Most companies have an immature and casual approach to social media. They know that social media marketing is a crucial part of inbound marketing, but they don't know how to leverage social platforms to achieve their business goals.

Sometimes they recruit Gen X to manage their social accounts, thinking that younger generations are far more social media savvy. However, without a proper social media strategy, this practice can be extremely harmful. We are already past the first stage of social media, wherein publishing a post was enough to generate awareness and achieve many business goals.

These days, social media platforms are crowded like never before, and everybody is striving to gain some visibility and attention from users. So, we can't sit back and hope for miracles to happen. Brands should learn to run their social media accounts in an effective, well-planned, and measured way.

Here are some of the stats that would immensely help the marketers. 71% of customers will happily recommend a brand if they get an excellent service experience on social media. Unfortunately, more than 95% of people who participated in brand conversations didn't follow the social accounts of those brands. For the sake of branding and maintaining a personal touch, you should manage some of the social media accounts yourself.

Given the challenges lying ahead, here is a 13-step social media marketing strategy for businesses to succeed and give your brand a voice in 2022:-

1. Perform Competitive Research
2. Decide on a Rational and Feasible Budget
3. Decide the Type of Content to Share
4. Follow a Social Content Calendar
5. Set Realistic Social Media Goals
6. Find the Most Relevant Social Metrics You Should Target
7. Understand Your Social Media Audience
8. Set Your Accounts in a Professional Manner
9. Promote Your Social Properties
10. Engage With Your Audiences
11. Ā Build a Community
12. Ā Rope in Influencers to Increase Your Reach
13. Ā Measure Your Results and Adapt

So, without further ado, let's dive in.

1. Perform Competitive Research

Do you know the secret recipe to beat your competition, hands down? You need to conduct competitor analysis to succeed on social media without wasting time in hit and trial. If you think that everybody should have a unique approach to digital marketing, you should keep in mind that your competitors have already done their research. They understand customer psychology better than you.

Competitive research helps you in many ways, including finding the key phrases your competitors are using and the strategy they are implementing to succeed. It will save you time and energy when making your strategy.

Competitor analysis involves the following steps:

1. Identify your competitors
2. Perform SWOT analysis of your competitors
3. Assess your competitors' website and customer experience
4. Determine the market positioning of your rivals
5. Check their pricing and current offers
6. Learn about the technology they are employing
7. Review feedback on social media

The primary purpose of competition analysis is to identify your brand's major competitors and determine the best strategies to beat them. It also helps you understand why customers choose them and what you can offer instead to persuade your target audience to buy from you.

Exploit the gaps you find with the help of competitive research and do your best to meet customer expectations.

You can also use tools such as BuzzSumo to discover the most effective content your competitors are creating and sharing on social media.

For example, here is the screenshot of the search results returned by BuzzSumo for the keyword brand engagement online. We have chosen the option of most shared content, and the first result that appears is an article published on Moz in 2015, whereas the second most shared article was published on Forbes in 2016.

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You can choose similar topics and can develop even better content that resonates with your audience.

2. Decide on a Rational and Feasible Budget

When it is a matter of serious business, lip service doesn't work. Allocating a feasible budget for your social media accounts is important. However, you shouldn't spend more than what you earn from social channels. Sometimes, you are unable to calculate your income directly from social media marketing, but you can easily estimate the average returns by contributing to achieving your business goals.

For example, you can assess the contribution of social media channels in increasing your brand awareness and brand recognition. So, the best way is to calculate the ROI of your social media expenditure. First, decide your budget for digital marketing and then decide how much should be allocated to social media.

According to WebStrategies, a company allocates around 5% to 15% of its annual income to marketing. Then, they spend 35-45% of this budget on digital marketing, and only 15-25% of this amount goes to social media marketing, including the paid campaigns.

3. Decide the Type of Content to Share

Social media is not a marketplace where you spoil everything and tarnish your brand image by selling. Social media users do not use the platform to buy anything. So, you must be thoughtful about what you post on social media and avoid promotional content at all costs. You can try a mix of informational and entertaining content to engage people who follow your account.

Occasionally, you can post promotional material and other people's content, but that should be a fraction of the entire content you publish on social platforms. To engage users, follow a social calendar and punctuate it with trending content. You can also follow the influencers in your industry to take inspiration on the type of content you should share on your social media platforms. These influencers know their audience, so they create perfect content to engage them. That's the reason influencers are so successful.

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Another important thing is to be realistic about what kind of content you can create. Many businesses want to launch their video channels and produce quality videos. However, creating professional videos require equipment, expertise, people, and time, which makes it an arduous and time-consuming task. In that case, you should altogether avoid this option as there is a lot of competition on YouTube, and just one or two poorly created videos will only tarnish your image.

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You should also make sure that you don't post personal stuff or something that interests you personally. So, the personal accounts and the company accounts should strictly be kept separate. We should assess every post from our target audience's viewpoint.

Tip 1: The probability of visual content to be shared online is 40 times higher than text-based content. So, try to create visual content which is getting popular day by day. It also has a very high engagement rate.

Tip 2: As per an official statement by YouTube, mobile video consumption increases by almost 100% annually. It is also linked with a high conversion rate as 64% of customers conceded that they are more likely to shop a product online after watching a video about it.

Tip 3: Bring diversity to the content you create, as only one type of content can reduce the user's interest. For example, you can try a mix of entertaining videos, fascinating imagery, and a compelling text copy. You can also try memes, slides, or carousel and introduce humor, drama, and fun elements.

Tip 4: Customize your content according to the social network you're using. For example, attract people through enticing visual content on Instagram, keep it brief on Twitter, add short videos and links on Facebook, and post educational content on professional networks such as Linkedin

4. Follow a Social Content Calendar

Following a social calendar and choosing the best time to post will result in increased audience engagement. If you spend time on social media, you will quickly identify the best time to post so that the majority of the people are able to view your post.

Most social networks use algorithms that control users' feeds. If you don't post when your target audience is most likely to be active, chances are your followers might never see your post. It's therefore recommended that you use social scheduling software to schedule multiple posts at different time intervals when your audience is likely active on that social platform. These tools are Buffer, CoSchedule, Hootsuite, Agorapulse, Sendible and Sprout Social, etc. You can also use ContentCal.

You should also decide the frequency of your posts for each of your clients on different social platforms and post a variety of content both for entertainment and information. Focus on high-quality content and visually appealing graphics. You can use a social scheduling tool such as Buffer or Hootsuite to make your life easier.

5. Set Realistic Social Media Goals

Goal setting is an area most people overlook, but you should remember that it is the first step to your social media marketing success. Many people do not know where to start because they have very little knowledge about social media and what they can achieve.

You should set the goals in the light of your business plan. Setting strategic goals will help you take your business to the next level. So, in a way, your social media goals should complement your overall business objectives.

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Learn to set SMART goals, i.e., Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Setting SMART goals is crucial because it means that your goals are attainable and realistic. Setting unrealistic goals may sound glamorous in the beginning, but you may not be able to achieve them, leading to disappointment later on. That's why setting limits to your goals and choosing the right social platforms become so critical. You can't succeed on all the social channels, so don't spread yourself too thin. Choose the network your audience spends the most time on.

Here are a few examples of social media SMART goals:

• Creating brand awareness
• Improving ROI on marketing campaigns
• Achieving high sales targets
• Increasing footfall to boost in-store sales
• Expanding your fan base

Attach a realistic figure to each such goal and then try to accomplish it using analytics. Social media may help you achieve all such objectives.

6. Find the Most Relevant Social Metrics You Should Target

If you think you will achieve your business goals by creating a social presence and spending your precious resources and time on it, you are on the wrong track. Social analytics can be a bit confusing over here, so to ensure success from social media, you need to choose the most relevant metric and focus on it.

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It's a folly for marketers to focus on vanity metrics such as the number of followers, likes, etc. You should also avoid unethical practices like buying fake followers. So, to increase your brand awareness, the right metric to focus on is "Post Reach."

It will provide you with information about your content's reach across different social channels and demographics.

If you are using social media to achieve your sales targets that involve driving people to perform a specific action, the number of clicks would be the most desired metric to track.

