TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 3

Section 1:
SEO Is a Strategic Initiative 4

Section 2:
Myth-Busting SEO 10

Section 3:
5 SEO Strategies to Know 22

Next Steps:
Cheat Sheet for the CMO 48
2021: A PIVOTAL YEAR FOR SEO
From handling market uncertainty to improving the customer
experience while grappling with budgeting for the right channels,
CMOs have a big job day in and day out.

Search engine optimization can support nearly every key business goal.
Yet in 2019, Gartner data shows that only about 7% of the marketing
budget was allocated to it.

The tide is turning, however, as current events make it even more critical to
ensure that your brand succeeds in the most important arena in 2021: the
search results.

Today, CMOs are pivoting their strategies and looking at which marketing
channels will help them survive and thrive. SEO helps brands future-proof
their offerings. An investment in SEO helps to ensure you are visible for what
your target audience is looking for now and in the future.

This guide has three parts:

• Section 1: We’ll cover why SEO needs to be viewed as a strategic

initiative company wide to get the best results.
• Section 2: We’ll bust some common SEO myths that CMOs often
grapple with to show how SEO is critical to your marketing.
• Section 3: We’ll highlight five SEO strategies that need to be on
your radar for 2021, so your brand can effectively compete in the
search results.

Bruce Clay
President of Bruce Clay Inc. and “Father of SEO”

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1 | SEO IS A STRATEGIC INITIATIVE
Too often, SEO exists in a silo within the organization. Separated from other
key business units, the SEO team or professional is disconnected from business
decisions that impact the website, and that the website can contribute to.
When SEO exists in a silo, it does not thrive. SEO can, in fact, support most
business decisions. In this section, we’ll explain how and why SEO creates
business success.

“THINK SEO” OR WORK SOMEWHERE ELSE

It was some years back when the team at Bruce Clay Inc. delivered a 100+
page SEO audit to one of the largest research and review sites in the
automotive sector.

We proposed a number
of improvements
including radical siloing
of their massive website
contents. We said that if
they implemented every
recommendation in our
strategy, it would generate a
significant increase in traffic.
So much so that they’d need
to upgrade their servers to
handle the load.

It was quite a risk for the client to take, but they got behind it.

Every SEO recommendation, no matter how large or small, would be

implemented. They knew in order to pull it off that everybody — from the
executives to the marketing and IT teams — would need to be a part of it.

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The chairman of the board called a company meeting. He announced that
search engine optimization was a key strategic initiative for the company.
Everybody needed to be on board … or, essentially, they could find another
place to work.

After implementing the SEO program, then came the results: a 900 percent
increase in traffic within the first week. And the site’s prominence continues to
this day.

SEO TAKES COMMITMENT

Commitments cannot be half-hearted and succeed. With SEO, you’re either all
in, or you’re out. CMOs and other top decision makers must understand that
SEO is a key strategic initiative for any company today.

Unfortunately, a 2019 Gartner study found that in North America and the
UK, less than 7 percent of the marketing budget is allocated to SEO. Yet the
biggest slice of the budget goes to the website. Notice a gap in thinking?

Image Source: “The Annual CMO Spend Survey 2019–2020,” Gartner

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In fact, Gartner reports that “nearly half of brands lack a discernible search
strategy; only 10 percent are maximizing the opportunity search offers.”

This is a problem when organic traffic drives more than half of the traffic to
a website and up to 60 percent of the revenue versus other channels (per
BrightEdge research in 2019).

Image source: “Organic Search Improves Ability to Map to Consumer Intent: Organic Search,” BrightEdge

OBSTACLES TO THINKING SEO

One issue that many forget is that SEO is a long-term strategy. So they invest
in other channels that offer quicker gratification.

Balancing different marketing strategies is a CMO’s job. But it’s imperative

to not sacrifice long-term sustained search traffic by focusing too much on
alternatives.

Another issue: siloed thinking. While silos in SEO are a good thing, they’re
not so great when it comes to organizational success. McKinsey reported that
cultural and behavioral challenges, which include functional or departmental
silos, have the most impact on the ability to meet digital priorities.

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 Image source: “Culture for a digital age,” McKinsey

In fact, in its research with executives, McKinsey found “siloed thinking and
behavior number one among obstacles to a healthy digital culture.” And, as
shown in the chart below, it can have a negative impact on the economic
growth of a company.

Image source: “Culture for a digital age,” McKinsey

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OVERCOMING THE OBSTACLES
The key to breaking down silos, according to McKinsey, is education and
accountability. When staff understands the impact of an SEO initiative and is
held accountable for their decisions (it’s not just “someone else’s job”), you can
begin to make great progress. This, by the way, is why we enroll clients in our
SEO training course at the start of their project.

At the end of the day, an SEO strategy is not really just about “doing SEO.”
It’s about driving growth and remaining competitive. And above all, it’s about
putting the user first. These are the ideas that need to be communicated and
bought into for SEO to succeed.

At its best, customer-centricity extends far beyond marketing

and product design to become a unifying cultural element that
drives all core decisions across all areas of the business.”
–McKinsey & Company, “Culture for a Digital Age” report

Companies that make big bets on their digital strategies know what their
competition is up to. As McKinsey points out, “Goals should reflect the pace of
disruption in a company’s industry.”

This includes Nordstrom,

which in the face of Amazon,
“committed more than $1.4
billion in technology capital
investments to enable rich
cross-channel experiences,”
McKinsey reported. And this
is exactly what our client did
when they bought into SEO
as a key strategic initiative for
their company.

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If you’re doing search engine optimization, with every decision you need to
ponder: How will this decision impact SEO’s ability to put the user first and
drive results?

