But occasionally, you’ll click on a link or web address and be faced with a dinosaur of a website that doesn’t work correctly on your phone or tablet. So, what do you do?

If you’re like many people, you back out of that site and look for an alternative. This is a mild inconvenience for searchers, but what about the site’s owners? How many visitors are they driving away with their archaic design? And how much money is that costing them? 

Don’t let your website fall victim – here’s what you need to know to make sure your site looks great on any site, keeping visitors happy and traffic high.

Is Responsive Design Important for SEO?

Ever a forward-thinking company, Google recognized the trend toward mobile browsing long before others did and switched to mobile-first indexing back in September 2020. This means it uses the mobile version of a site’s content for crawling, indexing and ranking.

As such, this places a strong emphasis on sites being mobile friendly when it comes to search engine optimization. 

What Makes a Website Mobile-Friendly?

A mobile-friendly site will use what is called responsive design, which means it serves the same HTML on the same URL, regardless of device, but it is displayed differently based on screen size.  

There are a few different ways you can implement this. The easiest way is to find a plug-in that works with your website that will automatically make your site mobile-first. If your site is built in WordPress, this could be something like WPTouch. 

While this option is great for people who aren’t comfortable with coding or just want a quick solution, it’s not without its drawbacks. For one thing, plug-ins of any type are prone to crashing or breaking, which could leave you without a mobile site at all. Additionally, they are sometimes targets for hackers.

If you’re confident in your HTML abilities, or have someone for that, it’s more secure and reliable to code responsiveness into your site by hand. There are a lot of resources available to help you with this process, including instructional videos.

Best Practices for Mobile Websites

The technical aspect of responsiveness is by far the most complicated part, but after you have all the coding done, you still need to make sure the site looks and operates well. Here are some best practices for making your mobile site a winner:

Make Your Text Easily Readable 

Use an easy-to-read font, with clearly defined headers and subheads. Avoid long walls of text in favor of 1-3 sentence paragraphs and bulleted lists. 

Highlight Interactive Elements

If you were the type of person who had ever illegally streamed a sporting event or show (which none of you ever would), you may have encountered a dodgy site with which you had to play “Red X Roulette,” in an effort to find the icon that closed the popups.

Your site shouldn’t do that. Make interactive elements obvious, so there’s no doubt about which button needs to be clicked. 

Don’t Block Content with Popups

Speaking of popups, intrusive ones can make it hard for visitors to get the info they’re looking for. This can lead to higher bounce rates and overall negative user experiences. 

Most sites are required to include pop-ups asking for permission to use cookies. Make yours as unobtrusive as possible by having them cover a small portion of the bottom of the screen, rather than completely blocking your content. 

Make Sure Your Site Loads Quickly

Do you know what happens when websites are slow to load? Of course you do, because you’ve done it yourself – they leave the site. Make sure your site loads quickly and smoothly by optimizing and compressing images, using browser caching and eliminating extraneous code.

While you’re at it, make sure you’re fixing technical errors like broken links, bad redirects, faulty scripts and server issues. 

Put the Important Info Above the Fold

In the days when paper newspapers were an important part of life and not an antiquated curiosity, the term “above the fold” meant above the horizontal fold that divided the paper in half. This is where the day’s most important stories went. 

In the internet era, this term has come to mean the part of the screen that’s visible before any scrolling. Put your strongest stuff there, including a good title, a CTA and a navigation bar. 

Mobile Sites Are Important 

At its root, the reason you need a responsive and mobile-friendly website is fairly obvious: you want to make your site as enjoyable to use as possible. 

It will keep your site easily accessible, while allowing your audience to engage with your website across devices without inconvenience. 

More than this, a mobile-friendly website will be more visible in search results, lead to improved brand recognition, and even increase the amount of leads you’re generating. In other words, it’s something you can’t afford to ignore. 

But you’re a busy professional. You don’t have unlimited time to dedicate to search engine optimization and responsive design. That’s where Evisio comes in. 

SEO, Simplified

Evisio takes the hassle out of search engine optimization. It automatically scans your website for SEO weaknesses and opportunities, then provides you with a set of step-by-step, plain-English instructions for addressing them. 
There’s no easier way to optimize any website. You should see it for yourself by trying it for free today!

If you’re looking for SEO project management software to better manage your workflow, clients, and business – evisio.co is your solution. Try evisio.co for free here!

The post How to Optimize Your Site for Mobile Devices appeared first on Evisio.

But successful content marketing is more than just a handful of blog posts thrown up online without much thought given to strategy. To make sure those valuable clicks from search engines are ending up on your site – and not with your competitor, they need to be built on a broader strategy.

And that broader strategy should be built on a foundation made of pillar pages. 

What Are Pillar Pages?

Sometimes called cornerstone content or knowledge base articles, pillar pages are the foundation of your entire digital marketing strategy. They help you establish your authority within your field and reassure visitors that you’re providing accurate information.

They cover fundamental topics that are important to your industry and provide visitors with top-level content. Many times, they’ll be linked directly from menus and navigation bars. Essentially, they’re the hubs around which the rest of your content is organized.

Pillar pages tend to be longer than pages dedicated to more specialized topics, though this isn’t always the case. What matters most is the value they provide to targets.

There are numerous types of pillar pages, depending on your situation, but most webmasters will commonly use the following three types:

• Topic Pages
• Resource Pillar Pages
• Product/Service Pillar Pages

We’ll go into these a bit more in depth later, but first, let’s discuss why you need pillars in the first place.

The Benefits of Pillar Pages

There are several reasons you’ll want to create content cornerstones around which the rest of your site is built. These include:

1. Capturing traffic, i.e., improving SEO (more on that below)
2. Smoother site navigation – pillar pages help you maintain a logical flow to your website, helping visitors find the information they’re searching for. This, in turn, lowers bounce rate and drives traffic to your other pages
3. They’re a great way to fill content gaps and come up with new topic ideas – if you’re out of ideas, take a small part of the content from the cornerstone page and expand on it

How Do Pillar Pages Affect SEO?

