Hacking SEO: Simplest Changes, Maximum Impact

Everyone needs to do SEO but some may only have minimal resources to work with. Good news! You don’t need a big team to have good SEO. Take if from someone who’s done SEO for companies from the startup stage to Enterprise. I’ll share strategies that can help you improve how you run an SEO… Read More »Hacking SEO: Simplest Changes, Maximum Impact

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Asad Zulfahri

14 min readNov 12, 2020

Everyone needs to do SEO but some may only have minimal resources to work with. Good news! You don’t need a big team to have good SEO. Take if from someone who’s done SEO for companies from the startup stage to Enterprise. I’ll share strategies that can help you improve how you run an SEO & Marketing campaigns. In this presentation, I’ll cover the following 4 main areas of:

Team Management
Surround Sound SEO
Content Strategy
SEO Toolbox

Presenter notes from my deck at the HubSpot User Group KL Q3 2020. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out directly.

About Me

Born and raised in Malaysia
Studied computer science at Sunway University
I’ve done SEO for almost a decade now (started in high school) and have just recently grown into the broader Marketing role
I’ve been on the agency side, in-house and also for the past few years I’ve been doing freelance consulting
So I understand the different SEO strategies that’s needed to grow companies to the next level
For the past 3 years, I’ve traveled around the world working with companies in North America & Europe
Currently living in Belgium and working with PieSync & HubSpot

AGENDA

Today we’re going to be covering the following topics
Team Management
To highlight the importance of having a clear framework of communication, documentation, project management and reporting progress
Surround sound SEO
To explore the different content types that will help you be present everywhere in a buyer or user’s journey
Content Strategy
To understand what is a pillar content, how to expand them and why you should do a content audit
SEO Toolbox
To look at tools that will help you accelerate SEO campaigns and save you time

Team Management

After working with over a dozen of companies in the past 3–4 years, I noticed a common struggle
Everyone struggles with managing resources
It doesn’t matter if you’re a solopreneur, a small startup or at the enterprise level
Communication, Project management, and Reporting is always something that needs improving
So let me show you the basic framework I’ve found to be the most effective

Communication & Documentation

Let’s start with, communication & documentation
Now a lot of people, are already used to emails
Over the recent years, a number of asynchronous communication platform has arrived, such as Slack
I find Slack much better than email, because, it makes information searchable by everyone
Channels can be organized by departments, or projects
It makes it easier when onboarding a new hire, or bringing in someone new, to a project
They can get up to speed on projects quicker because past conversations are searchable
Day to day operations are much more visible with team members checking in their work progress
You can pin important documentation and meeting notes to a channel
Effective usage of Slack, bring efficiency to how a team, or company operates
Because it allows anyone, to access information about your work progress, without, waking you up in the middle of the night
This is especially important if you’re working with teams around the world, in different time zones

Project Management

Another common thing that often gets overlooked is a project management board especially for Marketing or SEO teams
And usually not many teams even have a content calendar
A content calendar basically gives you an overview what the content plan is for the next 12 months
It’s important to have this especially when we’re doing topic cluster planning (which we’ll get into later)
This is how a typical content calendar should look like
We have the ideas section
And everyone in the company should have access to this section
Especially your customer support team because they’re the ones in the frontlines with the customers
The deal with the day to day pain points of customers
So encourage them put in topics or questions that’s frequently being asked by customers
And then we have the To Write section
Have the SEO team review the ideas so they can research the relevant topics and potentially expand on them to create more pillar content and topic clusters
At the end, make sure you keep track of all the published content
Once it’s published, it doesn’t mean we can just let them go
Keep track of content performance after 1 week, 30 days, 90 days
Keep tweaking as necessary
We’ll go through the process on how to do a content audit shortly