• Redesigning the website? Ask how SEO needs to be involved.

• Writing content? Consider how it can be optimized to fit the SEO strategy.
• Launching a new product? Involve SEO sooner in the planning.

SEO needs to be a natural process throughout our businesses, not a seldom-

remembered “nice to have.” One voice is not enough within the company.

The CMO or the SEO cannot always be in the room, so in order to support SEO
as the key strategic initiative that it is, we need others in the company to live
and breathe SEO.

United is how we win, so others in the company should get on the bandwagon
… or get off.

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2 | MYTH-BUSTING SEO
SEO is unreliable. You can’t measure it. It’s something you can invest in
sometimes and still see results. These are all myths that CMOs either hear
about SEO or tell themselves. The truth is, there’s a lot of myths around what
SEO is and how it can contribute to growing a business. This section myth-
busts popular SEO fables with cold, hard facts.

MYTH NO. 1: SEO IS TOO UNRELIABLE

I’m sure you’ve heard the horror stories of losing rankings and traffic overnight
due to a Google algorithm update.

It’s true that an algorithm update has the ability to do this to a website. But
even if an update has impacted a site in this way, there’s always an SEO
solution that can help.

Unfortunately, when people don’t understand how to compete in the search

results, they may blame SEO as ineffective and divert more budget to other
channels. But SEO continues to prove its worth as a channel that drives the
most traffic and most revenue to a website.

The truth is … it’s a myth that SEO is unreliable.

SEO is built on principles that align with

Google’s guidelines. The “right” side of
the SEO industry is well-versed on these
principles. We know what it takes to make
a website relevant enough to rank in the
search results. And to stay relevant even with
algorithmic changes.

Let’s myth-bust the concept of SEO as an

unreliable marketing channel with some facts.

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Myth: Google Doesn’t Tell Us Enough to Help Us Succeed
Fact: Google is tight-lipped about some things, big on sharing others

While Google will never divulge the inner workings of its algorithm to the
public, they share plenty.

Here’s a sampling of where we can get guidance from Google on our SEO
programs:

• The SEO Starter Guide outlines the foundations of how to create a site
that works well for search engines and users.
• The Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines gives us a deep dive into what
Google thinks is a quality site that deserves rankings.
• Social media accounts like Google Search Liaison on Twitter and Google
Webmasters on YouTube give us timely updates about algorithm changes
and our websites. It also allows marketers to interact with and learn
directly from Google on specific issues. (Not to mention, you can follow
specific Googlers like John Mueller and Gary Illyes on their social media
accounts. They are known to be communicative.)
• SEO and marketing events host Google representatives who give
presentations. Take this presentation at SMX West 2016, for example,
where Google ranking engineer Paul Haahr gave specific details on what
matters most to Google.

Myth: It’s Too Hard to Figure Out Google’s Secrets

Fact: SEOs can figure a lot of things out

It’s a simple equation:

Google’s search engine guidelines + experience + research + implementation +

tangible results = more SEO and Google insights.

Professionals in the SEO industry could, quite frankly, quit their day jobs
and become detectives if they wanted. We are in the business of figuring
things out.
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Take, for example, the Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines I shared earlier.
From that, we can distill the concepts of expertise, authoritativeness and
trustworthiness and how they apply to a website’s SEO.

Or look at the SEO Starter Guide shared earlier, which expands on one simple
thought about an organized website:

Make it as easy as possible for users to go from general

content to the more specific content they want on your site.
Add navigation pages when it makes sense and effectively
work these into your internal link structure. Make sure all of the
pages on your site are reachable through links, and that they
don’t require an internal “search” functionality to be found.
Link to related pages, where appropriate, to allow users to
discover similar content.

… and correlate that to the SEO strategy of siloing a website.

Not to mention, there are plenty out there who use their tools and research
skills to reverse engineer the algorithm. Take, for instance:

• SEMrush Sensor (SEMrush)

• MozCast (Moz)
• SERP Features Monitor (Searchmetrics)
• Google patent analysis (Bill Slawski)

Bottom line is, we’re on it — as an industry

and as SEO professionals. It’s our job to figure
these things out. And we have a pretty good
handle on what is needed to create a quality
website that offers a good user experience.

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Myth: Google Changes Things Without Any Warning
Fact: For the big changes, we often get a heads up

OK, this is not true for every single change. With multiple changes happening
in search each day, sometimes a fluctuation hits sites unannounced. However,
it goes without saying that Google has already given fair warning around
anything that has to do with its Webmaster Guidelines.

In other words: don’t spam and do your best to create a quality website. Any
updates related to those are fair game.

That said, when big changes are on the horizon, Google often gives direction
and time to prepare.

“Mobilegeddon” is a perfect example. In February of 2015, Google announced

that it would be putting mobile-friendly sites front and center in April. In March
2016, Google announced it would increase the mobile-friendliness signal in
May of that year. Both gave three months’ lead time.

This is in addition to all the other times and places that Google talked about
mobile readiness leading up to the launch date.

Another example is the page experience update. Google announced it in May

2020, but it didn’t go live until the summer of 2021.

SEO professionals are well-versed in Googlespeak, too. That means that even
if Google doesn’t come right out and say that websites need to be focusing on
something ahead of an update, they often hint at it.

Now let’s take the website that has been harmed by an unforeseen Google
algorithm update or change. In those cases, we are able to use our collective
tools, research, experience and knowledge to better understand why, and then
make improvements to that site.

Even for troubling trends like search results yielding zero clicks, there is a
solution.

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Because SEO is a long-term strategy, ups and downs are inevitable. But
staying in it for the long haul will pay dividends. In all cases, there are ways to
make a website stay relevant in the face of algorithm updates.

