Many of the most popular SEO tactics and methods are well-known and embraced universally, but there are other, less utilized strategies that can produce results. As such, we’ll take a look at three of these unconventional methods and explain what they can do for you.

Target Voice Search Results

One of the easiest ways to begin making yourself more visible in various search results is to target results where others aren’t. It can seem difficult at times to find new SERP opportunities, but there’s one big area that is still under-tapped in terms of competition: voice search.

People tend to search for information and products via voice differently than through text-based queries. Ultimately, targeting keywords and phrases relevant to voice searches within your niche can produce some pretty stellar results that differ from those of traditional searches. By pinging URLs to search engines for content and products optimized for voice searches, you can begin boosting visibility immediately.

Tap Into Broken Link Building

Link building is of course a cornerstone of SEO. Most people think about link building in the context of earning brand new links in fresh content on other websites, but this isn’t the only method. Broken link building is still a tactic that is ripe for those who take the time to do so, and ultimately can pay huge dividends.

It works by identifying broken links on other websites that are related to your content. When you find a broken link, you then approach the webmaster or blogger about the situation, alerting them to the broken link. In the same conversation, you make a pitch to replace the broken link with a link to your own relevant content. Given that there are many broken links spread across every niche, using a broken link finder to uncover these instances can give you many leads for boosting your rankings.

Repurpose Your Existing Content

If you’re trying to gain more exposure in search engines, the easiest way might not always involve pinging URLs in the form of completely new content. One such way to maximize the power of your content is to repurpose it. How does this work?

Sift through your older content, looking for examples that can be repurposed into new posts and formats. This might involve creating a round-up that incorporates multiple older posts, or breaking down a previous guide into smaller pieces for circulation. Content repurposing can often take a single piece of content and create multiple variations, providing your website with more pages and opportunities to target SERPs.

While many mainstream methods for harnessing the power of SEO can and should still be used, gaining some additional traction via methods that aren’t so common is still worth the effort. By scouring for broken links, targeting voice search results and repurposing old content, you can create many unique opportunities for ranking in search results that your competitors might not be using.

Link building is one of these methods and has been around for just as long as the concept of search engine optimization itself. Everybody who dives into the world of SEO knows that link building is necessary, but some don’t know why it’s so crucial.

With that in mind, we’ll discuss some of the benefits brands can expect to receive from building links.

Greater Visibility in Search

The most notable – and pursued – benefit of link building certainly relates to the increase in visibility that can be achieved in search. Just as much as pinging search engines with fresh content can help you improve search rankings, so can an accumulation of links pointing to you from other websites.

Search engines generally perceive websites that have more links from trustworthy sources as being better and more relevant, and elevate them accordingly. While it certainly matters from where these links are originating, high-quality links earned from respected websites ultimately do have an impact on SEO outcomes.

Additional Traffic from Other Websites

It should go without saying that the reason anybody at all cares about SEO and link building is because they’re hoping to drive traffic to their websites as a result of it. Link building can definitely improve SEO rankings, but it can also drive additional traffic to your website in the interim.

Earned links that feature on various pages, blog posts and even on social media all help to increase the number of people visiting your website. Even in the case of social media links – which aren’t directly tied to SEO for Google results – the end result is that people will be visiting your website. Given that it’s recommended to have traffic sources that are diverse and not reliant on any one platform, building links across social media and various websites can also be viewed as an insurance policy against sudden algorithm changes or hits to your SEO reputation.

General Sense of Authority

Perhaps the biggest intangible benefit of link building is the fact that it highlights your brand as an authority within its niche. If a particular website decides to link back to you, it shows that they have trust in you – and that is also conveyed to their audience. Likewise, search engines also assess the connections between websites via their links and come to similar, albeit much more technical, conclusions.

Needless to say, a perceived sense of authority can be quite useful for brands – particularly those who sell products or otherwise ask for money. It can help make your sales pitches and calls to action much more effective among audiences that see you as an authoritative entity within the niche.

Link building can generate many benefits – and it’s not all just about pinging search engines for SEO clout. From audience perceptions to new sources of traffic, building links throughout your niche and beyond can produce a variety of useful benefits for brands both large and small.

Standard written content is an excellent way to absorb ideas and thoughts, but some prefer different methods of learning. Such desires helped inspire the creation of the infographic, a form of content used for years to boil down more complex ideas and explanations into simple ones.

