Introduction

Wondering how to get more backlinks? Experts say it’s important for SEO, but is it really? Despite constant search engine algorithm updates, the answer is still … yes. And since big search engines – such as Google – frown on “link building” strategies, we like to focus on link earning. What’s the difference? 

TL;DR: Earning backlinks is still essential for SEO, but outdated link-building tactics can hurt more than help. Instead, focus on link earning by creating value and building relationships. Start by analyzing your competitors’ backlinks to find high-authority opportunities. Then, earn links by contributing to blogs and podcasts or by featuring influencers in your content — and letting them know. As a bonus, become a source for journalists through platforms like HARO. Link earning takes time, but the long-term SEO benefits are worth the investment.

Link building vs link earning

Link building is typically associated with shady practices. Examples include working with so-called experts to include your website in directories or similar strategies designed to game the system and get ranked higher. Link earning focuses on creating quality content that earns backlinks from high-authority websites. 

Not sure where to start? No worries! We’re here to share our three favorite link earning strategies to help you stay on the good side of Google. 

Start by spying on competitors 

A great place to start is to uncover how your biggest competitors go about earning links. The Moz backlink checker is a great option for pulling backlinks. Or you can use the free version of the ahrefs.com tool. 

Simply plug in a competitor’s website and see what comes back. For example, if you type our website into the ahrefs tool, you can see our top backlinks and their domain rating (DR). The DR gives you a quick backlinks quality check (the higher the DR rating, the higher the link quality). 

Here are a few tips for getting started: 

• Organize your list and attack the best opportunities first. Focus on backlinks quality. List your competitors’ highest-quality backlinks so you can focus on those opportunities first. 
• Review links from domain names ending in .edu and .gov. These sites have high credibility with search engines. Evaluate the competitor content earning these types of links. What types of content are they creating? Do any opportunities exist for your brand? 
• Review the most linked-to content. Evaluate the competitor’s content that is being linked to the most. What makes the content “link-worthy”? Is it content that you can develop? 
• Search for pages that have the word “links” or “resource” in the URL. These pages often list resources, and if your site isn’t listed, it’s a great opportunity to pitch inclusion. And here’s a pro tip: Consider creating a resource section on your website. Link to relevant resources that have a high domain rating, and then reach out and let them know what you’ve done. When you do this, share a resource on your website that might fit nicely on their resources page. 

Pitch blogs and podcasts 

Landing niche-relevant backlinks is important to improve SEO. Improve your chances of link earning by pitching related blogs and podcasts. When you write a guest post or appear as a podcast guest, you typically get a backlink to your website. 

Here’s how to do it:

1. Research trending content. Blogs and podcasts with high domain authority get many pitches. As a result, you’ll need to stand out. A smart way to do this is to research what already works well for a company. You can use a tool like BuzzSumo (they have a free version) and enter the company’s URL. It will show you the content with the highest social media engagement. On a side note, it also shows who shared the content, which you can keep track of for future use (influencer marketing, anyone?). 
   
   
2. Create your angle. Did you uncover a company’s most successful content? Great! Use this information to pitch a new angle on a high-performing topic. For example, you might learn that a topic related to AI performed well, so you pitch your SME as a podcast guest, discussing how companies use AI in email campaigns to increase response rates by 20%.  
   
   
3. Write your pitch. Your pitch should be short and straightforward. Consider including the working headline of the guest post or podcast episode in your email subject line. Then, include the following:
   
   
   • A short sentence about what you love about the blog or podcast. Make it complimentary, but be authentic and honest. 
   • An intro to the topic you’d like to pitch and why you think it works well for their audience. 
   • The working headline and a 3-4-sentence summary. 
   • A CTA that asks the reader to reach out if they’d like to discuss the idea more. 

If you don’t hear back, follow up in a week. Ask for a response by a specific date; otherwise, explain that you’ll assume they aren’t interested, and you’ll send them future pitches. 

Feature influencers in your content 

Are you overwhelmed by sending pitches? No worries, there’s another link earning strategy that is a little easier and can help you grab some quick wins: Feature influencers in your content. 

For example, let’s say that you’re a software company and your target market is B2B content marketers. What publications do they read? Which influencers do they follow? After a little research, you learn that many read MarketingProfs, and Ann Handley is the company’s Chief Content Officer and an influencer. She also wrote a book. 

So you write a blog post titled “7 Lessons from Ann Handley’s ‘Everybody Writes’ That Grew Our Email Subscribers by 30%.” 

But you don’t stop there. Nope. You reach out to Ann (perhaps on LinkedIn) and tell her you were so inspired by her book that you wrote a post about it. 

Now, I’ll stop here because there is an important caveat with this strategy. You must be authentic. If you don’t love an influencer’s work, pick a different one. We used this example because we happen to love Ann’s work! 

With any luck, the influencer will share the link. This strategy lets you double dip because you can also share the post on social media, tagging MarketingProfs in hope that they, too, will share the content. 

And here’s one more idea: Check whether the influencer has a resources page. If they do, and you feel your content is worth inclusion, pitch it. 

Bonus tip: Become a source for journalists

Journalists and writers create a continuous stream of content, and they need sources to bring that content to life. As a result, they’ll put out a call on Help a Reporter Out requesting a specific type of subject-matter expert. 

You can respond to those requests, putting your SME forward to be interviewed for that publication. And when they are interviewed, you will typically get a backlink. Also, if your audience is B2B, you can check out Help a B2B Writer. Calls for SMEs come from writers working on B2B stories that need sources. 

Remember, before responding to a request, check the DA of the publication to ensure that it aligns with your link earning goals.

Summary: Link earning is a long game 

Link earning isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it task. It’s a continuous and ongoing process. But if you’re deliberate and consistent, then over time, your SEO rankings should improve, and you’ll receive more website traffic and greater results. 

Do you have questions about SEO? If so, we’ve got you covered with our SEO FAQ resource, which takes a deep dive into the most common and confusing aspects of SEO. 

Easy wins. Everybody wants them, right? Especially when it’s your job to attract more organic traffic through search engines and you’re working to improve search engine optimization (SEO). The challenge is that algorithms are a moving goalpost – and hey, let’s not sugarcoat it: SEO is hard. These SEO basics are essential knowledge on your path to better rankings, increased visibility in search results and more traffic.

Just when you think you have it all figured out, the algorithm does an inconvenient reshuffle. Google comes out with the latest Google algorithm update.

And yet, even with this difficulty, you can still target some easier areas of SEO. We’ve highlighted basic SEO tips to help get on the right side of Google and other search engines. 

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a strategy focused on attracting more visitors to your website. More traffic helps you support your audience on their buyers’ journeys, whether that’s providing blog content, downloading an eBook, signing up for your email list, scheduling a product demo, or taking some other action. 

Search Engine Optimization might include keyword optimizing your content, building more links to your website pages, and handling more technical areas (like making sure your website doesn’t load at a snail’s pace). Make sense? Excellent.

Let’s dive into the other SEO basics you can get started with today! 

Pay close attention to your Meta Titles

When you search for things online, the first thing you’ll see in the results are meta titles. Mastering this element is not only basic SEO, it’s an essential component of mastering SEO for beginners. In the example below, the page meta title is “Act-On: Marketing Automation Software”

The meta title is usually the first thing people see when searching for things online. It’s important for search visibility but also for capturing attention in search results. When a user searches for a keyword, you want to show up in the search engine results and do so with a title that’s so enticing they can’t help but click it. 

Here are a few things to remember when it comes to meta titles: 

• Give each page a unique meta title to avoid multiple pages competing for the same keywords. 
• Use your most important keyword in the title, and try to use it early, but do so naturally. 
• Make sure you do a good job describing what the page is about, so the reader feels like “Yes, this is exactly what I’m looking for.”
• Ensure your meta title is the right length to avoid it getting cut off. Aim for less then 60 characters. Use a character length checker when needed.

And while we’re on the topic of how you appear in search results, we can’t talk about meta titles without discussing meta descriptions (those little blurbs that appear under your meta title). And that’s our second tip for improving your rankings. 

Write engaging Meta Descriptions 

If you do a great job writing the meta title, readers will likely skim your meta description and then, hopefully, click your link. That’s why a strong meta title and meta description are essential for your basic SEO knowledge.