One final thing to remember: SEO is not meant to beat the algorithm.
What we are focused on is creating quality websites and beating the
competition instead.

Fact: Google Is Not Perfect. Neither Is SEO, But It Is Effective

We are playing in Google’s sandbox. Rather than throwing up our hands and
admitting defeat, we can reap the rewards of more traffic and revenue if we
play the game.

Of course, there will always be unforeseen circumstances that impact traffic.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a perfect example. Sometimes algorithm changes
hit us unaware, too. In some instances, you have to pivot your marketing mix to
address these events.

But in all cases, you should continue the path of SEO — making your website
easy to crawl and index, and providing a great experience for your users. If not,
your competition will.

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MYTH NO. 2: YOU CAN’T MEASURE SEO
“You can’t track SEO like you can track advertising.” This is a common mindset
as brands explore SEO programs. But it’s the wrong way of thinking.

Yes, Google is not allowing organic attribution to the keyword. And yes, that
is not fair since they show PPC data. But even with data missing, you can
figure it out.

Even if it is true that you can’t

track organic SEO to the
keyword, that’s not taking into
account the big picture.

Let’s myth-bust SEO

measurement and look at
the bigger picture that every
brand should consider as they
explore SEO.

Fact: You Can Track SEO and Here’s What You Should Be
Analyzing

Let’s explore some questions that help reframe the mindset when investing in
and measuring SEO.

1. Does your target audience use a search engine?

The vast majority of people today use search engines as their primary
access point to the web. Google Search processes more than 3.5 billion
searches per day.

So it’s not really a question of whether your target audience is online — of

course they are. This question is moot, replaced by more important ones
like: What are people looking for? Is it something you provide?

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2. Does your competition have a strong website?
The next question to explore is whether your market competition has a
strong website. Do you think they are investing in optimization?

If they are, it’s not so good for you if your brand is not. If they aren’t doing
SEO, it’s potentially a big opportunity for your brand. How fast could you
stake your claim on that market online if you were optimizing your website?

The second thought is who is your actual competition in the search results.
Which websites are showing up for the information, products and services
that you offer? Would you like to have a chance to show up, too?

There are approximately 1.3 billion websites out there. How many of them
do you think are investing in SEO seriously? And out of those billions of
websites, we need to compete to be on Page 1. You simply can’t do that
without a quality SEO strategy.

3. What would happen if you stopped advertising today?

With search engine marketing (SEM) — pay per click ads, for example —
you put a dollar in and you may get a couple of dollars back. Brands that
invest in online advertising are used to the instant gratification of immediate
results that are easily tracked.

But what would happen if you stopped your SEM advertising today? Stop
putting those dollars in, and you’ll disappear from the search results
entirely.

Let’s not sugarcoat it: SEO is a long-term investment. But once you invest in it,
it’s yours. And sometimes the largest investments are upfront. Of course, you
do need ongoing maintenance.

But the work you put in can continue to get rankings and traffic long after you
do it.

You should do SEM. And you should do SEO, too. They each serve different
purposes, and you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket.

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“But SEO takes too long to see results.”
It can be true that it can take up to six months to get things humming after
starting your SEO program. And, yes, impossible words just take longer. But it
really depends on the niche and what shape the website is in to begin with.

Regardless, SEO is a long-term strategy, which is exactly why you should do it

in conjunction with other digital marketing.

You must plan on investing in SEO for the life of your website. And don’t be
surprised by the traffic you didn’t get for the SEO work you didn’t do.

OK, so how much should we spend on SEO and what results will
we see?
Well, how long are you willing to wait until you beat your competition? This
determines your budget. In general, businesses should allocate 5% to 10% of
their revenue to SEO as a cost of advertising.

To me, a bigger question is: If I put in $1, do I get back $10? If yes, then I want
a stack of ones. Of course, there are all sorts of complex calculations you can
do to figure out the ROI of SEO. Just see this, this, this and this.

Traffic is one of the main things you

want to track. SEO is designed to drive If I put in $1, do I get
traffic. And one of the ways it does that back $10? If yes, then I
is by creating a quality site that has
want a stack of ones.
a good user experience that Google
wants to rank.

Converting that traffic is your responsibility as a brand. But you’ll also be able
to track conversions coming from the organic traffic channel, as well as their
revenue.

Of course, we know the results that SEO can bring. You can look at our case
studies to find out for yourself the types of results businesses see. But those
are the types of businesses that are really committed to SEO. Your brand must
commit in order to see those types of results.

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How to Evaluate SEO’s Worth
The bottom line is often not what you should be tracking when it comes to
SEO, but what you are missing by not doing it.

It’s not really a question of if you should be on a platform used by almost the
entire population of the U.S.

Rather, do you want to beat your competition online? Do you want to be a

useful brand to the people who are searching for what you have? Do you even
want to be in the game? Or out of business in five years?

MYTH NO. 3: SEO IS A ONE-TIME OR

SOMETIME INITIATIVE
Owning a website is a bit like owning a house. You need to invest in it to keep
it working well and looking good. You wouldn’t invest in real estate never to
touch the house again. And you shouldn’t do that with a website, either.

Fact: SEO Is a Long-Term Strategy

SEO is done when Google
stops changing things and
all your competition dies.

Google is continuously
updating its search
engine. In 2020, Google
ran more than 17,500
experiments that resulted
in more than 3,600
improvements to search.
That means potential new
ways to compete in the
search results.

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Plus, Google’s ranking algorithm has countless signals. Your target keywords
or queries each carry a different intent. And guess what? That keyword intent
biases the algorithm.

