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What Does an SEO Do In Their Day-to-Day Work - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by randfish

There's a common misconception that SEO is a "one and done" task -- that you clean up and optimize a site, and once that's done, you can focus your efforts elsewhere. There's so much more to the day-to-day work of an SEO, though, and in today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand walks us through those ongoing parts of the job.

For reference, here's a still of this week's whiteboard!

Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week I want to tackle a question I get sometimes about the day-to-day activities of an SEO and what should you do after you've completed that first site audit, sort of fixed the problems, what does the day-to-day work look like?

A lot of SEOs, especially those coming from consulting backgrounds or who've joined companies as in-house SEOs who've had kind of this big project based SEO work to do, find themselves struggling after that's done. Typically, that process is pretty straightforward. You kind of do an audit. You look at all the things on the site. You figure out what's wrong, what's missing, where are opportunities that we could execute on. Maybe you do some competitive analysis, some market analysis. You identify those fixes. You work with teams to make those changes, validate the results have been completed, and then you're sort of in this, "Well, do I go back and audit again and try to iterate and improve again?"

That doesn't feel quite right, but it also doesn't necessarily feel quite right to go to the very, very old-school SEO model of like, "All right, we've got these keywords we're trying to rank for. Let's optimize our content, get some links, check our rankings for them, and then try to rinse and repeat and keep improving." This model's pretty broken I'd say and just not reflective of the reality of opportunities that are in SEO or the reality of the tactics that work today.

So the way that I like to think about this is the SEO audit, an SEO focused audit -- which is trying to say, "What traffic could we get? What's missing? What's broken and wrong?" -- only works at the low level and the very tactical trenches of a marketing process or a business process. What you really need to do is you want to be more incrementally based, but you need to be informed by and you need to be evolving your tactics and your work based on what is the business need right now.

So this process is about saying, "What are the top level company and marketing goals overall? For everyone in the company, what are we trying to accomplish this year, this quarter, the next three year plan? What are we trying to achieve?" Then figure out areas where SEO can best contribute to that work, and then from there you're creating tactical lists of projects that maybe you're going to positively move the right needles, the ones that you've identified, and then you're going to evaluate and prioritize which ones you want to implement first, second, and third in what order, and test implement those.

So, hey we've figured out that we think that a new blog section for this particular piece of content, or we think that getting some user generated content, building up some community around this section would be terrific, or we think outreach to these kinds of publications or building up our social stats in these worlds will expose us to the right people who can earn us the amplification we'll need to rank better, etc., etc. Okay, this is a fine process, and you're going to want to do this, I would say, at least annually and maybe even think about it quarterly.

All this work is essentially centered on a customer profile universe, a universe of people. I've got my person X, Y, and Z here, but your customer universe may involve many different personas. It may involve just one type of person you're targeting that you're always trying to reach over and over again, but it probably involves also the people who influence that direct subsection of your market.

From there, you can take the, "Hey, you know what, person Z is really interested in and consumes and searches for these types of content topics and these kinds of keywords, so we're going to start by taking keyword set A or content set A and figure out our keyword list and our content list. We're going to create, launch, and promote work that supports that." It could be content pieces, could be video, could be some combination of those things in social media, all forms of content. It could be tools, whatever you want, an application.

We're going to launch that, promote it, and then work on some amplification, and then we're going to measure and learn, which is a critical part of that process. I want to not only see what are my results, but what can I learn from what we just did and hopefully I'll get better and better at iterating on this process. This process will work iteratively, kind of similar to our broken process over here or to our site audit process there. It will work iteratively, and then every now and then you should pop back up and go, "Hey, you know what, I feel like we've exhausted the easiest 80% of value that we're going to get from 20% of the work on keyword set A. Let's move on and go visit keyword set B now, and then let's go visit content set C."

Occasionally, you're even going to want to move one step up and say, "Hey, you know what, maybe our personas or our market is changing a little bit. We want to try targeting some new customers. We're going to look at these folks over here or this guy over here and see if we can reach them and their influencers with new kinds of content and topics and keywords, and that sort of thing."

If your site is rocking and rolling, if you've completed your audit, things are just smooth sailing, then this kind of a process is going to work much better, so long as it's tied to real business objectives. Then when you achieve results here, you can point back to, "Hey, remember I told you these are the areas SEO can contribute to our overall goals, and now I can connect these up directly. The metrics that I get from all this SEO stuff can tie directly to those areas, can tie directly to the business goals." Everyone from the CEO on down is going to love what you're doing for the company.