We love this meta description example from the Content Marketing Institute:

Meta Title: Don’t Make SEO the Reason for Your Content Marketing

Meta Description: SEO isn’t the best grounding for a new content marketing program. Here’s what you should think about instead.

Consider using curiosity in your meta description, and of course, remember to include your most important keyword in your meta title and meta description to improve SEO performance. Try to keep the length of your meta descriptions to 155 characters or less to avoid them getting cut off.

Avoid keyword stuffing

It’s tempting to stuff pages full of keywords. After all, if one keyword is good, then a bunch must be great, right? Not necessarily. 

What is keyword stuffing? It’s the overuse and misuse of keywords in your content. Before Google cracked down, many marketers crammed far too many keywords into their pages, used them unnaturally, and sometimes just flat-out listed them (separating them with a simple comma). Sometimes they even used tricky tactics, like putting keywords in the same color as the background to hide them! And that didn’t go over well with Google. 

According to Google, keyword stuffing is when you load a page with keywords in order to manipulate a website’s rankings. Instead, Google wants you to provide useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context. So, yes, pick great keywords but prioritize quality and quantity. 

Link to high-traffic web pages

Do you have rock star web pages? You know, the ones pulling in far more traffic than the rest? We’ll let you in on a little secret. This blog on effective email subject lines is one of our top performers. But here’s the point: You want to squeeze these pages for all they’re worth. Here’s how: 

1. Understand which pages bring you the most traffic. We love using Google Analytics to find this data. 
2. Link from your top performing pages to your brand-new content. 

When you do this, it helps more people find your new content and is a positive signal to Google for new content rankings. 

And one more thing you should know as part of your SEO basics crash course. If you’re feeling lost about the performance of your existing pages, you can use tools like our SEO audit tool. It generates real-time reports that detail each page’s SEO performance, along with recommendations on how to improve it. 

Create pillar pages 

If you aren’t using pillar pages, consider them in your B2B SEO strategy. Pillar pages make it easier for search engines to crawl your content while signaling that you’re an expert in your niche. Here are a few tips for getting started with pillar pages: 

1. Define a general topic. For example, we’d look for a topic related to marketing automation since that’s what we do at Act-On. 
2. Plug a topic-related keyword into a research tool. We use SEMrush, but other options exist, such as Moz, Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, and Google Keyword Planner. If we type “marketing automation” into a keyword tool, we can find related keywords and begin grouping them. 
3. Create “content clusters.” Staying with the marketing automation example, we may notice keyword groupings around marketing automation, email marketing automation, and lead nurturing. As a result, we could create the following pillar pages: marketing automation best practices guide, email marketing automation strategies for success, and lead nurturing and conversion with marketing automation. 
4. Create related optimized content for each pillar page. Create a pillar page (it’s kind of like a big, long landing page), and then link out to other related pages in the content cluster. 

As you evaluate potential keywords, don’t forget to look for lower funnel keywords. For example, “how to set up a marketing automation demo” or “how to buy a marketing automation tool” are phrases that signal the searcher is close to purchase, resulting in higher-quality website traffic. 

Use ALT tags for images

ALT tags let you add a text description to every page image. They’re an often-overlooked part of SEO basics, but an easy way to optimize your pages. Additionally, they’re important for content accessibility, as they tell users who are visually impaired details about your images via screen reading tools. 

Most content management systems make it very easy to add ALT tags. Sprinkle your keywords in as you write them, but as always, write ALT tags for human readers, not for search engines.

ALT tags are also important for social sharing. A few social platforms, like Pinterest, will use the ALT tag copy as the default description. So make sure your ALT tags make sense in case they are displayed to readers on social media.

Use keywords in the file names

Using keywords as file names is simple and may support better rankings. It helps readers understand what’s in the document – and what’s good for the readers is also good for SEO. 

Just don’t go wild and use multiple keywords in your file names. Ideally, use one keyword, and at the most, two. Here are a couple of examples: 

Good filename: crm-study-ebook.pdf

Bad, keyword-stuffed filename: CRMManagement_BuyCRM_CRMServices_Ebook

Do this well, and you’ll give search engines a little more info about what your content is about, and every little bit helps. You should also use all lower letters and separate the words using dashes.

Don’t forget social media 

Social media might not be an official SEO ranking factor, yet it appears to have an impact, so you should include it in your understanding of SEO basics.

SEMrush recently noted that Google appears to use online brand mentions to influence what terms you rank for. 

As you share content on social media and your audience shares it, traffic to your site improves – and you might even score some backlinks. The number of backlinks, and the quality of those links, also impact SEO performance (more on that shortly). 

So, consider adding social sharing buttons to your content. Share your content via social media. And encourage others to share it, whether it’s your employees, subject-matter experts who you interview, or business partners who work in the same space. 

Build links very carefully

Nobody likes a bad reputation. And shady link-building practices risk earning a bad rap with search engines. 

Smart marketers are cautious about link-building. Google appears to frown on most “link-building tactics.” So avoid any experts who want to submit your site to 500 directory listings or want to “spin” one of your articles and submit it to a bunch of article directories. 

Here are some safe ways to build links: 

• Create a piece of amazing and high-value content. 
• Do unique research and publish it as a report.
• Publish unique, insightful articles on high-authority sites.
• Create the type of traditional business listings expected on sites such as Yelp, your local chamber of commerce, and trade organizations.

And remember, when in doubt, don’t do it. 

Format your content so it’s easy to read

Lastly, if you remember any of these SEO basics, remember to make your content friendly for human readers. Because when humans love your content, so will search engines. Here are a few tips for making your content easy to read:  

• Write short paragraphs.
• Punctuate those short paragraphs with a one-sentence paragraph every so often.
• Use subheaders.
• Use bullet points. See a string of commas in a sentence? That’s often an opportunity for a bullet list.
• Add images every 350 words or so.
• Add quotes and call-outs.

And while there’s no such thing as “easy SEO,” you can use some of these easier tactics to get on the path to improved rankings. Sure, you’ll still need to stay on top of the latest and greatest algorithm shuffles. It’s the nature of SEO, right? But when you write content that is truly valuable to your audience, the impacts are timeless. As a result, the content will continue supporting improved traffic, generate more leads, and get the results you need. 

Want to go beyond SEO Basics?

Yeah, we get it; there’s so much to know! We’ve compiled the most common SEO questions and provided our expert answers.

Hitting the #1 position in search results is every SEO marketer’s dream and low funnel keywords hold the key. With higher traffic and more page views, it’s only reasonable to expect a bump in conversions and sales. However, when that doesn’t happen, it leaves you asking: What went wrong? The answer is simple … not all traffic is good traffic.

We’ll give you an example. 

We have a Yahoo mail blog that has scored high-traffic keywords for almost a decade. At one point, we were in the top five search results for the term “Yahoo mail.” But here’s the question. What is the search intent of those visitors? It’s murky, isn’t it? 

One thing is for sure, though: search intent isn’t aligned with marketing automation, which is what we do here at Act-On. The challenge is that fragmented intent doesn’t deliver targeted traffic. 

And that brings us to strategically aligning keywords with the marketing funnel and, more specifically, low funnel keywords. 

Introduction to Keyword Funnels & Keyword Research

As you probably know, there are three stages of the buyer’s journey: awareness, consideration, and decision. When creating content, you want to align your content with specific stages in the customer journey and strategically choose keywords based on that. 

We’d argue that when you can sprinkle in solid bottom funnel keywords, you’ll get more focused and profitable traffic. Here’s a quick breakdown of the stages to better understand the value of lower funnel keywords. 

Top Funnel Keywords: Awareness

Let’s kick things off with an example. A B2B marketer is struggling to do more with less. At this stage, the marketer is learning, researching, and becoming aware of potential solutions. An example of top funnel keywords she might search include “How to improve marketing productivity” or “How to scale a marketing department.” 

Middle Funnel Keywords: Consideration 

Staying with the same example, the marketer decides she is interested in marketing automation. She narrows potential options by visiting provider websites, reading third-party reviews, talking with peers, and possibly attending trade shows to check out solutions in person. At the middle funnel keywords stage, she might search for “Top marketing automation solutions.” 

Lower Funnel Keywords: Decision

The buyer has finally reached the last stage in her journey. She has thoroughly researched solutions and is close to making a decision. At this point, she might search for lower funnel keywords such as “How to buy a marketing automation solution” or “What to look for in a marketing automation demo.” 

