Anyone who has been in the industry for a while will not be unfamiliar because SEO is constantly changing.
Since we now have a plethora of tools to help us analyze vast amounts of data, our fingertips, data-based SEO has changed the way we make decisions, allowing us to develop better campaigns.
But where is the next step?
I reached out to four SEO experts to see what they had to say about it.
Olga Andrienko, Global Marketing Director, Oscrush
The future of SEO belongs to fast and secure mobile-optimized websites, leveraging Google's SERP capabilities for maximum exposure.
Now, being number one on Google may Latest Mailing Database necessarily mean you've earned exposure. Sometimes top natural positions require a few scrolls on mobile. That doesn't always make marketers feel like winners, does it?
So fix technical issues for your site now and analyze SERPs for relevant keywords to see/seize opportunities that others don't. Having as many positions as possible in the SERPs is key.
SEOs will need data to spot such opportunities. The demand for technical SEO tools is growing. Over 50% of our updates come from the wishes of our users, and we've recently focused our efforts on technical search engine optimization (SEO), which is exactly what our users are asking for. Among the satisfied requests, we have 10 HTTP checks, AMP checks and various SERP feature reports.
Our audience is primarily advanced SEO professionals. Seeing them heavily dig through various SERP features and leverage them tells us that's exactly what the industry is doing.
And I can't stress enough about phone optimization. Mobile search overtook desktop a few years ago, and we're seeing a growing trend in mobile searches for most keywords across all 17 mobile databases. So, this is definitely something to research for all sites that want to keep getting search traffic.
Eli Schwartz, Product Director, Natural Search, SurveyMonkey
When I first started SEO, generating organic traffic was easy because of having keywords as meta tags, maximizing keyword density, and getting links from anywhere. Fortunately, search engine algorithms have become more sensible about page rankings, and the entire internet has benefited enormously.
What is the intent and topic of the search that drives the results, I don't have much power to force rankings if my page isn't relevant. So today more than ever, data plays an important role in the direction of any of my SEO campaigns.
I developed a website architecture strategy based on bot crawling behavior I found in my access logs, building a content strategy for keyword performance from the search console, and building page layouts using major revenue from A/B testing. This changed the focus of how I achieved SEO success and who I hired to help with SEO campaigns.
Whereas I used to look for bold and creative marketers, I now look for people with strong analytical skills and experience making decisions based on data.
Nextiva CEO Tomas Gorny
As the population of data grows to unimaginable proportions, business owners need to understand not only what's available, but also how to extract the bits and bytes needed to build useful data sets.
On the surface, analyzing the data appears to be about more sales. But beneath the core of data science, it's about the deep ability to enhance the customer experience.
Data helps businesses provide better answers, build better products, and market goods and services that customers actually want.
AI is the way to help us get better results from data. This is not the future, it is already playing. Marketing giants like Google and Amazon are working on more sophisticated AI. In the near future, it will be easier for every business to use AI.
This is the true future of data-driven SEO. Whoever provides the best data-based AI strategy to return the most relevant results wins the internet.
Content and web strategist Ronell Smith
's top-performing brands will be data-driven, not data-driven.
"Going where the data takes you" is a common question in SEO, said by experts and novices alike. It's as if these six words give special weight to the person who speaks it and the experience they describe.
However, data orientation is the recipe for false and misleading marketing, especially when it comes to content creation and presentation.
In the coming months and years, I suspect more institutions will further combine quantitative with qualitative, tending to allow data to inform the process rather than guide it.
Why?
Data tells us how certain things are performing and, but only a small (albeit important) part of the larger picture that does not.
For example, if Google Analytics is showing poor content on your website, you can access very detailed content (eg, average time on site, average page time, bounce rate, etc.) explaining how it lags and Poor guesswork as to why.
However, there is not enough data to tell us whether the content is suitable for the intended audience, and how best to optimize it to ensure that what can be done to save the content.
This requires observation and analysis of potentially dozens of factors to develop a comprehensive view, all elements that are often lacking when online marketers are data-led.
Today’s online marketing clients are masterful and time-poor to engage and market to them, and solutions backed only by data are akin to flying blind.
We should still make data-backed decisions. However, we must consider precise data collection, overall strategy and the role of numerous unknowns.