All right everyone, I hope you'll join me again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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A Sneak Preview of #MozCon 2015

Posted by EricaMcGillivray

Considering coming to MozCon, July 13-15 in Seattle this year? Maybe you're on the fence because you're not sure what's going on, and most importantly, what our amazing speakers are talking about? I hear you, MozCon fans! While the agenda is still being finalized, we wanted to give you a sneak preview.

If you're like "oh, shit, I forgot to buy my MozCon ticket!,” do so now:

Buy your ticket!

We're still finalizing a couple more speakers and topics, and of course, community speakers submissions are fast approaching. Keep your eye out here on April 2nd for more info!

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Adam Singer Analytics Advocate at Google @AdamSinger Adam Singer is Analytics Advocate at Google, startup adviser, investor, and blogger. He previously was director for a global consulting team and has provided digital strategy for brands in a variety of industries including marketing, technology, healthcare, and more. Topic: Digital Analytics: People, Process, Platform In a data-driven world, Adam will pull you back to think again about your analytics, best practices, and how you report.
Cindy Krum Founder and CEO at MobileMoxie LLC. Twitter: @Suzzicks Cindy Krum is the CEO and Founder of MobileMoxie, LLC, and author of Mobile Marketing: Finding Your Customers No Matter Where They Are. She brings fresh and creative ideas to her clients, and regularly speaks at US and international digital marketing events. Topic: Become a Mobile SEO Superhero With Google's algorithm mobile change, Cindy will walk you through the changes, what they mean for your site and its rankings, and what you should be focusing on going forward.
Courtney Seiter Head of Content Marketing at Buffer Twitter: @courtneyseiter Courtney Seiter examines social media and workplace culture at Buffer, and her writing has been published at TIME, Fast Company, Lifehacker, Inc., and more. She lives in Nashville, where she is a founder of Girls to the Moon, a leadership camp for girls. Topic: The Psychology of Social Media Courtney dives into the science of why people post, share, and build relationships on social media and how to create an even more irresistible social media experience for your audience.
Dana DiTomaso Partner at Kick Point Inc Twitter: @danaditomaso Whether at a conference, on the radio, or in a meeting, Dana DiTomaso likes to impart wisdom to help you turn a lot of marketing bullshit into real strategies to grow your business. Dana is also a fan of the random fact. Kick Point often celebrates "Watershed Wednesday" because of her diverse work and education background. In her spare time, Dana drinks tea and yells at the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Topic: How to Make Your Marketing Match Your Reality Too often, the tone and promises of marketing don't match those of the business itself. Dana will help you bring your brand identity together, both in-store and online.
David Mihm Director of Local Search Strategy at Moz Twitter: @davidmihm David Mihm has created and promoted search-friendly websites for clients of all sizes since the early 2000’s. David co-founded GetListed.org, which he sold to Moz in November 2012. He now serves as Moz's Director of Local Search Strategy. Topic: Astoundingly Useful Applications of Facebook Search for Marketers Facebook has long neglected its potential as a local search giant, and as a result, its Graph Search product is an afterthought for too many marketers. David showcases Graph-powered insights for small-business marketers—with utility well beyond Facebook.
Joanna Wiebe Creator at Copy Hackers Twitter: @copyhackers The original conversion copywriter, Joanna Wiebe is the cofounder of Snap and Copy Hackers, where startups learn to convert like mofos. She is a natural-born thief who steals messages from the mouths of customers and turns their words into higher-converting copy. Topic: Sinners Are Winners: How Messaging Your Prospect's Darkest Desires Can Boost Engagement Playing it too safe? Joanna will show you how to tap into your prospects' secret wishes in your copy—and use bold messages your competitors wouldn't dare use.
Kristina Halvorson Founder at Brain Traffic Twitter: @halvorson Kristina Halvorson is widely recognized as one of the most important voices in content strategy. She is the founder of Brain Traffic, the coauthor of Content Strategy for the Web, and the founder of the Confab content strategy conferences. Topic: How To Do Content Strategy (Probably) Put 10 people in a room and ask them to define “content strategy,” and you’ll likely get 10 different answers. Kristina will share her own tried-and-true approach!
Lexi Mills Head of Digital at Dynamo PR Twitter: @leximills Lexi Mills is a PR SEO specialist, with over eight years experience working with both small firms and big brands. She has designed and implemented integrated PR, SEO, content, and social campaigns in the UK, Europe, and USA for B2B and B2C clients. Topic title TBD, but Lexi will be covering PR.