While creating an infographic from scratch doesn’t take much expertise in theory, creating one that can truly reach large numbers of people and go viral requires a specific touch. Let’s look at how to maximize the influence of your upcoming infographics.

Find What’s Trending

Creating infographics that truly reach large numbers of people in a short amount of time involves more than just luck. Ultimately, you’ll need to conduct market research to uncover what people are interested in at the time. Through the use of analytics and trend features on sites like Google and Twitter, you can determine in real time which topics are most likely to produce viral infographic content.

While your brand may be focused on a particular niche and therefore not able to pursue infographics relating to any random topic, understanding concepts such as trends and search volume can still help within that niche. By pinging to Google a few simple queries, you’ll get an idea of which topic angles are most likely to produce an outcome that achieves maximum visibility.

Visualize the Data (Unconventionally)

The key to success for an infographic doesn’t just involve timeliness and trending topics, but also how the data is displayed. Most creators of successful infographics start out by first visualizing the data and its flow. However, a very matter-of-fact approach for infographics isn’t always the most effective strategy.

When creating the design and flow for your infographic, consider how you can make the data more titillating. This may involve the use of various logos, shapes and symbols, bright colors and unique photography. The potential for unique infographic design is endless, but consider carefully how to unconventionally display the data in a way that still resonates with your audience’s tastes.

Provide a Narrative

Story-telling is as old as time – and it remains just as important in today’s digital world. Your infographic should at its core attempt to paint a narrative, walking readers through each piece of data step-by-step. While making this form of content overly complex is not recommended, that doesn’t mean that the data-points and facts being shared shouldn’t convey a story or narrative.

Whatever the topic, there should be an underlying message. Much like when you’re pinging to Google your latest blog post (with the hopes that it will understand the theme and topic via word analysis), you also want readers to clearly understand the sentiment being impressed by the infographic. Whether you use humor or goodwill to articulate this is entirely up to you.

Various talents are required to create an effective infographic, including graphic design, story-telling, data analysis and creative skills. If these can all be brought together under the roof of one project, then influential and even viral infographics can be created. Take the information shared here and use it as a basis for formulating your next big visual content idea!

Navigation is crucial for both the internet and your own website. How can people and search engines effectively find your content without an organized and sensible structure? For ages, bloggers and webmasters alike have used sitemaps to accomplish this goal.

To illustrate the necessity of sitemaps, let’s examine why every website should embrace this feature.

Sitemaps Help Keep Growing Websites Navigable

As your website ages and grows, it inevitably will accumulate more and more pages. While a dozen or two pages may not be difficult to find or track, hundreds or even thousands of pages can ultimately become difficult for even search engines to find. Sitemaps serve one crucial purpose for on-site navigation: to help users (and yourself) easily find every piece of content published.

By creating silos or categories of content, finding each and every example easily only takes a bit of HTML know-how or a plug-in. In many ways, sitemaps can function as virtual directories that ensure every piece of content remains visible and isn’t lost to the sands of time.

Sitemaps Illustrate the Focus of Your Website

Over time, some websites may gradually drift away from their original purpose – though not intentionally. While a particular content may have been the website’s initial raison d’etre, as the months and years have passed on, the focus of content may begin to shift or drift. While this is fine if intentional, many bloggers and webmasters slowly pivot without realizing it.

By creating a sitemap, you’ll easily be able to visualize the overall structure and flow of your website. Since you’ll be pinging links to this sitemap from every page on your website, glancing at how the focus of content is shifting over time becomes much easier. You may be surprised that the focus of your content has gradually drifted from its original intent: with that information, you can decide either to pivot back or continue the trend.

Improve Search Engine Crawling Speed

Just as there are tangible benefits to sitemaps for humans, there are also technical benefits. Search engines utilize crawlers that in some respects manually comb the web for new pages and content; this content is then assessed and ranked in search engine results relevant to the pages’ topics.

HTML sitemaps are a great way to organize your content and improve the speed at which search engine crawlers find it. The more efficiently you’re pinging links to search engines, the quicker they can find them and list them. For brands competing intensely in one or more niches via SEO, this can make a huge difference in how quickly people discover your content.

Sitemaps serve both technical and practical purposes for users, webmasters and search engines alike. Given the ease of creating one, there’s simply no excuse not to have this feature for your website regardless of the number of pages featured on it.

Hundreds of unique digital marketing techniques exist, but one age-old option that still remains is the press release. Capable of generating mentions for your brand or website in both traditional print media and online PR platforms, press releases are an easy and effective way to add a professional touch to your brand.