SEO Funnel Explained

Certainly, keywords at all stages of the buying cycle are important — from top funnel keywords to lower funnel keywords. But oftentimes marketers use SEO for the top and middle of the funnel, but not as much for the bottom of the funnel. And the reason we love terms at the bottom of the funnel is that prospects are very close to purchasing. With B2B sales cycles getting longer, this is a critical point. 

So, where do you start? 

First, select a “seed word.” This word is a general term that describes your topic. For the above example, we might select “marketing automation.”  

Type the term into your SEO research tool (we use SEMRush, but there are plenty of others — Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, and more). Look for long-tail keywords, which are expanded and targeted phrases. For example, “marketing automation” is a seed word, but “how to purchase marketing automation tools” is a long-tail keyword. 

In addition to choosing long-tail keywords, you’ll also want your SEO funnel to include words that signal intent to purchase. A few examples: 

• Buy
• Book
• Test 
• Hire 

Here is how those words might be used in a long-tail keyword: 

• How to buy marketing automation tools
• How to book a marketing automation demo
• How to test marketing automation software
• The best way to hire a marketing automation expert 

You get the point. But the key thing to remember is that with these keywords, the audience is signaling they’re very close to purchase. 

Planning & Publishing your Content 

When planning your content, decide where the content fits into the customer journey. Does an asset support awareness, consideration, or decision? Once you do this, you can align the content with the right keywords. 

A few bottom-of-the-funnel content examples:

• White papers
• Comparison/spec sheets
• Webinars
• Demos and free trials 

For example, let’s say you create a webinar featuring industry experts giving their insights about what to look for in a marketing automation demo. The content includes insider expertise, current research, and more. Screams bottom of the funnel, right? 

After the webinar, you repurpose the content into a blog post featuring highlights from the event, and you use those bottom funnel keywords (e.g., “How to buy a marketing automation platform”).

It’s also worth mentioning that your bottom-of-the-funnel content should always have a strategic CTA. What do you want your audience to do? Some options for bottom-of-the-funnel CTAs include scheduling a demo or signing up for a free trial. Whatever action you choose, make sure it moves the prospect closer to the purchase finish line. 

Landing More Targeted Traffic

If your marketing goals include increasing website traffic and conversions, integrating lower funnel keywords into your content is a powerful strategy. Sure, you might pass on keywords that have the potential to bring 5,000+ visitors to your site monthly. But are they the right visitors? If not, a keyword that brings 300 targeted, bottom funnel visitors is way more valuable, right?

And we realize that, yes, SEO can be confusing. Consider starting small, experimenting, measuring results, and pivoting if needed. You can also leverage resources like Act-On’s SEO audit tool to more effectively optimize content and improve search engine rankings. And if you need a little extra SEO guidance, check out our comprehensive guide, which helps untangle the most common marketing questions around SEO to get you on the right track to meeting your goals.

For most companies, ensuring their website is safe and secure is a key component of meeting this expectation. Consumers want to know that basic activities such as filling out a form or downloading an asset won’t compromise their personal information. And companies need to ensure that they are using the right tools and fulfilling all the requirements necessary to make this happen. 

At the top of that list of requirements is obtaining an SSL certificate for your website. This certification is a must for organizations that want to ensure the safe transfer of information. 

Chances are you want to know a bit more about SSL certificates before you run off to get one for your website. Today, we’re going to demystify the world of SSL certificates by walking you through why you need one for your website, how to get it, and how the right tools can ensure that you’re on top of the renewal process. 

What Is An SSL Certificate and Why Does Your Company Need It? 

An SSL certificate is designed to verify the identity of a website owner and ensure that all confidential information and data transferred between the user and website owner is encrypted so that it remains private and secure. In doing so, an SSL certificate helps give both companies and their customers peace of mind that all the necessary actions to prevent hackers and scammers from accessing and stealing sensitive information are being taken.

Some of the information that SSL certificates help to protect include: 

• Credit card and bank details
• Name, address, phone number, and social security number
• Medical documents
• Legal documents

In a world where a large percentage of transactions are performed online, SSL certification is a must-have for any organization, regardless of their industry. Even simple (but essential) consumer actions like filling out a form to download an asset can make a website visitor afraid that their data will be misused. Reassuring your customers that their information is secure and will only be used for the purpose you’ve both agreed to will help your organization establish credibility and trust. 

What Are the Requirements for an SSL Certificate and How Do You Obtain One? 

Organizations and website owners can purchase SSL certificates through Certification Authorities (CAs). Organizations can usually purchase these directly from their web host for an additional fee, but they have to remember to renew them on a regular basis.

Currently, there are three different types of certificates — all of which involve their own application process: 

• Domain validated: This type of certificate is the most simple and is only intended to verify the owner of the website. Pretty much anybody with an email can obtain this type of certification, making it a popular choice among scammers and cybercriminals (and much less trustworthy). 
• Organizationally validated: These certificates are designed for websites that deal with transactions that pose a lower level of risk. To obtain this type of certificate, organizations must verify the name of their organization, location, and domain. 
• Extended validation: This certificate offers the highest level of security and is the best choice for organizations handling highly-sensitive information and data. Businesses that wish to obtain this certification must undergo a thorough review process. 

Ultimately, the SSL certificate you choose will depend on the needs of your organization and the level of trust you wish to instill among your audience. 

How Does Act-On Help Make SSL Certification Easy? 

Unfortunately, obtaining an SSL certificate can be time-consuming and usually isn’t on most marketers’ radar. Thankfully, Act-On makes SSL Certification easier than ever. All Act-On customers (with the exception of those on Oregon AWS HA Proxy) can take advantage of our automatic SSL certification process, saving them the time and cost of obtaining a new certification.

The best part is that you don’t have to jump through hoops to implement this service. Our Professional Services team will work with you to collect key information and make sure your SSL certificate is up and running. The certificates are good for 90 days and automatically renew every 60 days — freeing you of this tedious manual task while ensuring that your organization’s website certification is always up to date. 

Act-On Can Help You Improve Website Traffic, Build Credibility, and So Much More!

Ensuring your website is safe and secure is just one component of an effective business strategy. Act-On makes it easy for your team to comply with security requirements so that you can focus your time and efforts on developing and launching marketing efforts that pack a punch and have an impact on your bottom line. 

If you’d like to learn more about Act-On’s SSL Certification process and how we can help you improve website traffic, build credibility, and drive conversions, please schedule a demo with one of our marketing automation experts.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your site’s organic (free, non-paid) visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs) to increase awareness, traffic, time on site, and conversions. The name is a bit misleading, however, as search engines are formulated to reflect what, when, how, why, and where users search online to find answers and solutions to their needs, interests, and pain points. 

Therefore, SEO includes understanding user intent and how to get helpful, relevant content in front of those users in a way that is easy for them to access. But getting to that point requires a fundamental understanding of where you currently stand — which is why, today, we’re going to discuss how to perform an on-site SEO audit in 4 easy steps. 

But first…

Why is an On-Site SEO Audit Important?

SEO can get extremely complicated, as there are literally hundreds of variables at play, but nailing down the fundamentals can help you drastically improve the way that Google and other search engines crawl your site, interpret your content, and rank your pages.

From a 30,000 foot perspective, these variables include (but are certainly not limited to):

Technical SEO

• Page speed
• Crawl errors
• Mobile responsivity
• Secure URLs (HTTPS)
• Duplicate Meta Tags
• Broken links

On-Page SEO

• URL length
• Keyword placement in title and header tags
• Keyword placement within the first paragraph
• Image alt-tags
• Tag modifiers (long-tail keywords)
• Keyword variance
• External and internal links

Content SEO

• Content placement and promotion
• Content layout and structure
• Mix of content types
  • Short-form/long-form
  • Thought leadership/promotional
  • Blogs, webpages, eBooks, infographics, success stories, video, podcasts
  • Evergreen/timely
• Schema markup
• Link-building

There’s so much more to take into account, but focusing on the elements above is a great place to start when conducting an on-site SEO audit.

At this point, a lot of you might already be feeling a little overwhelmed and wondering whether performing an SEO audit is even worth it. 

