Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is all about positioning content in front of a relevant audience during the most opportune time in the buying cycle. Because 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine and 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results, SEO is an essential tactic to include in your digital marketing mix.

Recognized as a top source of information about search marketing and how it integrates with other digital marketing tactics, TopRank is dedicated to sharing our expert knowledge on SEO best practices and helping you take your optimization game to the next level. Heck, we wrote the book on optimization, Optimize: How to Attract, Engage and Convert More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing.

Browse our SEO articles to find tips, guides, news, expert interviews and much more.

How Influencers & Best Answer Content Help B2B Marketers Dominate in Search #CMWorld

Lee Odden on Sep 27th, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing World, SEO

Great content isn’t so great if it’s not easy to find. And findable content isn’t so effective if it’s not trusted.

Content is the reason search engines began and yet many B2B content marketers are not taking full advantage of opportunities to attract customers that are actively looking. Instead, the content marketing function at many B2B companies is more about creating content and not so much about promoting it.

Where Has the Marketing in Content Marketing Gone?

The problem with content marketing that focuses mostly on content creation is that the marketing is missing. Sure, B2B brands can throw advertising at their new content to attract visitors – but do B2B buyers love clicking on ads?

How Influencers & Best Answer Content Help B2B Marketers Dominate in Search #CMWorld

6 Timeless SEO Tips Content Marketers Can Do Now

Lee Odden on Jul 26th, 2021
Content Marketing, SEO

Content is the research search began in the first place.

Learning about how to get customers to visit newly created websites is where my search engine optimization education began. In that journey from before there was a Google to today, many things have changed. What has stayed the same is the opportunity to grow business by connecting customers to content by being the best answer and inspiring those customers to take action.

The best SEO practitioners stay on top of what’s current, always experimenting and evaluating what works for topics in a particular industry for the websites and content they’re in charge of attracting customers to. At the same time, the best SEO advice isn’t worth much if it doesn’t get implemented. That’s why many marketers with long term SEO experience emphasize the fundamentals.

6 Timeless SEO Tips Content Marketers Can Do Now

5 Tips for Empowering Enterprise SEO Success

Lee Odden on Jun 28th, 2021
Enterprise SEO, SEO

Large scale search engine optimization projects are often viewed as a golden egg career opportunity for many SEO professionals. Big budget projects and well-known brand names can look great on a resume. Unfortunately, many search marketers quickly realize that the golden egg actually came from a large, slow moving tortoise.

Many Search Marketers are accustomed to optimization projects where the advice they are paid to give is communicated directly and for the most part, actually implemented. Those same marketers may not be prepared to adapt SEO processes to accommodate the operational and communication needs of large, complex organizations. Successful enterprise SEO projects require a unique combination of creative and mechanical SEO expertise as well as large company political savvy.

5 Tips for Empowering Enterprise SEO Success

Content Marketing Optimization Audits – Find Where SEO Can Boost Content Marketing Success

Lee Odden on May 17th, 2021
Content Marketing, SEO

SEO and content marketing intersect in more ways than optimizing web pages with keywords.

Answering the question, “How does SEO and content marketing strategy interact?” starts with understanding customers, behaviors and preferences for information discovery, consumption and sharing. Knowing what customers care about and how those concerns and interests manifest as search keywords and social topics folds very well into the keyword research practiced by professional SEOs.

Keyword Glossaries and Editorial Plans can be valuable tools for marketers to aid in creating relevant content that is inherently optimized for customers and target audiences alike. Specific keyword optimization is appropriate as well, but the end content product becomes much easier to find, consume and share if an understanding of customer questions is translated into topics and keywords from the start. This is the core of how brands can become the best answer for what customers are looking for.

Content Marketing Optimization Audits – Find Where SEO Can Boost Content Marketing Success

Trust and the Search for Answers: How Influence Optimizes SEO Performance

Lee Odden on May 3rd, 2021
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, SEO

According to the annual Global Digital Overview Report from We Are Social and Hootsuite, 81% of internet users search online for a product or service to buy and 74% have purchased online. Without question, digital engagement and commerce is the new normal and is as relevant for B2B companies as it has been for B2C.

During the pandemic, search engines have become even more important as B2B brands and buyers alike digital transform to virtual engagement for information discovery, consumption and interaction. As a result, many companies have invested more in search engine optimization in order to capture the fast-growing opportunities to be the best answer for customers at the moment of need – when actively searching for solutions.

