10 Amazing Tools We Use To Activate Your SEO

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SEO marketing is in high demand. There is a good chance you heard about it and have been searching for SEO definition, SEO agencies near you, etc. You’ve found me, so I want to honor your time and explain our journey with this amazing marketing strategy called Search Engine Optimization.

I’m in Austin and I’m a forensic marketer. So technically, I can say I run an Austin SEO Agency, but the name won’t be fair. So let’s say I’m not an agency. I’m a consultant, mentor, and lead a team of amazing marketers, on a project-based, to get my clients the success they deserve. That has been the best way for me to avoid paying outrageous overhead and making marketing for small business owners.

We’re Not A Traditional SEO Agency

Many SEO agencies and firms will outsource their work (your website) to third-party providers, mostly in India, at a cheap rate to do subpar optimization. We don’t.

I work with clients that have sensitive compliance requirements and I like to give my client full access to everything I do on their behalf.

You probably have heard horror SEO stories! I’ve heard them too (and see them). A client of mine hired an agency overseas for their SEO work. Months later, they started to get spam emails (hundreds) and hundreds of comments on their Facebook business page that were very inappropriate. Guess why that happened?

When I checked their traffic, I showed them that their website had been shared in sites with restrictive content. And let me tell you one more detail about this client. They were plastic surgeons so their images had sensitive content. Use your imagination and guess where their website had been shared. Did you guess?

Your SEO marketing goal isn’t just about driving website traffic. My plastic surgeon client was seeing growth. But, what kind of growth? This is why I like to clarify how lead my SEO marketing projects.

Special note: if you talk to “the best SEO agency” you should ask them to explain the process they use.

So What Is SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Anyway?

Search Engine Optimization is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of website traffic by increasing visibility of a website or a web page to users of a web search engine. SEO refers to the improvement of unpaid results and excludes the purchase of paid placement. You want this!

Let’s say you are a Divorce Attorney. One of the free SEO tools is Google search! When you type in Google “causes for divorce in Texas” notice that Google gives you suggestions. Those suggestions are called “long tail keywords” based on the questions people are asking.

How Much SEO Do You Need?

Most clients we help don’t know anything about their rank.

I’ve seen established businesses that, sadly, only have a few keywords and, therefore, don’t have any website traffic coming from Google search or any other search engines.

On the other side, I’ve seen businesses that were having success and all the sudden, their Google analytics show no traffic.

Generally speaking, every business needs to be improving search results, to make sure that they stay in business. Google Search Console is a great place to learn about your website traffic.

My Personal SEO Chaos (Don’t Make The Same Mistakes)

I’ve been in the digital marketing space for over a decade and recently my website traffic fell through the cracks. Not only we lost all the work that at some point we had 1 million hits from it, but we needed to migrate our website with over 100 pages. Painful.

Why did it happen? There was an error on the tagging codes and that created several broken links.

Every website experiences a few broken links now and then, and a few may not destroy your website’s life, but, when all your “tag” pages are landing at the error page, you’re in trouble. In case you’re not familiar with taxonomies and what a “tag” page is, you can learn more about it here.

Google is all about providing a user-friendly experience, which includes protecting users against websites with broken links.

Broken links are not the only factor that can affect your SEO.

✔️Tags
✔️Description of your content “meta description”
✔️Post type
✔️Duplicate content (cannibalization)
✔️Speed
✔️Readability
✔️Headlines
✔️And many other factors!

After I went through that nightmare I promised myself to always pay attention to Google Analytics. Now I’m there almost daily.

My before and after! From a 100% bounce rate to 35% in 3 months.

A big shout out to the amazing Julia McCoy from Expresswriters.com. I’ve learned so much from Julia. Please follow her and take her courses. She’s amazing! I recommend starting with her Write Blog.

A Poor Website Is A Poor Reflection Of Your Business (And Not Having One, Too)

Remember when websites were like a collage of links? I’ve done thousands of digital strategy assessments and the main focus is the website. Without a powerful website, there’s no point of building a social media channel. I mean, you could, but people will take you more serious if you have a professional website.

If improving your website appearance and visibility is your goal, you’re not alone.

Social media, websites, email, SEO, videos, and content are the most popular digital marketing channels and tactics with small businesses, according to recent research from The Manifest.

The report was based on data from a survey of 529 people who own or work for small businesses in the United States.

Nearly three-quarters (73%) of respondents say their business engages in social media marketing; the same proportion also use a website to market their firm.

