Online marketing 101: SEO

Digital marketing plays an essential part in marketing nowadays. The power of social media has shown its great influence.

For a digital marketer, you should acquire knowledge and skills including

• SEO

• Social Media

• Data Analysis

• Coding

• Email marketing...

Let's take a look at SEO first.

SEO

According to the SEO Guide 2019 released by backlinko.com, the following knowledge of SEO should be acquired at least.  

• Google RankBrain algorithm

  RankBrain is a machine learning system that helps Google sort the search results. Dwell Time and Click Through Rate are the major factors that Google RankBrain focuses on. The former is how long someone spends on your page, while the latter is the percentage of people that click on your result.

  Important figures: 3'10'' (the average Dwell Time for a top 10 Google result by GetStat)

• Featured Snippets

  It is all about keywords. Featured snippets, aka answer boxes, are selected search results that are based on Google organic results, aiming at getting more brand exposure in the search results.

  

   Important figures:  40-60(the word count of the most Featured Snippet by SEMrush)；Use H2/H3 subheaders for every title on your list.

• CTR

  CTR is clickthrough rate used to measure how the performance of your keywords and ads is. CTR = clicks ÷ impressions.

   The average clickthrough rate in Google AdWords in the United States between August 2017 and January 2018 by industry is shown below ( data from Statista).

   You cannot miss PPC when you talk about CTR. PPC is pay-per-click which means advertisers pay for each click on their ads. Digital marketers should stop thinking that CTR and PPC as a battle. The two should be used for SEO at the same time. 

   Important figures:  40-60 (the  word count of the most Featured Snippet by SEMrush)；Use  H2/H3 subheaders for every  title on your list.

• Contents

   Content is still the king, and comprehensive and in-depth content wins. Then here comes the question:  How to write comprehensive and in-depth contents. According to the research by Backlinko, a longer and authoritative content with the LSI keywords gain shares and links over time.

   Important figures:  2,000 (words at least to be considered as in-depth)

• Mobile First

  Responsive design is recommended by Google to use for your site. So visitors can check all the contents on your website on their mobile phones without any possible contents that might be blocked.

  
  

   Important figures:  60% ( of Google searches are from mobile devices)

• Video

  According to Cisco, online video will make up to 80% of all online traffic by 2021. YouTube is already the world's 2nd largest search engine. If you aren't creating any video content, you are missing out.55% of Google search results contain at least one video. Therefore, you will have a bigger market when you publish videos. Here is an example.

• Voice Search

   With AI is in the trend, is voice search the next big thing in digital marketing? According to Backlinko, FAQ pages are great for voice search SEO. What you can do to optimize your voice search chance is to，

   First, rank high in Google search results; then, optimize your featured snippet; and thirdly, add a question in your content. 

   Simple like that and wait for more researches on voice search, and I will come back to it later.

Forum and Resources

Warrior Forum is a forum where you will meet a lot of internet marketers who share the same interests and experience. It is the forum which I find active and helpful. If you are looking for more resources, the first reference would be the perfect link to click.

Reference

1. https://medium.com/@shyamantab/how-to-learn-digital-marketing-for-free-2018-updated-guide-d5970d4cbd98

2. https://backlinko.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/backlinko-seo-this-year-guide.pdf

3. https://valveandmeter.com/pay-per-click-statistics/

4. https://www.statista.com/statistics/568217/google-adwords-ctr/