Best practices for SEO abound on the web including this list from SEMrush:

Trust and the Search for Answers: How Influence Optimizes SEO Performance

Best Of B2B Search Marketing: Optimize Your 2021 With Our Top 10 SEO Posts

Lane Ellis on Dec 23rd, 2020
Search Marketing, SEO

Search marketing has matured in many ways throughout this pandemic year of 2020. At each shift and change along the journey, we’ve done our best to not only cover each twist and turn thoroughly, but to also offer insight and research-based strategy to help savvy B2B marketers meet the challenges this year has placed in front of us.

We’re lucky to have a wealth of talented B2B marketing professionals contributing to the TopRank Marketing blog — which will celebrate its 18th year in 2021 — including our CEO Lee Odden, Joshua Nite, Elizabeth Williams, Anne Leuman, Nick Nelson, Debbie Friez, Birdie Zepeda, the author of this post, and Alexis Hall, among others.

Best Of B2B Search Marketing: Optimize Your 2021 With Our Top 10 SEO Posts

12 Top B2B SEO Trends & Predictions for 2021

Lane Ellis on Dec 2nd, 2020
B2B Marketing, Search Marketing, SEO

What will search marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) look like in 2021, and where will it take B2B marketers and brands when a post-pandemic world eventually arrives?

To help answer these questions and more we’ve gathered 12 top B2B search marketing insights from both industry experts and our own team, and present our annual look at SEO predictions and search trends for 2021.

When I first went online in 1984 operating a 300-baud bulletin board system, it would be six years before Archie’s FTP site search arrived in 1990, followed three years later by Excite and the other early web search engine innovators, and if there’s one aspect of search that has remained constant throughout the ensuing decades, it’s been unending change.

12 Top B2B SEO Trends & Predictions for 2021

5 Unheralded SEO Tools for Content Marketers

Lane Ellis on Jul 29th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, SEO

Are you using the latest search engine optimization (SEO) tools to help with your content marketing efforts?

Don’t worry, as we’ve got you covered with a look at some of the most helpful SEO tools to help you refine and augment your content marketing plans.

Sorting through lists of the seemingly endless number of available SEO tools can be frustrating as well as a hit and miss proposition, however we’ve put this collection together so that you can skip the search and get right into SEO tools you can use today to help you create amazing content marketing stories.

Let’s jump in with our collection of fresh SEO tools to boost your content marketing experiences.

1 — Google Lighthouse

5 Unheralded SEO Tools for Content Marketers

Three B2B Marketing Tactics That Will Outlast the COVID19 Pandemic

Lee Odden on Jun 29th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing, SEO

Without question, the COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on the B2B world with companies generally reducing marketing budgets. At the same time, many B2B companies are maintaining or increasing marketing spend as we’ve seen with most of our clients at TopRank Marketing.

While there has generally been a shift from explicit sales/push marketing content to brand messaging that is more aligned with the times and empathetic to customers, sales expectations still exist for B2B brands during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The challenge many B2B marketers are facing is to understand how to navigate both the short term changes in what works for customers in the current environment as as well as in the long term, post-crisis.

Three B2B Marketing Tactics That Will Outlast the COVID19 Pandemic

Why SEO & Influence are Critical to Pandemic Era Content Marketing

Lee Odden on May 25th, 2020
B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing, SEO

On this Memorial Day of 2020, it is important we remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice serving our country – not only in the military, but those on the front lines of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you to first responders, law enforcement, healthcare workers and all that support them!

The health and economic crisis we are all facing now compounds the many other uncertainties of our time including trust and expectations in the brands we buy from. The COVID-19 pandemic and our society’s reaction to it have changed the reality we have lived with into something different and very digital.

Why SEO & Influence are Critical to Pandemic Era Content Marketing

How to Measure Changing Marketing Goals During a Crisis

Birdie Zepeda on May 21st, 2020
B2B Marketing, SEO

In recent months, I’ve been listening to Paramore’s song “Hard Times” a lot. Their 2017 hit talks about struggling to overcome challenging circumstances above ’80s-inspired new wave pop. It’s a bop, as the kids say, and confronts hardship — truthful and emphatic with a spoonful of sugar.

via GIPHY

During this global health crisis, I’m sure most marketers want to wake up fine, be told that they’re alright, and — in their weakest moments — have “wonder[ed] why [we] even try.”

While we have no control over the state of the world, we do have control over how we react or work in tandem with it. With data, we get a glimpse into how our respective markets have been impacted, and it can inform a new perspective and next steps. Let’s take a look at how the pandemic affects data and analytics, and if B2B marketers need to shift their pre-pandemic goals.

How to Measure Changing Marketing Goals During a Crisis