Using cornerstone pages are a great way to improve the structure of your website, which is not only beneficial for targets, but it also makes it easier for Google to determine what the pages are about. 

Additionally, they will help improve your E-A-T (Expertise, authority and trustworthiness), which will help your site climb search rankings. 

Generally speaking, your pillar pages will be dedicated to short-tail keywords, while the pages branching off of them will target long-tail keywords. 

Pillars are also a great way to build backlinks, as they provide answers to common queries within a niche. If your content pillar is strong, you’ll begin to attract incoming links from other sites that have found the information it presents useful. 

What is a Topic Pillar?

Topic pillar pages provide users and search bots with a single page that provides fast and easy access to core content. Intended to be a quick way to find facts and information, they provide directions to other, more detailed information found elsewhere on the site. 

If you want to impress your SEO friends, you can refer to these as 10x content – a phrase coined by SEO superstar Rand Fishkin back in 2015. He stated that these topic pillars should be ten times better than existing top-ranking content. 

Since then, the term has evolved to mean high-quality, relevant content around which other pages related to the topic are clustered. 

What Are Resource Pillars?

Resource pillar pages are collections of links to helpful information, often with some commentary in the form of blurbs and/or thumbnails explaining the link. 

This could include links to manuals, guides, whitepapers, tutorials or explanatory content. Like topic pillars, they focus on one broad overarching theme and provide links to more detailed information. 

What Are Product and Service Pillar Pages?

As of February 2023, there were roughly 1.1 billion websites on the internet, a great many of which are dedicated to commerce in one form or another. 

If you’re the webmaster of a site that offers multiple products or services, it’s a good idea to have pillar pages dedicated to broad categories. 

For example, if you’re selling bicycles you might have one product pillar page dedicated to mountain bikes and another for road racing bikes. From here, your visitors will be able to drill down deeper into specific brands and models to find the one they want.

These pages tend to be descriptive, but don’t go into great detail. They are well-written and provide clear information about their particular category. 

Should Pillars Be Webpages or Blog Posts?

You’ll often hear pillar pages referred to as pillar posts, which naturally gives rise to the question: are pillars pages or blog posts?

The short answer is that it depends on your needs. In many (but not all) cases, topic pillars will be high-level blog posts. Service pillars, on the other hand, are generally not well-suited to blog posts. You may need to experiment to find what’s best for you. 

Take Your Site to the Next Level, the Easy Way

There are many benefits to content pillars, both for users and from a search engine perspective. But if you’re dealing with a large website or you inherited it from someone else, you may be facing a cumbersome and confusing mess. 

That’s where Evisio can help.

Designed for busy SEO professionals, it automatically scans your website and then returns a step-by-step list of instructions to help you clear up problems that are hurting your search ranking and capitalize on opportunities. 
See it for yourself. Try evisio for free today!

If you’re looking for SEO project management software to better manage your workflow, clients, and business – evisio.co is your solution. Try evisio.co for free here!

The post Pillar Pages: What Are They & How Do You Use Them? appeared first on Evisio.

In fact, the only thing you can rely on is that change is inevitable – whether that means Google changing the search algorithm or your competitors switching their strategy to try to steal your clicks. 

It’s definitely not a “set it and forget it” field. To get to the top, and just as importantly, stay there, you need to stay abreast of what’s happening in SEO and make adjustments accordingly. 

Of course, that’s the real problem – just how do you do that? We’re going to assume you don’t have hours a day you can dedicate to pursuing various sources and instead give you some strategies for staying abreast of what’s going on in the world of search engines. 

#1 – Follow the Experts

If you wanted to learn about football, who would you rather talk to: Nick Saban or some random guy in a bar? Obviously, you’re going to choose the guy who has won seven national titles. The problem is, even if you could get access to him, he may not want to share his secrets. 

Luckily, SEO doesn’t have that problem. 

Since its very early days, SEO has built a community online. The industry’s biggest names, people like Neil Patel, Rand Fishkin and Danny Sullivan are not only available online, but they’re openly sharing their thoughts on social media. They routinely share tips, tricks and best practices on SEO and related fields. 

And even more importantly, the man behind Google search (or at least its public face, anyway) John Mueller regularly appears on YouTube, LinkedIn and various other sites. 

If you’re using social media, you should be following the experts, so you can stay in the know about what’s happening in SEO.

#2 – Read the Blogs and Newsletters

Search Engine Journal, SEMRush, Search Engine World – there are dozens of high-quality blogs out there dedicated exclusively to search engine optimization. And many of these have regular newsletters, which means you’ll get the latest information delivered right to your email inbox. 

And don’t forget the Google Search Central Blog, which covers all the official updates to the search engine. And while it might not give away the details of the search algorithm itself, it does provide information about what are and are not ranking signals, details about new features and information about the latest best practices. 

#3 – Join the Forums

The best thing about the internet is that it gives strangers the ability to connect and communicate across the globe. While this can have its drawbacks (see any political discussion on Twitter), it also provides the opportunity for professional discourse that might otherwise be impossible. 

On communities like Reddit, there are entire forums dedicated to SEO (and just about everything else, for that matter) where questions can be asked and answered, news can be shared and ideas discussed.

The great thing about this type of forum is that they’re community moderated in a way that allows quality content to rise to the top and become more visible, while lower quality posts disappear. 

Whether you’re searching for an SEO job, looking to build your client base or just trying to solve a nagging problem, these communities are a valuable source of information. 

#4 – Attend Conventions

Going to conferences, conventions and other industry events gives you an opportunity to learn about what’s going on in the industry and build your personal network at the same time. 

These shows vary in size and quality, but nearly all of them offer value. Whether it’s a keynote speaker sharing his or her expertise, a breakout session involving some of the field’s major players or sessions dedicated to specialized tactics, these events present a significant opportunity to expand your SEO knowledge. 