Some 57% of small businesses engage in email marketing, 49% in SEO, 34% in video marketing, and 32% in other types of content marketing.

Image result for top marketing channels for small business owners

As a forensic digital marketing strategist, I recommend to integrate your online marketing efforts with SEO. Trust me, it’s not that complicated.

There Are 3 Main Types Of Seo That An Seo Strategist Can Focus On:

Image result for off page seo vs on page seo

On-page SEO: This SEO focuses on the content that’s “on the page,” and how to optimize that content to help boost the website’s ranking for specific keywords.

Off-page SEO: This SEO focuses on the links that are directing to the website from elsewhere on the internet. The number of “backlinks,” and the publishers carrying those links, that link to your website helps you build trust in the eyes of a search engine. This causes your website to rank higher as a result.

Technical SEO: This SEO focuses on a website’s architecture, examining the backend of that website to see how each webpage is “technically” set up. Google cares as much about the code of a website as it does its content, making this specialty quite important to a website’s search engine ranking.

SEO Services We Provide

Like I mentioned in the beginning, I’m not a traditional SEO agency. I’m a consultant and a digital marketing nerd. All the work you see (except for correcting my grammar because I speak English with a Spanish accent and I’m bilingual) is my work.

I lead a team of SEO experts who can do the ninja work. But, before talking with the team, I create your digital marketing strategy, integrating SEO and social media marketing. The main deliverable of my strategy session is a Visibility Method. A blueprint that allows business owners to have a plan to market their business the right way.

Overview of the SEO tools we use

1- Keyword Magic Tool

We use paid keyword research tools, because it’s just a premium service we do for our clients. There are free SEO tools, but they are more like a one-time use. Having a list of keywords that feeds you opportunities it’s gold.

2- Keyword Planner

Google has a keyword planner, but the one I use it’s 100% for SEO, so it integrates with other SEO tools (and PPC too). Plus I have even more data – all in one place, which makes it easy for us to scale.

It takes me a few hours to work on a strategy and send you a keyword planner. This is great if you’re creating, for example, a sales page, or a course.

We start with a list of 100 keywords and draft content to target those, 25 keywords at a time. It takes about 2 months to index 50 words.

Our SEO system monitors performance and gives us alerts of opportunities.

3- Content Marketing Analysis

I see marketing from a holistic perspective, instead of tactical. Gone are the days of claiming “the secret to get clients from a funnel”. Consumers are educated and they rather do their research before making a commitment. Especially when it comes to hiring a professional at a high price value.

What is Content Marketing?

The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as a strategic marketing approach focused on the creation and distribution of content that is relevant, consistent, and valuable, which is aimed at both attracting and retaining a clearly defined audience, and ultimately driving profitable customer action.

The keywords are “valuable,” “relevant,” and “consistent.”

Content marketing isn’t a tactic you do once and it’s done. Instead, it’s a process that requires a strategy and a series of repeatable steps to build results over time.

The content you create – whether for blogs, social media, etc. – needs to have relevance, value, and consistency to win readers.

Why Most Marketers Prefer Content Marketing?

Another great thing about content marketing is that people prefer it over paid advertising.

A study from WP Engine found that 66% of consumers preferred to read content directly from their favorite brands. In contrast, one in five people use ad blockers all the time, every day, according to a Kantar Media study.

Ads are annoying. Content is useful.

First Steps To A Successful Content Marketing Strategy

We are here to learn about SEO so I won’t get too technical about content marketing. Most of my clients understand their duty to create amazing content. However, they don’t know if their ideas are amazing enough and they don’t have access to professional marketing tools.

Hubspot has a blog idea generator that brings many creative options. I use it sometimes, when I’m trying to get inspiration for captions or headlines. But for my SEO projects, our SEO software comes with their own idea generator tool.

The bottom line: we do our social media management using SEO practices, so you share content that actually adds value to your community. It’s the key to stand out from the crowd.

4- SEO Writing Assistant

The SEO writing assistant is honestly my favorite. I know exactly what I need to say to rank the article, while I’m writing. For example, to write this article, my target keyword amount was 1,958. This means that I need to write over that number if I want to have a shot to get visible. I also need to keep a readability score under 62 so this helps me to use plain language (great because I could get technical). Then the writing assistant uses the keywords suggested by the writing templates and adds suggestions and examples.

For those who are writers, having this framework will help tremendously.

What If You’re Not A Writer?