Reporting

Being accountable means having consistent and reliable reports
It doesn’t matter if you’re using Google Data Studio, Periscope, Looker, Chartio
The important thing is to create a dashboard or report that is automated & scalable
Avoid wasting time manually inputting data into spreadsheets
Invest time to set up on a scalable platform that can grow with you, from a startup to enterprise level
Keep track of High level KPIs such as
Sessions: not only it gives you insights on your growth, but also any potential spikes (negative or positive) — so you can monitor content performance and tweak as necessary
Bounce rate — let’s you know whether your content delivers on users expectation
Avoid clickbaiting because, it’s just not worth it as it can hurt your brand reputation
Session duration — this let’s you know how engaged users are with your website
Are they clicking through other resources on the website
If people are leaving under 30 seconds, something must be wrong with your content
Then split your session data to reflect the different sections of your website
This let’s you know where the bulk of your traffic comes
Keeping track of this on a day to day or weekly basis can help you get ahead of any accidental SEO errors
Have a table of top landing pages so you quickly see the top performing content
Having a worldview map let’s you know where your users are coming from
So you can tailor your content to match regional expectations

Surround SOUND SEO

Surround Sound SEO is the practice of being everywhere in the buyer’s journey that your potential customer reaches from search

What is Surround Sound SEO?

And the 3 types of content for Surround Sound SEO is
Owned — properties you control; website
Earned — 3rd party websites or properties you don’t have control over
Paid — Similar to earned but requires you to pay whether it being an affiliate program or a fee to be included in a marketplace review listing

Owned Content Types

Owned content types are all the different pages on your website
Before even thinking about working on other types of content, make sure you optimize assets, that you have direct control over
From my experience, people love product comparison content
Because it allows them to be quickly find out the pros and cons of different products or services
And most people nowadays will always do their own research or Googling before purchasing a product

Google Search: HubSpot Vs Mailchimp

For example, let’s say someone searches for hubspot vs mailchimp
We would rather have them land on our own website rather than some other 3rd party site or worse, the competitor website
It is much better that you take ownership and control of these types of search terms and create landing pages on your website
Here is a table taken from the HubSpot vs Mailchimp article, we have on our website
At HubSpot, our product comparison articles goes into each and every feature
And we’re very transparent about the pros and cons
We even let users know when a competitor may be a better fit
Maybe it’s because they’re looking for a cheaper alternative
Maybe it’s because they don’t really need the Pro feature HubSpot offers
But once they grow bigger, once they need to go Pro or Enterprise, they might just come back to HubSpot
It’s not only about acquiring customers, it’s about building your brand reputation and being a credible source of information

Earned Content Types

Earned content types are pages that live on properties that you don’t control
It can be an independent website that writes reviews and comparison articles about different services
For example…

Google Search: ShopEE Comparison

When someone searches for “shopee comparison”
Then we’ll find a list 3rd party websites that writes an article comparing Shopee with Lazada
In this example taken from Loanstreet.com.my, they talk about the different aspects of delivery from each services
In terms of SEO, this is a really good thing
Not only does this article is topically relevant, but they’re also linking back to your website, who doesn’t like a free backlink?
So if you can actually walk the walk, people will take notice and they will happily write about your service
And if you’re smart, you can reach out to the website and maybe build some sort of a content partnership
So when they’re thinking about publishing the next content, your website will be featured when relevant

Paid Content Types

Finally we get into the paid content types
The paid side of things are similar to earned but it may involve you actually spending some money to get mentioned
Whether it be an affiliate program, giving discounts or vouchers to customers who submits reviews, or paying to be listed on a review website
Even if we’re paying to be listed, it doesn’t something shady is happening
Reputable websites, publishers or influencers will always have their own ethical guideline when accepting a fee or payment
Paying doesn’t mean you’ll automatically get good reviews
You also risk getting a negative review and you can’t suppress it
But think of it as constructive feedback to help make a better product

Google Search: HubSpot CRM Review

For example, when someone search for hubspot crm reviews, you might see sites such as G2 or Capterra
Let’s look at the Capterra listing for HubSpot
A site like Capterra is valuable for software services
They not only provide valuable information such as pricing, features and reviews
They also help in sending leads to your website
They have a vast dataset of services and the users who use them
So based on the user profile, they can predict which services they need and Capterra will actually recommend your product
So if you have a presence of review sites like Capterra, make sure you make an effort to push existing customers submitting a review there
To minimize the potential of negative reviews, you should segment your customers
Only push customers that are active have a relatively high NPS score
The more positive reviews you get, the higher you’ll rank within the review sites, and the higher the chance of being featured at the top which means more leads to your website