So if every keyword has its own intent and own algorithm, there are as many
algorithms as there are keywords. Then factor in RankBrain’s impact on the
search results, and there are endless variables to ranking.

This is why casual SEO will never last.

Former Googler turned SEO Kaspar Szymanski echoes this thought and
explains why once-and-done SEO is a myth:

At industry conferences,
SEO needs to be attendees hear people say that
considered an ongoing it is important to “get it right”
to rank. This is true, yet not
effort with planned,
entirely accurate. Like any
periodic spurts of other company investment in
increased activity assets, over time that very same
scheduled ahead of time. investment will inevitably
wear off.

Best practices of the past become outdated or downright obsolete. To keep up

with the competition, especially in the more lucrative niches, SEO needs to be
considered an ongoing effort with planned, periodic spurts of increased activity
scheduled ahead of time.

Some factors such as snippet representation, directly impacting user

experience and signals must be continuously monitored and improved. The
same applies to page performance, which again is directly responsible for how
users experience the website.

Other factors, such as managing backlink liabilities, may only require spot
checks and be part of an annual on- and off-page SEO audit.

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(I talk more about one of those SEO tactics that needs maintenance — schema
markup — in my article on surprising on-page SEO techniques.)

Besides staying on top of changes to search,

you sometimes have monumental events that
nobody sees coming. Things that only a skilled
SEO would know how to handle.

The fallout of COVID-19 is one example.

In these times, you need know-how to stay
relevant online, and casually doing SEO is not
going to cut it.

Sure, if you’re launching a new website or

revamping an old one, an SEO checklist is
going to be your best friend. You want to make
sure that you build proven best practices into
the website from the ground up to have a
chance in the search results. But that should be
only the beginning.

How to Use SEO as an Ongoing

Strategy
Even if you are 100% dedicated to SEO, the typical time to see results is up to
six months depending on your website and niche. So it’s easy to see why this is
something that needs a lot of momentum to get off the ground.

But once it does, it pays. Research shows that organic traffic drives more than
50% of traffic to websites. And in some industries, it’s responsible for almost
60% of revenue.

Here’s how you can use SEO as a long-term strategy year after year …
SEO checklists are going to be useful as a spot check quarterly to make
sure you’re staying on top of best practices. They’re also useful for site
launches and site redesigns.

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 SEO tools are going to give you an edge that transcends best practices and
offers custom data on your website and SEO. Use daily to stay on target.

SEO audits are a good investment once per year to uncover big issues that
may be hindering your organic search traffic. There is usually plenty of work
following a proper audit.

SEO consulting or services are a good way to have a team of experts on call
so you can solve tough SEO problems.

SEO training is a great way to sync knowledge across your teams so that
everyone stays up to date on changes. Because SEO learning events are
undergoing a major shift from face-to-face to online, it will be important to
vet the curriculum and format to ensure it’s the best fit. For in-house teams,
it’s suggested that you offer SEO training at least once per year.

And if you’re having a hard time getting the SEO changes you need done, see
this article for tips.

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3 | 5 SEO STRATEGIES TO KNOW
With all the noise out there, how do you know which SEO strategies to follow?
First and foremost, you need an SEO strategy that helps you take advantage
of where search is headed. That requires knowing that the way people search
is changing. It also requires knowing where to put your resources so you can
gain more visibility in the search results — not just within the “10 blue links.”
This section will highlight five key areas that — along with your baseline SEO
strategy — you need to watch.

STRATEGY 1. OPTIMIZING FOR VOICE SEARCH

Voice search presents a massive and often untapped opportunity for brands to
add more value and gain more visibility. Here’s what you need to know about
this growing trend.

Key Definitions and Facts

Voice search is a voice-enabled way to search or complete a task on the web
or an app. A person speaks their query into a microphone (on their phone or a
home assistant device). The queries are usually in the form of a question (such
as “What is …”) or a command (“Do this …”).

Voice assistants are the

programs on digital devices
that facilitate the queries.
Examples of voice assistants
include Google Assistant
and Amazon Alexa. Voice
assistants can be found on
many devices. For example,
Google Assistant is on
smartphones and a ton of
other devices for the home.

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Smart speakers are devices like home assistants that are powered by voice
assistants. Think Google Home (powered by Google Assistant) or Amazon
Echo (powered by Amazon Alexa).

Actions (Google) or Skills (Alexa) are the terms used for voice-enabled
capabilities on your voice-assisted device, which are akin to apps on a
smartphone. They allow the user to do something. These capabilities can be
developed by Amazon itself, for example, or by third-party developers. For
example, Actions on Google might help you with food delivery: “OK Google,
order Chinese food.”

Voice assistants work by selecting what they believe is the best answer to a
searcher’s voice query through features on the search engine results page, for
example.

Or they can help a searcher facilitate a task on a voice assisted-device through

a Skill or Action. In both cases, the interaction between the voice assistant and
the user is conversational.

It’s also important to understand that different search engines power different
voice assistants. For example, Google, of course, powers Google Assistant and
all its enabled devices. But Bing powers Amazon Alexa and devices like Echo
(when something is not covered by a Skill).

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Key Trends and Stats
Back in 2016, Google stated that 20% of searches (one in five) on Google’s
mobile app and Android devices were voice queries. Newer data from Adobe
shows that 48% of consumers are using voice assistants for general web
search.

eMarketer predicts that by 2021, U.S. voice assistant users will reach about
123 million, and the number is growing each year.

Image source: “Voice Assistant Use Reaches Critical Mass,” eMarketer

Amazon Alexa is a leader. It’s supported by the highest number of devices (an
estimated 60,000 according to Statista), including Echo, with a rapidly growing
set of Skills.