#5 – Take Advantage of Media

YouTube and other video sharing platforms are a goldmine for good SEO information. Backlinko, Moz and ahrefs are among the many SEO platforms and news organizations that regularly post videos filled with useful tips and information. 

Likewise, it’s relatively easy to find webinars dedicated to search engine optimization. What’s great about these is that they are usually available on-demand, so if you can’t attend them live, you can catch up later on your own time. 

And speaking of learning on your own time, don’t forget about podcasts. These allow you to listen to presentations and discussions about all things search engines, while commuting, cutting the grass or even working. 

#6 – Choose a Platform that Keeps You Up to Date

The final, and by far the easiest way to keep up with what’s happening in the world of search engine optimization is to choose an SEO platform that does it for you – like Evisio, for example. 

As a platform designed to streamline the entire SEO process, Evisio regularly scans your website for SEO issues and opportunities – including those that are related to algorithmic changes. You’re then presented with a detailed list of instructions in plain English that you can follow to remedy the situation and improve your search ranking.

Best of all, our team does all the homework. You don’t have to read hundreds of blogs, listen to dozens of podcasts and read the social feeds of SEO experts because we do it for you. Think of the time that will save you. 
But don’t take our word for it try evisio for free today!

If you’re looking for SEO project management software to better manage your workflow, clients, and business – evisio.co is your solution. Try evisio.co for free here!

The post 6 Ways to Stay Up to Date with SEO appeared first on Evisio.

If you ask someone who doesn’t know a lot about search engine optimization what they expect to get out of it, they’ll mention things like more traffic, more impressions, and of course, more sales, all on a timeline of immediately.

But if you’ve been in the business for any time longer than a week, you know this isn’t realistic. SEO goals require patience and consistency – largely because there’s a whole lot of things that you can’t directly control. 

But goals are important to any business, not just because they can help you determine an initiative’s success or failure, but because they provide a sort of roadmap to follow. They should be measurable to give you insights into what’s working – and what’s not, so you can make adjustments as needed. Unlike vague and generalized goals like “get more traffic,” specific goals hold you accountable and give you a real target to shoot for. 

But if you’re not a veteran SEO professional, you may have trouble figuring out what exactly these goals should be and how long it should take you to achieve them. That’s where I can help.

In this piece, I’m going to cover what SEO good goals are, how to determine them and then give you some examples you can adopt for your own needs.  

What Are Good Goals?

The best goals in life tend to have a few things in common, namely that they’re SMART. No, this doesn’t mean they’re good at chess or could win the spelling bee – it’s an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. 

Specific means they clearly define what you are hoping to accomplish, what metrics you will use to calculate success and the actions you will take to achieve them. E.g., A focus on decreasing bounce-rate from your top-performing pages by 11%.

Measurable means your goals have a means of being tracked. You should have concrete data about success or failure beyond just feeling like it’s working. This could be anything from organic traffic to site loading time to inbound links to conversions. 

Achievable, obviously means that they are realistic. You’re not trying to dethrone YouTube with your own video-hosting site, but instead are trying to do something doable. For example, you could aim to increase visits by 7%, rather than shooting for flashy but unrealistic expectations like raising organic traffic by 7000%.

Relevant means the goal(s) are in line with what your website is trying to accomplish. For example, if your website sells tennis rackets, optimizing your pages to capture traffic from people searching for a macaroni and cheese recipe is a waste of everyone’s time. 

Time-bound goals have a clearly defined timeframe and end-date, as in this initiative will seek to achieve Goal A by October 1, rather than just saying “we want to reach this eventually.”

Setting Realistic SEO Goals

If you’re like many people, the biggest challenge to setting SMART SEO goals is that tricky “R.” Because the field, by its very nature, gives you a ton of data, it’s easy to get distracted or try to shoot for the moon.

To make sure you don’t fall victim to this, it’s important to set goals based around the metrics that are most important to your business and align with your greater organizational goals.

For example, if your goal is to increase signups for your newsletter, you’ll want to target KPIs that help make that a reality, for example conversions using a form on a landing page. 

Once you have identified the goal you’ll be striving toward, as well as the ways in which you will measure progress, it’s time to build your framework. 

First take your ultimate goal and break it down into smaller performance goals, each of which moves you closer to the outcome you’re seeking. Then break each of these down into smaller, process goals that you can control. 

Let’s say your overall goal is to get your website to the first page of search engine results. That is your outcome goal. To do this, you need to build your domain authority and build backlinks. These are your performance goals. Finally, you need to optimize your site structure, create valuable content for your targets and improve social shares – these are your process goals. 

Caveat: Don’t fall into the trap of assuming “creating valuable content” is enough on its own. Remember, your goals need to be specific, measurable and time-bound too. Instead, make your goal something like “create three infographics that will lead to 25 quality backlinks within three months.”

Use your favorite SEO platform (like Evisio, for example) to provide you with the data you need to determine whether you’re achieving your goal or not.

Examples of Good SEO Goals

Generally speaking, each of your SEO goals will correspond with one or more stages in the sales funnel. Depending on who you’re talking to, there are anywhere from four to eight of these, but for our purposes, let’s keep it to: awareness, interest, decision and conversion.

Goals you might set for the awareness stage include increasing your total impressions on a page by 15% or getting your page to the first page of results within six months. 

For the interest stage, you could set goals related to clicks or click-through rates from search pages.

For the decision stage, you may be seeking to improve the length of time users spend on a page or reduce the bounce rate. 

Finally, for the consideration, or action stage, you could measure things like sales, signups or downloads. As with all these stages, what you choose will depend on what you’re hoping to achieve. Just make sure you’re hitting every part of SMART goals. 

Make the Entire SEO Process Easier

Now that you have your goals clearly outlined, along with an action plan of how you plan to achieve them, it’s time to get to work. That’s where Evisio comes in.