Why SURROUND SOUND

When you implement Surround Sound strategies, the goal is to have products and services visible everywhere
This way no matter at what level the buyer’s journey are, your product is always there
And, psychologically, people like familiar things.
When you’re literally everywhere during their research process, they’re more likely to choose your product and services

Content Strategy

Content Strategy is one of the most important aspects of growing your business and website
Yet, I see a lot of teams doing it poorly
Let me show how you can get started with planning for content in an organized and scalable way

Pillar Content

Pillar content is a high level & informative piece of content that can then be broken down into many other sections or themes
Before we dive deeper on what a pillar content is, let me tell you why we need to have a content strategy based on Pillars
Conversational SEO
The way people search has changed, and in turn, that’s started to change the way SEOs and bloggers create content
The typical method of optimizing for one specific keyword doesn’t work anymore
Because search results are getting more personalized
For example, if you were trying to find a place to eat sushi, would you search for “restaurants,” or would you search for “Japanese restaurants near me”?
Natural Language Processing
Google has become more advanced up to a point where it’s intelligence or AI is similar to a small child
NLP technology allows Google to better understand users search query and intent
Google aims to provide the best experience to users, by giving them the most relevant answer to every search query
This is why we need to move away, from the typical keyword targeting, and start generating pillars and topic clusters
Keywords vs Topic Clusters
The way most blogs are currently structured, is to have, someone write an article focused on a very specific keyword
The result is disorganized, and makes it hard for the users to find the exact information
This can also cause your blog post competing with each other when you create multiple blog post for similar topics
Let’s look at how a topic cluster should look like

Topic Clusters

A pillar page (represented by middle circle) is the basis on which a topic cluster is built.
A pillar page covers all aspects of the topic on a single page, with room for more in-depth expansion in a more detailed cluster of blog posts, that links back to the pillar page.
Pillar pages are longer than the typical blog posts
This is because they cover all aspects of the topic you’re trying to rank for on a high level.
A pillar page answers the high level questions about a topic, that leaves room for more detailed explanation in a cluster content
The first step to creating a pillar page is to stop thinking about your site in terms of just keywords.
Start thinking about the broader topics you want to rank for first
Then, brainstorm blog topic ideas based on more specific keywords related to the broader topic.
Pillar pages should answer any question or query a searcher might have about a topic
Which will make them want to click on your pillar page when they enter a Google search term that your page ranks for.
Then, they’ll click into your pillar page to get the answers to their questions, which will link out to more specific pieces of cluster content linked on the pillar page.
But pillar pages and cluster content is not the only thing you should work on

Content Expansion

Content on your website are just the tip of the iceberg
Think about where does your audience live?
Is it Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook Groups?
There is no downside to expanding your content to different platforms.
You just need to adjust the messaging
So when you’ve figured out Pillar Pages and Content Clusters
You can then start thinking about expanding your content to different social platforms or channels
Take each pillar and cluster content, create shorter or summarized versions of it
Convert them into various formats to fit the platform
And distribute them
Remember, social is free and its unlimited!
There’s really nothing to lose here!

Content Audit

Creating new content is great, but have you thought about the existing content
When was the first piece of blog post published?
When was the last time you updated a blog post that was more than 1 year old?
Content audit is important to keep your website fresh
And Google definitely prefers websites that have relevant and updated information
So how do you start reviewing your content assets?
Start with identifying content that aligns with your business brand so you have consistent messaging
Identify which ones that has the potential that can be converted into an evergreen content
Evergreen content means that it continues to be relevant long past its publication, so traffic grows over time
Look at content that has fairly good historical performance
If you see duplicates here, then merge the articles into a single article
If you decide not to merge but there is a somewhat similar or relevant article, set up a redirect
A common mistake here is redirecting everything that’s been deleted
Don’t do this
If there is no replacement, simply remove it and let the page die