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Optimizing for Voice Search
For many brands, optimizing for voice search is uncharted territory. I’m here
to give you a high-level overview of what to consider and how to get it done.
Start competing for your share of visibility in the growing trend that is voice
search. In this article:

• How does voice impact search?

• What are voice search ranking factors?
• How do you optimize for voice search?

(If you’re new to voice search, it will be useful to review the CMO guide to
voice search, which includes key definitions and trends. But if you’re ready to
learn the next step about how SEO and voice search work together, you’re in
the right place.)

How Does Voice Impact Search?

Google once said that voice search represented 20% of queries on its app and
Android devices. That was 2016. Since then, research suggests that
the percentage has grown much higher. It’s obvious that this is an area that
Google will continue to invest in.

Let’s look at a couple of ways voice is impacting how the search

engine works …

In 2015, Google launched RankBrain, an artificial intelligence system

applied to the search results that better understands the meaning of a
searcher’s words.

Mobile usage and voice search were primary drivers of this, as voice queries
are typically more conversational than typed queries. RankBrain deals well
with those longer, unique queries (often three or more words).

The second concept to know is that voice assistants like Google Assistant
make decisions for searchers on which result is the most relevant to answer
a question. This is unlike the traditional way of letting the searcher choose a
result from the search results page.
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Voice search could mean more complexity for brands with local brick-and-
mortar locations, too. For example, someone who has a broken water pipe
might simply tell their Google Home device “my plumbing is broken” versus a
more traditional voice search like “show me plumbers near me” or “who are the
best plumbers in my area?”

What Are Voice Search Ranking Factors?

There are different ways a voice assistant retrieves answers. For example, if it’s
on a smart speaker like Google Home, the assistant relies on apps built for the
device (via Google Actions) or uses the web.

SEMrush conducted a study that looked at the ranking factors for a voice
search. Their goals:

1. To understand the parameters

that Google Assistant uses
to select answers to voice
search queries.
2. To compare and understand
differences in answers
obtained from different
devices.

Out of the many data points from

that study, here are a few to highlight:

• About 80 percent of the answers Google Assistant chose were from

the top three organic results across all devices (Google Home, Google
Home Mini and Android phone).
• Sixty percent of all answers returned from a voice search were from
featured snippets.
• Seventy percent of all answers occupied one of the features in the
search engine results page (SERP) … for more on SERP features, see this.
• Page speed was an important factor across all devices.

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From our own experience, it is worth mentioning that the expertise, authority
and trust of the site that the answer is coming from (and the content itself)
are vital. Google cannot afford to give the wrong answer to queries as that
undermines its reputation and can potentially mislead the user.

How Do You Optimize for Voice Search?

Strategically, here are a few things to keep in mind when adapting your SEO
strategy to voice search.

Know Your Audience

Research how someone would search using voice for your brand, product or
service. Remember that voice queries generally take one of two formats:

• Conversational and question-based, starting with who, what,

when, why and how
• Declarative statements, such as the “my plumbing is broken”
example earlier

Create a list of voice searches you believe your audience might use. As a
starting point, look at the queries in your Google Search Console for real
examples — chances are good that the longer, more conversational queries
came from voice searches.

It can be useful to map

these questions to your
audience’s journey as
they engage with you
on different levels. For
example, what do people
search for during the
awareness stage, the
consideration stage, and
the buying stage?

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 Know the Results
With your newfound keyword research, try the
queries yourself. Search for your brand, products
and services using voice search to find out if and

SEO VOICE how they show up in the results. If your website

isn’t showing up, your webpages aren’t doing a
SEARCH good job of satisfying the ranking factors for voice

STRATEGY search.

You can study things like the ranking factors from

Search for your brand, the SEMrush study and optimize for them. Check
products and services out our SEO checklist for a primer on how to
using voice search optimize for many of those areas.
to find out if and
how they show up Know Your Competition
in the results. If your First, find out which websites are showing up on
website isn’t showing Page 1 for the voice search queries you want to be
up, your webpages found for.
aren’t doing a good
job of satisfying the Then analyze the top pages to better understand
ranking factors for the logistics of the top-ranking results. You can use
voice search. software like our SEOToolSet® to help you figure
this out. And then to help you create content that
is on par with the competition, the Bruce Clay SEO
WP plugin can do competitive research on the fly.

Be Everywhere
Consider building Actions on Google or Amazon
Skills to insert your brand into more things that
your audience is trying to do on their smart
speaker. For many brands, this is a newer concept.
But marketers are beginning to think about how
they can adopt this into their programs.

28
Be Trusted
The expertise, authority and trust of your site and its content are vital. Start
working to improve E-A-T now, or your site will never come up as a voice
answer.

In summary, optimizing for voice search is just another way that you can be
sure your brand, its products and its services are there when your audience
searches for them. As a growing trend, it’s something to understand and adopt
ahead of your competition.

Internet Trends 2019, Bond Capital

But Google Assistant is also widely used, as outlined here.

Voice Search Benefits & Concerns

So what is the force behind the trend — why do people use voice search?
Voice search is about convenience. People say voice assistants improve their
quality of life and save them time (according to Adobe data linked to earlier).
29
This happens whether they are using voice assistants on their smartphones
(85% of the time) or in their car (31% of the time).

Adobe research via Search Engine Land

But privacy concerns could potentially hinder the adoption of voice technology.
The Adobe data supports that as well as research from NPR and Microsoft.

• Eighty-one percent said their issue with voice technology was

privacy concerns. (Adobe)
• Sixty-six percent say they don’t own a smart speaker because it’s
always listening. (NPR)
• Forty-one percent of users reported concerns around trust, privacy
and passive listening. (Microsoft)

Even with concerns about privacy, adoption is not expected to slow. Especially
as the newer generations use technology on their terms.