It definitely is, and here’s why: 

• 67% of all clicks go to the first five organic results on a SERP, so ranking above the fold is essential to capturing the bulk of the traffic you’re trying to rank for.
• 70% of marketers say SEO is more effective at driving sales than PPC (2), which should be music to your ears if you’re a modern marketer who would rather not pay for leads.
• That said, PPC can (and should) inform your SEO efforts, as 86% of marketers use data from their PPC campaigns to support their SEO strategy (3).
• Page speed is a vital factor for Google rankings even for the most well-known brands, as evidenced by the BBC losing 10% of users for each additional second their site took to load (4).
• 72% of consumers who perform a local search (e.g., “doughnuts near me”) visited a store within five miles of their location.

These numbers underscore the importance of how good SEO helps create great user experiences and customer journeys. When potential consumers can find what they need when they need it and are nurtured through the sales cycle with helpful, non-promotional content, they’re more likely to visit these sites and pages again and again, which increases reputation and ranking (not to mention content marketing ROI). 

Now that we’ve established the value of SEO, let’s take a look at how to establish a working baseline by learning how to perform an on-site SEO audit in 4 easy steps!

*Note, you should perform an SEO audit every 6-12 months to gauge your progress, pitfalls, and opportunities.

Crawl Your Website

The first step in any on site audit is to crawl your website using one of these SEO tools:

• Ahrefs
• SEMrush
• Screaming Frog (free, but with a max crawl of 500 URLs)

All of these tools will crawl your site within a matter of minutes and provide a detailed report of critical errors, such as:

• Broken links
• Duplicate content
• Orphaned pages
• Bad images
• Poor keywords
• Title and header tagging issues
• And much more

After downloading one of the applications listed above, review the crawling criteria, enter your site’s URL, and click start! Pretty easy, right? Not only will your report detail the errors above, but it will also show you how often Google crawls your site and the pages it crawls most frequently. 

You should also manually spot-check your webpages periodically by searching for webpages, blogs, and other digital properties using the keywords you’ve designated for those pages. A good rule of thumb is to check new pages two weeks after launching, make necessary adjustments, and then review your progress again after six weeks to see if additional updates are necessary. From there, you can add these pages to your regular SEO audit cadence. 

Lastly, you need to verify that search engines are only crawling one version of your website. If not, Google and its counterparts aren’t sure which site to crawl, which means they’re not sure which site to present on SERPs. For instance, you might have competing https and non-https site versions or you might have different desktop and mobile iterations.  

Time Your Site Speed

Here’s an interesting stat for you: 

Pages that load within two seconds have an average bounce rate of 9%, while pages that take five seconds to load have a bounce rate of 38% (6).

These numbers alone should be enough to make you recognize the importance of having a website with pages that load quickly. We’ve become shockingly impatient in the digital age, so every millisecond matters when it comes to quality SEO. 

To understand where you’re currently at with site speed and how that number compares with your competitors, use Google’s PageSpeed Insights. Simply click here, enter your URL, and click “Analyze.” After just a few seconds, Google will provide a report detailing your site’s speed on both desktop and mobile. Scroll below the fold for valuable optimization opportunities and diagnostics, then team with your webmaster to make the necessary changes for maximum performance.

Here are a few suggested best practices to increase your site speed:

• Optimize your code by removing unnecessary characters, comments, formatting, etc.
• Compress your files to reduce the size of your JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.
• Eliminate render-blocking resources that require executing HTML parsing.
• Reduce multiple redirects between pages to avoid additional waiting time via the HTTP request-response cycle.
• Activate your website caching so that return visitors don’t have to wait to reload images, CSS, and JavaScript.
• Use content distribution networks to store copies of your site at multiple data centers, providing faster access to diverse users.

Check Your On-Page SEO

Once you’ve crawled your site and identified major issues, it’s time to resolve your on-page SEO challenges. The most common examples involve:

Site Hierarchy and Structure 

The overall structure of your website will impact your SERP rankings (for better or worse) because, as a navigational blueprint, it’s the defining feature of the user experience. So, it’s important that you lay out your site in such a way that makes it easy for users to find what they’re looking for and for Google to understand what to crawl and how to crawl it. This means building or updating a site using: 

• Intuitive and simple logic that allows every user to reach their destination in 3 clicks or less
• 3-7 primary navigation categories
• 5-7 secondary navigation destinations
•  HTML or CSS code
• Consistent URL structures

If your site’s structure isn’t intuitive, the user experience will suffer, which will be reflected in key metrics that impact SEO (click-through rate, bounce rate, time on page, etc.). Further, Google rewards websites with great structure by creating sitelinks on SERPs that lead to key product, blog, about, and contact pages, so a well-structured website is crucial if you want to guide your target audience through every step of the buyer journey.

Duplicate Title and Header Tags

As we’ve discussed before, repurposing content is okay — encouraged, even! Duplicating content, especially in the form of title and header tags, however, places you on extremely dangerous SEO ground. Checking for this should be part of any on site audit.

If you’re using the same tags on multiple pages, you’re giving search engines mixed messages that they’re unable to interpret, which means they’re going to crawl and rank whichever page they deemed to have better SEO. So, for example, if you’re using the same tags on a product page (high conversion value) and a blog page (less conversion value), it’s possible that the blog page might rank higher than the product page. Not good, folks. 

To fix the problem, go to the “Search Appearance” section in the Google Search Console and click “HTML Improvements.” If you have duplicate tags, they’ll show up here. Then, just hop into the backend of your site and make on-page copy adjustments as necessary. But be considerate and intentional as you do so. Title and header tags are a major SEO contributor, so make sure you’re using relevant keywords that are proven to resonate with your audience.

Or, if the page(s) with a duplicate title tag is outdated and no longer relevant, you can set up a 301 redirect to the newer, more relevant page. 

Missing Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions don’t directly impact your SERP rankings, but delivering an optimal user experience that improves key performance indicators (clicks, time on page, etc.) definitely does. And since adding expressive meta descriptions that clearly introduce the content on the page significantly improve the user experience, they likewise have the power to improve SEO. 

Therefore, every page on your website needs to have a unique and vivid meta description that: 

• Is roughly 150 characters long
• Includes a close variant of that page’s primary keyword 
• Gives an accurate preview of what the user can expect when they click on the SERP link. 

If you don’t include meta descriptions, users will be less likely to click on your link and more likely to bounce if they do because they won’t be prepared for what they’re presented with. Any way you slice it, failing to include a meta description will hurt your SEO efforts.

Primary and Secondary Keyword Placement

While not quite as important as they used to be, keywords remain the lifeblood of your SEO initiatives. As such, you need to designate a primary (or focus) keyword for each page and also determine secondary keywords to use throughout your copy, header tags, and alt-text. To help search engines decipher the main purpose of the page, you should include the primary keyword in your title tag, H1 tag, meta description, and the first body paragraph on the page. 

In the past, lazy content creators were able to sneak one past the goalie by stuffing their pages full of keywords to achieve higher site rankings. But this made for some pretty funny (i.e., terrible) copywriting and a horrible user experience, so Google updated its algorithm to not only ignore keyword stuffing but also actively penalize people who tried to use this black hat tactic.

Review and Update Link and Backlinks

The links on your site should align with your overall site structure and hierarchy, helping users navigate smoothly from page to page to learn more and explore your solutions to their needs, interests, and pain points. However, pages that are moved or deleted will result in broken links, which is one of the most common reasons for a high bounce rate — not ideal for SEO success. 

To check for broken links, head back to the Google Search Console and look for any “crawl errors” on your dashboard. You should be greeted with a full list of broken links that you can fix by either updating to a new destination or removing entirely. 

In addition, external websites that link back to your content (backlinking) can vastly improve SEO, especially if those sites already have good authority with Google. For example, a backlink from Nike is going to be far more beneficial than a backlink from your uncle’s cobbler shop in rural Delaware. 

This SEO phenomenon is known as “link juice” and actually seems to carry more weight than good and relevant keyword usage. Basically, when a page with good authority links to your page, they transfer some of the goodwill they’ve built with various search engines to that page. It’s a “Standing on the shoulders of giants” kind of thing, but they’re friendly giants who appreciate your hard work, so it’s all good.

You can use Ahrefs or SEMrush to perform backlink audits that will reveal your link profile, opportunities for more and better links, and even competitive analysis. If your analysis indicates that you’re not where you need to be with this SEO strategy, here are a few helpful tips to get more backlinks (and more link juice):

• Create and distribute useful content
• Develop content for specific audience segments
• Seek out guest posting opportunities with industry leaders
• Explore co-marketing opportunities with your industry partners
• Mention brands you admire in your content and on your social media profiles
• Quoting memorable brand leaders in your content (with proper attribution, of course)

Achieving good backlinks is easier said than done, but it’s well worth the effort if you have the time and resources to commit to executing a long-term backlinking strategy.