As such, let’s look at how you can form the basis for great press releases.

Develop an Action-Oriented Headline

The first few words of a press release can make all the difference in grabbing the attention of an audience. In many ways, writing a press release is similar to writing a captivating blog post: you must snare audiences initially, and this can be done most easily by creating a headline that uses action words and verbs.

Explain in just one sentence what your brand has done or is announcing – all while adhering to this advice. In no time at all, your press releases will be pinging users and readers across multiple platforms while actually being read by these audiences.

Summarize Your Press Release

Making press releases easy to read is essential in ensuring others actually read what you have to say, as the format for PRs isn’t exactly captivating. Many successful businesses and brands use bullet points to convey in just two or three sentences what the entirety of the PR is highlighting.

Given that eyes on digital content ultimately gravitate to the short and sweet, make sure that your summaries do the full press release justice. Again, focus on action words and ensure that audiences won’t regret looking at what you have to say.

Incorporate Quotes

One of the key differences between press releases and news articles is the inclusion of quotes, which adds a layer of professionalism to your content. When representing your brand via a PR, it’s quite easy – if a bit awkward – to refer to yourself in the third person. However, doing this (along with including one or two quotes from you or an associate) is expected in press releases and required by most PR and media outlets. These quotes should obviously refer to the event covered in the PR or reinforce the topic with facts or statistics.

Add Supplemental Information

Last but not least, closing out your press release with additional information and/or methods for reaching out is essential. Just like you’re certainly pinging users with contact information on your website, you should incorporate options for contact in the PR itself (including website, address, phone number and/or email).

Additionally, it never hurts for some PRs to attach various images or videos that are relevant to the theme itself. While most mediums won’t necessarily publish these forms of content directly, they may provide supplemental links where it can be viewed.

Writing a great press release isn’t something that can be accomplished instantly. However, you can ensure that your PRs are taken seriously by the masses by following the four tips above; with these tips in use, your press releases will get the attention and credit they deserve.

Yet for the longest, it has been understood that there is no direct connection between social signals and SEO itself: in essence, that lots of social media activity doesn’t inherently boost your rankings in search engines.

However, there is evidence that this has changed – but what connection actually does exist between the two? Let’s take a peek at how much social shares and signals impact SEO in 2019 and beyond.

The Official Statement

In terms of what most already know, the official claims regarding social signals and search engine optimization remain the same. Simply put, search engines like Google deny that there is any direct effect on SEO from social signals.

Despite Google stating that there is no absolute connection between the two, the story is different with Bing. In Bing search results, social signals are absolutely linked to SEO performance. In a given quarter, anywhere from 15% to 25% of North American search traffic flows through Bing. This means that a strong social media presence can actually bolster your visibility in these specific search results when coupled with a respectable SEO endeavor.

However, those who have spent years pinging links to search engines and content to social media argue that despite no direct connection perhaps existing, there is an effect that is both measurable and meaningful.

A Correlation Based on Evidence

So what exactly does the evidence and research show with regard to social signals and SEO on Google? Multiple studies have determined that there is a correlation between site rank and social signals, showing that the more social media activity a brand has, the higher it ranks in search results. The correlation isn’t exactly weak, either: it’s a very strong correlation that suggests there is more to it than coincidence.

What the evidence suggests is that social signals may not directly relate to SEO for Google, but it can impact other ranking factors that Google does consider. Most notably, greater social media visibility means more sharing, which means more links being earned for your content. As you continue to grow on social media, so does the opportunity for earning links – which definitely do impact SEO outcomes.

Improving Your Social Media for SEO

Now that you’re aware of the correlation, what can be done to further improve SEO performance via social media? Arguably the most important criteria are ensuring social media profiles are fleshed out, posting new and unique content on a regular basis, and focus on content that users naturally want to share.

The end result will be a high-ranking social media presence in social media-specific SERPs related to your brand and a steady flow of content that ensures maximum engagement and visibility (which in turn help build links). Such efforts will automatically improve performance on Bing, but with Google, it will lay the foundation for you to start pinging links in SERPs more prominently.

Depending on the search engines you’re targeting, social signals can directly or indirectly impact SEO performance. Ultimately, much can be gained from cultivating a consistent and active social media presence, so don’t abandon this aspect of SEO planning just because the process may be different than with other SEO factors.

Yet all too often, brands become focused on the standard, text-based search results that most of us use. The end result is that competition for search engine real estate is substantially lower in other categories, such as videos and images.