A platform designed for busy SEO professionals and entrepreneurs wearing many hats alike, it takes all of the guesswork out of search engine optimization, providing you with clear information and step-by-step instructions for improving the ranking of any site. 

Once you try it, you’ll wonder how you ever did SEO any other way. See it for yourself. Start your  evisio free trial today!

Image source: Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash

If you’re looking for SEO project management software to better manage your workflow, clients, and business – evisio.co is your solution. Try evisio.co for free here!

The post Setting SEO Goals You Can Actually Hit appeared first on Evisio.

You may think they’re just a fairy tale or urban legend, like Bigfoot, or leprechauns, but believe it or not, there are such things as SEO keywords that offer both low competition and (relatively) high traffic for your specific niche. The hard part, of course, is finding them. 

Sometimes called “tangential keywords,” they’ve given rise to an entire branch of search engine optimization called, logically enough, tangential SEO. Let’s take a look at what they are and how to find them.

What are Tangential Keywords?

You’ve probably already figured this out based on their name, but tangential keywords are keywords that are not direct words and phrases relating to your offering, but instead are more obliquely related. 

They’re used to target new audiences who are looking for specific solutions or information that are not directly related to your website. 

For example, if you’re the webmaster of a site selling European vacations, you may create an article titled “7 Italian Foods You Must Try.” While this content isn’t directly selling your trips, it’s speaking to a peripheral topic while implying that the best place to try authentic risotto alla Milanese is in Milan, and oh by the way, your site just happens to offer a trip there.  

While these kinds of keywords don’t offer “top of the sales funnel” awareness, they do serve an important role in building your site’s authority and expertise – plus capture traffic and incoming links you might otherwise miss. 

How Do You Find Tangential Keywords?

This, of course, is the million-dollar question: where do you find these elusive peripheral keywords so you can create content utilizing them?

While some people will swear by lists provided by ChatGPT and other AI platforms, at the end of the day, the best way to come up with a list of related topics is to use good old-fashioned brainstorming. So, gather your team, a white board and put on your thinking cap. 

The first thing you should do is take a step back from your offering. What are you really selling? What are your targets really looking for? 

For example, tanning salons aren’t really selling tans, they’re selling the vibrant feeling of having a deep and healthy tan. They’re selling the glow of eternal summer and an active lifestyle.

Once you’ve identified your raison d’etre, use that as a springboard to discover subtopics that tie into your offering. Write them down, no matter how off-the-wall they may seem – remember there are no wrong answers when you’re brainstorming. 

You may find it helpful to create buyer personas. These fictional representatives of your target customer can offer a sense of tangibility that ethereal demographic stats can’t, helping you get inside the mind of the people you’re going after. 

Once you have a few terms, start building a mind map. This will allow you to build a hierarchy of your thoughts and establish how they relate to one another. 

Once you have a decently sized list of tangential words and phrases, it’s time to harness the power of data. 

Open up your keyword research tool of choice and take a look at the volume each query generates. There’s a good chance you’re going to have at least a handful with low, or even no competition. Make those your first priority.

From there, go about creating content as you usually would, whether that means writing blog posts, using AI-generated text or outsourcing to your freelance team. 

Why Isn’t Everyone Using Tangential SEO?

As you probably expected, tangential SEO is not all roses and honey – there are experienced SEO professionals who will argue against the use of tangential keywords, pointing at lower conversion rates as a sign of their lack of relevance and/or dilution of your primary message. 

As a result, this isn’t a strategy employed by everyone. But that makes it all the more valuable to you.

Key Takeaways

Every SEO professional knows the importance of thinking creatively. Using tangential SEO is merely an extension of this. So long as you’re using a logical, data-driven strategy to find these lower-competition, higher traffic keywords, you’re on the path to establishing yourself as the authority. 

Make sure you’re going after key phrases that support your brand’s overall positioning and that they are relevant to the targets you’re going after. 

Bonus Tip: Use Influencers & Micro-Influencers

Your target customers likely follow certain influencers on social media, whether they’re major names like Mr. Beast with his 166 million YouTube subscribers or micro-influencers with a *mere* 10,000 followers. 

If you have the budget for it, these social media stars can be a great way to build brand recognition and reach. Just be aware that the more followers, the more expensive it’s going to be. 

Bonus-Bonus Tip: Use Evisio to Make Everything SEO Easy

Designed to remove the guesswork from SEO and eliminate the tedious tasks associated with search engine optimization (like reporting), Evisio automatically scans your website, then returns a plain English list of actionable steps for fixing issues and capitalizing on opportunities.

Whether you’re an old SEO pro looking for a way to streamline your workflows or a beleaguered entrepreneur trying to optimize a website around a million other tasks, you’ll wonder how you ever got by without it. 

But, as they say, the proof is in the pudding, so you should definitely see it for yourself. I’m so sure you’ll love it, that I’m willing to let you try it for free. Contact me today to start your free trial.  

If you’re looking for SEO project management software to better manage your workflow, clients, and business – evisio.co is your solution. Try evisio.co for free here!

The post Finding Great New Keyword Opportunities appeared first on Evisio.

If you’re a fan of the Terminator franchise and/or a doomsday prepper, you may be a bit leery of the sudden influx of artificial intelligence into nearly every facet of modern life. On the other hand, assuming ChatGPT doesn’t become self-aware and try to enslave humanity, you can no doubt see all the exciting potential AI brings to the world – not least of all the world of search engine optimization. 

But what does AI mean for SEO? And more importantly, how can you, as an SEO professional, set yourself up to benefit from it?

Let’s find out…

The Impact of AI and Machine Learning on SEO

Search engines are built upon an ever-changing and increasingly complex algorithm designed to parse webpages, analyze their content and determine their relevance and authority to various search queries. 

In the early days, these algorithms were designed by humans, with engineers like Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and later Matt Cutts (among others) contributing code designed to improve the quality of search engine results. And then machine learning hit the scene. 

