Navigating in a Search Engine World

There is no doubt that it has become increasingly harder to navigate when it comes to SEO. This also makes it harder for clients to choose the right agency or partner for it. There are many reasons to why this is; such as frequent algorithm updates, new SEO tools, new best practises and new ways of being found – but there is one constant and throughout this article we will find more constants that will establish how we at Nimble work with SEO. The first constant that we find is: 

1. Search Engines

The constant that will most likely stay constant in an ever transforming landscape is the need and use for search engines. Google being the main source of information collection and has in fact (as of March 2022) somewhere around 91% of global market share. Followed of course by Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Duck duck go and many many more.

Focusing on Google’s Search Engine

From the need for search engines, we can establish that people are using the platform to gather knowledge. Knowledge will come in many different forms on search engines and search engines want to cater to as many people as possible. It is solved by having many solutions such as standard search queries, image search, video search, maps search, Q&A search, even voice search and more. This is also why there is a constant need to keep optimizing your content for search engines. It is also contributing to why SEO is an ever changing landscape. The more information the search engine gathers, the better result it can provide to the users. This together with their innovation of the technology behind the experience(ai/crawlers/spiders) will get more people to use google and get the users to stay longer on their platform.

This is where 2 of our next constants come in; Information and innovation. Providing the right information to our consumers and innovating how we provide it to the search engines.

2. Information is one major foundation of SEO.

As we mentioned above, knowledge in the form of information is the main reason why people are using search engines and one of our main focuses when it comes to working with SEO at Nimble. Firstly, we need to make sure that all basic information is in place, most of the time being:

• Name
• Product and/or Services that the business provide
• Pricing
• Place (where and when)
• Process
• People
• Physical evidence.

If this information is provided we will start looking at the customer journey of the target audiences. What different stages in the customer journey are we providing information when looking at:

• Awareness (Making the customer aware of the brand and its existence)
• Interest (Creating content that will spark interest from the potential customer, understanding the possibilities and the challenges that it solves)
• Consideration (Content that will engage the customer and spark consideration of how the product/and service can be used/applied by the customer)
• Comparison (Understanding how the product, service or solution differs from competitors and how it affects the end result)
• Decision (Having conversion driving content in the lower stages of the funnel that aims to convert our potential customers)

By understanding the customer journey and understanding the company’s current visibility through workshops, SEO audit,  keyword research and competitive research. We will be able to understand where there are greatest SEO opportunities and where to direct our first efforts.

When we have identified our content opportunities. We need to look at the second constant.

3. Innovation as part of your SEO strategy.

We have identified keyword opportunities and must now face the hard reality of looking at keyword difficulty. As mentioned earlier, Search engines are a competitive and rapidly expanding source of information and with that comes competition. Luckily the search engines are updated regularly and always try to provide people with the most relevant information for each person. A result of that is the new ways of searching, which can be optimized for by keeping up to date on the changes, structure data correctly and look for new ways while staying relevant for the individuals.

So, competition and keyword difficulty on specific search terms and keywords doesn’t mean you shouldnt aim for those queries. It just means that we should try and find new ways of being visible and try to find easier paths to the target keyword.

• Does the keyword have any related search terms?
• Are there any long-tail keywords?
• Any questions that people want to find out in regards to our keyword?
• Are there many videos containing the keyword?
• Are there any competitors that have optimized for voice?
• Any chance of getting featured snippets or data enhancements on the keyword?
• What HTML and CSS changes can be made to increase visibility?
• Have we optimized for Core Web Vitals?

With the innovative opportunities that we have in SEO demands maintenance on your technology stack and website, which brings us to another constant; Website.

4. Website as the base of SEO efforts

Filling the website with content and structuring the data for the new ways of search will only get you so far if your website is not working properly as that has some major impact on the experience for the people searching. This is why Nimble will work with you holistically with SEO to ensure that the company not only has the information needed and optimized to new ways of searching but the make sure that the website is healthy and can cater for the people who visits. It is called Website health, which ties the knot of achieving a successful SEO strategy as you not only need to be visible but you need to nurture and take care of the visitors by reducing 404s and redirects, implement metadata and having good navigation and having an accessible and user friendly website, also known as technical SEO. There is also a great need for understanding how the search is improved over time, which is why we also use tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics to measure the impact of your efforts.

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