Act-On’s SEO Audit Tool Can Expedite the Process With More Actionable Insights

Now that you know how to perform a quick, easy, and actionable on site audit, what are you waiting for? Start improving your site’s performance today, and watch the relevant, high-intent traffic come rolling in! Better yet, before you do, reach out to one of our marketing automation experts to learn more about Act-On’s SEO Audit Tool.

Introduction

If you want your website to perform well in Google Search, there’s no better tool than Google Search Console (GSC). This free platform gives you direct insights into how your site is indexed, how people find it in search results, and what issues might be holding you back. With new features in 2025—like built-in Search Console Insights, GA4 integration, and AI-powered SEO tools—GSC has become more powerful and user-friendly than ever, helping marketers, website owners, and SEO professionals optimize their sites with confidence.

TL;DR: Google Search Console is a free tool that gives you direct insights into how your website performs in Google Search. In 2025, it includes integrated Search Console Insights with GA4, AI-powered SEO tools, detailed reports on performance, indexing, sitemaps, structured data, and alerts for security issues. By using it regularly, you can improve visibility, fix problems, and adapt quickly to algorithm updates.

What is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a free, essential tool that helps website owners, marketers, and SEO professionals monitor, maintain, and optimize their site’s presence in Google Search. It gives you direct insights into how your site is performing in search results, alerts you to issues, and provides the data you need to improve visibility and user experience.

Why Use Google Search Console?

Your website is often your most valuable digital asset, and its performance directly affects your ability to attract leads, customers, and revenue. With GSC, you can:

• See how people find your site in Google Search
• Track clicks, impressions, and ranking positions for specific queries and pages
• Submit new pages and sitemaps for faster indexing
• Fix issues that prevent Google from crawling or indexing your site
• Receive alerts about manual actions, spam, or security problems

In short: GSC acts as your direct line of communication with Google Search.

Setting Up and Verifying Your Site

To get started, log in to Google Search Console with your Google account and add your site as a “property.” You’ll need to verify ownership before accessing data. Verification methods include:

• Uploading an HTML file to your server
• Adding a meta tag to your site’s homepage
• Connecting via your domain name provider
• Using Google Analytics (GA4)
• Using Google Tag Manager

Once verified, you can grant other users access at different permission levels (read-only or full access).

Navigating the GSC Dashboard

After setup, you’ll find a navigation menu on the left-hand side. Here are the most important sections:

Performance Report

• Shows clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position
• Data can be filtered by query, page, country, device, or date range (up to 16 months)
• Helps you identify which pages and keywords drive traffic—and which need improvement

URL Inspection Tool

• Check if a specific page is indexed
• View how Googlebot sees and renders the page
• Request indexing for new or updated content

Coverage Report

• Displays which pages are indexed and which are excluded
• Highlights errors such as server issues, redirects, or “noindex” tags
• Helps you understand why certain pages aren’t appearing in search

Enhancements

• Provides insights on structured data (Rich Results), Core Web Vitals, and mobile usability
• Shows errors or warnings for schema markup, breadcrumbs, FAQs, and product data

Sitemaps

• Submit your XML sitemap to help Google discover pages
• Compare submitted vs. indexed URLs
• Investigate any sitemap errors

Security & Manual Actions

• Alerts you if your site is flagged for spam, malware, or policy violations
• Manual actions may demote or remove your site from search results until resolved

Search Console Insights

In 2025, Search Console Insights has become a built-in feature, combining GSC data with Google Analytics 4. It provides:

• At-a-glance performance dashboards for top pages and queries
• Trend tracking (rising and declining pages/keywords)
• Milestone alerts when your site reaches a new performance benchmark
• Simple breakdowns of traffic sources and user behavior

This is particularly useful for content creators and marketers who want quick, actionable insights without diving deep into technical SEO reports.

AI-Powered SEO Features

Google has also introduced AI-powered recommendations in GSC to help site owners:

• Discover keyword opportunities
• Optimize page experience
• Understand content performance patterns

These features are designed to make SEO decision-making faster and more intuitive.

Best Practices for Using Google Search Console

1. Check regularly – Monitor performance reports weekly to spot trends or sudden changes.
2. Fix errors quickly – Address coverage and enhancement issues to maintain crawlability and eligibility for rich results.
3. Track algorithm updates – Use performance data to see how your site responds to Google’s core updates.
4. Leverage Insights – Review top-performing and declining content to guide content strategy.
5. Maintain security – Act immediately on any manual actions or malware alerts.

Summary

Google Search Console has evolved into a powerful, user-friendly platform that every website owner should use. From technical diagnostics to content insights, it bridges the gap between Google’s search systems and your site. Whether you’re an SEO expert or a marketer with limited technical skills, GSC provides the tools and data you need to grow traffic, protect your site, and stay ahead of search engine changes.

The reason duplicate content is so tempting is that it seems so simple. No one will ever know, right? Wrong. The absolute most important player in the digital marketing game, Google, is already hip to what you’re trying to pull and will show no mercy.

Okay, but aren’t we shooting for brand consistency across the board, here? 

Sure, of course we are. But plagiarizing yourself (or far worse, plagiarizing others) because you don’t have the time or creativity to replicate good work with unique messaging isn’t brand consistency; it’s laziness. And in marketing, as in all things, laziness can have serious consequences. 

Brand consistency isn’t about repeating specific messaging over and over again; it’s about establishing a universal tone, voice, and perspective across your internal and external communications. Therefore, we should look at duplicate content as the proverbial hot stove: don’t touch it, and you won’t get burned. 

But what exactly is duplicate content? How can it hurt your SEO efforts? And what are some good alternatives for repurposing effective, well-written content?

Let’s find out!

What Is Duplicate Content and How Can It Damage Your SEO?

In simplest terms, duplicate content is any content that appears on more than one web page with a unique URL. If you’re saying the same thing and using the same words on multiple pages, you’re a duplicate content offender. In fact, one study showed that nearly 30% of web pages include duplicate content (1). This is problematic for several reasons.

Any content that Google deems “appreciably similar” will make it difficult for search engines to determine which page is serving up the most appropriate content when users search for those topics. Specifically, duplicate content makes it hard for search engine crawlers to understand which page they should rank higher based on query results — and, oftentimes, they’re not even sure which version (or versions) should be included in their indices. As a result, none of the pages housing this duplicate content will rank as high as they could if the content wasn’t duplicated. This can wreak havoc for your organization, your various web properties, and, of course, your potential prospects (who won’t be able to find the information they’re looking for).

Another unintended negative consequence of duplicate content is that it can damage your link equity (sometimes referred to as “link juice”) — a search engine ranking factor based on how the ranking authority of one page can potentially transfer to a separate page when the “larger” page links to the “smaller” page. When other sites want to link to your content, they have to choose which page to link to, which means you’re not getting the full benefit of referral traffic to your preferred page.

Let’s say a major trade publication knows that your manufacturing company is a pioneer in your industry and wants to link to a services page on your site that explains a complicated process in a way that is concise and easy to understand. However, about a month ago, you decided that the page was so well written, so insightful, and was driving so much traffic that you should repurpose the page to write a blog. 

On its face, this is a great idea. We strongly encourage repurposing content whenever possible.

The problem is that you didn’t take that topic and rewrite it as an evergreen article with a new and original take; you copy and pasted the entire thing and published it on your blog. Now you essentially have two of the exact same pages on your website, which not only means that Google will struggle to determine which should rank higher but also that the aforementioned trade publication might link to the blog rather than your service page. While you definitely want your blog to rank highly, your service pages will provide far more value to your bottom line (that’s what they’re designed to do, after all), which means you just squandered a golden opportunity to leverage that glorious link juice!

How Does Duplicate Content Happen?

In many instances, like the hypothetical scenario outlined above, duplicate content occurs as a result of a basic lack of knowledge around SEO best practices. However, it’s rarely intentional and can happen in a number of different ways.

