares and likes, the higher the chances that your content gets viewed and linked back to.

If you’re creating content that has a tendency to get shared more, you have a clear advantage.

That doesn’t mean an infographic about any random topic will work (hence the SEO-optimization).

It also boils down to the actual value of your content. If you’ve got good data and meaningful insights, then your infographic will take off.

That brings us to the process of creating SEO-optimized infographics.

I’m going to show you ways to do a bit of research for your infographic, along with how to format your infographic to make it as effective as possible.

Good research, facts and stats are the heart of SEO-optimized infographics

Cool looking visuals might lure unsuspecting viewers to check out your infographic.

But without any real meat or relevance, people will bounce (bounce rates, also a ranking factor).

Your infographic won’t pick up any steam, publications won’t want to share it or syndicate it and Google won’t care about it.

Insightful and compelling content is how you reward your audience for clicking and encourage them to comment, share, link back to it and more.

My research phase has three essential stages

1. Choose a topic your audience actually cares about

Why rank for “things cats do” if you sell an online invoicing tool?

Unless there’s a really interesting overlap between small business owners and avid cat lovers, I’d focus on something more relevant.

Let’s say you’re a real estate agent targeting new homeowners. What do homeowners ask questions about? What issues are important to them today? How would you find out?

You can use tools like FaqFox to scrape forums for questions directly related to your topic.

First, enter your topic. Then enter any relevant sites/online forums where people would ask questions about it.

You can even click on one of the tags that appear for a few site suggestions. Then hit search:

FAQFox pulls up popular posts on your topic that you can check out and start brainstorming over.

This is a great way to find out what kind of questions your target audience is asking and what kind of content has been created.

I also like Brian Dean’s suggestion of checking out Udemy courses. While he’s talking about choosing blog post topics, it certainly applies to infographics as well.

You can search for courses by keywords or categories and Udemy shows you the most popular ones.

Best of all, people are paying for this content so clearly it’s valuable to them!

He breaks down that process for you in his recently updated blog post.

2. Select a long-tail keyword

Once you’ve got a topic in mind, you have to choose your angle. More importantly, you’ll need to determine a long-tail keyword for your infographic.

Keyword research is important because it’s the only way people can find your content.

If you use terms that people don’t use for their searches, then Google won’t understand how your content is relevant to what people search for.

3. Conduct original research on your topic

The whole point of research is to make a new discovery, or put old ideas to the test. To do that, there are tons of research methods for you to use to get your answers:

• Ask industry professionals
• Analyze various sources of existing data
• Survey or poll your users/subscribers
• Run your own experiment and share your findings

I’ll elaborate on a few of those research methods.

Asking your industry

A great way to add value to your infographic is to get insights from industry experts.

‘People’ is a vague term, but when you can say “300 homeowners share their favorite tools for budgeting” or “300 real estate agents share tips on finding helpful home insurance policies”, then your infographic has some appeal and real validation.

Survey or poll your users

There are a number of tools out there like Survey Anyplace, Survey Monkey or Pollfish that make conducting surveys simple. Even with free versions, you can design and send out a professional-looking survey to collect data.

Running your own experiments

Running your own experiment is a great way to validate yourself as a leader in the industry.

You get to establish yourself as a direct source of new, helpful information.

Plus your unique findings are exclusive to you, which makes promoting your infographic much easier.

You can also check out this in-depth resource on doing online research (including finding reliable stats, sources, quotes and visuals) to find relevant data the old-fashioned way.

Part 2: Format your infographic post for search engines

In a lot of ways, when it comes to SEO, you can treat your infographic like any other blog post.

Using headers, inserting keywords, determining a URL structure are all ways to influence your infographic’s SEO power.

Let’s take a look at that list I shared before:

• Mobile optimized
• Keyword in the title tag
• Number of backlinks
• Keyword in description tag
• Page loading speed
• Keyword in title
• Title tag starts with the keyword
• Keyword appears in H1 tag
• Image optimization
• Keyword density
• Bounce rate/Dwell time
• Repeat traffic
• Keyword in URL

If your blog is already mobile-friendly, then you’re all set. If you’re not sure, run this test to find out and make the necessary changes.

Some of the factors in that list you can directly influence, while others depend on the quality of your content, the topic, how readable it is and so on.

Make sure your infographic is relevant to your niche and target audience. What you share with a dental SEO would be different than what you share to the patients of a dentist.

Once your infographic is ready to be shared, here are a few essential tips for posting an SEO-optimized infographic.

Insert your long-tail keyword in the right places

Like any blog post, you want your long-tail keyword to show up where it counts – the introduction, the URL, in the H1 header and so on.

