The Art of SEO - How It Can Keep Your Marketing Alive

As someone who did not grow up doing SEO in my first marketing years, that word always made me shrug a bit as I did not understand that realm and was afraid to touch it. It felt overwhelming and too technical & complicated to handle in the capacity of things I was doing, or simply not in my scope. But now, SEO has become one of my best friends and my go-to long term strategy for increasing not only our brand awareness, and thought leadership but also our performance-based marketing efforts.

Let's kick it off with an image and some stats:

*Blox last 12 months SEO graph for strategic keywords

Some Stats:

• Over 20 strategic KWs ranked on Google's front page
• 4 #1 ranked KWs
• 4 #2 ranked KWs
• Overall 13 KWs are ranked in the top 5 search results
• In places that Blox is not ranked #1 there is at least one article mentioning Blox in the search results above it
• 10-20% Organic traffic growth MoM

Yes, there are a lot more things to improve on our website but we are focused on the things that drive in the traffic, ranking for strategic KWs and have the ability to create an organic stream of relevant leads.

Part of the strategy that made this come true. (I decided to bring in a one-man-show rather than going for an agency. I didn't want to be another client on someone's board, I was looking for someone I could call a team member and build his connection with the company, the product and be a substantial part of his portfolio).

SEO is an art, make sure you choose the right artist(s)

SEO is not something to take lightly (especially for B2B companies) and should be tackled with a designated SEO specialist. There is a big technical aspect to it that requires a person who can dive into the bits and bytes of your operation and find the big chunks of what you are doing wrong, such as schema implementation, metadata and more, but more importantly, he can spot those little things that might be overlooked by other professionals. FINDING THE RIGHT PERSON IS KEY!

One major tip I can give is that once you choose the right SEO person to work with you (after you saw his proven track record and got recommendations), is simply trust him. Since SEO is a long term investment, you will see how fruitful it is only after of few months.

Your SEO guy needs time to prove that what he is doing is right, and he needs to feel that you have his back during that hard-to-show-results time span. It does not mean you don't ask or challenge your specialist with dumb/tough Search Console and SEMRush questions so you'll understand what's going on, and what to expect next and the timeline for it to happen.

It's not once that my CEO asked me what's going on with our SEO and I didn't have a lot of progress to show but had to convince him that what we are doing is the right thing for our long term vision. (Yes, there are also quick wins we can show throughout the process, but they are mostly timely and don't have the effect that your CEO might expect).

You know your business/product/company best

No matter how good your SEO guy is, he will never know your business /product/industry/competitors as good as you do. Make sure you are the one leading the entire strategy of the KW research, link building, content creation, QA, spotting competitors for different queries, etc. Make sure you sit with him/her regularly and teach them about your business, industry, funnels, frequent changes in the product and goals. Understand the logic behind your specialist's work and insert your insights as you go along for maximum efficiency.

It was difficult for me, in the beginning, to lead this activity as I was not sure if what I was doing was the right thing, or if I set my priorities straight, (regardless the amount of reading material I jugged down) but as time passed, I let logic and data to guide me through the turmoil of doubt, and I understood what to tackle first and how, and with the right budget. Luckily I also had a professional to help me nurture that confidence.

We talk almost on a daily basis (and if not with me directly then with someone from my team) trying to figure out our progress, changes and where to go next, and how we can leverage different assets to our advantage and to improve.

Everyone can help your SEO be better

(almost) Every team member of the company can help your SEO strategy, planning, and execution. It can be done in the form of actively helping you understand search queries and brainstorming KW ideas, or their connections to relevant people that can help out. It can also come from the developers in your company understanding how to leverage the application and its internal pages to help your SEO even more. Your internal work-place network is huuuuge and you should take advantage of it in a smart way to help you refine your strategy. (and that goes for almost every aspect of the business)

I had team members connecting me with publishers and journalists that were happy to write about us, our solution and add Blox links. Some got me connected to relevant people I could interview and ask about their preferences/pain points that were relevant for our search queries, and I also had the chance to dig deep with our employees about which search terms they would be looking for when searching our solution online. You would be amazed by the different answers you'll get and how much this can help refine your strategy and plan ahead. Whether it's those bug KWs you're trying to rank for or longtail phrases that give you high-quality leads.

Link Building Still Works (if you do it right)

At first, I was a bit skeptical about how link building can really improve our visibility. I trusted and preferred in-house content writing, and I was afraid that the outsourced quality will eventually hurt us. I was also questioning the strategy I was presented in the beginning since it didn't make sense and it took a while for me to see the results. Again, and I could not stress this more, SEO is a long term vision and strategy, and you need to be patient with your vendors, just make sure you choose the right ones and let them do the heavy lifting for you. Since my internal team couldn't scale that fast enough we decided to trust the process which turned out to be a great success.

As an example, I initially questioned why the KWs weren't exactly what we wanted to rank for. Some of the anchored links were a bit off the mark, and only after a few explanations later from our service providers, and with the support of my SEO specialist, I understood the methodology and how things should be built for maximum effect. Regarding the quality of the links/websites and content, I had to learn it myself, understanding metrics like DA (Domain Authority), TA (Topical Authority) and a few more technical specs that I review for sites we are linked in, and reviewing the quality of content provided by the publishers.

To Conclude

I fell in love with SEO and its effect on our business and the team's KPIs. I think it's crucial for B2B companies, and not only to create brand awareness & thought leadership, but also as a key factor in your performance marketing and incoming leads/sales/etc.

If you are limited in terms of budget, make sure you plan your strategy from the get-go with a specialist that can walk you through the initial storm. Only that will save you loads of $ moving forward, not to mention time and error.

I could not thank you guys enough:

Pasha Kagan

Orian Tal / Market Across / Inbound Junction

I'm sure that SEO people that will read this article will probably have a lot to say and shed more light on the topic. So please do, there's always more room to grow and learn:)