Brands can position themselves to be more useful in a voice-search world by

optimizing for voice queries.

As a CMO, if you are not discussing voice search in meetings, you are already
behind.

30
STRATEGY 2: YOUTUBE SEO
YouTube is the second-most visited website according to Alexa. With 2 billion
active users, the platform uploads more than 500 hours of video content per
minute.

Most popular social networks worldwide as of April 2021, per Statista

It’s safe to say that YouTube is a marketing channel worth exploring, but for
more reasons than just being found on YouTube.

31
YouTube + Organic Search Results Trends
Google also integrates YouTube videos into its search results. Quite often,
actually. As you can see with this snapshot of the SERP Features Monitor,
videos show up more than most other features on the search results page:

Image source: SERP Features Monitor, Searchmetrics, June, 2021

And you can bet that those videos will be YouTube videos. Google owns
YouTube, and videos from the platform tend to find favor in the search results.

This data is five years old now but shows that even back then, YouTube videos
accounted for more than 80% of videos displayed in the search results.

Of course, videos show up more for some queries than others. Searches for
how-to instructions, tutorials and reviews can often trigger videos as part of
the search results. If your website contains this type of content, then YouTube
SEO is especially important.

32
In some cases, these videos will claim a featured snippet at the top of the
page, aka “Position 0” — like this one on how to tie a shoe:

Screenshot of the search engine results for the query, “how to tie a shoe”

33
In 2018, Google began showing video carousels for desktop searches. With a
video carousel, searchers are presented with a video box that prompts them to
scroll horizontally in order to view all the results.

You’ll first see the top three video results without having to scroll. This is like
the top three organic blue links on a page — the coveted positions.

Screenshot of an excerpt of the search engine results for the query, “how to tie a shoe”

YouTube SEO in a Nutshell

You may think that ranking well within the YouTube platform means that you
will automatically rank well in the Google search results for the same query.
Not so. In fact, there has been a lot of research on this, which you can view
here and here.

So how do you increase the chances of your YouTube videos showing up for
a Google search? It starts with understanding that you should research and
optimize a YouTube video as well as you would a webpage. Here are some
basic steps:

34
1. Target the queries that most often show video results and then
make videos for them.
The success of your video marketing first relies on your targeted keywords.
In a conversation a few years back at PubCon, Google’s Gary Illyes
suggested that if you see video results for a target query, you should
consider making your own video for it. Do thorough research to identify
keywords and trends.

2. Use optimization techniques that signal to the search engine that

the video is relevant to the search.
YouTube SEO includes things like:

• Using your targeted keyword(s) in your video file name

• Optimizing the video’s title with targeted keywords
• Creating a detailed video description and optimizing it with
targeted keywords
• Using the “tags” feature in YouTube to categorize the video with
targeted keywords in it

If you’re not making

videos for YouTube as
part of your marketing
strategy, you’re certainly
missing out on the
chance to be found on
YouTube. But perhaps
more importantly, you’re
missing out on another
chance to rank in the
Google search results.

35
STRATEGY 3: OPTIMIZING FOR GOOGLE
IMAGE SEARCH
If you want another way to maximize your brand’s visibility online, Google
Images is it. With Google investing more and more into image search, now is
the time to learn and seize the opportunity.

What Is Google Images?

Google Images is a search vertical that allows users to search the web for
image content. And searches within Google Images accounted for about 23
percent of all searches in 2018. People can search within Google Images and
see both sponsored and organic image results:

Results within Google Images for the query: “outdoor furniture ideas”

Image results can also show up in Google’s main search. For example, here’s a
block of images embedded in the Web search results for the same query:

36
Results showing within Google’s search results pages for the query: “outdoor furniture ideas”

Did you know that Google Images was

created in response to a now-iconic dress
that Jennifer Lopez wore in 2000? Back
then, the search results page was still
just 10 blue links. After J.Lo’s Grammy
appearance, searchers flooded the web
to find pictures of her wearing the dress.
Google noticed.

So in 2001, Google Images was born.

Since then, it has undergone drastic
changes. Now, Google is making images
a cornerstone for search, and that means
more opportunities for brands.
Image credit: Jennifer Lopez,
2000, New York Post

37
Why Should CMOs Care About Google Images?
Google Images represents a growing opportunity for brands to be found
online. Google has made significant investments in improving its image search
engine over the past couple of years. In September 2018, Google announced a
major rehaul of Google Images.

The next month, Google announced that its AI-powered Google Lens
would integrate with Images search. This meant being able to conduct more
complicated image searches.

At the 2019 Google I/O developer conference, images were once again the
focal point. Google announced new functionality that would marry the physical
world with the World Wide Web through imagery:

… with Lens, we’re indexing the physical world, billions of

places and products and so on, much like search indexes.

Reports came out in 2019 of images increasing in the search results. Data
showed that images were not only showing up more but showing up in the top
three positions for queries.

Image source: “Research Study: Significant Increase in Google Images Within SERPs,” seoClarity
38
All this is to say that Google sees a future where images are a central part of
how people find things. It’s up to your brand to decide if you are going to be a
part of that.

… sometimes, what’s most helpful in understanding the

world is being able to see it visually.
–Sundar Pichai, Google CEO

How to Optimize for Google Image Search

In short: Brands need to optimize their website images and the webpages
they are on. When Google overhauled Images in 2018, the following ranking
signals became more important:

• Satisfying the intent of the searcher. Google used an example of an

image search for “DIY shelving,” where results should return images
within sites related to do-it-yourself projects.
• The authority of the webpage that the image is featured on.
• The freshness of the content of the site (or more likely, the individual
webpage the image is on).
• The position of the image on the page. Top-ranked images will likely
be central to the webpage they’re a part of.