Fake followers or audiences other than those you want to target won't help you achieve anything at all. That's why marketers call it vanity metrics.

7. Understand Your Social Media Audience

The right mantra for succeeding on social media platforms and driving meaningful results from influencer marketing is using the same social platform as your target audience. For example, if your audience loves to spend time on Instagram, you should also choose Instagram as your marketing channel and find Instagram influencers in your niche.

If your target audience is Gen Z, then the best platforms for you would be Instagram and Snapchat rather than Facebook. Even with its 2.27 billion active monthly users, Facebook may not be that effective for you as a channel if your target audience is Gen Z. Facebook is known for a bit of a mature audience, say 25 to 34 years old.

The better you learn about the psychographics and demographics of your audience, the easier it would be for you to choose the right marketing channel.

Tip 1: Instead of worrying about managing different social platforms, find the one that is majorly used by your target audience and focus on it.

Tip 2: If you don't know which social platforms your target audience uses, conduct a survey.

Tip 3:Ā  You can start with your audience's most preferred social platform and then expand it to the other networks they visit. You don't need more than three channels to tap them.

Tip 4: Apart from the top social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Snapchat, you can also tap other popular platforms such as TikTok, WeChat, QQ and Telegram, etc.

Tip 5: You can use the research papers such as the one released by Pew Research to explore data about social networks usage by different demographic groups in the US.

Tip 6: Don't waste your time on the network your audience doesn't use.

Tip 7: You can create multiple accounts on a single platform or multiple YouTube channels to target different interest groups if you have the required resources.

8. Set Your Accounts in a Professional Manner

Your social media accounts represent your brand, so they should follow your branding consistently and professionally. It applies to the colors, logos, and graphics used on your social profile or page.

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You should appropriately fill your profiles and bios. Link your social profiles to the relevant properties such as the related landing pages on your website, etc. Upload high-resolution images that are correctly optimized for banners, background, and profile pictures. Make sure your target audience loves your social media page.

9. Promote Your Social Properties

You need to vigorously promote your social handles. Add buttons for your social media real estate all over your website, especially at the most visible places such as the home page, About Us page, and footer and blog page.

Similarly, you should also include buttons of your social accounts in your emails. You can easily do it in the email settings and add these buttons in the footer below your name and contact details.

Tip 1: Promote your accounts both online and offline. Add them everywhere ā€” store signage, pamphlets, brochures, visiting cards, banners, posters, etc.

Tip 2: Cross-promote it on different channels. For example, you can mention them on your YouTube channel's profile page. Promote your YouTube channel on Instagram and Twitter and vice versa.

10. Engage With Your Audiences

Most of the social networks are meant for engagement and not just for watching and scrolling content. All successful businesses try to engage people as much as possible rather than act as a broadcaster.

A social media strategy that aims to cover every social network can be a big disaster as we all have limited time, energy, and resources. Therefore, focus only on the platforms frequented by your target audience.

To further improve the engagement, you can also try custom hashtags that promote healthy discussions and sharing.

Tip 1: Don't ignore any mention and respond to them everywhere. There are multiple tools that you can use to find your brand mentions.

Tip 2: Ā Provide top-notch customer support and make customers feel valued.

Tip 3:Ā  Encourage customers to talk and participate in discussions. Resolve their queries and aim to achieve customer delight.

11. Build a Community

Another perk of using social platforms is your ability as a business to build a community. You can always put in efforts to make your social media property a go-to place for your audience, so you can engage and nurture leads and, above all, build long-term relationships.

Tip 1: Create interactive posts and include your followers and fans.

Tip 2: Use quizzes and questions to know the opinions of your audience

Tip 3: Don't repeat your ads on social media. Make it enjoyable, so people find value in your content and frequently return to your posts.

Tip 4: Hire people to run your social accounts that match your target audience's social demographics. For example, if your target audience is roofing contractors, the existing homeowners would be your best choice as your social media professionals.

Tip 5: Never underestimate the importance of paid promotion. It allows you to target audiences you can never reach otherwise.

Tip 6: You can use paid advertising to create brand awareness, achieve sales targets, generate leads, and promote posts and videos.

Tip 7: Create interest-based groups such as Facebook groups. It's a great way to build a community without being promotional.

12. Rope in Influencers to Increase Your Reach

Engaging with the right influencers has its advantages. Influencers know the craft of social media marketing, which makes them highly reliable for brand promotion. They have a distinct style their audience is primarily familiar with, so their posts are pretty effective and engaging. People follow their advice because of the reputation they enjoy in their respective fields.

Tip 1: Collaborate with influencers whose followers match your target audience.

Tip 2: Create exciting content for your influencers so they can convince their audience to consider buying from you.

13. Measure Your Results and Adapt

Even the best marketers on the planet can't predict the outcome of their campaigns. Something or the other might go wrong. That's the reason periodically measuring your results is important to tweak your strategy accordingly. You've already set your goals and determined the key metrics to focus on.

You can use an appropriate analytics tool to measure the performance of your campaigns, especially concerning the metrics you've chosen. If you're not getting the desired success, you can change your campaign strategy. Most of the social networks have inbuilt analytics tools, and they offer relevant data about the campaigns. On Facebook, it's known as "Insights." Twitter and YouTube also have their inbuilt tracking software.

If you find that some of the content pieces perform well on the platforms, create more such content. On the flip side, if your content is not performing, try to figure out the reason behind that and switch to a better content strategy. You can also conduct an online survey for that.

Conclusion

Regardless of the goal you set, you can fearlessly dive in and invest in social media marketing as it has a massive impact on brand awareness, followers count, and sales. Your social media strategy is directly related to brand awareness, lead generation, lead nurturing, and conversion. Apart from that, social channels have long been used to provide instant and quality customer support to build a loyal customer base. Constantly track your results and improve your campaigns. Implement the 13-step social media strategy discussed above and be ready to embrace success.

Knowing how to package and present your services is the key to selling them.

The truth is that humans operate on certain psychological principles. Even if your agency’s services are technically superior to the competitor, the winner is the agency that better captures the perception of prestige and value.

This means that even if you build the brand and acquire the right talent, you won’t turn a profit if you can’t figure out the best way to package your digital marketing service offerings.

The trick is to lean on tiered subscriptions, and we’re here to show you how to do it.

How to Offer Digital Marketing Services?

There are two primary strategies that agencies use to market their services.

The Volume Pricing Model

The first of these is known as volume pricing. With this model, you establish your pricing rates based upon the volume of items or services purchased. An example of this might look like this:

• 1-5 blog articles per month – $50 per article
• 6-10 blog articles per month – $42 per article
• 11-15 blog articles per month – $39 per article

The general strategy here is to motivate your customers to spend more by creating the perception of value. Though the cost per article decreases, you are ultimately selling more and achieving a greater profit. The customer feels that they are making a better investment by claiming the lower rate per article even though they end up spending more.

The primary benefit of using volume pricing is that it communicates your pricing formula to the user. The major downside is that it generally does not present as many opportunities for profit as tiered pricing.

The Tiered Pricing Model

The tiered pricing model is more common among digital marketing agencies.

With tiered pricing, you package your services and their corresponding monthly limits into packages that you will price according to their perceived value. These tier packages are not exclusive to marketing and are likely used in just about every subscription service you currently pay for monthly (i.e. Netflix, Spotify, Dollar Shave Club).

Let’s take a look at an example:

The tiered pricing model allows for convenient viewing of the offerings within each package. Users can quickly compare costs and make an informed decision before purchasing.

You’ll likely find pricing tables just like this on virtually every digital marketing agency you’ll find online. Let’s explore what makes the tiered pricing model so popular and effective.

Why You Should Use Tiered Pricing for Your Digital Marketing Service Offerings?

We recommend the tiered pricing model as it offers the following benefits:

1. You Keep Your Customers on Your Website

When making an informed purchasing decision, online consumers like to compare. It’s common for users to compare a product or service on several different websites before deciding where they want to spend their hard-earned dollars.

When you utilized a tier pricing comparison block like the one above, users are far more likely to compare your plans versus each other as opposed to comparing them to a competitor. This is a psychological strategy that preoccupies a person’s mind with the potential value of your plans only.

