For Jeff Oxford, founder of Oregon-based 180 Marketing, search engine optimization boils down to four buckets. He stresses that making connections is a priority.
“The first [bucket] is link building from quality sites,” he told me. “You may have good content and a fast, mobile-friendly website, but without backlinks, you’re unlikely to rank highly.”
Oxford founded 180 Marketing in 2013. Fast forward to 2022 and the company is made up of project managers, experts and link builders.
We recently discussed the state of SEO in 2022 with him. The full audio of our conversation is embedded below. The transcript has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Eric Bandholz: Should Marketers Aim for SEO?
Jeff Oxford: Yes, although SEO doesn’t get the publicity it used to.
Google has its own official guidelines that outline some of the things you should do to optimize your organic search rankings. These include creating great content and a user-friendly, mobile-optimized website.
The opposite is the so-called black hat SEO, such as picking keywords, invisible fonts, self-generated links from forums, comments and the like.
I can simplify effective SEO into four buckets. The first is link building from quality sites. You may have good content and a fast, mobile-friendly website, but you probably won’t rank high without backlinks.
The next bucket is the contents. Original, well-written blog posts and product descriptions are essential for merchants looking to rank organically. Never use manufacturers’ product descriptions.
Next comes page optimization – title tag, header tags like H1 and H2, and image alt tags.
The last bucket is technical SEO. A website should be easily crawled by search robots, should not have duplicate content and, importantly, should load quickly. Google organic rankings are now “mobile first”. This is why a mobile-friendly website is crucial.
Bandholz: Let’s say I want to outsource SEO. What questions should I ask a prospective company?
Oxford: Ask how the company builds backlinks. Do they have cases? Can they explain their strategies and expectations? Ask about their content capabilities.
Link building is paramount. It is difficult for other websites to get links to you. Changing the structure or content of a website is relatively easy. Tempting links are not. A newer website with a lower domain authority will not rank well without backlinks.
In terms of content creation, an SEO company should research keyword opportunities and provide a list of top topics to cover. The company should create a content summary that explains which questions to answer and which keywords to include.
Bandholz: How can marketers create backlinks themselves?
Oxford: Offering products that people love will naturally attract backlinks. Selling quality goods is therefore the first step. Asking bloggers for product reviews could also be effective, although Google doesn’t technically allow reviews to be exchanged for free samples.
Guest posting is another method. Find a suitable website with a good reputation. Write an article that includes links to your product pages. Then contact the editor for publication. But be careful about guest posting. People will buy a blog and turn it into a guest posting farm where 100% of the articles are just guest posts.
Podcasts are another strategy. Explore important podcasts in your industry and pitch as a guest. Then request a link back when the episode is published.
Sometimes you can turn discount codes into links. Advertise the code on related blogs and websites to attract backlinks.
Bandholz: How can marketers learn SEO to do it themselves?
Oxford: One of my favorite resources for beginners is Backlinko. It provides useful SEO information for beginners that is easy to learn – all for free. Another great resource is Ahrefs. They have a great blog with actionable content and a good YouTube channel that breaks down the concepts step by step.
Bandholz: How can listeners reach you?
Oxford: Our website is 180marketing.com. I’m on LinkedIn.
And the way to do that is with these five formulas: use competitive analysis, get active on social media, leverage on-page elements, build backlinks, and target Google snippets. SEO is simply a matter of knowing the right strategies, hard work and patience.
What are the four basic elements of an SEO strategy?
Contents
4 key components of a successful SEO strategy
- Key words. Keywords are words and phrases used in website content that enable searchers to find your website through a search engine. …
- Link building. …
- Blog & Social. …
- Content.
What are the 4 main components of SEO? Each component builds on and complements the others. The stronger the links between each of the four components of SEO – technical SEO, on-page SEO, off-page SEO and content – the better the results. Being aware of connections will help us better understand how to best use them effectively.
Does SEO require coding?