Sometime in 2015, Google released RankBrain, an algorithm that uses machine learning (a subcomponent of artificial intelligence) to process search results and improve their relevance. Capable of making changes to the algorithm independent of a human coder, it has been acknowledged as Google’s third most important ranking signal. 

(Side note: Human engineers still make changes to the code, but their “hands-on” impact has been greatly reduced).

But Google, in its unending quest to provide better search results, didn’t stop there. As AI technology grew more advanced, it rolled out and will continue to roll out increasingly complex pieces of software designed to determine exactly what sort of information a searcher is looking for, and then provide results that best answer it. 

So, what does that mean for search engine optimization? Quite a lot, actually. 

AI Content May Soon Take Over

As every good SEO professional knows, content is still king. But whereas in the past, this required human writers, AI is taking over. According to a report from Europol, a European law enforcement group, as much as 90% of online content could be AI-generated by 2026. 

Understandably, this has content writers and copywriters across the globe nervous for their futures, but what about for SEO pros? AI looks like it will actually be a boon for them.

For one thing, an improved semantic understanding by machines will help webmasters optimize their content for user needs, analyzing existing content and providing recommendations for improvement, including suggesting new keywords. And it can already be used to generate meta tags and other on-page elements that are part of the optimization process. 

SGE Bursts onto the Scene

In May 2023, Google announced an AI-powered search called Search Generative Experience, or SGE. Still in beta testing at the time of this writing with an expected launch date of December 2023, this technology could revolutionize everything we know about SEO.

By using predictive intelligence to forecast trends and user behaviors, it will carry over context from one search to the next in order to help users discover information in a more natural manner. 

One of the big changes is that it appears likely SGE will actually drive less traffic to top-ranking sites for keywords, as it will provide users with an answer to their query right in the results page (think of a better version of featured snippets).

While humans might still click through to a site for more detailed information, it’s going to eliminate clicks from searches like “what temperature do I bake chicken breasts at?”

How this will affect each site will depend on the nature of the site and its purpose. Some people are expecting it to drastically change how online shopping is performed, as Google will provide product suggestions at the top. There’s a lot of speculation, but at this point, no one knows for sure.

Voice and Visual Search Optimization Looks to Capture Larger Audience

Thanks to Siri, Alexa and a host of smart devices, many people are already comfortable with voice search. As AI improves, its voice recognition capabilities will improve along with it, making natural language and long-tail keywords an increasingly important part of any SEO process. 

Likewise, Google Lens and other visual search tools will likely increase in usage and performance as the AI learns to identify objects within context or images. This means metadata, especially alt tags and text, are going to be increasingly important. 

Set Yourself Up for Success

The ability to adapt and pivot has always been important in SEO, but it will only continue to become more important as technology advances. 

To make sure your website keeps generating views, here are some things you can do:

1. Find ways to target your customers’ searches more accurately – Comb through your metrics, track customer journeys or just ask your website visitors what they’re looking for. This will help you find new keywords as well as better serve their needs.
2. Discover a new approach – Everyone who sells office chairs is probably already talking about “lumbar support” and “ergonomic postures.” But how many of them have content specifically targeting osteoarthritis or herniated discs? Find a new approach and you’ll land that specific traffic. 
3. Build direct traffic – Worried that search engines will send your targets to the competition? Get them to your site directly by including your URL in your advertising and providing specific calls to actions and benefits for visitors. 
4. Spend more time on strategy and less on busy work – SEO success requires creativity. But most SEOs have their days filled with mundane (but important) tasks like reporting. Evisio takes care of this problem. 

Whether you’re looking to simplify reporting or want to automate website analysis, this groundbreaking platform eliminates the tedious work from SEO, regularly scanning any website and providing you with easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions for improving search rankings. 

You really should see it for yourself by claiming your free trial today. 

Image source: Photo by Alexander Sinn on Unsplash

If you’re looking for SEO project management software to better manage your workflow, clients, and business – evisio.co is your solution. Try evisio.co for free here!

The post SEO in an Age of AI appeared first on Evisio.

The internet drives sales. Everyone knows that. 

And while there are undoubtedly a few dinosaurs hanging on without a web presence, for most businesses, it’s unthinkable. And with good reason – the ecommerce market is expected to surpass $940 billion this year. 

But if everyone is selling online, how do you stand out? How do you capitalize on this massive opportunity and ensure you’re getting the sales you need? By increasing web traffic, of course. 

But how do you do that?

With search engine optimization, of course. 

In this piece, we’re going to take a closer look at the highly competitive ecommerce market and discuss ways you can improve the rankings of your product pages, capture more clicks and convert those visits into sales. 

What Do Product Pages Need for SEO?

If you’re selling via the internet, and you should be, it can be easy to forget that each individual page on your online store is also a webpage. This means, in almost every case, they should be discoverable by search crawls and optimized to rank as highly as possible in search engine results. 

To ensure you’re getting the traffic you deserve, each page should meet certain basic requirements like the ones listed below.

Every Page Needs a Great Title

Every product page should have a unique, descriptive title. This makes it easier for both search engine spiders and searchers to determine what the content of the page is – and, in the case of humans, if it’s what they’re looking for.

If you find people are looking for products based on the manufacturer or SKU, these should be included in your title as well. 

For example, if you sell kitchen faucets and related accessories, which page do you think is more likely to generate a sale: one with a title like “Kitchen Faucet Heads” or one titled “Kohler Graze Kitchen Faucet Head – 22063-CP?”

Sure, the first one may get you more traffic from people doing research and considering a purchase, but the second one will capture the people who have their credit card in hand and are ready to make a purchase. And those are the highest value visitors. 

Write Your Own Descriptions

If you’re a third-party seller, it can be tempting to use the manufacturer’s product description. Don’t. 