Additionally, these pricing tiers simplify the process of gathering data for a purchasing decision. Even if a well-written, long-form blog exists to specifically compare the services offered by two competing companies, most are going to respond best to these types of easy comparisons.

2. You Can Package in Under-Performing Services

It’s expected for an agency to have services that sell far better than others. In our experience, Facebook Ads and Google Ads campaigns perform well as they typically result in increased conversions and more immediate results. Conversely, standard content writing is not as popular.

If you find that one of your services does not sell as well, it’s not necessarily indicative of the quality. Rather, when faced with a choice, your customers are going to pick the sexier option.

If you package your services into set tiers, it’s much easier to incorporate your under-performing services in a way that increases the perceived value. While purchasing a blog from a freelancer typically won’t cost much on its own, adding several blogs per month to an existing tier can automatically increase its worth.

For example:

In these example tiers for SEO services, we distinguish the perceived value of each plan in two ways. The first is by increasing the number of hours offered with the existing service from the first tier. The second is to add a service that is not featured at all in the lower-tier plan.

While we know the standard cost for a quality blog is not much, what matters is what your customers perceive. You increase the value of Tier B by packaging in a product that the customer might not otherwise buy. However, when packaged in as an added benefit, the offer suddenly becomes much more appealing.

Essentially, segmenting your offerings into tiers can present opportunities for automatic upsells without needing to ask for them.

3. You Control the Perceived Value

As we touched on in the example above, it’s the direct comparison that dictates the perception of value in the mind of a customer. When you create service tiers and progressively increase your offerings, customers assume that the higher tier is more valuable regardless of what each added service is worth.

It’s for this reason that the tiered pricing model provides a greater opportunity to drive company profits. As long as you can adequately present the value of your tiers, you get to control the pricing.

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Let’s return to the Netflix example above. They price their Basic tier at $8.99 per month. This is their minimum viable product. It’s the bare minimum that they can offer that will attract customers while still generating a profit.

The next plan offers minor improvements at nearly double the monthly cost. Netflix is likely capable of selling this tier for less, but the perception of value is baked into the tiers. The middle tier is even titled “Standard” for added measure. For new buyers, this automatically calls attention to the higher-cost plan as paying for the “Standard” sounds more attractive than being a “Basic” member.

How to Build Your First 3 Marketing Service Offerings?

Now that we’ve analyzed the benefits of utilizing a tiered pricing model, let’s explore how to go about building your first three packages:-

Your Three Tiers – Basic, Premium, Elite

These are not necessarily meant to be the names of your three tiers but indicate the progression of value with each new tier.

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• The First Tier

The first tier serves as an entry point for anyone that wishes to get a taste of your digital marketing offerings.

This package should contain the bare minimum amount of services and features necessary to both attract customers and generate a profit. Aiding customers with the basic tier should realistically require a minimal time investment from your team.

Let’s take a look at the first platform paid tier that customers can purchase when using DashClicks:

• 5 Team Member Seats
• Unlimited Sub Accounts
• 1,000 Email Sends per Month
• 100 SMS Credits per Month
• 50 GB File Storage

This initial tier package offers an attractive selection of benefits that can realistically serve a small business. The cost is low according to our MVP, while still allowing us to offer great features.

The important thing to remember with your first basic package is that you don’t want your customers to feel basic. If the first tier feels cheap or not worthwhile, they’re not going to invest their money into your business. By comparison, your middle tier will feel like the real basic tier and will not make customers feel like they’re purchasing a valuable upgrade.

Your basic customers are important as they’re the ones who are essentially sampling your digital marketing offerings. If you capitalize on the opportunity to impress, you will have a much easier time convincing this customer to upgrade at a later date.

For this reason, you certainly won’t want to name this first tier “Basic.” Instead, try to name your tier something that indicates the tier status without diminishing its worth. For this reason, names such as “Starter” or “Lite” are very common. When they’re convinced that your services are worth it, they’ll be excited to change their status from being a starter to becoming a premium member.

• The Middle Tier

The middle tier should realistically be your most popular service package. It offers a clear middle ground that separates the customer from being “basic” or a “starter.” It also offers an attractive selection of services and benefits at a lower monthly rate than your expensive, elite tier.

For the middle tier, you might want to utilize a naming convention that enhances the sense of value and provides a sense of higher class. Many businesses might utilize the term “Premium” or “Advanced.” Our naming conventions see us calling our middle tier “Plus,” whereas we save our most premium value for later.

Let’s look at our Plus tier as an example:

• 10 Member Seats
• Unlimited Sub Accounts
• 5,000 Email Sends per Month
• 500 SMS Credits per Month
• 100 GB File Storage

To further enhance the value, users also gain access to additional features within the various platform software. There are several things to point out when we compare the first tier to the middle tier.

The first is that all of the listed benefits double in quantity or otherwise increase significantly. Gaining access to double the number of team member seats is more sensible for your everyday marketing agency. You also gain access to more messaging capabilities and file storage to accommodate the scope and scale of your agency.

If that’s not enough to convince someone that the middle plan is worth the extra monthly fee, the expanded capabilities of the platform software will do the job.

It’s also not just about comparing the plans directly. There’s also a unique psychological effect that happens when a person purchases a more expensive plan over the least expensive one. The customer typically associates the name of the plan with how they view their agency.

If you name your middle plan the “Premium” tier, a customer is likely to think “My agency is important and worthy of Premium.” This is as opposed to feeling as though their agency is small or basic. Suddenly, it’s not only about the services provided but about the feeling of worth associated with being a member of that plan.

Finally, it’s important to reiterate that you don’t want the gap between your plans to be so extreme as to alienate your basic-level customers. There should be an appropriate increase of offerings that directly relate to the increased monthly value.

Test out different pricing schemes and nail down your middle-tier. Getting the price right here is the key to motivating your basic customers to upgrade when the time is right.

• The Elite Tier

This tier is the best package that your agency can realistically offer. The Elite tier will only appeal to a certain class of a customer by design. You’ll reserve your higher tier for those who want access to the maximum level of service your agency can offer to a single client. This should also include additional bells and whistles that create a sense of undeniable value.

However, you can start building your elite package by simply taking the same features and services offered in lower tiers. You will need to increase the limits of these features by a notable margin so that the customer does not feel as though they are overpaying for marginal improvements.

Let’s take a look at our very own elite tier:

• 20 Team Member Seats
• Unlimited Sub Accounts
• Unlimited Email Sends
• 1,000 SMS Credits per Month
• 250 GB File Storage

The price per month is a notable increase from the middle-tier plan. However, we once again greatly increase the value of the same deliverables. By increasing our quantities by double or more, we’re already off to a great start. Setting one of those deliverables to “unlimited” also implies a special level of treatment reserved for high-paying customers.

However, the cost per month is still an issue. While there may be customers willing to pay this monthly rate, we would benefit from adding a few more features to truly seal the deal. This is where you will need to get a bit creative and think of ways to truly make those customers feel special.

A common tactic to increase the value of an elite plan is to offer an exclusive support line. A customer that’s paying top-dollar will likely feel entitled to priority service, and they’re right. Because the elite tier generally only applies to a small selection of customers, offering this priority service shouldn’t become a burden.

MindMeister Example

An additional idea is to throw in some smaller, add-on features that your agency might sell a la carte. If you cannot realistically provide free add-ons, you may be able to offer them at a lower rate that’s exclusive to elite customers. What you’re able to provide will largely depend on your offerings and the capabilities of your agency.

With your elite tier, it’s important to remember that you’re now marketing to a higher class. Because most will want to spend less, you shouldn’t expect to sell your elite plan as often as your middle-tier plan. Instead, you want to curate a package for the elite customer that’s truly worth the asking price. As long as the value and quality of service are present, you’ll have an easier time keeping your elite customers on board for the long term.

Build Attractive Packages for Your Digital Marketing Service Offerings!

Packaging your digital marketing services into attractive tiers is the best way to keep customers on your site while controlling your profits.

Allow your customers to dictate which deliverables are most valuable to them. Then, take those same deliverables and scale them up in a way that correlates to a progressive increase in value. Further enhance the value of subsequent tiers by packaging in additional services that are generally low-cost to implement, yet valuable to a customer’s success.

