In February 2020, Curtin University interviewed me on the relationship SEO has with driving brand engagement in the digital space.

Can you introduce yourself James?

My name is James Natoli and I am a digital marketing consultant based in Perth Australia. Over the last 11 years I have worked with small business startups through to international corporations both in Australia and the UK, helping develop their paid, owned and earned media.

How important is SEO to organisations today?

We are in a forever developing space that seems to be growing exponentially and every month we are presented with new and alternative means to market our brands online. Whereas 15-20 years ago it was more medium to larger organisations that had the investment capital to implement a digital or brand campaign. 

These days there are so many cost effective and really niche online marketing options available to an organisation, but one channel that has remained consistent in its ability to drive serious brand growth online and that is Search engine optimisation. 

Google’s is an extremely strong brand within the search engine space. As a result, it still remains the number one visited website in the world because web users know that they can use a search engine to source information quickly, buy a product, sign up for a service, or navigate and engage with their preferred brand or community.

Another thing to consider for any brand that has or is developing an online presence, is that search engine optimisation and website development go hand in hand. So, if you have a website but you are not considering SEO, you have only really carried out half of the journey and only committed half the investment into your brands growth online. You cannot do one without the other. Otherwise you will always be reliant on paid media which only runs for as long as your media spend lasts.

Any brand that does not take the initiative to leverage and understand the importance of SEO in this way will be left behind and miss out on a great deal of value they could be adding to their brand.

What are the fundamentals in achieving effective SEO?

Keywords

The first fundamental is knowing the right keywords to target and optimise for that relate to your brand’s product or service. At the same time it’s important to be realistic in your efforts and consider the competitors you are up against their resources you may be contending with. 

Search engines like Google are great because level playing field for brand positioning organically, but highly competitive keywords against organisations with deep pockets are not necessarily going to be the wisest option for optimisation. That being said, any brand with a website wanting to improve its visibility organically can still look for the low hanging fruit opportunities. These can be more cost effective to optimise for and drive lots of micro engagements as a way to build up their earned media.

Website Structure (Information Architecture)

The second fundamental is more about how your website or online asset is structured and built. Solid foundations for developing your brand’s earned media organically start before the design element in how it’s going to look visually and whether it’s on brand. A lot of brands make the mistake in carrying out SEO after their website has been built whereas in fact it’s one of the largest considerations before you get a web designer involved.

Creating vertical silos of content through top level pages, categories, subcategories, and product pages, is the simplest example of creating a good website structure or as its’ also known, an information architecture.

Backlinks

The last but probably the most important fundamental in effective and long term SEO is the ability to build natural and worthy backlinks from sites that link from theirs to yours. When we talk about natural backlinks we are referring to ones that are built through industry relationships, leveraging networking, outreach to other websites of relevance and also promoting great content. When it comes to backlinks, the key thing to remember is that they must be earned and not bought and these days . Brand leverage plays a huge part in helping gain those backlinks naturally.

How important is good content and what are some of tips in developing content for effective SEO?

Content is key in gaining digital engagement by providing value to the customers you are targeting. It’s a brand asset that has the voice and tone specific to the message you are trying to convey, and as that makes it unique for your brand, it can be extremely strong in developing your earned media across a variety of digital marketing channels. With regards to SEO, content is probably the most important consideration for on-page SEO second to having a solid technical foundation.

Content is extremely important. It allows your brand to be discovered through search engines, as well as helping achieve your organisational objectives, for example more engagement or increasing brand recognition. Content can subsequently help grow sign ups, online sales, or leads.

Content works in two ways, firstly it provides contextual relevance to the search engines in what you are trying to promote, secondly and more importantly, it’s also the way to engage with your user base to create a good user experience. 

Imagine having a well built website that is your brand’s only online asset for your customers to engage with. You as a brand know who your customers are and what content they want to see, hear or read. So, even if your website has solid SEO foundations, if you don’t have engaging content you have lost that value exchange with your audience. The way I like to think of it is SEO puts your brand in front of the customer, but content is what encourages them to buy into your brand.

What are some of the future trends in SEO?

Over the years I have seen a transition from purely keyword focused tactic to a more brand and customer centric focus. Recently I find myself undertaking SEO as part of a holistic multichannel and omni-channel engagement program.

What I am already seeing within the industry is data driven SEO where big data that is specific to an organisation’s market, and its competitors are driving faster growth in earned media. 

I’m seeing a work smarter, not harder approach in which really targeted and specific optimisation changes to a brands website are improving their SEO with greater impact versus your usual catch all SEO activities.

I think as this starts to take off it has the opportunity to be combined with the efficiency AI provides in reducing time and money, and potentially thousands of adjustments can be made to optimise a website in matter of hours and not days. I think down the line the ability for a brand to improve its earned media will improve exponentially as AI and big data make our businesses more efficient.