SEO expert Geoff Atkinson is an ex retailer and founder and CEO of Huckabuy — an SEO company dedicated to aligning with Google initiatives for optimal SEO results.
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Getting Into SEO
Geoff generally felt that the SEO industry was lacking overall. While he was still at the retailer Overstock, Geoff saw the power of SEO and was shocked that in the United States, SEO is an 85 Billion dollar industry with a net promoter score of 0.
Any time there is an industry with a net promoter score of 0 — it’s ripe for disruption. While many people focus on keywords and content, Huckabuy stays focused on the technical side of SEO.
Addressing those larger, scalable SEO issues are really difficult for a company to do in house, which is why Geoff wanted to offer a solution like Huckabuy.
Dynamic Rendering Site
Alongside desktop and mobile, there is a third presentation of your site, which is a dynamic rendering site.
Optimizing for the user has been the golden ticket for years, but Google has done a 360 with the introduction of dynamic rendering. Basically, it exists because of Javascript.
Basically, Google bots can’t crawl Javascript pages with speed and precision. This quickly became an expensive problem for Google. The introduction of Dynamic Rendering is Google’s way of dealing with overly complex sites.
How Difficult is it To Create a Dynamic Rendering Site?
According to Geoff, the process is technically pretty complicated. Converting Javascript content into flat, HTML versions, finding somewhere to store all that extra information and keeping it fast is all part of the job, which is a tall order for most in house developer teams.
Even though the dynamic rendering site can be incredibly powerful, most businesses aren’t prioritizing it — which is where technologies like those Huckabuy offers can be such a life saver.
The difficulty of layering in dynamic rendering also depends on how difficult it is for Google to crawl your site currently.
Some sites don’t even know they have a problem and don’t realize that things like chatbots are creating massive problems — like blocking great content from being indexed for weeks — if it ever is.
For sites like that, Geoff says the returns can be phenomenal. On average, businesses average 62% growth over 12 months when they implement dynamic rendering.
UX and SEO Finally Find Common Ground
One of the biggest benefits is that the front end can do anything, and there is still a site for Google to crawl. It’s the best of both UX and SEO worlds and may be the answer that solves multiple problems.
Google Page Experience Update
Understanding page speed is an important factor and something that Geoff has been developing a product for with his team at Huckaby.
The page experience algorithm update from Google will become a major factor in 2021.
Because most people use Google Chrome, Google has been able collect massive amounts of data that will begin making a big impact in SEO.
Structured Data
Structured Data is the authoritative format used to talk to search engines so they can best understand what a page is about. Rather than the search engine having to crawl the sites HTML, the structured data simply gives a synopsis.
Those immediate search answers that come back now when you search something are using the language of structured data and are becoming a macro trend.
Interestingly immediacy matters more now than brand loyalty. 50% of searches now are zero click — meaning users aren’t even clicking into their favorites — but rather what comes first.
Insider Tips
If we’ve inspired someone to take their first step with SEO Marketing – what do they need to know to give themselves the best chance of success?
- Keyword research. Go to Google Keyword Planner or Moz and do your research
- Make your site descriptions based on what people search for, instead of what you think they should be.
Once you’ve started of course you’ve got to ‘keep optimising’! So what’s your favourite way to improve SEO marketing performance?
Invest in technology and improve technical SEO tactics that have site wide impacts.
It’s impossible to improve our marketing unless we’re monitoring the performance – but the list of stuff we could monitor can be overwhelming. So what, for you is the number one SEO marketing KPI?
Revenue
Crystal ball time – what’s coming up in the next 6-12 months that we should be getting ready for in SEO marketing?
Voice Search is becoming what mobile used to be. Right now, it kind of works, but isn’t better than just typing on your desktop or mobile. Think about optimizing for voice search now to be ahead of the trend!
Interview Links
Geoff on Social media:
Sponsored by…
Klaviyo is a leading customer data and marketing automation platform dedicated to accelerating revenue and customer connection for online businesses. Klaviyo makes it easy to store, access, analyze and use transactional and behavioral data to power highly-targeted customer and prospect communications. The company’s hybrid customer-data and marketing-platform model allows companies to grow by fostering direct relationships with customers, without giving up their valuable data to popular big-tech ad platforms. Over 80,000 innovative companies like Unilever, Custom Ink, Living Proof and Huckberry sell more with Klaviyo. Learn more at www.klaviyo.com.