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SEO_Growth_Hacking
Growth Hacking, SEO

Practical SEO Growth Strategies for Growth focus B2B & B2C Brands

In a previous post, we look at SEO and what it is in detail. In this piece, we look at how to apply SEO to growth hacking.

To re-cap, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is what we do to ensure that a website or page ranks higher on the SERPs (search engine results pages). Users’ typically use search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN search to look for new products or services. Therefore, SEO is a useful tool in driving visitors to a website. More often than not, this is a growth hack goal.

A successful growth hack will find the quickest and cheapest route to a goal and SEO is an important part of most growth hacks. As we have mentioned previously, SEO is often a slow burn, but with lasting results. It can take up to 6 months before you really see the fruits of your labour. We touched on black hat SEO vs white hat SEO and we would never advocate anything to do with that. However, there are some little “short cuts”, which can really help you get to your destination quicker.

Some SEO Growth Hack Examples:

Optimise your Website for Mobile

There are several good reasons to ensure your website is mobile friendly. According to Datareportal, 60% of searches on Google were performed on a mobile in January 2022. By making your website as mobile friendly as possible, you will ensure the best user experience for your customers.

Another is Google’s algorithm. Google have implemented a mobile first indexing, which means that websites that aren’t optimised for mobile, will rank lower on the search engine’s results pages. By optimising your website for mobile and ensuring that it has a mobile friendly design you will instantly be doing something, which will guarantee a higher ranking in the search engine results pages. Optimising your website for mobile, is a key SEO growth hack.

The prime purpose of a search engine, such as Google, is to answer a user’s questions effectively. And to help them find what they are looking for as quickly as possible. Have you ever noticed when you type a question in to Google, a short answer to your question appears at the top of the search results? The text appears in black above the main search results. This text is known as a featured snippet. If you are able to get your text into a featured snippet this is a very effective way to increase your organic search results. In other words, not paid for (PPC). According to MOZ, 24% of search results display a featured snippet. SEO and Growth Hacking are linked in this way. There are different kinds of featured snippets:

Definition Box:

This gives the searcher a direct answer to a question. In addition, it can give a definition. This type of featured snippet tends to be between 40-60 words.

Table:

Google cleverly takes the data displayed on a page and puts it into a table.

The Ordered List:

Google displays items in an ordered list, such as a recipe with specific steps.

Unordered List:

Google lists items in no particular order.

The key benefit of Google using your text in this way is that it can be listed above other sites, which rank higher in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). In other words, you can quickly gain more traffic from a particular query if you aim to create content, which can be used in any of the snippets listed above. That’s to say, an effective “growth hack”.

What you can do to help rank in the Snippets

There are a number of things you can do to rank in Google’s Featured Snippets. Focus on keywords where your website already ranks on the first page of the SERPs. Identify what questions people are asking and what they need answers to. Quora is a good place to identify relevant questions. Make sure you are clearly answering a question concisely and in the 40-60 words required.

Ensure your Page Load Speed is Good

If your site is slow to load it isn’t going to rank highly on Google or any other search engine. This is even more applicable to mobile. Nowadays it is imperative your website is mobile friendly. You won’t get anywhere if your mobile view is slow to load as this is often how customers want to view your site. This is obviously a must for your user experience. It will also get you higher in the search engine rankings quicker, in other words a “hack”.

No matter how good and interesting your content is, if your website’s pages are slow to load, then people won’t stick around. This will eventually lead to a slip down the search engine results pages.

There are free tools out there, to help you keep an eye on your website’s load times. Google PageSpeed Insights, a free tool, which will monitor this for you. It will also give you helpful tips on how you can improve load speeds.

Keywords and Long Tail Keywords

Keywords are the words or phrases people type in to a search engine to find what they are looking for. Similarly, long tail keywords are phrases that people type in to search engines to look for something. However, long tail keywords are longer and consist of between 3 and 5 words. As a consequence, they are more specific and niche.

Long tail keywords are often used when using SEO in a growth hack. When devising a growth hack, it is not only volume of traffic we’re interested in, but also quality. There is often much competition for obvious and well known keywords. Therefore, identifying crucial long tail keywords, that your customers are using to search, can attract better quality traffic to your website. It is also a “hack” as identifying long tail keywords, that your niche are using to search for a business like yours, is a quicker and more efficient way to reach your audience.