If you want to improve both your SEO and traffic while avoiding some of the competition and hassle, then keep reading to learn how to optimize your images for SEO.

Utilize Captions, Tags and Text

In every situation possible, maximizing the performance of an image in search results revolves around being as descriptive as possible with the image in question. Ultimately, pinging search engines with details about the image lets them determine what exactly the image represents; while visual assessments of images by search engines are evolving, they still largely rely on text to determine intent and meaning.

In any article or page that the image is added to, including captions is essential. Likewise, including as many tags as possible (via alt text and title text) further conveys meaning to search engines. While you don’t want to spam each image with tons of keywords, adding these relevant details will automatically put your images ahead of the majority of images being indexed by search engines today.

Add Images to as Much Content as Possible

Individual images can be individual opportunities for new visitors to find your website via search image results, but finding opportunities to use images in multiple locations can improve performance. The more often a particular image is referenced in content, the more powerful it can become in relevant SERPs. However, much like with tags, avoid unnecessarily spamming the use of any one image in an attempt to abuse this perk.

Likewise, every piece of content you create should feature unique images in the body of the text. Much like each written blog post or page presents opportunity to rank in SERPs, so does each image – and with the option of adding multiple images to a single piece of content, ranking prominently in image results becomes much easier.

Optimize Image Attributes

While text-based optimization remains vital in performing well in image results, so does other optimizations. For example, those who use WordPress have access to responsive image functionality: based on the visitor’s browser and resolution, a specific file size or variation can be served up. By having multiple variations optimized for various devices and browsers, the likelihood of said image appearing for a given user in image results increases.

Another somewhat related optimization pertains to file size. Given that most search engines users now search via mobile devices, smaller file sizes are highly desired by search engines. You can compress and optimize images with little to no loss in quality, reducing its size by 80% or more. The faster an image can load, the more prominently in tends to rank in SERPs.

Improving SEO isn’t just about pinging search engines with blog posts and fleshed-out pages. Multimedia plays an important role as well: by optimizing the text-based and technical aspects of your images and using them as often as possible, you can compete for the same real estate in image results that you’re currently competing for in text-based search results.

However, what about brands that provide a product or service? Given that it is an exchange rather than a free-flow of information or entertainment, convincing prospective and loyal customers alike to follow your pages, visit your store and make purchases can be difficult. Nevertheless, social media is flexible and provides solutions for any and all brands.

As such, let’s look at how e-commerce stores can combine social media marketing with their existing efforts for maximum efficiency.

Learn the Complexities of Social Media Ads

Paid advertising is probably the easiest route for e-commerce websites to embrace with regard to social media. Given that most brands enjoy high returns on investment when paid advertising is properly utilized, there’s minimal down-side to employing this strategy. While there is considerable upkeep involved, pinging users on social media with product ads, reviews and other forms of ad copy can yield substantial benefits even for smaller online stores.

However, there are many forms of ads that can be used, particularly on Facebook. Some ad campaigns may be configured to increase likes on a particular post, while others drive people to contact your store directly. Social media ads are more complex than many realize; learning how to take full advantage in order to bolster your store on social media can strengthen it in every respect.

Focus on Building Audiences

An organic following on some social media platforms may be more powerful than you think. In particular, sites such as Instagram largely revolve around driving consumer decisions: many brands show-case their products in posts on it, thereby driving sales.

By building a natural audience of followers, you can pitch new and relevant products on a consistent basis without paying to promote each one. While building a following on social media as an online store can be quite challenging, the process can be helped by offering unique benefits (such as discounts and free shipping) to those who follow you.

Take Advantage of Retargeting

Many people who have visited your e-commerce store may have not ever interacted with your social media presence – but that doesn’t mean they don’t use social media. The majority of visitors to your website will not make a purchase initially, but getting them to come back over and over inevitably produces more sales.

Through retargeting, you can show these users ads on social media that will remind them of your brand and its offerings. This process relies on user cookies in part, so it’s important to strike while the iron is hot. Having a consistent campaign built around retargeting is crucial in maximizing those otherwise lost sales.

Pinging users on social media with advertising may seem easy, but e-commerce stores have more difficulty. By tying in your social media presence with your online store-front, you can combine efforts and produce more effective results long-term. Whether it’s through generic ads, targeting specific platforms or retargeting, these strategies can help boost sales and increase brand visibility.

