One of the forefront efforts of digital marketing has always been Search Engine Optimization since search generally drives about 50% of website traffic for companies. These days, however, SEO efforts have become a lot more complex, involving things from user experience to content marketing and distribution. In fact, even gathering data and interpreting it afterward has become a lot more complex for companies, with search engines constantly changing their algorithms, and websites changing how they rank in search results. None of that means that any of the well-established and successful SEO strategies should be ignored moving forward, however, because keyword research, backlinks, and content are just as important as ever. There are many SEO platforms with plenty of features that can help companies navigate their different SEO efforts. Those features range from rank-checking and backlink analysis to keyword research and competitive intelligence.
Keyword Research
Keyword research entails companies learning which terms people use to find a business website, how web pages rank for different search queries, and how to use those queries in content. Practically every SEO platform provides companies with keyword research tools that allow them to identify the ways audiences search for content, and which keywords drive the most traffic for market competitors. But with Google’s implementation of visual and dynamic SERPs, rank analysis and keyword research have become more complex, which means companies now need to know the way that their websites are displayed in knowledge panels and in a carousel.
Link Analysis
One of the most important elements of external SEO has been external links that can help websites improve their SERP rankings. Similar to keyword research, link analysis is a feature that most SEO platforms provide users with. These platforms also provide link building and removal recommendations by making a competitive analysis of links, and they produce various reports that can help companies figure out new ways to generate links.
Website Crawls
Another important tool that companies should look for when selecting their SEO platform is the website crawl capability. Certain SEO platforms offer recommendations on how to optimize page structure, keywords, and the crawlability of a website to users. Those platforms assign different scores to web pages that factor in meta tags, HTML title tags, and body tags. There are platforms that provide daily and weekly website crawls, but ideally, the capability should be able to crawl an entire website, not just a select number of web pages. The feature should also support analyzing mobile websites and AMP pages, but if a company’s website is too large, it’s not really possible to expect such tools to crawl entire websites. A number of SEO platforms also provide content marketing and analysis aside from website crawling. Thus companies should create relevant and valuable content to achieve success through their SEO efforts. The content marketing and analysis capabilities of SEO platforms also include features such as page management (for monitoring for errors in content) and report creation on content performance.