SEO: Process Driven vs Outside of the Box Strategies with Rob Stanbury (episode 148)
by April Buencamino-dyWe are joined by Rob Stanbury, Senior SEO Consultant at Spec Digital – a PPC and SEO consultancy that helps clients all over the world through coaching, consulting, strategising, and delivering business growth through Google. He spends his days working on how best to improve their eCommerce client’s SEO traffic… and most importantly revenue.
Listen now for free:
Subscribe to Keep Optimising on your favourite Podcast App
Where do we start with SEO?
Rob says it’s possible to run a successful SEO campaign using a process-driven strategy, especially if you’re just starting. To get the ball rolling, use tried and tested techniques, and you will see good results come in.
If you’re looking to compete with those in the top three positions on Google or those who are knowledgeable in SEO, that’s the time you have to start looking at strategies that are out-of-the-box to rank higher.
Process-driven SEO
SEO is primarily working towards increasing rankings on search engines, particularly Google. Rob says one of the basics of SEO is indexability. Look at your core pages and make sure they are keyword-driven.
Know what your customers are searching for so you can reflect that on your pages and tell the search engines that’s what your pages are about.
The Aim of the Game
Your objective is to generate revenue. So do customer and competitive research to pick out the best keyword for your products.
Find the keyword that resonates with what your customers are searching for, and also make sure that what you’re calling your products is the most relevant. When you begin to do these things, that’s when you’ll see your conversion rate start to go up.
Out-of-the-Box SEO
There are three areas of SEO you need to focus on when going out-of-the-box: content, technical, and off-site.
Always start with an audit. Using out-of-the-box strategies requires deep research and trying to find the right path to take to improve your SEO performance.
Moving from One Strategy to Another
When you begin to plateau with your rankings and your traffic, it may be time to shift from process-driven strategies to out-of-the-box strategies.
Think of what you can do to push the needle and take your strategy to the next level.
Insider Tips
If we’ve inspired someone to take their first step with SEO – what do they need to know to give themselves the best chance of success?
Find trustworthy resources you can sign up for. Rob recommends the Search Engine Journal as a place to start.
Follow SEO experts on Twitter, follow Google on Twitter because they give updates there, and keep absorbing what you come across and read. SEO is an area where you’re going to constantly learn new things, so make sure to follow great resources.
Once you’ve started of course you’ve got to ‘keep optimising’! So what’s your favourite way to improve SEO performance?
For those who are technically driven like Rob, use Google Chrome for your browser and use the developer tools in there to test different things, such as turning off JavaScript.
If you’re not technically driven, Rob says content is king. Make sure your content is up-to-date, and also look at what your competitors are doing and see how you can apply their strategies to your own campaigns.
And just as a general tip, stay updated with modern practices because things go out of date quickly.
If someone listening wants to learn more about SEO is there one cheap/free resource you’d recommend?
Rob recommends listening to the Winning with Shopify podcast hosted by Nick Trueman from Spec Digital.
Crystal ball time – what’s coming up in the next 6-12 months that we should be getting ready for in SEO?
There are two things Rob mentions. The first is GA4. Prepare yourself for that and start to do some digging. It’s much better if you begin doing that sooner rather than later.
The second is AI within SEO. Don’t copy and paste from AI writing tools because Google will be able to detect this and hinder your pages from ranking. On the other side, AI will be helpful for SEO campaigns because it can give you ideas and thinking points.
*For more on GA4, listen to our episodes with Dan Coleman (episode 111) and Jill Quick (episode 138).
Interview Links
Rob on Social media:
Sponsored by…
Experts in customer acquisition through PPC & SEO.
Reach out to discover how we can help you scale up your business.
Get in touch via this form for your chance to speak to one of our consultants about some of your biggest SEO pain points.