Be sure to write up a brief introduction (100-150 words) explaining what the infographic is all about, too.

This lets you include your long-tail keyword, other relevant terms, and link out to helpful resources. An intro is also helpful to your audience, as well.

Below is an example of a brief intro for one of our infographic posts that has done pretty well.

It shares results of a survey on visual content marketing. I’ll share some data regarding how that infographic post has performed later on.

Use SEO plugins to help optimize your post

For WordPress, a simple tool like Yoast lets you tweak important sections (the meta description and URL slug) and it also lets you know what could be improved/added.

There are actually a few alternative SEO plugins that you can use. You can also check out Brafton’s roundup of SEO marketing tools to give your content that SEO edge.

You have to optimize the infographic itself – the image file

Your infographic itself also needs to be optimized. Here are a few SEO factors that matter.

Like any image in a blog post, you want to include your alt text. Alt text tells Google what an image is all about so it knows when to pull it up.

Typically, you can just use your long-tail keyword as the alt text.

Page loading speed is another ranking factor. Your page loading speed will be impacted by the size and file format of your infographic.

Your infographic should be a small image file (less than a MB), with a resolution around 72-100 PPI, and an optimal file format (PNG, JPEG or GIF).

Tools like compressor.io let you reduce the size of images. This is helpful if your infographic is a little large.

Promote your awesome, SEO-optimized infographic and get even more backlinks!

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, backlinks are a major contributing factor when it comes to your content ranking.

The more authoritative sites that point to your content, the better. Backlinks tell Google your content is valuable, engaging, and well-liked for that topic.

Beyond just asking people to link to it as a reference, you should pitch your infographic to sites, offer to write a post on the topic pointing back to your infographic, or encourage sites to syndicate your piece.

Those are just ideas, but you want a backlink outreach strategy in place for any major pieces of content you publish.

Pro-Tip: If you conducted a survey to create your infographic, then reach out to all your respondents and ask for a backlink. They’ll likely be interested in the results and it’ll provide value for their audiences so they’ll be happy to do it.

Content marketers understand the value of visual content, particularly infographics.

They know that featuring SEO-optimized infographics on their blog or sharing it on their social pages will easily engage their audience.

If your content is relevant to the topics they typically cover, they’ll be receptive to your request.

So how did our visual marketing statistics post do anyway? Great! We secured over 1000 backlinks for the post according to Ahrefs:

And we’re dominating the first page of Google search results.

So it does work, in case you were wondering! Now let me know what you think. Have you tried a similar strategy and seen worthwhile results?

Or is there something my approach is missing that would make it even better? Comment and let me know!

How do you come up with unique blog content that Google will send you visitors to read? It can be a daunting task to regularly create new and unique content.

However, it is a necessity to remain relevant, get higher search engine rankings, and grow your business.

The process of improving your ranking is evolving as Google’s algorithms become more sophisticated. Historically, optimizing your content for search focused on getting as many backlinks as possible.

Search engine ranking today takes user intent into account. Simply building links to your website is no longer enough. Welcome to the age of semantic search.

What is Semantic Search?

Semantic search goes beyond just using keywords to bring up search results. It refers to search engines taking into consideration both the intent and the contextual meaning of the phrases users put into a query.

The purpose is to improve the accuracy of and deliver the most relevant results to users on the Internet.

Try TextOptimizer: A Semantic SEO Tool

Using this tool will help you write content containing meaningful words. It keeps you focus more on topics than only keywords or phrases.

It is a content optimization tool that helps you improve your existing content using semantic analysis. Or you can start from scratch and use it when creating your content.

How Can TextOptimizer Help?

TextOptimizer is a simple to use tool for those who are not SEO experts. It helps you know how your content will fair in search engines before you publish it.

The content you write is broken down by different types of search intent such as “compare”, “go”, and “buy”.

Where your content shows up on search results depends upon how well it matches the possible intents of users.

Your content is analyzed and classified by TextOptimizer. It lets you know whether your content meets users’ intent and recommends changes.

Click on the image below to watch a short video.

How to Use TextOptimizer to Increase Your Rankings

The tool is so easy-to-use and straightforward, I was amazed. I am not an SEO, and if I can use it, anyone can. Compared to SEMRush, this tool is less complicated and made more for non-technical people.

Below we will outline the process for optimizing existing content.

TextOptimizer looks at the content at the URL you provide and compares it to Google SERPs. It then gives you an optimization score between 0 and 100.

To try out the product for free, go to https://textoptimizer.com/ and enter the URL of your content.