The short answer is: no, SEO usually doesn’t require much (or any) hands-on coding. You can absolutely do great SEO without touching code. But the longer answer is that yes, having a good feel for how programming works or even being able to do some coding yourself is always a useful skill.
Which programming language should I learn for SEO? JavaScript. If you’re going down the path of web development, want to be a better technical SEO, want to understand how websites are built, JavaScript is an incredibly robust programming language that has seen a boom in website use over the past few years.
Is SEO part of programming?
Many people believe that SEO does not require technical or programming knowledge. But according to Flexisource IT’s in-house SEO expert, Roque Pospos, the short answer is NO, SEO doesn’t usually require a lot of hands-on coding, but it’s good to master.
The short answer is: no, SEO usually doesn’t require much (or any) hands-on coding. You can absolutely do great SEO without touching code.
Is SEO a programming?
SEO is different from regular software programming where you design, develop, debug, test and deploy. SEO is the activity of fine-tuning websites, which includes the analysis and verification of websites. SEO is a combination of compliance with search standards and techniques to make your website relevant for certain keywords.
What does SEO stand for in coding?
SEO is short for search engine optimization, which is a set of practices designed to improve the appearance and positioning of websites in organic search results.
Is it hard to learn SEO?
Learning SEO is difficult because there is a lot of information to read about search engines and how the optimization process works, which can be overwhelming at first.
Why is SEO so difficult?
In summary, SEO is difficult because search engines are always changing and updating. It could be anything from Google changing the way they look at a certain type of link, including a new major update to their algorithm, or even recognizing something new as a ranking factor.
Is it hard to do your own SEO?
You can absolutely do SEO yourself or do it yourself (do it yourself SEO). With a little research and a lot of practice, anyone can learn how to do SEO for their business. A quick way to get started with SEO is to enter your URL here and then focus your SEO efforts on the recommended action items.
Is learning SEO worth it?
The short answer is that SEO is very effective – not only for generating traffic, but also for leads and sales. Do not worry. The long answer includes research and data, not just empty statements. Most SEOs get too caught up in search-specific metrics like SERPs (Search Engine Results Page), rankings, and organic traffic.
What are the 3 SEO KPIs you should be tracking?
Monitoring revenue, ROI, conversions and organic visibility are important SEO KPIs to track for your SEO program.
What is an SEO plan?
An SEO strategy is a detailed plan to improve your website’s search engine rankings in order to capture more organic traffic. This plan is based on several core pillars, including technical SEO, content strategy, on-page SEO, link building, and user experience.
What is SEO and examples? Businesses work on search engine optimization or SEO to help increase visibility and move their business higher in the search engine rankings. SEO is used through search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, Bing, etc.
Whats SEO stand for?
SEO stands for search engine optimization and is the process used to optimize a website’s technical configuration, content relevance and link popularity, so that its pages can become easier to find, more relevant and popular to users’ search queries, and as a result search engines rank them better.
What is an example of SEO?
How they determine the “best” result is based on an algorithm that takes into account authority, relevance to that query, load speed, and more. (For example, Google has over 200 ranking factors in its algorithm.) In most cases, when people think of “search engine optimization,†they think of “Google SEO.†.
What is SEO & How it works?
Well, SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimization’ which is the process of getting traffic from free, organic, editorial or natural search engine results. Its purpose is to improve your site’s position on search results pages. Remember, the higher a site is listed, the more people will see it.
Why do I need SEO for my website?
SEO consists of several elements and knowing what they are and how they work is key to understanding why SEO is so important. In short, SEO is crucial because it makes your website more visible, which means more traffic and more opportunities to convert leads into customers.
What is the most important part of SEO?
The #1 Google Ranking Factor At WebTek, we say that the most important parts of SEO and the most important ranking factors in Google are web page titles and title tags. Headlines represent the prime real estate of any website – they’re your best chance to tell Google exactly what your website or page is about.