• Internet Plagiarists: When people steal and repost your content on their pages, Google might not know which one to index or reward and mistakenly grant higher page rank to the imposter.  The problem is that most people never realize there’s a problem. There are literally trillions of web pages out there, so you can’t monitor them all. If you find your content verbatim on another site, however, you should reach out to the webmaster to ask them to remove the content. If they do not, you could consider legal action.
• Different Versions of the Same URL: This occurs when you have multiple pages of the same page but with different variations of your URL parameters. For instance, in addition to your standard URL for a given page, you might also have one with a unique URL slug that signifies that a certain piece of content is print-only.
• Different URL Prefixes: If you have both “www” and “non-www” prefixes or “http” and “https” for pages with otherwise identical URLs, you have a duplicate content issue on your hands.

Whether duplicate content is intentional or not is irrelevant. It causes SEO issues that directly influence your traffic, leads, and buyers, so you need to clean up these problems before they snowball into something worse. 

If you suspect you’re having issues with duplicate content, you need to assemble your web and content teams to work together to streamline URL naming conventions and parameters and also identify pages and blogs that need to be re-written.

Speaking of which, instead of continuing to duplicate your content and shoot your SEO efforts in the foot, let’s learn a few simple tricks for how to repurpose all that great content!

Easy Solutions to Your Duplicate Content Problem

Don’t worry, intrepid marketers. Just because you have piles of duplicate content on your site doesn’t mean that you can’t work together to solve the problem. Here’s how!

Create 301 Redirects to Preferred Pages

The fastest and easiest way to solve your duplicate content problem is to simply create a 301 redirect. A 301 redirect is the process of forwarding a user who clicks on a link to your preferred page. 

So, again, in our hypothetical mentioned above, rather than just deleting the blog, which will lead to a 404 error (not a great move from an SEO or user experience perspective), you can create a 301 redirect. This way, when users click on the blog, they’ll be immediately forwarded to your services page. They’ll still receive the same helpful information but on a page that is more likely to lead to further engagement. They likely will never know the difference, and everybody wins!

If only part of the page contains duplicate content, simply consolidate the original material and point your users to a single page.

Point Toward Original Content Using Rel=Canonicals

Similar to a 301 redirect, a rel=canonical is a great way to alert search engines to your preferred page, even if the content is “appreciably similar.” Essentially, using a rel=canonical classification tells the search engine that all pages with duplicate content are basically copies of the original URL and that all the link juice associated with these pages should be attributed to that original URL.

Placing a rel=canonical is a fairly simple process. All you have to do is add the attribute to the HTML of all subsidiary pages and add the URL of your preferred page. This will tell the search engines everything they need to know and, like a 301 redirect, will also pass along all link equity to the original URL.

Put Pen to Paper and Rewrite Your Content

Throughout this blog, I’ve been careful to draw a distinction between “repurposing” content and “duplicating” content. Duplicate content is reusing content verbatim, whereas repurposing content is reusing that content in new and innovative ways with fresh copy that explores the subject from a slightly different angle or perspective — or by using a slightly different voice or tone. 

Great content is great content and should be repurposed whenever possible. But your copywriters need to understand your different audiences and how they engage on your different channels (web, social, email, etc.) to achieve best results. This will require a periodic review of your buyer personas and industries and that your writing staff is able to create content for each audience using appropriate messaging for each segment.

At Act-On, we always follow the “Rule of 4,” which states that “for every piece of content, there should be four ways” to use it. For instance, if you write an eBook, you could then use that content to:

• Write a blog series supporting each section of the eBook and designate your primary call-to-action (CTA) to direct to the eBook landing page
• Promote the eBook on all social media platforms and encourage employees and colleagues to share it through your shared social media module
• Include the eBook (and related blogs) in your newsletter
• Identify previous blogs that are generating good traffic and update the CTA to direct the user to the eBook landing page
• Create a pop-up or featured content section on your home page (and related product or service pages) that links to the eBook landing page
• Host a webinar built around the content of the eBook
• Rewrite the content for different audiences and industries, making subtle but impactful changes along the way to ensure maximum engagement
• Create an infographic highlighting the key points, statistics, and quotes in the eBook that you can use digitally and as part of your events marketing strategy

The list could go on and on, but the important thing to understand is that content assets should never live in a vacuum. Re-use to your heart’s content but do so with purposeful intentions, fresh copy, and a creative outlook!

Act-On’s SEO Audit Tool Can Help You Eliminate Duplicate Content

No matter your skill set, experience level, or the size of your marketing team or organization, duplicate content is bound to pop up at some point — it’s unavoidable, especially as businesses attempt to scale. 

The trick is to implement best practices and processes to help minimize these instances. Execute period content reviews of all your digital properties and assign team members appropriate tasks based on the outcome of those reviews. 

For instance, while your webmaster should be focusing on applying rel=canonical attributes or noindexing certain pages to prevent search engines from listing them in search results, your writers should be repurposing content and helping out the web team by implementing 301 redirects. 

There are a lot of useful sites out there to help you perform great SEO research and review of your various digital properties (SpyFu, Moz, SEMRush, and Ahrefs among them), but Act-On’s SEO Audit Tool is one of our most dynamic features and can help you solve your duplicate content issues. With SEO best practice guidelines readily available, you can use our SEO Audit Tool to analyze any page with a functioning URL (including your competitors) and then use that information to make critical improvements.

To learn more about how learning and following SEO best practices can improve the quantity and quality of your leads, please download our eBook, “How to Attract More Prospects.” (See that? Repurposing content in action!) 

Or, if you’re ready to learn more about Act-On’s powerful and dynamic marketing automation platform, please complete this brief online form.

Thankfully, appearing first in search rankings isn’t the only way to get your content noticed by your target customers. An even better way to get your content in front of your audience is by earning a featured snippet spot in Google search. Unlike the list of search results that usually appear below this highlighted content, featured snippets provide a more thorough answer to a user’s search query. When you achieve a featured snippet, Google will literally feature a snippet of the body of your content that it deems valuable enough to highlight as a quick overview that addresses the problem at hand — as you can see below.

Achieving a featured snippet is actually better than attaining that coveted #1 spot because it emphasizes your content in a unique way and puts it right where your audience will see it. Unlike a simple meta-description, this improves your chances of catching your audience’s attention and getting them to click through. 

Now that you’ve learned what a featured snippet is, you might be wondering what you can do to increase your chances of getting your content featured front and center. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! 

Today we’re sharing a few tips that will help you on your way toward improving your SEO, as well as your odds of getting a featured snippet on Google. 

Aim to Answer Questions That Are Relevant to Your Audience

Featured snippets provide a quick and easy answer to a user’s question. Therefore, you should aim to structure pages on your blog and website in a way that provides brief and concise answers to the key phrases/questions your target audience is looking for. 

There are a variety of ways that you can accomplish this. To begin, you can look for opportunities to revise your existing website content to answer commonly asked questions related to your product or service. Start this process by looking at your analytics, using Google Keyword planner, or typing in various industry-related searches into Google to see what keyphrases appear. Based on the insights you gather, create a list of key phrases and keywords that your target audience constantly searches for. Then, using this list, look for product and solution pages that you can revise to address and answer related questions. 

Another way to answer your audience’s most pressing questions is by creating unique explainer pages or blog posts. These types of pages go into detail about a specific topic by covering a variety of related questions — and can drastically improve your chances of landing your website content in that featured snippet spot. By going into a lot of depth on a specific topic, you can increase your keyword usage, which helps with SEO. And you can also show both Google and your audience that you’re an expert in your field and know what you’re talking about. 

Provide Information in a Useful Way

How you answer questions is just as important as answering them in the first place. Thought leadership can be invaluable in helping you secure press coverage and stand out on social media platforms such as LinkedIn. Unfortunately, this type of content doesn’t deliver the type of straightforward information your audience is looking for during a quick Google search.

If your goal is to get your content highlighted in the featured snippet box, you should aim to create detailed and informative content pieces that provide clear and concise answers to commonly asked questions. Unless you’re referring to a term that is unique to your organization, try your best to stick to definitions that exist within your field or industry and receive a lot of traffic.  

Format Your Content in a Way That Is Easy to Consume

You can’t expect to get noticed by Google or have your target audience read what you have to say if your content isn’t formatted in a way that is easy to follow and consume. This is crucial for any type of content but particularly important if you want to rank high in Google search and have your content appear in a featured snippet box. 