A good chunk of the sites out there listing a particular product are going to do just that, which means there could be dozens, even hundreds of competing websites using the exact same phrasing. Google will look at this duplicate copy and rather than trying to figure out which one to put at the top of results pages, will assume it’s low-quality content and ding your ranking. 

Instead, you should write a unique description for each page, taking care to highlight its unique value proposition. Yes, this can be labor intensive, particularly for large ecommerce sites with lots of products, but it is well worth the effort. 

Optimize Your Visuals

Way back in 2006, Amazon found every 100 milliseconds of added page loading time cost them 1% in revenue. As we’ve all grown accustomed to high-speed internet, do you think that people have grown more patient? Of course not. 

Every video and image you use on your product pages should be optimized for quality and loading speed.

More than that, they should include ALT tags with relevant keywords like the product name and other search terms, as this will help you in visual search.

Don’t forget the meta text. 

Your meta description is your product page’s very first sales pitch. It tells people what is for sale on that page, and ideally, why they should purchase it.

Make sure your meta descriptions include a description of the product on the page, not just a random statement about your company.

Give people a reason to click on your link with a well-written, informative meta description – not just some generic statement about your company. 

Highlight Your Reviews

People trust online reviews. Before making a purchase, particularly a large purchase, 93% of people read existing reviews. That makes them extremely important, particularly if you’re not a well-established, globally known brand. 

To capture the trust of potential customers, you need to use these to your advantage. Solicit reviews from your customers by enticing them with discounts and other offers. 

For example, a coffee house could post a sign that says, “Review us on Yelp or Google and get a free Danish.” You might be surprised how many people will happily write a glowing review for a free pastry.

Embed these reviews in your product pages to build authority and add content with the exact phrasing your customers are using. 

But what if you have negative reviews? Believe it or not, these are an opportunity too. Respond to your less-than-flattering reviews and show others that you care about negative experiences with your brand. You’ll not only minimize the impact of bad reviews, but also gather insights into your offerings and business.

Bonus #1: Use Good URLs

Use an easy-to-remember URL. If someone wants to recommend your product, which do you think they’re more likely to remember: business.com/Samsung_Visio_TV or business.com/sjg7887s5%sdf?

Though it won’t change your search ranking, a descriptive URL is always better. Be sure your URLS are consistent site wide. 

Bonus #2: Use “You May Also Like”

Sometimes people will end up on a page because they’re looking for something similar to, but not exactly what that page offers. Don’t let them click back to Google and land somewhere else. Keep them on your site by including related products.

This will not only allow visitors to consider their options on your site, but it’s also a great way to encourage additional purchases.

Plus, from an SEO perspective, these strengthen your internal link structure.

Automate the Busy Work

You could spend hours, or even days combing through each and every product page on your website to find areas of weakness. Or you could automate the entire process with Evisio.

Designed for busy web professionals and business owners, Evisio automatically scans your site for SEO issues and opportunities, and then presents you with an easy-to-follow, step-by-step set of instructions for fixing them.

See it for yourself by starting a free trial today!

Image source: Photo by rupixen.com on Unsplash

If you’re looking for SEO project management software to better manage your workflow, clients, and business – evisio.co is your solution. Try evisio.co for free here!

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Whether you’re looking for a side hustle or are just tired of working to make someone else rich, SEO freelancing could be just what you’re looking for. But it’s not without its pitfalls, even for entrepreneurs with established businesses. I know I made more than my share of missteps as I built my business and reputation, but I’ve always looked at these as opportunities to learn. 

To help you avoid the blunders that cost me time and money, this piece is going to take a look at some of the most common mistakes made by SEO freelancers and give you strategies for avoiding them.

Mistake #1 – Working Without a Contract

There are a lot of unethical businesses out there who won’t think twice about stiffing you for work you’ve done for them. Unfortunately, this is a lesson I had to learn the hard way. 

Don’t rely on a handshake agreement – insist on a signed contract. You can find a template by searching Google, then customize it to your needs.

There are several must-haves for any freelance contract, including:

1. Clearly defined project scope
2. Rates and pricing
3. Points of contact
4. Payment and invoicing schedules
5. Copyright ownership
6. Deadlines and deliverable dates

Some people will tell you that you should have a lawyer draw this up for you, but for many SEO freelance professionals, that’s just an added expense. In my experience, the mere existence of a signed document, regardless of how legally iron-clad it may or may not be, is enough to dissuade clients from refusing to pay.

Mistake #2 – Committing to Unrealistic Expectations or Timeframes

Most business owners don’t know much about SEO. As a result, they expect you to wave a magic wand and give them the top spot in Google search results overnight. It’s your job to temper their expectations. 

Make sure the client understands SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. Some of the optimizations you make on their site may take weeks or even months to reap rewards. If you are clear about this upfront, they’ll be less likely to pull the plug when you don’t get immediate results. 

Make sure you let the client know upfront that SEO is an ongoing process and depending on changes to search algorithms or new tactics by the competition, search ranking may fluctuate, but in the long run your efforts will pay off. 

Likewise, don’t just agree to a timeline you can’t reasonably hit. A massive site overhaul is going to take time, even with the help of tools like Evisio, so don’t promise you’ll have a client’s 83-page website fully optimized by this time tomorrow. 

Mistake #3 – Not Balancing Client and Task Load

More clients and more work means more money in your pocket, so it’s tempting to agree to take on every project that comes your way. Don’t. 

You have limited resources, particularly the most important one – time. Don’t overcommit yourself or you may find yourself quickly burning out. 

While it’s a good idea to always keep an eye out for new SEO clients, you also need to understand your limits and what you can reasonably hope to achieve. 

Mistake #4 – Agreeing to a Kickoff Before Discussing Budgets

This is another mistake I’ve made too many times. You get so excited about a new potential client that you agree to hop on a project call before finding out if their SEO project is a fit. 