Additionally, be mindful of customers in one tier when creating benefits for the next tier. An increase in a tier’s price isn’t simply to generate more profit but to communicate to customers that the added benefits of an upgraded tier are worthy of the additional cost. You want your customers to aspire toward the upgrade rather than feel alienated or ripped off for purchasing a cheaper tier.

Finally, remember that any package is only as valuable as the quality behind the actual service. Make sure that your team is ready to provide excellent service to all customers regardless of the package they purchase. Instilling satisfaction is the best way to create loyalty and encourage customers to invest more in your digital marketing service offerings.

Outsourcing your work is a sensitive topic in the United States work culture.

However, it is an effective way of expanding the scope and capabilities of a business without breaking the budget. The tricky part is identifying when a task is worth your time and when you’re better off paying for additional help to take care of it.

With this handy outsourcing guide, we’ll clear up misconceptions about what outsourcing is, the pros and cons, and how utilizing this strategy can help you save money.

What is Outsourcing?

Outsourcing is the process of hiring an outside, third-party to perform services or complete tasks that are otherwise performed by your in-house team.

In the U.S. culture, we regularly associate with outsourcing exclusively with help hired outside of the country. However, according to this definition, outsourcing your work can apply to hiring an individual freelancer or a fulfillment company that specializes in assisting existing companies with specific objectives.

For example, IT outsourcing allows business to delegate technology-related tasks to an external software development company. It results in saving time and reducing costs to open a legal entity and hire tech experts.

When Should You Outsource Your Work?

Knowing when it’s right to outsource requires an evaluation of yourself, your team’s current capabilities, and your overall goals for the company.

Here are some important questions that can help you decide when it’s time to consider outsourcing:

1. Can Your Team Complete Daily Tasks without Compromising Quality?

A sign of a busy team can be positive or negative. On one hand, having plenty of work means that your business is acquiring new clients and making deals at a steady or hectic rate. On the other hand, it can be a sign that your current workflow is not ideal for getting quality work from your team members.

First, analyze what you can do to improve your project management. Familiarize yourself with each team member’s day-to-day activities and interview them regarding their current workload. This information will help you isolate the cause of the issue.

If the amount of work coming in exceeds the capabilities of what your team can realistically achieve, outsourcing can alleviate some of that excess pressure. This can help with redistributing tasks in a way that allows you to get the best work possible out of all parties.

2. You’re Looking to Grow or Expand Your Offerings

Growth is a necessary part of business survival. However, the time for growth may come before you have the resources or means to make significant changes to your team internally. Examining the average rates for outsourced or freelanced help may lead you to conclude that outsourced help is an ideal solution.

Hiring external help to expand your offerings is not uncommon. A study from 99Firms indicates that there are approximately 1.1 billion freelancers worldwide. 45% of those freelancers possess a post-graduate degree.

Not only does this indicate a genuine demand for outside help, but it also battles the stigma that third-party help must be cheap or low-quality. Because outsourced help typically works via temporary contracts, you also have the freedom to let go of a third party at any time if the work is not aligning with your business goals.

Some companies specialize in offering professional services to other companies only as opposed to personal clients. For example, an e-commerce company is likely to outsource its shipping services to companies such as ShipBob. DashClicks itself provides fulfillment services to other marketing agencies for the express purpose of helping them grow with reliable quality.

3. You Lack Talents for a Key, One-Time Projects

There’s a possible scenario in which a key client that loves your business commissions you to do something beyond your team’s current capabilities. For example, they may require a new, robust website that’s complete with content and SEO optimizations. While your marketing company specializes in the latter, you may need help with the initial development.

Rather than denying and potentially losing an important client over one aspect of the project, consider outsourcing. There are talented web designers around the world looking for work as a primary or supplemental form of income.

You will still manage and facilitate the project. Your team communicates what’s needed for the outsourced assignment and continues the work in-house until the task is complete. You’re able to serve and satisfy your client without spending unnecessary resources on scouting and hiring a permanent team member for a service you do not typically offer.

4. You Do Not Enjoy Completing Certain Tasks

Before you started your own business, you were always hands-on with the creative tasks that you enjoy. Now you find yourself spending a chunk of each day performing tedious clerical work. It’s vital for the company and someone needs to do it.

Or, you can consider outsourcing your dreaded tasks to a third party. Not only will you improve your work life, but you can also potentially save money when viewing rates for outside help as opposed to what you would pay yourself.

In addition to the potential monetary benefits, you also free up that time each day to focus your efforts on areas where they can better serve the company. Removing tasks that you do not enjoy from your plate is not only personally satisfying but can help your company grow and become more efficient in certain scenarios. Job seekers who are making use of a resume builder can streamline the process of finding suitable positions, just as outsourcing can streamline business operations.

The Advantages of Outsourcing

We can all relate to the above scenarios where outsourcing seems viable, but are the advantages worth it?

Let’s examine the advantages of outsourcing as well as some of the cons so that you can make an informed decision regarding your next hire.

1. Outsourcing Saves Money

How does outsourcing save money if you still need to hire someone for the task? Outsourcing helps your business cut costs in several ways.

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The first is that you only need to pay for work as needed. This is as opposed to devoting resources to scouting, interviewing, hiring, and paying the salary of an individual whose work might only be necessary on an irregular basis.

The second way is by reducing the amount of office space and equipment necessary for your team. When hiring third-party help such as from a BPO outsourcing company the hired individual or team is expected to have all of the abilities and resources necessary to complete the task without your assistance.

The third way is by having the freedom to determine which rates benefit you most. Freelancers may fluctuate their ongoing rates depending on the availability of work. Though it may take a bit of effort to scout the right talent for the right price, you have much more freedom when hiring temporary help when compared to offering a competitive salary and benefits to a full-time employee.

2. It Creates the Opportunity for Higher-Quality Work

When the workload becomes too demanding, the quality of your team’s work typically suffers. A high-stress, unrealistic work environment not only damages team morale but can harm your reputation with clients due to poor results.

By outsourcing help for specific tasks, you can give your team the freedom they need to focus on their specialties. After all, you hire your permanent team members because they excel at performing specific tasks. By offloading the routine, tedious work to an eager contractor, you make everyone’s lives easier, while also benefiting your company in myriad ways.

3. Gain Expert Help at a Lower Cost

As stated at the beginning of this article, outsourced work does not only need to feature tedious, monotonous tasks. In many cases, outsourcing a specific task to an expert can help your company grow and expand its number of offerings.

Even if the upfront rate seems higher initially, remember how this cost compares to hiring a full-time expert. You will benefit from working with experts that possess years of experience without the need to offer a competitive salary or compensation package to an equivalent hire.

4. Get Tasks Completed Faster

When you delegate a task to a full-time team member, you need to schedule this task around their existing responsibilities and work schedule.

When you outsource that task to a third party, you get to dictate the terms. If you need a fast turnaround, communicate this when you put out the call for help. Interested and capable parties that do not have the same obligations will be able to deliver results at a faster rate. If they do fail to deliver anything at all, you only lose out on time.

What Are the Downsides of Outsourcing?

As with all things in life, all positive things also come with potential downsides. It’s merely a matter of weighing the potential benefit of the advantages versus the potential negatives.

Here are some of the most common downsides associated with outsourcing:

1. You’ll Still Spend Time Performing QA

Quality assurance is a standard part of completing any project. However, this process is generally far more simple when performed in-house as your team is trained to complete assignments your way. All of your team members are familiar with this process, which makes it much easier to lean on them to see a project to completion.

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When hiring outsourced help, that built-in understanding is no longer present. Of course, you can help improve the odds of receiving quality work by providing a quality onboarding experience for any freelancer. The better you can communicate the requirements, the more likely they will deliver a product that’s close to your expectations.

This, of course, is not a guarantee. If the person completes a project that’s not up to your standards, you’ll still be spending time proofing, requesting revisions, or completing the edits yourself. This issue is compounded if the individual does not use your language natively.

2. Communication Can Be a Problem

While there’s no liability to a one-time hire, this works both ways. Because an outsourced hire is not a company employee, they are not obligated to be as communicative as you might hope.