To start, a good rule of thumb is to include your question as an H1 or H2 tag within the body copy of your content. This will help Google easily know which keywords and topics are covered on each page of your website. Furthermore, it will help your audience easily find what they are looking for, which is particularly helpful if their question only relates to a specific part of a much broader topic. 

How you format your answer is equally important. While strategizing the best way to present your content, consider whether it’s easier for your audience to consume as a paragraph, list, or table. In many cases, the type of question being asked will probably provide you enough guidance to decide the best way to format your answer. For example, if your question is “What is content marketing?”, you’ll probably want to provide at least one paragraph answer that defines the term. Whereas a chart might be more appropriate if you’re answering the question “What type of content do I need to nurture my leads?” 

Make Sure to Include Relevant Keywords

Whether you’re trying to appear on the first page in the search rankings or land in that featured snippet spot, you have to make sure your content is relevant to your audience. Writing copy that includes high-ranking keywords is good practice for SEO and will ultimately motivate your target audience to click through. 

Aside from helping you rank higher in search and getting your content in the featured snippet box, including relevant keywords enables you to create content that is valuable to your audience. Using everyday language will help you relate to your audience, increase their confidence in you, and help them see value in what you have to offer. Ultimately, the goal is not only to get your audience to visit your website but to motivate them to keep clicking through and provide you with the contact information you need to begin the lead nurturing process. 

Review Your Content Marketing Strategy to Achieve Featured Snippet Positioning in Google Search

It’s important to remember that good content marketing (and marketing in general) involves so much more than driving visitors to your website. Effective content goes beyond good SEO practices. Whatever content you create should provide value to your customers, engage them in a way that makes them want to learn more about what you do, and effectively guide them from one stage of the sales funnel to the next. 

If you’d like more tips on how to create a content marketing strategy that helps you attract, nurture, and convert your target customers, please check out our eBook, “6 Best Practices for Creating a Content Marketing Strategy.”

It’s true. Website personalization is all the rage these days — and with good reason. There’s no better way to get great content, product, and service recommendations in front of your target audience segments. 

Naturally, though, there’s a bit of a catch. Not all personalization solutions are created equal. 

Some are more expensive than others. 

Some are more labor-intensive than others. 

And some are more effective than others.

But even the most affordable, efficient, and effective website personalization solutions can’t achieve their full potential without a thoughtful and thorough website personalization strategy.

Let’s dig a little deeper to gain a shared understanding of what we mean when we say “website personalization,” how you and your marketing team can implement and use website personalization successfully, and also a few of the main benefits of website personalization.

What Is Website Personalization?

Website personalization uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to track user behavior data and deliver tailored experiences based on those behaviors. As a result, you’re able to better target and engage your website visitors as they navigate your site. Better yet, as you review your key performance indicators (pages visited, time on page and site, and conversions), you’re able to then build and update your content strategy around what’s working — and also improve what’s not. 

The idea behind website personalization is that it’s a win-win for everyone. Your consumers don’t have to go on a wild goose chase scouring your website for the information they need. And you’re able to deliver a more comfortable and rewarding experience for your website visitors while also getting awesome insight into the strengths and weaknesses of your content and your content strategy.

For example, let’s say your regional insurance agency sells a ton of great offerings that cover a variety of different policy types (home, auto, life, etc.). Your customers can either purchase individual policies or bundle their coverage. Your software notices that certain website visitors are interested in just one type of coverage, but there’s also another subset of users who seem to be viewing and engaging with content across two or more policy types. A good website personalization solution will begin serving up quotes and content related to bundled insurance offerings to this unique audience segment since they clearly have a need for (or at least an interest in) multiple insurance products.

Website personalization helps you streamline the attraction phase of your holistic marketing strategy, gather useful data for further outreach, and create stronger, more trusting relationships between you and your prospects and customers. What’s more, it gives your sales team crystal clear visibility into your visitors’ preferences and interests — empowering them to have more informed and impactful conversations with new leads and current clients. 

It shortens the sales cycle, improves conversion rates, and leads to more and better closed deals.

How to Use Website Personalization Successfully

So now that we know what website personalization is, let’s examine the steps involved in learning how to use website personalization successfully. 

1) Optimize Your Existing Content Strategy for a Website Personalization Solution

Since website personalization technology leverages machine learning to do its job, the heavy lift required for it to work actually occurs prior to turning it on. Before considering potential solutions and vendors, you should have a firm grasp of your current content strategy. 

Here are just a few questions you should be asking:

• When was the last time you performed a content audit? 
• Do you have any existing content gaps? 
• Is your content up to date?
• Do you have the right assets for your target personas along each stage of the sales cycle? 
• Do you have a nice mix of high-level thought leadership content and more solution-based content?
• Are you tracking content performance? If so, how? 
• Are you emphasizing productive content, updating lagging content, and sunsetting irrelevant or outdated content?

Another pivotal question you need to ask yourself is if you have the right team in place to meet and exceed your goals. Great content marketing requires more than just great writers. Of course, writing skill is paramount, but your content team should also understand SEO best practices, how content impacts demand generation, and, of course, the details and benefits of your products and services — as well as a concrete and comprehensive understanding of your industry.

If even one of these questions isn’t covered to your satisfaction, you might not be able to get the most out of your website personalization solution. So make sure your content strategy is strong across the board, that you have (or are producing) the right types of content, and that you have an awesome content team in place to help you reach your goals.

Most importantly, you need to have your content properly organized and labeled. This means you’ve created and are using a strict taxonomy in which all of your content is broken down by category, sub-category, and tags, and that all of those classifications are consistent across your website. This will impact how your website personalization tool is able to make sense of your content, so it’s imperative that this is in good shape from jump street. 

2) Choosing the Right Website Personalization Vendor

If you’re serious about adopting an effective website personalization vendor, and you’re confident that your existing content strategy is in tip-top shape, the next step in the process is to begin researching and vetting potential vendors. There are a lot of helpful solutions out there, but every organization will have different needs, so your company’s industry, size, and mission should heavily influence your selection process.

Here are a few questions you’ll want to ask as you begin interacting with potential website personalization solutions:

1) How Does This Website Personalization Solution Fit in with Our Current MarTech Stack?

The different tools and technologies your sales and marketing teams use should complement and enhance one another, and the same is true of a website personalization solution. Before deciding on a platform, you should speak with vendors about how their solution fits in with your existing MarTech stack. Specifically, the tool should play nicely with your marketing automation, CRM, and CMS systems, as well as any third-party APIs you’re using. If the proposed solution doesn’t integrate seamlessly with your existing technologies, you should move on — or at least ask if they’re working on building out new integrations.

2) What Are the Capabilities of This Website Personalization Solution?

As I mentioned earlier, not all website personalization solutions are created equal, and some are better suited for specific use cases. So, depending on what you and your key stakeholders have identified as your principal needs, you’ll want to look only at those solutions that are able to meet those needs. Whoever you choose should provide flexible, outcome-based solutions and be willing to work with you to align your content marketing strategy with their platform. Most importantly, the solution should allow you to turn anonymous visitors into known users so that you can continue to market to those individuals on separate marketing channels, such as social media and paid digital advertising.

3) What Are the Limitations of This Website Personalization Solution?

Does the solution work sitewide? Can you tailor it to work in different ways on different pages? Does it work with your CMS? How much work does it require on your end? These are pivotal questions that you should be asking, and the answers will inform your decision. The best website personalization tools are dynamic and can be formatted to any site or page to provide the best content or product recommendations at the perfect time to influence buyer intent. Furthermore, the tool you choose should be simple to use and operate on rules-based logic that make sense given how you’re housing and categorizing your content.

4) What Are the Costs Involved in This Website Personalization Solution?

Website personalization solutions vary greatly by cost, so you’ll want to understand your budget limitations and make that figure clear to the vendor before getting too far in the weeds. There’s no sense wasting your time speaking with a company out of your price range. Once you’ve established a mutual understanding, you’ll need to look closely at several line items in the quoted price — including ongoing management and strategy, onboarding and training, data connections, and platform access. You’ll also want to consider contract length and potential fees for choosing to opt-out prior to completing the engagement.

5) What Is the Time to Value with This Website Personalization Solution?