For this post, I will use the URL from this article: 7 Simple Strategies To Improve Rankings to Get More Leads From Your Website.

TextOptimizer then shows you the main semantic topics that your text is about and why.

The tool then analyzes your content to determine who is most likely to have their search expectations met from reading your content.

Content Format Analysis

Well-formatted and well-written content is essential, especially with most people reading on mobile devices.

If your content is not laid out in an easy-to-read format, you will lose readers. Sentences that are too long will appear on mobile as a massive block of text.

TextOptimizer makes this easier by evaluating your content and giving it a score based on the:

• Richness and diversity of the words used
• Number of sentences
• Variety of used verbs
• Sentence length

TextOptimizer then shows you some examples of semantically related words that are missing from your content.

By adding some of them, you will increase the chances of being found in search by those looking for what your content offers.

You will need to upgrade to sufficiently increase your chances of ranking because you need to see all the missing semantically related words. See screenshot below.

The words that are in gray are already included in your text. Try to add between 15 and 25 of the other words with the white background.

Optimize Your Content for Search Engines

With TextOptimizer, making sure your content is optimized for search is a straightforward process. The tool accomplishes this by:

• Suggesting words to add and remove
• Analyzing search engine results
• Comparing the results with your content
• Telling you what steps you should take to optimize your text

The processes behind the scenes of TextOptimizer analyze:

• Patterns
• Semantics
• Intent
• Concurrency

When you get your results, next click “Optimize my Text Now”.

Select the Search Engine

In this step, you can choose the search engine where you want to improve your rankings. We recommend you select Google because they have the lion’s share of searches. (Later, you may wish to optimize for Bing.)

Your next step is to choose which term you want to rank better for and optimize for search. This would be the focus keyword phrase used in your SEO plugin.

As you can see in the screenshot below, the search term I chose for this step is “improve rankings” because that is the keyword phrase used in the Yoast SEO plugin.

This content scores “fairly optimized” with a score of 76%. However, there is room for improvement.

According to Ann Smarty, the minimum score you should aim for is 90% or higher.

There is no need to worry because TextOptimizer will help you rank for your chosen phrase or phrases by suggesting semantically related words for you to add to your content.

TextOptimizer also suggested action phrases for you to add to your existing content to encourage action on the part of the reader.

You should select the words that fit best and make the most sense. Avoid adding any that don’t sound natural.

Repeat the process until the results of your analysis reach at least 90%. You can also repeat the same process for additional related phrases.

New Feature: Build Full Sentences, Not Just Concepts

Not only will TextOptimizer suggest words and concepts for you to add to your content, but it has also gone one step further.

With the addition of their new feature, you will also be given entire sentence and phrase suggestions to add to your content as seen in the screenshots below.

Do You Use Chrome?

Make optimizing your text easier by using the Chrome Plugin. You can download it from your TextOptimizer account.

Or you can download it directly from Chrome as a browser extension.

You Even Get Suggestions for Future Blog Topics

TextOptimizer does not only help you create new or modify existing content for better SEO and value for readers. It also gives topic suggestions for new articles and blog posts.

Answering questions that searchers are asking can help you get more eyes on your content and increase your rankings.

In addition to suggested questions for you to answer, TextOptimizer also tells you the number of your competitors who have already posted an answer to the same question.

Optimize New Content Before You Publish It

If you choose to check your potential rankings before you write your content, TextOptimizer has you covered.

Start by selecting the search engine where you want to rank higher, just like you did with your existing content. Again, we suggest starting with Google.

The next section is also the same as before: enter your chosen search term.

From the next screen shown below, select “new text” and add your search term.

TextOptimizer will return to you a list of semantically related optimized words to choose from when writing your new content.

Below are actionable semantically related word suggestions for you to add to your new text to encourage action by the reader.

Follow the same recommendations given previously for existing content.

Suggestions on How Best to Use TextOptimizer

As stated above, this useful tool will check the search results in Google and use semantic analysis to extract related terms and topics.

You can use these as subheadings for your post. Try to use about 20 related terms in your article.

You can also run the content ideas tab to generate suggested questions your article can answer based on what searches your users are making.

When you have completed your article, use the “paste in text” option and rerun the tool. TextOptimizer will suggest ways to improve your content for both your readers and the search engines.

The tool will encourage you to use technical and specific terms and avoid vague words. Your goal is to score above 90%.

Are you ready for your content to rank higher in search? TextOptimizer is the easiest way I have seen to make that happen.

Is your business already on the web? Great! Studies by BIA/Kelsey show that 97% of consumers search online for products and services they need.

It goes without saying that targeted leads are what the majority of businesses desire. Those can be attained through effective technical SEO.