You can outsource that to us! I have access to amazing writers with amazing writing packages that will make your life very easy! A professional blog post can be less than a $100.

Need me to produce great content for you? Schedule a call with me to discuss your writing needs.

Need me to produce great content for you? Schedule a call with me to discuss your writing needs.

5- Marketing Calendar

The tools discussed above have been more related to content marketing using SEO best practices. Our SEO project will have on-page SEO and this means optimizing (SEOing) your content that has been published already.

We take those SEO tasks with the ideas to produce in the future and create a calendar with the actionable steps.

6- On Page SEO Tracker

Like I mentioned above, on-Page SEO means optimizing (SEOing) your content that has been published already. In some cases, we get clients who consult us before building their website (this is a great idea) so they don’t waste time.

Our software has a tracker and makes the on-page SEO work doable. It can even be combined with Trello.

You’re probably wondering who does this work? It depends. I don’t have a one-size-fits-all. Typically, big organizations have a marketing team that can handle this work. Once I share the findings and filter them (not all the findings are relevant), their team execute.

If they don’t have a marketing team, we filter the actionable steps and create a project. I have SEO experts on my team who can execute these “monkey work”. I call this “monkey work” because it’s not high-level strategy. It’s more about meta tags, fixing headlines, paragraphs, etc.

So that’s pretty much the foundation of SEO. Obviously, it’s not a one-step deal. It requires love and care! So let’s discuss how does this look.

7- Organic Traffic Insights

Monitor your traffic and look for trends and opportunities. This is for sure high-level strategy. Typically my clients like me to “call the shots”. And I have to say, I’m very assertive in predicting the readers behavior.

8- Lead Generation Optimizer

Once we have healthy keywords and healthy traffic it’s time for a change! What? Starting again?

Yes.

Your website traffic will be analyzed using complex tools to decode your path to turn your web visitors into clients. I’m at that level with 2 organizations and it is amazing. I must confess, I’m jealous! I wish I had taken SEO more seriously before! Don’t you?

At lead generation optimization means landing pages and call to actions. But for now, don’t worry about it! Let’s concentrate on the fundamentals!

9- Social Media Strategy And Implementation

You probably thought that I’m a social media manager, ha!

No.

It’s way more than that.

I hope you can see it! It’s more of a big-picture strategy. It’s like me going for a trial, without having to deal with the judicial system! It’s heaven to me! Digesting the facts, formulating a theory to present my winning formula, and winning!

We have an amazing team of marketing experts who can take care of your social marketing heavy lifting.

10- Accountability

I won’t be surprised if by now you’re overwhelmed just by reading this. I don’t blame you. Here is the reality: leave this work in the hands of people who truly LOVE doing this nerdy work. Lead your marketing activities like a CEO, instead of doing everything yourself.

I do all of this myself because this is therapy (and I don’t watch tv!).

What results can you expect?

The graphic below is my website- after the massive fail. I needed to start ALL OVER. Look how we are quickly moving up, all with relevant keywords to attract the right traffic. For some industries, 400 keywords are ok to win their competitors. My industry is highly competitive, so I need to work a bit more strategically.

Notice how:

✔️ SEO has a compound effect. It means that once you dominate a set of keywords and take the next set of keywords, all the traffic gets combined and this creates momentum, unlike other online marketing methods that, if you stop them, they stop working. For example, Google Ads or Facebook Ads. If I stop the ad, then the traffic stops.
✔️ SEO, in my opinion, it’s like creating a passive income, by having a sales force called “Google searches” working for you, driving people your way.

How do we get things done:

Onboarding

✔️Once you’re an active client, we schedule your VIP Session. This is a 4-hr session and can be done in a day or in 2 separate meetings.
✔️We get familiar with your business model and draft a strategy to grow your business.
✔️We use several tools to help our clients to have a clear vision of how they want to grow their business and what are the strategic key steps. Very often, we find that business owners are spending a lot of time in non-productive activities. We analyze all aspects of your business.

Taking Over

This means we include your digital assets in our tools to monitor SEO and ranks.

Execution (depends on each project)

✔️Business consulting & strategy

✔️Unlimited consultation via email

✔️ Brand development

✔️ Marketing collateral

✔️ Branding kit

Monitoring And Reporting

✔️Monthly meetings

Other Perks

✔️Our success comes from working with people who are compatible with our values. We treat your business even better than our own.

✔️We meet high compliance standards that your industry requires.

✔️Access to a powerful network all available for you.