The SEO Iceberg: Navigate Hidden Factors Impacting Organic Search

Today, we had a fantastic call with a company where we discussed organic search strategies in depth (pun intended). While a significant percentage of our customer base and associated revenue has come from companies seeking our SEO expertise, we’ve honestly always been skeptical of SEO. It’s not that we don’t recognize the power of organic search – it’s absolutely a core strategy of us to drive authority and leads to our clients.

We’ve abandoned trying to game algorithms and place backlinks, putting our efforts instead on the deep analysis of our customers’ audiences and remarkable content that will draw attention and drive conversions. In other words, we don’t focus on the search engine, we concentrate on the users of the search engine. You can cheat and link the crap out of your company and push them all the way to the top of search engine result pages (SERPs)… but then what? If the content isn’t exceptional, you’re not going to take that visitor from landing on your site to engaging with you.

Not to mention algorithm changes and technological advancements. You may very well be executing white hat strategies (strategies that do not violate the terms of service of Search Engines), but if the search engine shifts algorithms, you could lose your entire investment. Good SEO that focused on user behavior and content development; however, wouldn’t lose a bit of the investment you’ve made.

This infographic illustrates quite a bit of the issue. It’s not simply all of the factors that you can quickly identify and work on, it illustrates the growing number of factors that impact a business investment in search engine optimization.

Ensuring strong rankings for your site through a process known as Search Engine Optimization is vital to the success of a website. What’s the point in selling great products and creating engaging content if nobody can find it? As users change the ways that they conduct searches and respond to content, SEO incorporates many complex aspects that are also constantly changing, so it can be difficult for companies to manage on their own. Red Hot Penny

This representation of search engine optimization is illustrated as follows:

• The sun is representative of Google and emits rays of search marketing updates that are affecting the landscape of the iceberg or, aspects of a website that affect search engine rankings.
• Companies are represented by the boat, must navigate the iceberg but only a small fraction of it is visible.
• Under the surface, there are other factors to think about and optimize for the best possible results.

Am I saying you should abandon SEO? Absolutely not, it’s just that you need to apply your resources where they’ll be most impactful. And frankly, any SEO consultant who pretends to understand Google’s algorithms and guarantee you ranking – without ever understanding your audience, their motivations, and the omni-channel strategies that will encourage conversion – isn’t worth working with.

We work with clients to navigate the factors with the greatest impact, there are vital factors like page speed, a well-designed site hierarchy, keyword research, and mobile responsiveness, that should be a foundation of every SEO strategy. However, instead of analyzing the thousands of other factors and paralyzing progress, we work to develop content that drives attention, authority, trust, and conversions. With a solid foundation, those content strategies perform brilliantly. The exception, of

There are exceptions. We’ve worked with publishers who are spending tens of millions on their search and content strategies to fight off competitors. In those cases, we’ve built complex big data warehouses that go beyond any commercial SEO platform to analyze factors below. The chances are that’s not your company, though!