Importance of SEO: improving your organic search rankings

A report by Outbrain tells us that Google is the top traffic source to content pages, contributing on average of 68% of a website’s traffic.

The beauty of SEO is that smaller sites stand a chance against big brands in ranking on the results page. Hence, when used as a engine for growth for startups and SMEs, SEO can be extremely powerful.

We all know that Google loves quality content. In fact, you must have heard a million times that ‘content is king’. So ever since you started thinking seriously about SEO, you have been fervently producing content.

However, the focus on content completes only part of the SEO puzzle. In order to give your content ‘wings’, you must not overlook the importance of technical SEO.

Apart from getting your website ready for easy crawling by Google, technical SEO efforts give you substantial structural leverage for better visibility on search engines.

History of Technical SEO

Just a few years back, all a website needed for higher search engine ranking was a well-developed structure, images, keyword rich meta tags and keyword stuffed pages.

But now, the scenario has changed. As illustrated in the infographic below, recent years have seen a lot of new requirements on the technical SEO scene.

As part of their effort to provide users with better quality websites on the search engine, Google has been raising the bar for webmasters and becoming less tolerant of suspect practices.

For example, if you are trying to hide links or stuff your pages with keywords , Google is going to pick it up quickly. Advances in technology has also improved the spiders’ ability to pinpoint these issues.

Most recently, even interstitial ads and call-to-actions (CTAs) have been classified as misconduct from an SEO perspective.

Sites using them will see declines in rankings. Needless to say, thousands of sites have been adversely affected.

Technical SEO

If you look at each of the items outlined in the infographic, it is not to hard to predict Google’s next move.

Everything they roll out is in the interest of users, whether we are talking about the mobile update or the new requirement in security.

Interestingly, as a webmaster, SEO benefit aside, the implementation of the requirements is actually to the advantage of your website and its users.

For example, Reddit found that, every time they increase site speed, their page views and users increase. It is a direct relationship.

Hence, technical SEO guidelines may just be Google’s way of telling webmasters how they can serve their users better.

After all, this tech giant is about making the web a better place.  As such, you may want to seriously look into the individual items in the infographic to improve the functionality of the website.

Who knows, your income may just go up. Higher Google rankings would definitely be a sweet bonus.

What To Do Now ?

Is the term ‘technical’ making you somewhat uneasy? There’s absolutely nothing to worry about. It involves everything that is done on your website apart from the content and link building.

It takes into consideration a number of things, namely loading speed, mobile-friendliness, versions of site, and uniqueness of content, amongst others.

If some of these aspects are not taken care of, there is even a high possibility that you will be penalized by the search engines.

Not technically SEO inclined? Then be sure to send this infographic to your web developer!

If you are game for some DIY work, the use of WordPress and its endless list of plugins can do wonders for you. For a start, be sure to install the Yoast SEO plugin.

Go beyond keyword rich meta titles, optimized images, keyword filled pages or well-developed website structure, and start thinking ‘technical’ for increased targeted traffic.  By doing so, it is only a matter of time that floods of highly target traffic will come your way.

For more elaboration and recommendation of technical SEO best practices, see the infographic below. Click on it to see the original in a higher resolution.

Originally published Mar 26, 2017. Reviewed for relevancy and video created and added 5/18/19. Edited 12/2/22 to restore missing infographic.

Firstly, I just want to make it clear that I am NOT saying SEO is dead.

A few years ago, I touched upon a subject that had been in my thoughts for a while; the term ‘SEO’ needed a rebrand.

At the time my article didn’t receive a great reception, but I’d like to think I had a fair argument. Since then, I feel the industry has been taking step after step closer to what I call ‘Search UX’.

In fact, if you do a quick Google search you notice that popular SEO blog sites including Search Engine Land, Yoast & Search Engine Journal have also picked up on the increasing importance of UX in the SEO landscape.

The Negative Connotations Behind ‘SEO’

Even in the early days of the internet, UX was an important consideration for any brand that wanted to maximize the traffic coming into their website.

Albeit, until the last 6-7 years or so you could still make it to page one of Google with a shocking user experience by using tactics that focus on manipulating Google’s algorithms.

Back when keywords and links were the highest regarded ranking signals SEOs would typically focus on spamming and manipulating these, even though there was a risk of receiving a penalty from Google.

Global brands including The Washington Post, BBC and even WordPress have been penalized for using these ‘black-hat’ techniques in the past.

A lot has changed since those times. But if I’m being honest, I think this is where a lot of the bad connotations with SEO have originated.