With respect to paid advertising, most know the major contenders: Facebook, Google Ads and other PPC networks with massive reach get much attention. However, new and emerging advertising channels are appearing every day, with some of them offering unique opportunities to reach audiences with less competition.

As such, we’ll take a gander at some of these unique channels you’ll want to consider advertising on in 2020 and beyond.

Spotify

Established brands with traditional marketing tactics understand the nature of radio advertising, but many fail to embrace newer variations and channels such as Spotify. Millions of people use Spotify’s free music service, which features ads in between songs. This is one platform where brands can reach users based on interests and locations, and the channel uses a variety of metrics to help brands uncover the effectiveness of their campaigns.

Spotify offers a variety of ad types, including audio ads, video ads and even sponsored playlists. Brands who can effective utilize all of these ad types can target audiences in 2020 and beyond with an as-of-yet relatively uncontested marketing strategy. This highly effective method of pinging users with various types of ads cannot be overlooked in the coming year.

Bing Ads

While everybody is familiar with and many use Google Ads for digital marketing purposes, its distant cousin Bing doesn’t get much attention. While attracting about one-tenth the overall traffic of Google, the number of brands and competitors using the service in many instances is even smaller than that. The end result is that savvy brands can tap into a smaller but less contested audience in 2020 with optimal efficiency.

Even with fewer users, Bing SERPs being targeted via the Microsoft Advertising network can actually drive more traffic to your site than AdWords. As such, don’t overlook this opportunity that’s currently hidden in plain sight.

Reddit

Known for many years as a great community in which to find answers and discover fresh content, Reddit has been utilized in some marketing circles in a more organic fashion. Brands that are able to provide assistance and engage with various subreddits can enjoy subtle marketing benefits from the channel, but many don’t take advantage of the direct marketing aspects Reddit provides.

Reddit Advertising allows individuals to target specific subreddits and audiences, accomplish specific campaign objectives and view progress via its internal analytics options. Perhaps the one challenge is the level of skepticism that users on the platform possess; generic advertising doesn’t work well on Reddit. With more than 300 million monthly users, Reddit is a platform that isn’t going anywhere: in 2020, pinging users with high-quality marketing on this channel is an absolute must.

With the new year approaching, new and exciting advertising solutions should be considered. New and emerging channels are constantly popping up, but it’s important to also not forget about established channels that many are not taking advantage of currently. These three platforms all offer unique and customizable advertising options, huge audiences and low costs for targeting users: taking advantage of these opportunities is simply good business sense.

Pay per click advertising (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) are arguably the two most popular methods for improving visibility across multiple channels and platforms. Both have advantages and disadvantages, so choosing which one better suit’s your goals requires an honest assessment. Let’s review what you should consider when choosing between the two.

What to Consider with SEO

Search engine optimization is one of the oldest forms of increasing brand visibility and awareness online, and it has plenty of benefits to offer. Given that virtually everybody uses search engines to find products, services, entertainment and information, being able to reach these audiences when they’re looking for what you offer is advantageous. SEO works by pinging links to search engines, optimizing content and ultimately being visible in search results – but there’s a lot of work and detail in between these steps.

Pursuing SEO as your preferred form of visibility takes a good deal of time and effort, given that the highest ranked pages in any given SERP tend to be from websites with tons of content. While dedicated bloggers and webmasters can cultivate content in their spare time for free, it can take months or even years to break into the top positions in one or more SERPs. For most, though, SEO offers a low-cost and recurring source of traffic, which makes it appealing to smaller brands and businesses.

What to Consider with PPC

Increasingly, brands are incorporating pay per click advertising into their broader marketing strategies irrespective of size or focus. PPC advertising offers a variety of different options for targeting audiences, whether it be via search engines, social media or on relevant websites. Arguably the number one benefit of PPC is that anybody can use it, and the effects can be felt almost immediately. Unlike SEO where it may take months or years to enjoy an increase in traffic or engagement, PPC gives instant gratification – something very useful to smaller brands with no organic visibility.

However, where PPC excels in instant visibility, it lacks in terms of costs. Many brands find themselves needing to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month to sustain the same level of activity and profit as other established brands do with long-term SEO plans in place. Despite this, even a very small ad budget can help brands begin pinging links to audiences in mere minutes.

Whether you wish to primarily focus on paid marketing tactics or organic exposure, successful brands often opt to pursue both of these de-facto marketing solutions in some combination. Ultimately, balancing concerns such as time and money will determine the best strategy for your brand, but it’s highly recommended that you utilize both of these fantastic options at one point or another.