It’s not uncommon for clients to undervalue the importance of search engine optimization, as such, expect you to work for peanuts, or even worse, for exposure. Don’t waste your time or theirs. Be sure to have a discussion about their budget before agreeing to a kickoff. 

Mistake #5 – Undervaluing Your Services

When I first began freelancing in SEO, I charged my clients an hourly rate that was well under the average for someone with my skills. My reasoning was that my affordability would make them more likely to call me or recommend me to friends. Guess what? It didn’t.

As any first-year business student can tell you, underpricing your services can be as bad as overpricing them. Charging too little for your offering subconsciously tells clients that you’re doing low-quality work and/or don’t have a good reputation. 

That’s not to say there aren’t opportunities for giving discounts to loyal clients, but make sure your pricing is in line with the going rate for an SEO professional with your skills and experience. 

Mistake #6 – Not Using the Power of Tools and Technology

Technology exists to make our lives easier, so why wouldn’t you use it professionally? For example, Evisio is the platform built to streamline SEO work of all types, simplify reporting and help you get more done in less time.

Instead of spending hours poring over each page of a client’s website, you can have Evisio automatically scan it. In just a fraction of the time, you’ll get a list of problems and opportunities that will impact search ranking. Even better, it will give you a step-by-step list of instructions to follow to fix or capitalize on them.

You can think of it as your SEO assistant, who does all the time-consuming and tedious stuff, leaving you more time to focus on what’s important – growing your business. 

But don’t just take my word for it. Contact us today for a free trial and try it out yourself. 

Image source: Photo by Daniel Thomas on Unsplash.

If you’re looking for SEO project management software to better manage your workflow, clients, and business – evisio.co is your solution. Try evisio.co for free here!

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“May you live in interesting times.” – Apocryphal ancient Chinese curse (but probably not).

There is no question that we’re living in noteworthy times. Technology is growing at an exponential rate, leaving many people from writers to paralegals, bankers to customer service representatives worried about the future of their jobs.   

And search engine optimization professionals are keeping a close eye on developments in AI too, worrying ChatGPT or a similar platform will eliminate the need for actual SEO experts. Doom and gloom seem to be the mood of the day. 

Relax. 

Yes, changes are coming, but automation is your friend. I’ll explain why.

The Biggest Challenge Facing SEO Professionals

For most people in the SEO business, the biggest hurdle they face every day isn’t climbing up search engine results pages. It’s not building quality backlinks. It’s not even finding those elusive low competition-high traffic keywords. No, it’s a lack of resources, namely time. 

Performing SEO requires you to perform a wide variety of smaller tasks, from updating links to creating content. And some of these can become quite tedious, especially when you’re doing the same thing over and over again. 

That’s where SEO automation can really streamline your workflows, streamlining or even eliminating repetitive tasks.’

Tasks that SEO Automation Can Handle for You

We’re still a long way from computers replacing all our work, but there are several areas where you can implement it now to make your job a whole lot easier. These include:

Reporting and Analytics

“I love the reporting part of search engine optimization,” said no SEO person ever. 

Reporting is mind-numbingly boring. But you simply can’t do your job without data. And somebody has to compile that data so you can see what’s working – and what isn’t.

You’re probably already using some form of automation in this process. And recent advances have all but eliminated the worst aspects of reporting. Instead, they let you enter guidelines about timeframes and the metrics you’re interested in and present that information to you in one convenient dashboard. 

Even if you’re an SEO traditionalist, there’s absolutely no reason you shouldn’t be harnessing the power of technology to make reporting a whole lot easier and less time consuming. 

Keyword Research

Even if you have negative feelings toward ChatGPT, there’s no denying the improvement it has made in the process of keyword research. With a simple prompt, it can generate extensive lists of related keywords for any seed.

Obviously, it’s not going to give you a comprehensive list, but it is an excellent starting point, as it basically handles a lot of the brainstorming for you.

It’s also good for quick competition research and identifying influencers in a specific niche. All you have to do is use the right prompt. 

Content Creation

Have you noticed an uptick in cold emails from writers who want to boost your email open rates or optimize the copy on your website? AI has sent lots of people who make their living with the written world into a panic. 

This is because you can use AI to generate reasonably coherent blog posts or web content in seconds. It can even ensure they use optimal keyword density. So, why wouldn’t you use it?

Actually, there are a few reasons you should be hesitant to send your writer packing, namely accuracy and plagiarism. Because AI tools depend on existing web articles to gather information, it’s highly vulnerable to using outdated information. 

There can also be plagiarism concerns based on the same thing – because it pulls phrases and sometimes even entire sentences from other works. 

That said, if you just need some high-level copy and don’t want to spend a lot (or anything), these tools are at least as good as some of the low-end freelancers you’ll find on sites like Upwork and Fiverr. 

Structure Data Markup

This is one of the areas of SEO where automation really shines. Rather than manually going through a website, page by page to check your Schema and other markups, you can have a platform generate and validate it in no time. 

Image Optimization

Slow-loading sites get penalized by Google. And uncompressed images are one of the main reasons some sites don’t load quickly. Luckily, you can automate image optimization.

There are all sorts of solutions available that will automatically reduce image file sizes, while still ensuring they retain their quality. You should be using this.

Site Audits

If you’re an SEO freelancer or work for a digital agency, you’ve probably spent countless hours combing through web sites, painstakingly checking each link, tag and technical aspect to identify areas that need improvement and find potential opportunities. And because this is such an intensive task, it’s easy to miss something completely. 

Luckily, there’s a better way. Platforms like Evisio will automatically scan your website to identify any problems or areas for improvement. It can crawl any site in just a fraction of the time it takes to manually audit a site.  

Missing a tag? Evisio will find it. Have some broken backlinks? It will identify those too.  And then, once it has found every SEO issue on your website, it automatically generates easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions for fixing these issues. 

Here’s what’s really cool – it was designed with end users in mind, so it has an intuitive workflow that makes it easy to navigate between tasks, projects and accounts. 