Communication issues in-house can quickly be resolved as you share the same office. However, a third-party hire can exist anywhere in the world and has to work around their personal life and schedule.

Issues once again can be compounded if the person lives in a different time zone. It’s common to outsource help from overseas, which creates language and logistical barriers that you must prepare to work through.

3. You Deny Your In-House Team Opportunities

This is a sensitive issue to navigate and requires a deep understanding of those who make up your company. While a passionate team is willing to work hard for their company, they also should improve themselves and discover new opportunities.

When you immediately delegate certain tasks to outside help, you deny an in-house employee the opportunity to learn and develop. Your employees may see your attempts to outsource as a direct negative toward their personal career development. If you deny your employees the opportunity to expand their resumes and improve their level of income, you may risk losing them to a company that will.

4. There’s a Risk of Damaging Your Reputation

This one will also require you to understand an important party – your customers. As stated in the beginning, the United States in particular is known to take strong stances against outsourcing. Not only can it impact your internal team, but your customers may also have a moral stance against the act.

Additionally, your customers have the right to expect your in-house team to complete the requested work. If you outsource some or all of the project to a third party at home or abroad, it can automatically trigger two responses.

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The first is that the work is low-quality as it comes from an untrusted source. The customer chooses to give their money to your company and you repay that trust by utilizing an unknown party. Even if the work is quality, the customer may feel betrayed as they were not able to make an educated purchasing decision.

The second concern is the fear that they are overpaying. When you outsource help, the expectation is that the company is saving money. When the customer pays the same rate for outsourced help as they would for internal help, they’re going to assume that they’re being taken advantage of, so that your company can pocket the profits.

Know the Advantages and Risks Before Outsourcing

Outsourcing is a common practice. As the statistics above show, more people are working from home and as a freelancer than ever.

A business that leans on outsourced help can potentially save money, improve project turn-around, help mitigate workflow issues, and discover growth opportunities.

However, it’s important to be keenly aware of how outsourcing your work can impact your company’s reputation with in-house employees and customers. It’s essential that you gauge the response and feeling toward outsourced work before making your final decision. You want to use outsourcing to propel your company forward, not to alienate those that brought you to where you are.

As long as you have an understanding of where your company stands and appropriately weigh the risks, outsourcing may be a genuine solution for your business needs. Use this guide as necessary to aid in your decision-making process down the line.

On November 17, 2021, we saw the release of the latest Google core update. Google advised that it will take approximately two weeks to see the full changes in effect.

According to preliminary assessments, it's very probable that you are now seeing a notable change in your site ranking. Before you panic, it's important to understand what these Google core updates aim to achieve as well as the ranking volatility that we typically see after an update.

Let's jump right in.

What is a Google Core Algorithm Update?

A Google Core Algorithm Update is a significant update that dictates changes to how Google's search engine algorithm qualifies and ranks websites for search engine results pages.

While Google releases minor updates throughout the year, they officially announce and name these updates for the public. Veteran SEOs typically plan for these major changes as they can have a significant impact on page rankings.

The main hurdle with this is that Google is always keen to withhold explicit information regarding the changes. This makes sense as understanding these direct ranking factors can potentially result in practices that abuse the ranking system and worsen the user experience.

On the other hand, those that experience significant changes in ranking may find themselves panicking following an update. Even though the specific changes are kept close to the chest, these are the ranking factors that we do know go into search rankings:

• Technical SEO factors (page speed, mobile-friendliness, navigation, etc.)
• Backlink profile
• HTTP vs HTTPS
• Individual page ranking
• Content with EAT factors
• Search query relevance

With these factors in mind, let's take a look at how the latest Core Update continues to affect search result rankings.

SERP Volatility Changes Following the Latest Google Core Update

Any fluctuations to Google's search engine result pages are typically referred to as SERP volatility. We can utilize volatility scores to gauge how impactful a Google Core Update is on a website's SEO and rankings.

We could see evidence of preliminary changes before the November 17 update announcement. SERP volatility was at a 5.5 and 5.6 volatility rating for the 16th and 17th of the month. The most significant changes were observed on the 18th where the volatility rating peaked at 9.3/10. These metrics are courtesy of the SEMRush Sensor.

It's also important to note that following the spike the volatility rating mostly returned to stability. This is a typical occurrence of events following a major core update. The site RankRanger corroborates these metrics with their Rank Risk Index. You can also compare this Core Update to the smaller Anti-Spam update that went out earlier this month between the 3rd and the 5th.

Volatility by Industry Category

While the above examines how the update impacts all search results, let's take a closer look at specific industries that appear to be experiencing the greatest effects.

While most industries are now back to a normal, stable score, shopping continues to trend higher on the volatility scale. While the initial peak was the same, we can see a higher average for the entire month with another big peak around the 25th. This perfectly coincides with the inevitable e-commerce rush for Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

Sistrix also reports that dictionaries and informational websites like Wikipedia were some of the update's biggest winners. This is not necessarily surprising as Google consistently calls for improved content to protect your site rankings. This change may also indicate a need for sites to provide lean, direct answers and definitions to user questions as opposed to opinion-based responses.

Other industries that received notable impacts equivalent to this are arts & entertainment, games, and sports. Health, in particular, saw notable fluctuations which are likely tied to Google's ongoing effort to battle misinformation regarding COVID-19 and related variants.

All remaining industries experienced some light fluctuations with the same overall peaks and valleys, but have since stabilized and demonstrate normal activity.

Important Note - SEMRush's volatility scores are relative to previous periods of stability. Therefore, you should not compare Core Updates one-to-one as peaks and dips are defined by their relationship to the immediate trends that preceded the changes.

How Do I Know if the Latest Google Core Update Affects My Site?

There are two primary metrics to keep an eye on before and following a Google Core Update:-

Did Your Search Rankings Change?

The primary way to determine if a Google Core Update is a cause for concern is to examine your latest search rankings.

There is no set expectation for how greatly your search ranking may change following an update. If your website does not pertain to industry from the discussion above, your changes are likely mild. However, a shopping website that's regularly updated with SEO best practices may even experience significant ranking boosts in time for the holiday season.

However, this is unlikely to change too much as SEMRush's report indicates that just 16.19% of the top twenty websites were new results. 83.81% of the URLs were present before the algorithmic update.

Did Your Daily Site Traffic Decrease?

This metric typically coincides with your organic search rankings. A sudden and obvious decrease in daily web traffic is a sign that the update impacted your website's visibility in SERPs. If your result is now further down or has been relegated to the second page, it makes sense for your traffic to take a dip.

Per Google's tweet, it typically takes up to two weeks for a new algorithmic change to fully take effect. As we are nearing two weeks exactly, it's likely that any traffic changes you see now are here to stay. However, because we can never know the fine details, we are left to Google's advice on how to recover rankings when updates happen.

How Can I Reclaim Lost Search Rankings Following a Google Core Update?

Google Search Central emphasizes the importance of quality website content when it comes to determining rankings. It's also important to understand that a sudden drop in rankings following an update doesn't mean that your content is poor or that your SEO strategy does not work.

The potential impact of Google Core Updates is further explained by Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Laison:

Google goes on to explain that major algorithmic changes primarily serve to deliver the best content possible to its users. With that in mind, website owners need to step back and review all of their website offerings. Instead of exclusively reviewing what is wrong with your site (which may be nothing), it's important to review the content on sites that now rank higher.

1. Focus on the Principles of EAT

EAT stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness. These are the tenets of excellent content according to Google's guidelines. To honestly evaluate your content for search rankings, you must ensure that it adequately adheres to these principles.

Content that ranks higher features a level of superior authority on the subject that makes it more valuable than other offerings. It provides a unique level of insight that other results simply cannot or do not provide. If you find that your content falls into the trappings of being the same old or expected material, a new update may finally deem that content as less valuable than others.

2. Create Content in Adherence with the Google Quality Rater's Guidelines

Google also readily provides its Quality Rater's Guidelines to inform website owners of how a page's content receives its rating.