Even today, we still have people asking us “can you get me 50 links a month focusing on X keyword?”. As all SEOs know, it simply doesn’t work like that.

The fact is, there’s no one thing that can get you to the top of Google, and there probably never will be.

Back in the early 2000s, you could do it by prioritizing keywords and links, alongside a few other factors such as onsite technicals and content.

This has evolved into a careful balance of offering a good user experience as well as a huge list of other factors, some of which include social media optimization, reputation management, and site architecture.

These changes have paved the way for SEO as a whole, meaning, the job of an SEO is a lot broader now than it was ten years ago; there are so many more signals and considerations.

Understandably, this means the role has become a lot more difficult.

It’s about offering the right content in the right format, providing the right experience that matches modern search intent, and delivering it faster than ever before.

The Move Towards Search UX

Google’s move towards prioritizing UX began back in 2011, with the release of their Panda algorithm.

This was an early signal that Google was adapting to a more user-focused experience, with the update focusing on the quality of content.

Shortly after Panda came Penguin, an update to Google’s algorithm that moved link manipulation and black-hat techniques to the forefront.

This was Google focusing specifically on what they had identified as a problem long ago. Just now they were publicly warning that link spam would be punished.

Within the next 3 years, Google introduced the Hummingbird and Rankbrain updates; both focusing on delivering search results that would answer users’ questions.

The updates meant that Google’s algorithm would follow more human-like search patterns, taking into account context, subject matter, and even synonyms.

Search now favors more conversational searches.

If you couldn’t answer a question with the information that your website is providing, or the actions you’re presenting users with, then your website wouldn’t rank as highly in the SERPs.

At this point, it was clear that the industry was moving towards a focus on relevance and good user experience.

It seemed the algorithm was becoming pretty accurate in interpreting human search behaviours, or at least more accurate than it was a few years ago.

This theory was further backed up by the Rankbrain update, which introduced machine learning as a major ranking factor.

How Can Brands Find the Right Balance Between SEO and UX?

From an agency perspective, this all means that it’s now a lot more difficult to manipulate the SERPs.

Brands have always had to play by Google’s rules, but never to the extent they do now. That’s why it’s important for brands to take note of this shift and adapt their SEO strategies to match it.

Technical SEO and UX go hand and hand with each other now more than ever, which makes sense.

If Google’s algorithm is ultimately trying to mimic human search patterns, then it’s going to take into account things like a website’s loading speed, the site structure and whether it’s optimized for mobile.

That means you must ensure your site is optimized for the audience you’re reaching — not simply the niche.

For example, if your audience is dentists, they do not use sites the same as a dental site targeting potential patients. All dental SEO is not the same.

And this holds true for every niche and audience. UX is more important than ever so you need to get this right!

And this algorithm is only going to get more advanced, taking more human-orientated factors into account.

SEO’s might have to unlearn the SEO approach and replace their thinking with a more human / searcher approach.

Whilst on the surface this may sound like a lot more work for us marketers, that’s not necessarily true.

In the past we’ve had to please both Google’s algorithm and users visiting our site through different strategies.

But with the algorithm prioritizing user experience more, this has sort of combined into one broader consideration; Search UX.

Of course, there are literally hundreds of other considerations, but if you focus on providing a good user experience you shouldn’t go wrong.

This will only resonate more over the coming months and years as Google’s focus on UX escalates.

What Does the Future Hold for Search?

The way people are searching is changing. And it’s changing fast. People don’t just search on desktops anymore.

In fact, mobile search overtook desktop way back in 2016. Google reinforced this change even further by moving to a mobile-first index in early 2018.

This means that your site should work better on mobile than desktop, not just ‘work’ on mobile. But it’s not going to stop here.

There are so many different devices and formats for people to search through; people search with their watches, tablets and even with their voice.

And these devices and formats are only going to become more popular, therefore becoming more influential in the world of search.

With this influx of devices and formats to consider, SEOs are going to have to spread their skillset across a much wider area.

This means looking at things like UX and site speed across each of these different formats. It’s important to remember that modern attention spans are nothing like they were even 5 years ago.

If your website doesn’t load within 2 seconds on each of these different platforms then you’re going to lose a lot of traffic.

While SEO folks have been saying “think about it from the user’s perspective” for a while, now they have to really mean it!

All in all, it really is good to see that Google is starting to move towards a focus on user experience.

Pay attention to the SEO’s that are accepting this change and remaining quiet; these are the people that will learn and move forward with the right strategies.

The SEO’s who complain or continue to talk about non-compliant techniques will start to get left behind. Google will continue to move towards a user-centric experience and that’s certainly a good thing.