PieSync Blog YoY Growth

Here’s a chart showing the growth of our PieSync blog property
We started to post more consistently in Q3 last year
From 3–8 posts per month
To 20 posts per month
It was going well, until in April this year, we started seeing sessions dropping
So we decided to take a step back do a full content audit on the blog
It took a few weeks of painstakingly sifting through different data points and reviewing around 1k articles
And for the past couple of months, we’ve started to:
Updated 90
Merge/Redirect 170
Delete 307
Thin content
Guest posts
And that’s when we saw the blog traffic started to pick up in September even after getting rid almost 500 posts
Now, with just over 500 balance articles left, the traffic performance recovery and growth has been phenomenal
We have another property that has over 60k pages
Yet, the blog still has 61% more traffic
This shows that content does indeed still work and to continue growing, you need to be
Consistent in publishing new content and persistent in refreshing old content

SEO Toolbox

Moving on to SEO Toolbox
These are the different types of tools your SEO & Marketing team should have access to
Yes, they can be expensive, but think of them as a long term investment
Initial setup and learning curve can be a challenge, butI promise you, it will pay off
And if you notice, Ahrefs is mentioned a few times
In my opinion, Ahrefs is an industry standard tool that should be used by everyone regardless if you’re a one man show, a startup, digital agency, ecommerce site or even enterprise business
We at HubSpot also use it, as with all of the previous companies I’ve consulted for
All of these tools exists for a reason
They have a large dataset which allows for in-depth research & analysis
They save you time by automating reports and giving you access to historical data
You should leverage all of them and if you’re tight on budget, you can always start Ahrefs

Ahrefs

Why Ahrefs? Isn’t Ahrefs a paid tool?
Yes and no
Ahrefs recently launched a free plan called the Ahrefs Webmaster Tools
Just connect your Google Search console account and you’ll get access to the following features
Site Audit with 5k credits per month — scan pages and identify on page seo issues
Gives you recommendations and steps on how to fix those issues
See backlinks data to find out if other sites are linking to you
A chance for you to identify new partners to create a content partnership or co-marketing campaigns
Keywords data to see what keywords people are using to discover your website
If you see a keyword that’s not ranking well, then you need to do something to optimize that content using the topic cluster technique
Competing domains allows you to see the Top 10 competitors based on your common keywords
Also discover unique keywords that you’re not ranking for
Content Gap allows you to see how well you content is doing compared to the competitors
And gives you insights on what specific content+keyword that your competitors have, that you don’t
Ahrefs has been the primary tool for all of the SEO work I’ve done
When I consult for other companies, Ahrefs is a mandatory requirement
Either they get the tool for the team or I just won’t work with them
It’s a test to see whether they’re actually serious about long term growth
Also it can be an indication of how the company allocates budget and resources for the team

Google Search Central

Now if you’re just starting out and thinking that all these tools are expensive and want to find a way on how do everything yourself for free, then fine.
Learn from Google directly!
Google is the leading search engine and most other search engines follow their lead
It makes sense to learn how to do SEO from them directly right?
Just search for “Google SEO Guide” and you’ll be able to find the official Google Search Documentation for SEO
Which includes information on how to setup Google Search Console, Google Analytics and Google Data Studio

People Matter

When it’s all said and done, everything revolves around people
It starts internally with how you manage your team and resources
And then understanding where your users live and being present everywhere while being transparent with your strengths and weaknesses
Deliver on users expectation by making sure your content brings value and are always up to date
You need to Invest in tools that increases efficiency when doing research so your team have more time to focus on other things that are also important to the business

SPEED WINS

Here’s a quote by my favorite entrepreneur, Gary Vee
9 out of 10 times, the right decision is the fastest decision
It means that, you don’t have to be perfect
Being perfect slows you down
When everyone else is stuck on planning, you’ve already spent all that time executing
And because you’ve been executing, you’re also actually learning
And you’re definitely learning from your mistakes quicker than everybody else
When you operate on speed, when a mistake happens, it’s fine because you can always fix the wrong decision quickly too
As what we HubSpotters say, make sure to always use good judgement