This PDF booklet dictates how to define quality content, how to properly outline your site for navigation, and how to communicate a positive reputation to users. It also provides guidelines for best practices on how to keep advertisements appropriately separated from the main content.

Use this step-by-step checklist to review every webpage on your website. If you wish to solve the problem of decreased rankings, you need to be willing to assess your content's quality honestly. So long as your content strictly adheres to Google's quality control rules and meets the needs of your visitors, you can be confident that content quality is not negatively impacting your rankings.

3. Use Analytics Tools to Identify Existing Issues

If you're not already, you should take advantage of free analytics tools for SEO such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

All you need to do is verify ownership of your business and domain with Google. Once you're ready, you can gain critical feedback regarding errors that are present on your website. It will also inform you whether or not your site violates any guidelines that can substantially impact your search rankings.

This is critical following an update as there is always the possibility that new rules are now in effect. The good news is that quickly identifying and resolving known issues can quickly help you move back up in SERPs.

While these tools are commonly utilized to improve site vitals, you can also use the feedback to determine potential content problems with specific website pages. Website pages with poor content will feature a poor page rank, which can hurt the great work you provide on other pages of your website. It will be necessary to improve these pages or delete them from your site entirely to avoid penalties to your rank.

4. Keep it Up to Date

A Google Core Update can directly influence how search engine algorithms interpret website content. Therefore, it makes sense that you should regularly update existing content to keep up with new data and trends.

It's essential for your content team to consistently revisit existing pages on the site even when they perform well. Information is not immutable and it's very easy to lose page rank as a result of being old or outdated. Making the effort to refresh existing pages and direct visitors to important updates can help you gain extra mileage out of already excellent content.

Be advised that content updates are not only important for providing up-to-date data, but for improving the presentation of said information. As per Google's admission, it's not that your page is doing something wrong, but rather that another page is now doing it better. Consider how you can utilize your expertise and authority to improve a page's content since the time of its initial creation.

Conclusion - Don't Panic and Stay On Course with Your SEO!

It can be frustrating to keep pace with Google's core algorithmic updates. It's even more frustrating to suddenly feel penalized for months of otherwise quality SEO work.

However, it's important to know that every website owner on Google experiences the same challenges. A sudden shift in rankings following a core update is not necessarily a sign that your SEO is in the gutter, but rather that there is an opportunity to improve your site further.

Stay on course with your SEO strategy and use our feedback to discover opportunities for further improvement. Additionally, you should follow Google Search Central's primary website and social accounts to stay up-to-date for when a new update will appear.

New updates occur roughly every three months, which provides you with ample time to clean up your SEO and get your site in order. Strictly adhering to Google's best practices is the best way to protect your website rankings in future updates.

Using best practices for SEO is the best (and only) way to improve your website ranking and visibility. It helps to target high-volume keywords that aren’t overly competitive.

The problem for low competition niches is an emphasis on low-volume keywords.

If your primary keywords won’t generate traffic, what’s the point of an SEO strategy?

Fortunately, experts are aware of niche SEO and there are countless examples of small brands carving out their path to digital marketing success. Let’s define what niche SEO is and provide you with the strategies you need to claim your stake within search engine results pages.

You can also use the table of contents to jump ahead to a specific section within the article:

• What is a Niche Website?
• Why It’s Difficult to Rank Niche Websites
• Keyword Research for Niche Websites
• Technical SEO
• Local SEO
• Content Marketing
• Get Connected with Social Media
• Get Acquainted with Your Competitors

What is a Niche Website?

A niche website is any site that serves a segmented portion of a larger audience. This small segment of the audience typically has needs or interests that are hyper-specific and are only met by select businesses in an industry.

A niche website is not necessarily small or unsuccessful.

The term niche implies that particular products or services the brand provides appeal to a much smaller audience than mainstream commercial brands. Niche websites can still feature hundreds of high-quality pages that effectively serve their audience.

An example of a niche website is the highly successful Nerd Fitness. Whereas fitness and weight loss is a broad, competitive niche, this website specifically creates content targeting “nerds” and those less fitness-inclined. Even with the focus on a specific audience segment, the creators continuously manage to achieve success and recognition online.

Why It's Difficult to Rank Niche Websites?

It can be difficult to see the results of your niche website SEO as a direct result of that hyper-specificity.

If you design your content, products, or services to appeal to a particular type of person, then your search volume is naturally going to match this. There simply aren't enough people searching for the very specific keywords you might want to use to best describe your content.

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As a response, these website owners tend to resort to very vague, broad keywords that still match the general industry. The problem with choosing generalized keywords is that they describe a high number of businesses, making them incredibly difficult to effectively target.

With specific keywords featuring a low search volume and general keywords being too competitive, SEO for your niche seems hopeless.

But, we're here to tell you it's not. Let's explore how you can start doing niche SEO effectively starting now.

How to Do Keyword Research for Niche Sites?

Researching the ideal keywords for a niche site generally requires a degree of creativity. What we're looking for are terms or phrases that are neither hyper-specific nor overly generalized.

First, start by looking up keywords for the products or services you sell within your SEO tool of choice. You can utilize popular platforms such as SEMRush or Moz Keyword Explorer. If these terms are revealing little to no monthly search volume, you won't want to spend too much of your time or budget attempting to rank for these.

Instead, let's think about how we can generalize these terms to a degree for a slightly broader appeal.

1. Choosing Less Specific Keywords

Let's pretend that your specific niche involves creating handmade sculptures of cats. Though there's always a possibility, it's unlikely that you'll get a noteworthy amount of traffic for that phrase.

We need to think of different ways to describe this niche. You could research alternatives such as “animal sculptures,” “cat sculptures,” or “pet art.” The first two are a little less specific but try to qualify visitors that specifically want sculpting work. The latter example leaves more room for interpretation, but still correctly qualifies the nature of your product.

You’re aiming to increase your search volume numbers, but not so much as to engage in ranking competitions where you don’t want to be involved.

2. You May Need to Get More Specific, Not Less

Though it may seem counterintuitive at first, there are plenty of examples where more specificity is better.

For example, CBD and hemp products continue to be the rage online and in stores. However, attempting to rank for “CBD” is likely to be an exercise in failure. Those trying to rank for this keyword might include medical retailers, doctors, scholars, and beauty supply chains. Each may create CBD content for different reasons, making the competition fierce.

In these scenarios, you need to dial into how your brand’s relationship with CBD products may differ from others. This should simultaneously separate you from unrelated keyword competition and help you stand out from your real direct competitors.

If your brand focuses primarily on beauty products and utilizes CBD as a component, you want your keywords to reflect this. Try “CBD skin lotion” or “CBD bath bomb.” This specifies your content enough to avoid conflict with unrelated industries such as medical practice.

3. Don’t Forget About Your LSI Keywords

LSI stands for Latent Semantic Indexing. An LSI keyword is a term or phrase that relates to your primary keyword in some way.

Google takes advantage of LSI keywords to better understand the true intent of your content. When you juxtapose LSI keywords alongside your primary target keyword, the algorithm can extrapolate the relationship between them. It can then help you avoid the issue of delivering your content to a broad, less qualified audience.

Let’s take our example above using CBD skin lotion. Possible LSI keywords might include “side effects,” “moisturizer,” “eczema,” or “psoriasis.” Using all of these terms together on the same page leaves no room for misinterpretation as to what type of product you offer.

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Technical SEO is Always Vital Regardless of Niche

Technical SEO refers to optimizations that can improve the process of crawling and indexing your website. These technical improvements are fundamental to any successful SEO strategy regardless of your audience or industry.

When Google crawls your website, it is simultaneously evaluating and indexing each page for search engine results pages. It looks at a variety of factors (well over one hundred of them) including content, navigation, structured data, loading speed, and mobile-friendliness.

While these optimizations are essential for every website, their importance is even more so for a low-volume niche that struggles to get noticed. Let's take a look at our checklist of technical SEO tips you should implement immediately.

Optimize Meta Descriptions, Title Tags, and Alternative Text

This section refers to elements that help users and Googlebot to better understand the content on a page.

• Meta Description Recommendations

The meta description is a snippet that appears beneath every search engine result. In 150-160 characters, you should summarize and advertise your page content in a way that's accurate and attractive to users. Keeping it at the recommended character count will prevent your description from being cut off abruptly in the preview.