Should You Embrace Automated SEO?

What do you think? Is automated SEO for you? 

If you’re a luddite, probably not. But you’re in SEO. You don’t fear technology – especially when it can make your job a whole lot easier. Which is exactly what Evisio does, automatically scanning your website to identify SEO issues and opportunities, reporting and a whole host of other tasks. And it even gives you easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions for making changes. 
But don’t just take my word for it. See it for yourself. Contact me today and try it for free.

Evisio makes it easy to get better SEO results, so you can achieve more with less time, money, and hassle. Get a free account, no credit card required, at evisio.co.

Image source: Photo by Carl Heyerdahl on Unsplash

If you’re looking for SEO project management software to better manage your workflow, clients, and business – evisio.co is your solution. Try evisio.co for free here!

The post Why You Should Automate Your SEO appeared first on Evisio.

I’ve been involved in the world of search engine optimization for quite a while now. I’ve worked in-house with corporations trying to increase their exposure, on contract with local businesses trying to carve out their niche and with small mom-and-pops who don’t know the first thing about SEO. Each of these situations have a number of things in common, primarily that they’re all trying to climb to the top of search engine results pages (obviously).

And regardless of size, number of locations or marketing budget, that always falls back to the basics: keyword-rich content, backlinks, on-page tactics and technical SEO. That’s the job, after all.

But every situation is different and while there’s plenty of content out there about the technical side of SEO, there’s almost nothing about the personal side of it. In particular, quality information about working as an SEO freelancer is practically non-existent. But that’s why I’ve written this. 

If you’re already working as a freelancer, are thinking about making the move or just want to boost your side-hustle, this piece will cover the ins-and-outs of the business and give you some tips to help you succeed. 

So, You Want an SEO Freelancing Career?

The United States has always prided itself on a place where anyone with an idea, a bit of talent and a willingness to work hard can get ahead. Founding your own business and going on to become the next self-made millionaire is what the American way has always been about – everyone wants the freedom that comes with being your own boss. 

And if you can build a successful freelancing career, you’ll have plenty of freedom. You’ll obviously have time constraints from clients, but you’ll be in control over your own schedule. And more importantly, you’ll have control over your own income. Instead of looking toward an annual performance review for a 3% raise, you can take on more clients to raise your revenue stream.

You’ll work directly with clients, which means nothing will ever get lost in translation between an account services person and you. If there’s any confusion or lack of clarity, you can clear it up yourself, rather than emailing a third party who will then contact the client and get back to you with info that may or may not help. 

But this is a dual-edged sword. If the client is not happy (and some people never are, regardless of what you deliver), there’s no buffer between you. You could be subject to tirades without warning. And if you want to keep the client (which isn’t always the best idea), you may have to grin and bear it. 

But if you can put up with the occasional painful client (or even better, don’t mind getting rid of them), then a career as an SEO freelancer can be extremely rewarding. 

Here are some tips I’ve learned over the years that can help you get through that painful starting phase:

Set Up Your Business

I’ll admit, I was guilty of this when I started. I just ran my business on the side without setting up an LLC. In hindsight, this was a risk. Incorporating or setting up an LLC is quick and easy, and it protects your assets and liability. It also comes with more flexibility when it comes to paying taxes. 

Of course, this is the biggest drawback to incorporating – taxes can be a lot more complex. However, it’s well-worth it to hire a professional to prepare your taxes, as they can write off all sorts of business expenses. Use your personal car for work? That’s a write-off. Your home office? Also a write-off. 

A good accountant will practically pay for themselves when it comes to finding clever ways to save you money. 

Perform SEO for Yourself First

There’s an adage that says, “never trust a skinny chef.” You could apply a similar statement to SEO, “never trust an SEO professional who doesn’t have a solid  online presence.”

It’s going to be a lot harder for you to sell your expertise if you don’t have a well-established digital footprint. Make sure your social media profiles are up to date, include your important keywords (e.g., “SEO expert”) and convey that you’re accepting new clients. Those pictures of you taking shots at a party in college? It’s probably time to delete those. 

If you have a website, make sure that you’ve put in the work to ensure you rank highly, especially in your local market as that’s where the majority of your clients will likely come from. 

Know What to Charge

This is a tricky one for lots of new freelancers; how much should you charge? A lot of that is going to depend on the scale of work, the time you’re dedicating and other factors like your local market. 

Generally, there are two ways to bill: by project or by hour. I’ve used both, but generally speaking, project-based is safer as you and the client agree to an amount. Hourly can quickly spiral beyond a client’s expectations. Find out what others in your area and skill-level are charging and price your services similarly. 

Don’t be afraid to raise your prices over time and beware of underpricing yourself, which can actually drive business away. Finally, under no circumstances should you ever work for free. I don’t care how much exposure they promise you. Your work is valuable, and you shouldn’t give it away for nothing. Did you get that? DON’T WORK FOR FREE. EVER.

Find Your Process

Over the years, I’ve worked at jobs of all types, from working at an agency to an in-house SEO and there’s one thing I’ve noticed about each and every one: there’s a rhythm to the work, and the sooner you find it, the better you’ll perform. SEO freelancing is no different. 

Establish your processes, from client prospecting to workflows to invoicing. Once you find what works for you, stick with it. 

And do you know what the best way to streamline the work itself is? With Evisio, of course. Designed for busy people just like you, it takes the guesswork out of SEO, automatically scanning any website for SEO weaknesses and opportunities, then providing you with reports and step-by-step guidance for fixing these issues. Practically a cheat code for SEO, it will save you lots of time and headaches.

But don’t just take my word for it. See it for yourself. Contact me today, so we can set you up with a free trial.

Image source: Photo by Farzad on Unsplash

If you’re looking for SEO project management software to better manage your workflow, clients, and business – evisio.co is your solution. Try evisio.co for free here!

The post What’s it Like Being an SEO Freelancer? appeared first on Evisio.