Marshall Simmonds Founder and CEO at Define Media Group, Inc. Twitter: @mdsimmonds Marshall Simmonds is the Founder of Define Media Group, the enterprise audience development company specializing in strategic search and social marketing. Define works with many of the most influential brands and networks in the world. Topic: Dark Search and Social—Run Rabbit Run! With data from 112 publishers with 164+ billion page views, Marshall will dive into the challenges of tracking social and search campaigns. He'll focus on history's lessons and what’s happening with direct and mobile traffic in an app-heavy world.
Marta Turek Senior Digital Marketing Programs Manager at ROI·DNA Twitter: @MTurek Marta holds seven years of experience in digital advertising, specializing in lead generation, and paid search marketing. Developing digital strategies and telling stories through data is what rocks her boat. Topic: Too Busy to Do Good Work Don't let your work suffer from being busy. Instead, let Marta show you the tactics to clean up your PPC processes to finally get more strategic.
Matthew Brown Head of Special Projects at Moz Twitter: @MatthewJBrown Matthew runs Special Projects at Moz. This has been going on for two years, and we're still not totally sure what that means. Topic: An SEO's Guide to the Insane World of Content Find yourself arguing whether or not SEO is just great content? Matthew will talk through a strategic and tactical journey of content strategy from an SEO's viewpoint and leave you with new tools and tactics.
Mig Reyes Designer at Basecamp Twitter: @migreyes Mig Reyes is a traditionally trained graphic designer who escaped advertising agency life, cut his teeth at the T-shirt powerhouse known as Threadless, and now helps lead branding, marketing and even a bit of product work at Basecamp. Topic title TBD, but Mig will be focusing on putting your creative energies into your marketing.
Pete Meyers Marketing Scientist at Moz Twitter: @dr_pete Dr. Pete Meyers is Marketing Scientist for Moz, where he works on product research and data-driven content. He has spent the past three years building research tools to monitor Google, including the MozCast project, and he curates the Google Algorithm History. Topic: Surviving Google: SEO in 2020 Organic results are disappearing, replaced by Knowledge Graph, direct answers, new ad hybrids, and more. How can SEOs be ready for Google in five years?
Purna Virji Founder and CEO of Purview Marketing Twitter: @purnavirji Purna is the founder and CEO of Purview Marketing, a boutique consulting firm helping companies of all sizes grow via search and content marketing. Purna is an avid traveler and speaks six languages (and can swear in 17!). Topic: How to Better Sell SEO to the C-Suite Whether you need more resources, trust, or buy-in, Purna will share practical tips for focusing on Profit & Loss and better communicating SEO planning, forecasting, and strategizing.
Rand Fishkin Founder at Moz Twitter: @randfish Husband of Geraldine. Founder of Moz. Presenter of Whiteboard Friday. Writer of blog posts. Sender of tweets. Topic: Onsite SEO in 2015: An Elegant Weapon for a More Civilized Marketer SEO has come full circle as on-page SEO has returned to the forefront. Rand will share how and why on-site SEO is so important and show off uncommon tactics with powerful potential.
Richard Millington Founder at FeverBee Twitter: @RichMillington Richard is the Founder of FeverBee, a community consultancy, and the author of Buzzing Communities. Topic: Reaching Critical Mass: 150 Active Members Imagine you could create and rejuvenate a successful community whenever you like? Richard Millington will take you through a step by step action plan to reach critical mass.
Wil Reynolds Director of Strategy at Seer Interactive Twitter: @wilreynolds Wil Reynolds founded Seer with a focus on doing great things for its clients, team, and the community. His passion for driving and analyzing the impact that a site's traffic has on the company's bottom line has shaped SEO and digital marketing industries. Wil also actively supports the Covenant House. Topic: The Time to Do the Web Right Is Incredibly Short In "web time," competitive advantage can be lost in an instant, speed matters. Wil shares how keep on the pulse of competitor agility and how to get things done to stay ahead of them.

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In addition to fabulous days full of great content from extraordinary minds, we're also cooking up three nights of great fun, networking, and MozCon love. Monday night, our partners will be hosting a pub crawl in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood with special prizes for those who hit every spot. Tuesday night, we're doing a networking event, featuring you, the community, and your passions besides marketing. Details to come as they're finalized! And finally, Wednesday night, we'll say 'see you next year' with our traditional party at the Garage: karaoke, bowling, pool, and chilling with friends.

Questions about MozCon? I'm happy to answer them in the comments.

See you at MozCon, friends!

Buy your ticket!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!