The future of SEO

THE FUTURE OF SEO: INTRODUCING SEARCH ENGINE OWNERSHIP

By: Toni Becker

We all know that trends come and go, and marketing tactics that were previously popular can quickly sink into oblivion. This is particularly true when it comes to digital marketing, as the online world continues to evolve and shift every single day. Search Engine Optimisation, also known as SEO, has dramatically altered since it first became a part of the marketing world in 1997.

In the beginning, to get your website to rank online, you would simply focus all of your SEO efforts on keywords, getting your pages to rank higher than your competitors solely based on keywords. Today, we focus on keyword intent, the user's needs, helpful and useful content, and above all else, conversion rate and performance metrics.

The history of SEO is full of exciting twists and turns, with the birth of new search engines, new SERP features, algorithms and consistent updates, as well as the emergence of SEO experts and advanced SEO tools.

While search engines have evolved enormously over the years, one thing will always remain - as long as we are searching for information online, SEO is vital.

SO, WHAT IS IN STORE FOR SEO IN 2021?

Before we delve in, let’s unpack the ultimate goal of SEO and how it is designed to better your business.

The fundamental goal of SEO is for your website to rank high on the search engine results pages or SERPs.

There are two primary processes that will get your page to rank in the results and these are:

• The technical quality of your website • The quality and amount of content on your site.

If you have a technically healthy website, packed with high quality, consistent and helpful content, your site will rise up the Google ranks. But the process is not simple, and it takes a lot of time and strategy to get your website to rank above your competitors.

Now, the most important aspect of SEO is to rank higher than your competitors online for relevant, industry related search terms and phrases, because ranking higher than others in your industry makes you appear to be an industry leader, and will get you more click through rates, which has immense monetary value.

SO, WHERE DOES THIS VALUE COME FROM?

The advantages of outranking your competitors online include:

More traffic to your website than your competitors More leads and business opportunities than your competitors You will build tangible value which makes your SEO a business asset

Your SEO value can be measured, and this is why we believe it to be the year of what we call, “Search Engine Ownership.” Think about it like this, wouldn’t you rather want to own the search engines for searches relevant to your business, and calculate the value of this, than to simply just “rank”?

WHAT IS SEARCH ENGINE OWNERSHIP?

When it comes to SEO, transparency is vital and SEO should no longer be kept hush-hush. Businesses need to know the process of SEO in order to understand the long term benefits and these businesses need to see results in a way that they can understand, results based on VALUE in monetary terms - and this is Search Engine Ownership. Nexa, the Digital Agency that termed "SEOwnership", believe that clients should always be made aware of three primary areas once their SEO process begins, that is:

1. Search visibility: The percentage of clicks received based on organic ranking positions, across all the keywords being used for their SEO.

2. Search visibility compared to their competitors: Once strategies have been put in place to get businesses to rank higher than their competitors, they will gain more leads and make more sales.

3. The monetary value of their website traffic: You can now know how much your SEO is worth in terms of cold hard cash.

Without analysing and unpacking the above throughout the SEO process, you will never be able to see the rewards and understand the value of the service provided.

TO HELP GIVE YOU MORE PERSPECTIVE, LET’S USE NEXA AS A CASE STUDY...

THE FUTURE OF SEO: INTRODUCING SEARCH ENGINE OWNERSHIP

NEXA AND SEARCH VISIBILITY:

Based on data from June 2020, from a set of 400 key-phrases and keywords based on Nexa’s service offerings, they have reached a search visibility score of 75.1% for desktop and laptop users, and they are at 75.9% for mobile searches.

This means that for any of the 400 key-phrases and keywords, they are likely to convert 75% of these searches into website or blog traffic.

NEXA AND SEARCH VISIBILITY IN COMPARISON TO COMPETITORS:

But how does their search visibility score of 75.1% compare to their closest competitors? This is an important metric for any business as a click to your website rather than a click to a competitor's website can be the difference between a sale and a missed opportunity.

Using the same data, keywords and key phrases, Nexa's closest competitor's search visibility score is at 33.7%. As per the June 2020 data, their search engine visibility drove 7,469 visitors to their website through organic search alone.

Using the same set of keywords and key-phrases, their competitors drove only 2,453 visits in this time. This means that Nexa received 3x more visits due to their high search engine visibility.

NEXA SEO IN MONETARY VALUE:

As stated above, for the month of June 2020, Nexa's organic traffic reached 7,469. And they can calculate what this means in monetary terms.

If a new competitor had to enter the market and their objective was to generate the same amount of traffic as Nexa, we can determine how much investment they would have to make in their marketing efforts to reach the same visits and clicks on their website.

Based on Google data and analytics for the same set of keywords and key-phrases, the average cost per click using the Google AdWords platform would be $7.20.

This means that Nexa's competitors would have to pay $7.20 for every click through to their website using Google AdWords, which equates to US$ 53,086 for that particular month.

This means that they would have to spend this amount every month to reach the same traffic that Nexa reaches organically and for FREE. This is a massive asset to any business, however website traffic is not the only determinant of Nexa's SEOwnership value. In essence, this traffic converts into a consistent flow of leads and if Nexa converts 1% of that traffic into new business, the ROI becomes even more significant.