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You should also utilize your primary keyword within the snippet. Any keywords that user performs their search with will be highlighted within your description. This provides much-needed visibility that helps your result stand out over others.

While an accurate description is important, you should also leave room for a little intrigue. Essentially, don't give the ingredients to the secret sauce upfront. If your content promises more value, users will be more likely to give you the click.

• Create Compelling Title Tags

A title tag acts as the page title both on-page and within search engine results pages. You can set your page's title tag via HTML within the text editor like this:

<title>Welcome to My New Web Page</title>

If you utilize a modern CMS for creating new web pages and posts, the process is even easier. Simply look for the Title field when creating a new page and enter your title there without the HTML code.

We recommend keeping all page titles limited to 60 characters or less. This prevents your title from being cut short by Google search results, similar to what happens with meta descriptions.

Titles are incredibly important for improving your clickthrough rate. When researching your target keywords, you should actively brainstorm and research topic ideas that incorporate that keyword. Your favorite SEO tool likely features an additional tab that shows popular queries that contain your chosen keyword.

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Formatting titles in a way that asks or answers a question is also a powerful way to drive your CTR. Topics that contain inquiring terms such as “how-to” or “what” tend to outperform those without.

A great place to research topics for your website is Quora. Their users will provide you with topic suggestions by asking a community their most pressing questions. You might find a popular, highly-upvoted post that asks “How can I improve my technical SEO?” If you were looking to rank for this term, then creating an article that effectively answers this question is a great place to start.

• Don’t Forget to Add Alt Text to Images and Graphics

Alternative text is another descriptive passage that helps users and crawlers understand the contents of media on a page. This is vital if a browser is not able to properly render the image content on a webpage.

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Alt text should be simple, short, and provide the minimum details necessary to know what the image shows. We recommend writing an alt text description that naturally incorporates the page's target keyword. This way, you still serve the user with an effective alt tag, but help reinforce how your content applies to the targeted keyword or phrase.

Get to Work on Your Link Building Strategy

Link building is a pillar of SEO that helps website owners acquire new traffic through backlinks from external websites. However, link building also refers to effectively utilizing internal links throughout your site to connect related content and improve your average visit duration.

To understand the power of link building, we need to understand how domain authority and backlinks work.

How Backlinks Help Your SEO?

Domain authority refers to a search engine's understanding of how valuable or trustworthy a site is to use in search engine results pages. The higher your perceived domain authority, the more likely your website is to be chosen as the top result.

A backlink is any link on an external website that points users to a location on your website.

Why do these matter for niche SEO?

Whenever you receive backlinks from other websites, Google follows those links when crawling the involved websites. Because two external sites are linked together, the crawler can identify and understand the relationship and how linked content is relevant. This, once again, helps Google gain confidence in its assessment of your site.

Whenever you receive a backlink from a site with high domain authority, Google also sees this as a vote of confidence in your relationship. Think of this as moving your website into a neighborhood that the public knows to be trustworthy and safe. If you receive backlinks from and share a neighborhood with trusted sites, that trust and authority get passed to your domain.

Conversely, you'll want to stay on top of the backlinks you receive from sketchy sources. These can actively harm your SEO through no fault of your own. Reach out to these webmasters to ask for the removal of the backlink. Otherwise, you may need to submit a disavow request with Google.

The primary way to acquire new backlinks is to create content worthy of sharing. Focus on all aspects of your technical SEO, create compelling articles, and perform some outreach to get more eyes on your web pages. You can also seek out brands on social media that you want to connect with in hopes of acquiring a backlink. Get friendly with others and allow the rest to happen naturally.

1. Don't Forget About Internal Linking

While the backlinking acquisition is ultimately dependent on outside sources, you have total control over your internal links.

An internal link is any link that directs users from one page on your website to another on the same site. Seek out natural opportunities to direct users to related content without compromising the user experience. For example, if an article you're writing alludes to a topic that requires more in-depth exploration, create a new webpage with that content and link the two together.

Internal linking can potentially provide numerous benefits.

First, a page with high ranking and authority can potentially distribute that trust to other pages on your site, similar to backlinks.

Second, internal linking is known to improve the time users spend on a website. Because the person already demonstrates interest in the topic of your current page, they're likely to interact with other suggested pages that also apply to their interests. The longer a user spends on your site, the more time you have to build trust and nurture your leads.

Finally, internal linking helps aid the crawling and indexing process. This is important as the number of pages on your site grows. When you regularly link existing pages to new ones, Google has an easier time identifying them and indexing them for ranking.

2. Create an XML Sitemap

While not mandatory, creating and submitting an XML sitemap to Google can greatly expedite the indexing process and improve your SEO.

An XML (External Markup Language) sitemap explains your site layout and navigation to Googlebot. In addition to this, you can also utilize the sitemap to highlight your primary, most important pages.

You can also identify pages that should be excluded from crawling. In niche scenarios, this can prevent you from acquiring unwanted ranking penalties for known issues that exist on your website.

Without a sitemap, Google is left to primarily guess which pages are most important based on the content and other SEO work present on the page. This approach causes Google to take longer to catch up, and will set you back when comparing your site to others that regularly use and update their sitemap appropriately.

3. Use Redirects to Avoid Missing Out on New Visitors

Updates to your website will happen. Whether you need to take a page down for maintenance or need to delete a page with awful PageRank, you're going to end up with some 404 Not Found errors.

While 404s are an everyday part of the internet, losing out on new and returning traffic should not be.

Any time a user clicks on an internal or external link that leads to a 404, this hurts the user experience and causes visitors to abandon or “bounce” away from the site. An increased bounce rate hurts your website ranking and is bad for SEO.

Instead of allowing this to happen, be sure to implement 3XX redirects to help visitors access the correct page. If you permanently delete a page and create a new one, utilize a 301 redirect to automatically push those visitors to the right page. This is especially important if you want to keep those backlink benefits from other sites coming your way.

If your site is going through some temporary pages, let Google know by implementing a 302 redirect. This helps to avoid issues with a 404 and prompts Google to preserve the SEO benefits you obtained from your work on the previous page.

To learn how to implement 3XX redirects, check out our comprehensive tutorial here.

4. Take Advantage of Google Search Console for Faster Indexing

Google Search Console is a free tool that allows you to monitor and address issues throughout your website.

It can diagnose issues related to loading speed, mobile optimization, and much more. It's also where you can submit your XML sitemap, keep track of your backlinks profile, and submit a disavow request if necessary.

Additionally, you can request crawling and submit your site for indexing following site updates. This helps Google keep up with your edits and keeps a better record of your activity. A website that's updated more frequently is generally more favorable to Google than one that remains stagnant for weeks or months at a time.

5. Get an SSL Certificate and Upgrade to HTTPS

You can further help your low-volume niche website's SEO by ensuring the security of your visitor's sensitive data.

Every website utilizes one of these two protocols to handle the communication and transmission of data between the user's web browser and the website server. While HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is the default, HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) encrypts the communication by using an SSL Certificate.

Google officially issued a statement prioritizing HTTPS websites over HTTP. While switching to HTTPS isn't likely to give you a noticeable boost, it does give you a leg up over those operating their website without. When you're in a low-volume niche, you need to provide yourself with all the assistance you can get to improve your SEO.

6. Format All of Your Content for Mobile

Here's one of our go-to statistics when talking SEO: Nearly 55% of all web traffic is now mobile.

This means that if you don't format your content with mobile UX in mind, you're going to hemorrhage traffic.

The quality of the user experience counts for everything, especially when you're trying to find your place online within your low-volume niche. Users should be able to easily navigate your entire website, clearly read and interact with content, and be able to make purchases with their touch screen and keyboard.

Page speed once again becomes a critical factor for your UX as poor design can ruin the mobile browsing experience. Be sure to check out the Google Mobile-Friendly Test to get feedback on how your site stacks up.

SEO for mobile browsing is not just about the technical aspects, either. Phone browsing is changing how users search for information. Search Engine Watch suggests that 63% of searches for local businesses come from a phone or tablet. This means mobile users are less likely to search “How can I cook a delicious meal at home,” and more likely to search “best Thai food near me.”