Optimizing for Image Search

To optimize for image search, first look to the principles found in Google’s
Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. You want to ensure that webpages are
up to par with Google’s definition of quality and that they create a good user
experience.

With AI resulting in image search content more and more, we need to

understand how that will impact our SEO efforts now and in the future. For
example, AI technology encourages more image-based relationships and
increases the frequency of images in the search results.

39
To explain that concept further, when the search engine determines that
showing pictures would be useful to the searcher, the system is automatically
making the decision to show them more often.

And, as AI progresses, Google is able to understand what an image represents

and associate that image with a query. Relevance will improve, and the
frequency of images in the search results will increase. But there is much you
can do to make sure the search engines understand your images properly.

For more technical details on how to optimize for Google Images, read:

• How to Improve Google Image Search Ranking

• Complete Guide to the Fundamentals of Google’s E-A-T
(to better understand Google’s view of quality results)

STRATEGY NO. 4: LINK EARNING

Even though the Google ranking algorithm has significantly progressed over
the years, links still matter for a website to rank. But the way Google looks
at links has changed. And the way businesses should approach link building
must also change. We are in the era of link earning, not link building. Here’s
what you need to know about
protecting your website from
links that could harm your ability
to rank and go after the links
that matter.

Links: The Good, The

Bad and The Ugly
Link popularity is not a numbers
game anymore. More important
than the quantity of your
backlinks are the quality and
relevance of the links and the
sites where those links are
coming from.
40
Google’s John Mueller confirmed this:

We try to understand what is relevant for a website, how much

should we weigh these individual links, and the total number of
links doesn’t matter at all. Because you could go off and create
millions of links across millions of websites if you wanted to,
and we could just ignore them all.

If relevant, quality sites with favorable comments link to you, then your site
becomes a more trusted authority by association. So you want the best sites,
not the most, linking back to you.

Before you engage in any link building program, be sure you know what types
of links to look for and which to avoid:

• Good backlinks: Links from authority websites in your field, experts who
write about your topic, or non-spammy sites that have content related to
your website’s theme or webpage’s subject.
• Bad backlinks: Links from unrelated websites (for instance, a dog
information website linking to an insurance site) don’t do you any
good and could look unnatural.
• Ugly backlinks: Links coming from link farms, spam sites, sites known
to sell links, guest posts or low-quality content (such as pages with
lists of random links and no text).

Backlink Strategies to Avoid

As the CMO, you probably get tons of emails offering you links for a price.
Steer clear of those! Unnatural linking schemes can only hurt your brand and
your website rankings. So avoid the following tactics for obtaining backlinks:

• Sending mass email requests

• Participating in link farms

41
 • Purchasing links
• Getting links by guest posting in most cases
• Getting site-wide links (such as from a footer link on an external website)
• Having links from irrelevant or disreputable websites

Note: Paid links identified clearly as ads and nofollowed are fine. They don’t
pass link value, but advertising and promotions have value for other reasons.

How to Start a Link-Earning Program

Today, the right way to obtain backlinks is by earning them naturally. Here are
three steps to get started with a link earning program:

1. Benchmark your website’s link profile.

2. Build the link-earning program.
3. Monitor backlinks and prune as needed.

1. Benchmark the Link Profile

Begin with a benchmark of how your website is
currently doing. I suggest you use two or more tools
to gather your backlink data into a spreadsheet
you can then look at. You can use tools like Google
Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, Majestic
Site Explorer, Moz’s Link Explorer, Ahrefs and/or SEOToolSet. You’ll know what
you are currently dealing with and if you need to prune any links (see Step 3).

2. Build the Link Earning Program

A link-earning strategy should involve several tasks. At a high level, these
include:

• Analyzing links • Publicizing and sharing content

• Finalizing keywords • Using link attributes properly
• Creating content • Attracting links
• Making search engines aware

42
Creating quality content is arguably the most important step in this process,
followed by getting that content in front of the right audience. This is
something we go into more detail on in the e-book linked above and below.

3. Monitor Backlinks and Prune as Needed

Once you’ve started earning links, you’ll want to maintain your link profile. The
general process for this includes:

1. Monitor backlinks to your site – Who’s linking to me?

2. Evaluate your link profile – What makes a bad backlink?
3. Remove unwanted backlinks by “link pruning” – How do I get rid of
bad links?
4. Use Google’s Disavow tool – What’s my last resort if they won’t
cooperate?

How to Create Content That Gets Relevant Links

As a rule, you want to create quality, valuable content for users. This type of
link-worthy content fuels your link earning program.

Keep in mind that expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (E-A-T) are

three principles upon which quality content is created, according to Google.

E-A-T is important for most websites, but for “Your Money or Your Life” topics
(those that Google says “could potentially impact a person’s future happiness,
health, financial stability, or safety”), it is critical. You can learn more about that
here: Complete Guide to the Fundamentals of Google’s E-A-T

When you have great content people want to share, earning links comes more
easily. Of course, there are a lot of ways you can get that content in front of
the right audience. And you can explore more in our ebook: “The New Link
Building Manifesto: How to Earn Links That Count,” which you can download
through the button below.

43
STRATEGY 5: OPTIMIZING FOR GOOGLE’S
PAGE EXPERIENCE ALGORITHM UPDATE
The page experience algorithm update is new in 2021. Here’s a high-level
overview of what CMOs need to know so they can prepare their team and their
website.