How to find the right Long Tail Keywords

First off, identify your customer persona. If you can work out exactly what your customer looks like, then you are more likely to identify what they are searching for. If you know their age and gender for example, you can more easily work out the language they are using.

Also, where to research what questions they are asking etc. For example should you be looking on Facebook or Tik Tok? Social media is a good place to dig for long tail keywords. If you can establish what conversations your customer base is having, then you can identify some long tail keywords to use in your SEO.

If it’s relevant to your business, then look to include geographical location in your keywords and long tail keywords. This can help to narrow down your key phrases to searchers who you are most likely to get business from. For example, pilates personal trainer in Bath is more likely to return a more specific and accurate result for you, than simply personal trainer.

Most people do not look further than the first page of the search engine results pages. Almost 70% of searchers find what they are looking for on the first page, so make sure rank on that all important first page. This is much easier to do if you are being ranked and optimised your website for a long tail keyword.

Google has its own tool to find keywords: Google keyword planner. There are others you can use to help you do your SEO research such as SEMrush and Long Tail Pro. Google Trends, Keyworddit, Bulk Keyword Generator, are all free tools.

Good quality content is always the best practice when it comes to a long term SEO strategy. If you are creating interesting and relevant content, you will find that influencers and other relevant people will be keen to link to your website. This will eventually build the number of in-bound links, which will improve your rankings on the search engine results pages. There are things you can do to speed this up, such as registering with business websites, societies and other directories.

There are also link analysis tools you can use to help your SEO link strategy. If you can do a little bit of research to see which links are helping your competitors to rank higher in the search engine results pages, you can work to gain links with them as well.

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is a brilliant way to growth hack your SEO and to gain good quality backlinks. Not only will you be reaching a new audience for your service or product and improving your brand awareness, you will also have the opportunity to include links in your text, which will improve the number of backlinks to your website, which will contribute to moving your website up the SERPs. Guest blogging and requesting people to leave their email address, will not only build your email list, it will also create very important backlinks to your website.

A good link strategy is imperative when creating an SEO growth hack for your website.

Optimise your Meta Tags

Meta Tags are the bits of text, which appear in the search engine results pages, and let us know what the page is about. These meta tags, do not appear on the page itself, but they let both the searchers and the search engines know, what is on the page. Meta tags or data is split between the meta title and the meta description.

Meta titles and meta descriptions should be as interesting and compelling as possible, so that searchers are encouraged to click through to your website. The text should be succinct, but also give a good description of what users can hope to find on the page if they click through. Good and accurate use of keywords and long tail keywords, will help your ranking.

The more people that click through, the higher your page will rank on Google or other search engine.

Always look at what the next Generation are doing..

Voice Search SEO

Voice search allows the searcher to use speech to ask questions to search engines, rather than text. For those of us in the older camp, written Adwords and long tail keywords would still be most relevant. However, the younger generation are just as likely to use voice searches. In fact as much as 30% of searches could be voice searches nowadays.

It is just worth keeping this in mind, when planning an SEO and growth hacking plan. If your product is particularly directed at the younger generation, then include more conversational keywords and long tail keywords. But also remember that when using voice search, the way people search differs. When using voice search people are more likely to ask a full question, rather than a shorthand version. For example they might say “where can I buy vintage clothes in Oxford?” as opposed to a written search which is more brief: Vintage clothes Oxford.

To Conclude

SEO is a very important string to our bow, when devising a successful growth hack. There are a few shortcuts to bear in mind, when considering a growth strategy using SEO. Make sure you are using “long tail keywords”, in other words, highly specific phrases. Understanding featured snippets and devising a strategy to rank for these could help growth hack your business through SEO. Also, make sure you are answering questions, which your searchers need answers to. Optimise your website for mobile. Not only will this greatly improve the user experience, but it will also boost your SEO. Optimise your meta data. If your meta titles and meta descriptions are interesting and compelling enough, you should get plenty of click throughs to help you rise up the search engine results pages.

These are just a few suggestions of how you can speed up or “growth hack” your SEO.

If you would like some help or would like to speak to a professional then we are here to take your call or you can register here.

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