What are the fundamental practices that create SEO success?
In this episode of the award-winning Here’s Why digital marketing video series, Eric Enge shares a case study that demonstrates the effectiveness of “blocking and tackling” SEO.
Don’t miss a single episode of Here’s Why. Click the subscribe button below to be notified via email each time a new video is published.
Resources
- Case study: On-page + off-page SEO working together = success
- See all of our Here’s Why Videos | Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
Transcript
Mark: Eric, have the most important fundamentals of effective SEO really changed much?
Eric: You know, the basic hard work of technical SEO combined with a content and promotional strategy is really still fundamental to success. So, I’d say not really.
Mark: How about an example of where those fundamentals paid off for a business?
Eric: Sure, I am happy to do that. The example I’m going to use is an online travel company that we worked with that was looking to differentiate itself from big players. It’s actually a new entry in the market.
A few years back they were trying to figure out how to carve out their own niche even though they were a late entrant. How they did that is with more authoritative local content and a really user-oriented experience around each marketplace.
One of the fun things they did is they didn’t try to cover the whole globe or even the whole US. They targeted specific regions of the globe and went very, very deep and created awesome experiences around those marketplaces. That included things like partnerships with local tour guides and getting better content from those people.
What they really illustrated very well is that it’s better to be excellent at a few things than mediocre at many. So, rather than thinking that you have to cover the entire marketplace, that focus that they brought was really, really great for them.
They also structured their content in a way where they started small and scaled it over time. So, the local experts, as I mentioned, we’re driving the content creation and really putting out the kind of stuff you’d never get from a garden-variety travel writer.
And, of course, they did the basic SEO fundamentals really well. They had good site audits repeated regularly. They continue to look at the right site structure, the right taxonomy. So, the basics of their SEO underpinnings were really sound.
Because of the localized content, they were able to attract attention in local markets really well. That resulted for them in links from within the specific countries that they were recovering because they were writing about stuff that other people weren’t doing.
Mark: Great, but did the plan produce any measurable results?
Eric: You know, it really did. So, it had a really steady growth in organic traffic as you see here on the chart we’re showing right now.
I think the basic SEO fundamentals really worked very, very well, but in this world today, some things are a little bit different. The level of commitment you need to your user experience and user value as a primary focus is probably more than we might’ve thought about 10 years ago. But the underpinnings— sound site architecture, creating great content, an effective outreach and promotion plan—to be honest, are the same as they ever were.
Don’t miss a single episode of Here’s Why. Click the subscribe button below to be notified via email each time a new video is published.
See all of our Here’s Why Videos | Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
Eric this is really great insights. Thanks
It’s good that some things haven’t changed much – we can still get increased organic traffic by the strategies we know. Useful to think about for the future though
I totally agree with you, but i have a problem with off page seo. Especially backlinks. In my country (Turkiye) if u create amazing article for example on scaffolding but no one give backlinks to you organically. In your country, if someone write a good article, lots of people give backlink. What must i do about this earn organic backlinks? is there any way?
In some countries getting links can be quite tough. Perhaps one path to explore is whether or not you can create content that will be newsworthy. Is anything like that a possibility?
excellent video, I think it is more important to SEO off page but together you can have a great performance in the long term, it is a slow and a lot of dedication.
As BK Reklam, we often follow your content. Really great posts.