7 Page Experience Ranking Factors

Google will combine some of the algorithmic signals you may already be
optimizing for with a new set of signals to create the page experience update.
This new update will combine these ranking criteria you may already know:

• Mobile-friendliness
• Safe browsing
• HTTPS
• No intrusive
interstitials

With a new set of criteria

called “core web vitals”:

• Page load performance –

“largest contentful paint”
• Responsiveness –
“first input delay”
• Visual stability – Image source: “Evaluating page experience for a
better web,” Google Webmaster Central Blog
“cumulative layout shift”

1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

LCP measures webpage load performance. More specifically, LCP measures
how fast the largest image or text block renders on the webpage. You want to
optimize for this core web vital by analyzing the things that negatively impact
it, including:

44
 • Server and/or software
response times
• Webpage resources and
bandwidth
• Browser software and plugins
• Site JavaScript and CSS code

2. First Input Delay (FID)

FID measures load responsiveness, which is how quickly a webpage loads
and executes so that the user can interact with the page. For this, the primary
cause of a bad FID score is heavy JavaScript execution. So you want to optimize
how JavaScript parses, compiles and executes on your webpage.

3. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

CLS measures the formatting changes to a webpage after the initial rendering
in a browser. In other words, it’s about the stability of a webpage. Think: a link
or button moving on the page, causing a person to click something unexpected.
To improve CLS:

1. Use size attributes for images, videos and other embedded items
or iframes.
2. Never insert content dynamically above existing content.
3. If using CSS to animate elements, prefer “transform” animations.

4. Mobile-Friendliness
Creating mobile-friendliness means having a website that offers a good
experience for visitors using a smartphone or tablet. Just some of the things to
consider:

• Ensure the webpage fits different screen sizes.

• Configure the size of the text for mobile viewing.
• Make sure that it’s easy for mobile users to click buttons and links.
• Have fast-loading webpages.
• Use mobile-compatible plugins.
45
5. Safe Browsing
Hacked websites often go undetected or unmaintained. Keeping your website
secure is an important job. Here, you want to be sure to:

• Monitor your website regularly.

• Stay up-to-date with the latest security measures.
• Clean up any breaches right away once you are aware of them.

6. HTTPS
HTTPS, or hypertext transfer protocol secure, secures the data that’s
exchanged between a web browser and a web server. It helps to protect your
website and its visitors from potential bad actors. For any site that is not secure
in this way, the next step is to migrate the site from HTTP to HTTPS.

7. Intrusive Interstitials
Intrusive interstitials are webpage pop-ups that make it hard for a mobile user
to access the content they want. These create a bad user experience for mobile
users. There are several steps you can take to avoid intrusive interstitials,
including:

• Use pop-up banners that don’t take a lot

of space.
• Make sure users can easily dismiss the
pop-up.
• Apply a delay before the pop-up renders.
• Segment your pop-ups by audience to
make the message more relevant to them.
• If a user closes a pop-up once, make sure
YES NO
that it doesn’t continue to display or
follow them around the website.
• Make sure your pop-up doesn’t slow
your page load time.

46
Google clarified that you don’t need all core web vitals scores to be “good” in
order to get some page experience ranking boost.

However, out of a million websites competing for your keywords, 10

competitors will have done the work to be considered “good” across the board.
If you do not, you may lose page one rankings to them.

For a deep dive into the Page Experience update, download our ebook:
“Google’s Page Experience Update: A Complete Guide” below.

47
NEXT STEPS: CHEAT SHEET FOR THE CMO
As you think about your investment in SEO this year, the strategies outlined in
this guide are just the beginning. In addition, you’ll want to:

1. Make sure that you have an agency of experts. Expertise is what sets
agencies apart. Anyone can hire an agency filled with junior-level
associates to do the work. But do you really want to run into the
problem of training them on how to do it properly? Or worse, not
knowing the potential harm they are doing to your strategy, website
and business?

2. Audit everything. To make a positive change, you need to benchmark.

Audit your strategies, audit your website. You cannot get a roadmap to
success unless you first know where you are on the map.

3. Get the whole company thinking about SEO and traffic. As outlined
earlier, SEO is a tool to reach the business goals that many different
teams care about. This needs to be communicated, and everyone needs
to be on the same page. Any changes to a website potentially impact
traffic and revenue. Any business priorities can have a subsequent
SEO strategy.

4. Get rid of the pig. An unmaintained site is a doomed site when it

comes to search engine rankings. You can’t put lipstick on a pig and call
it something else. A good SEO strategy ensures a site is primed and
ready to be crawled and indexed. For more, see: It’s Not the Job of SEO
to Make a Pig Fly

5. Loop. SEO is not a set-it-and-forget-it strategy. You must continuously

revisit your strategies to ensure you are staying on top of any changes
to the landscape, especially if your site loses rankings. For more, see:
5 Things to Know When Your Site Loses Rankings

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 Free Learn More Subscribe To
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About Bruce Clay Inc.

Since January 1996, Bruce Clay Inc. (BCI) has been helping websites rank in
search engines. Founder and president, Bruce Clay, is known as the “Father of
SEO” and credited with coining the term “search engine optimization.”

Today, Bruce Clay Inc. is a leading search marketing company providing

SEO services and consulting, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising management,
content development and social media marketing services. The BruceClay.
com website and blog have become trusted sources for how-to information
and insights about search marketing.

More than 5,000 marketers worldwide have learned SEO from Bruce Clay’s
acclaimed SEO training courses, offered online, in live classroom settings and
at major search conferences. Headquartered in Southern California, BCI also
has offices serving markets around the world.

49
 Bruce Clay, Inc.
2245 First St., Suite 101
Simi Valley, CA 93065
Voice: 1.805.517.1900
Toll Free: 1.866.517.1900
BruceClay.com