The most commonly used misnomer in marketing and sales technology applications is “out-of-the-box.” I hear this phrase constantly, and the truth of the matter almost never matches the promise. And when dealing with website personalization, it’s often more misused than with other software tools. Regardless of what a vendor tells you, you need to understand for yourself what goes into getting up and running with your website personalization solution, and the best way to do that is by speaking with current and former users of each solution. You should ask them how long it took to develop their strategy, how long it took to start seeing results, and how long it took to start optimizing their content strategy based on the performance of their website personalization solution.

3) Implementing Your Website Personalization Solution and Tracking Results

Strategy… Check.

Solution… Check.

Implementation… Pending.

At this point, you’re almost there. Now it’s time to open up your new toy, align it with your MarTech stack, and let it absorb the data before turning it on. If you’ve chosen an easy and effective website personalization solution, you’ll be able to install a basic plugin to enable:

• Automated content exports
• Automated code placement
• Admin control for recommendation display options

This should drastically reduce the workload for you and your team and get you started on the right path toward successful implementation and deployment. It might take a week or two to collect enough data for the system to start working properly, so you’ll want to install the plugin as soon as you’re able. After about 10 days, you should have enough data to turn on your solution with the confidence that it will deliver the right content to the right visitors and yield immediate results.

This is where the fun begins because it’s the point at which you’ll begin seeing some initial success. Whatever platform you choose should have its own portal with access to a reporting interface. From your dashboard, you should be able to view aggregate time on site, pages per session, and conversions. 

You should also be able to drill down further to see which content categories are performing the best and even view performance by individual content assets. Best of all, these metrics are unique to those sessions where visitors are engaging with personalized content, so you’re able to see a breakdown of “participating” vs. “non-participating” traffic, which will help you measure the effectiveness of your website personalization software in isolation.

Serve Intelligent Content Recommendations with Act-On Adaptive Web

This blog was a little long, so I don’t blame you if you skimmed. Actually, that’s perfect because you’ve now arrived at the best part!

Act-On’s Adaptive Web solution is the most affordable, efficient, and effective website personalization on the market today. It’s designed to make personalized content recommendations simple, easy, and attainable for every marketer and organization. It’s easy to implement, requires no extra work for marketers, and produces serious results within weeks of installation. It also gives you the ability to manually manipulate your content recommendations to promote new and especially relevant content.

Download our eBook to learn more about website personalization and how Adaptive Web can help you “Personalize the Web Experience.”

Before the digital age, getting good content in front of the right audience was more of a guessing game that was usually influenced by market research and the occasional snail mail survey to give us a few clues about what our prospects might be interested in. Then, as the internet became a staple in our lives, we were able to manually collect some meaningful user behavior data. But analyzing it required serious man hours and expertise — and even then, we couldn’t ever be sure it was 100% accurate. Adding to that challenge, we couldn’t be certain these insights were helping us deliver the right content to the right customer at the right time. 

Now it seems we’re entering a new digital era — one that is defined by the user experience and their interests. Suddenly, developing and distributing relevant content is more important than ever. Thankfully, this transitional period presents a great opportunity to deliver more personalized content to more interested consumers and also create some breathing room between you and your competitors. 

The idea of creating more personal websites tailored for distinct user groups isn’t a new concept, but it’s only recently become a reality for businesses of all shapes and sizes.  Most of us refer to this [not-so] new phenomenon as website personalization, but no matter what you call it, it’s revolutionizing the way we understand and use the internet. Today, even single-employee startups with a super basic website are just a CMS plug-in away from delivering sophisticated website personalization to all their site visitors.

What Is Website Personalization?

There are several different types of website personalization, which means there are also several different definitions. But in a broad sense, website personalization is exactly what it sounds like: creating intuitive web experiences tailored for each individual user. 

You know how Netflix has a knack for serving up your favorite movies? Or how about the way Spotify always plays the perfect song? This is website personalization in action, but it can also be used in retail, advertising, and topical content marketing. For example, Amazon is the gold standard of B2C personalization, serving up spot-on product recommendations on nearly every page you visit. And remarketing ads on Google and other search engines have been around for nearly a decade now, delivering relevant advertisements based on your previous online interactions and preferences. 

In fact, users are becoming so familiar with personalization that according to a 2016 Infosys study, 74% of customers are frustrated when their website content isn’t personalized to their unique needs and interests (1). Further, more than 90% of consumers are more likely to buy from brands that deliver tailored recommendations — including both product and content recommendations. But aside from the fact that delivering personalized experiences meets evolving customer expectations, what are some of the direct benefits to you and your company? 

What Are the Benefits of Website Personalization?

We all know that creating compelling content that is informative and encourages engagement can be extremely difficult. And when we up the stakes to try to make that content more personalized for our target audiences, it’s not only challenging, but it can also eat up a lot of valuable resources. It’s hard to be all things to all people, but using software to personalize the user experience is a great way to increase efficiency, web traffic, time spent on your site, and conversions and marketing qualified leads (MQLs) while also conserving resources.

The level of personalization on a website can vary greatly depending on several factors (company size, website sophistication, industry — just to name a few), and certain aspects of website personalization work better with certain sites depending on the function of those sites. For example, are you running an e-commerce site? A marketing agency? Maybe you’re the webmaster or content manager for a local news outlet? Each would likely enable different types of personalization — and each of those could have significant upside if implemented properly and with a sound strategy. 

For our purposes, we’re going to focus on how personalizing content can benefit small, medium, and enterprise-level B2B organizations.

Deliver More Relevant Content Recommendations

Delivering content recommendations to users based on their demographics, behaviors, and interests is a practice that has been around for a while now, but traditionally, these content recommendations haven’t always been relevant or intuitive, which can actually have the unintended consequence of decreasing the user experience.

With new personalization technologies, however, you can leverage pertinent data to serve up fresh content that closely matches user intent and guides them through a wholly unique customer journey. This will help increase the amount of pages a user views, as well as the time they spend on these pages, ultimately increasing the number of conversions on your site and the amount of ROI directly attributable to these visits. 

The insights you gather will not only help you provide more targeted content recommendations on your website, but can also enable your team to focus their efforts where they matter most. As you begin to understand which content produces results, you can revisit your organization’s content strategy and create more pieces similar to those that are performing well.

Create Better Opportunities to Nurture Prospects and Customers

By personalizing the user experience and collecting accurate, useful data along the way, you can segment your target audiences more meaningfully and then continue messaging prime prospects at multiple digital touchpoints throughout the sales cycle. Most notably, you can deliver automated email programs to customers based on their browsing history on your site, which is a great way to continue delivering highly relevant content. You can even gate some or all of these content pieces to collect even more information that will help your marketing and sales teams hone in on prospects and close the deal. 

For example, if a prospect completes a form on your site to download an eBook on corporate retirement savings plans for employees, you can place them in a drip campaign to provide more information on the topic— such as a pre-recorded webinar, success story examples, infographics, or even a recent podcast your team recorded on the subject.

Generate Qualified Leads to Eliminate the Guesswork for Sales

Personalized content leads to more and better user interaction, which helps you gather tons of great data and continue nurturing these leads with creative and effective marketing strategies. Obviously, this is great news for your marketing team, but it also has a significant effect on your sales reps. Not only does website personalization lead to a faster sales cycle, it also helps narrow your sales team’s focus to interested consumers with a greater chance of buying. 

By delivering content that easily guides potential consumers through the buyer journey, you’re able to gather more data to help your sales team reach out to the right people at the right time and focus on the right message. For instance, you can gate relevant and valuable content with intuitive forms that use progressive profiling to gather valuable data like the user’s industry, company size, and position within the organization. By integrating a marketing automation platform with your CRM, you can seamlessly pass this information to your sales team so they can have more productive conversations with prospects and existing customers.

Personalize the User Experience with Adaptive Web from Act-On!

Organizations need to create more personalized experiences for their website visitors, but most of the tools on the market today are highly expensive and not especially accurate or effective. However, Act-On’s Adaptive Web solution is designed to make personalized content recommendations simple, easy, and attainable for every marketer and organization. 

With Adaptive Web, marketers can leverage machine learning to deliver behavior-triggered content recommendations that better target and engage each website visitor as they navigate through the customer’s website. This engagement leads to more conversions and thus, more data collected, which you can then leverage as part of an omni-channel marketing experience for all of your target audience segments.

To learn more about how Adaptive Web can increase conversions, reduce manual effort, and help inform your company’s content strategy, please download the eBook below or reach out to us directly to talk to a website personalization expert!