If you want to stand out in a low-volume niche, it can help to be mindful of mobile search habits when deciding what type of content you want to create and which keywords you want to pursue.

Cover Your Bases in Local SEO

Local SEO can prove vital for any small business or brand that serves a specific location somewhere in the world. Looking above at how mobile users tend to search for content, you want to make sure that website ranks for those locally-focused queries.

Google doesn't simply use location keywords to match users to content, i.e. Miami food. Instead, it can identify the approximate geographic region the search originates from and matches that search to businesses it can find in the same area.

Use these tips to help you stand out locally in a low-volume niche:

1. Claim Your Google My Business Listing

If you ever search for a business using location-based keywords, your results tend to differ from a normal result. These business profiles are known as Google My Business listings and help users obtain important information quickly.

You can sign up for your own GMB listing here. You'll need to identify your business with Google and follow their step-by-step process for proving ownership. There are multiple ways to do this, some of which can take 24 hours while others can take up to seven days.

Once you have access to your GMB profile, you can begin optimizing. Be sure to provide the following:

• Address
• Number
• Email
• Hours of operation
• Website
• Service options
• A summarizing description of the service
• Pictures of the location

You can also use this to keep customers up-to-date on any temporary hour changes or health and safety notices.

Finally, customers will be able to leave their reviews of your business on your GMB profile. Maintaining a collection of 5-star reviews acts as social proof and can also assist in improving your SEO. After all, we all want to do business with brands that we know others trust.

2. Sign Up for Directory Listings

Directory listing websites function similar to a GMB profile but utilize their own search directory. Examples of sites like this include Yelp, Yellow Pages, and FourSquare.

The process of claiming your business differs depending on the platform. After you claim your business, you should fully optimize your profile as you did with your GMB listing. The benefits you receive are similar, while also claiming a few additional backlinks from these directory websites.

Develop a Content Marketing Strategy

If you’re ever wondering how you can improve your SEO, let one phrase burn into your mind: “Content is king.”

Many brand owners make the mistake of choosing to utilize SEO only over implementing a content marketing strategy. However, you cannot effectively improve your SEO without great content. It’s so important, that we created an entire article on the subject here.

Creating high-quality content should walk hand-in-hand with your new and improved keyword research strategy for low-volume niches. Once you select your target keywords, you need to create content that supports their use.

You may be wondering: “My niche is already low-volume. How am I going to get clicks on my content?” The answer is often counter-intuitive.

Because you're in a low-volume niche, there likely isn't a lot of high-quality content to be found that deals with that industry. This also means that there is likely a hunger for great content shared among those that are passionate about your particular niche.

This leaves you with a wonderful marketing opportunity. Using your expertise and passion for your niche, combined with some effective keyword targeting, you’ll be able to create exclusive and engaging content that users can find only on your website.

If you have any doubt, consider our Nerd Fitness example from earlier in this article. What seems like a low-interest niche now generates thousands of clicks successfully every week almost exclusively through content.

To further boost the quality of your content, invest in creating high-quality graphics and videos. Visual media helps to drive engagement, while also giving you content you can repurpose through alternative sources like social media.

Get Connected with Social Media

Social media rules the world with about 72% of the public conversing with one another online. Users frequently discuss their passions and interests on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. They also frequently discuss and interact with their favorite brands.

Presenting a face for your brand on social media is one of the best ways to establish genuine rapport and trust with your target audience. It allows for more freeform discussion, while also granting you a timeline to share your news, custom content, and reactions to the latest trends.

Similar to what we discussed with content marketing, a niche community like yours is likely to seek each other out online to share their interests. By identifying those niche communities that match your brand, you can engage in discussion and share your website content with those that will most appreciate it.

Once users get their hand on your creative content, they’ll begin to do some of your marketing for you by sharing it with their followers. This will help to expand your reach and help you generate new traffic from sources that have yet to interact with your website.

Get Acquainted with Your Competitors

In high-volume niches, things can naturally become a bit more cut-throat as businesses try to exist alongside powerful competitors.

Because your niche is already low-volume for all involved parties, you may be able to aid each other through collaboration.

When it comes to everyday needs such as electronics, it’s much more common for customers to choose a brand and remain loyal. That business promises a huge selection and provides them with everything they could need.

When the niche is smaller, those options become far more limited.

Link building is a powerful SEO strategy. It connects users to relevant content, aids search engine crawlers, builds relationships with high-authority websites, and can boost your overall search ranking.

The problem comes when your site features broken links that direct users to unhelpful 404s. It brings the browsing process to a screeching halt and negatively impacts the user experience.

Fortunately, finding and fixing broken links is a simple process that anyone can do. Let's jump right into our guide by first defining a broken link in SEO.

What Are Broken Links in SEO?

A broken link is any link that fails to send a user to the expected destination on a website. A broken link will most commonly result in a 404 error page.

A 404 page in itself is not harmful to SEO. If you intentionally delete a page from your site, a 404 page will inform users that the requested URL no longer exists. You can improve the user experience by creating a custom 404 page that explains why the page no longer exists and where they can go to find more information.

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The problem with broken links occurs when the link fails unexpectedly as a result of technical or user error.

What Causes a Broken Link?

Broken links are a common occurrence and can easily occur for several reasons. Even the highest-ranking websites on Google typically feature broken links either internally or externally that require addressing. The bigger your website is and the more link building you do, the more likely it is for a link to inevitably break.

Here are some typical causes of broken links.

• Page deletion – This event is common and straightforward. If you delete a page, any links that previously directed users there will now yield a 404.
• Bad URL – This can result from a user input error. If there are any mistakes within the hyperlink, the visitor’s browser will not be able to find the page.
• The domain is offline – If the domain is offline or no longer exists, links pointing to the location will not work. This will primarily be a concern for you when reviewing your external links.
• Broken scripts or plugins – An error in your HTML, Javascript, or CSS can potentially cause the request to access the page to fail.

How Do Broken Links Affect SEO?

Broken links are a common occurrence and Google is unlikely to heavily penalize you for unknowingly having one or two on your site. However, both broken internal links and external links can harm your SEO in a variety of ways. Let's take a look at some telltale user signals that can indicate the presence of problems on your site.

1. Bounce Rate Increase

Whenever a user accesses a page, but then leaves the domain without taking any additional actions or spending X amount of time on the page, this is known as a bounce. If a webpage features a broken link that directs users to a 404 not found error page, your bounce rate is much more likely to increase.

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The reason for this is that broken links are detrimental to the user experience. A website's UX refers to any elements that directly impact a visitor's ability to have a reliable and pleasant experience. If the page encourages users to use broken links, it results in a frustrating visit that offers little benefit to the user.

Google then takes note of your site's sudden jump in bounce rate. If users are not finding your website useful or helpful, the search algorithm will then begin to relegate your site to be further down in the rankings. If your site is not able to help visitors, then Google will rank sites with a superior UX above yours.

2. Decreased Average Session Duration

This metric coincides with your bounce rate. If users are bouncing away from your site as a result of broken links, then your average session duration is also going to decrease.

Even if a visit does not qualify as a bounce, a noticeable decrease in session duration can be an indicator that there is a problem worthy of addressing on that page.

3. Decreased Page Ranking

Finally, your page ranking within search engine results pages will begin to decrease if you do not quickly improve the above user signals. Google's priorities are with the visitor, not the webmaster. If your user experience is not up to the standards of Google's search algorithm, you will not receive the benefit of a higher ranking.

When your page ranking decreases, so too does your site visibility and organic clickthrough rate. Organic CTR is another user signal Google uses to assess the quality of the site. As you can see, simple issues like broken links can quickly snowball into bigger problems for your SEO.

4. Search Engine Crawlers Can't Index the Page

Google utilizes a web crawler, also called a spider, to navigate a website and download the information on each page. They crawl through your site navigation in natural order, starting with the home page and following your internal links to each new page. Google then takes the gathered data and indexes it on the world wide web for search results.

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If your site features one more broken link, it will bring the search engine crawl to a premature halt. On one hand, the crawler may make further attempts to crawl the site, which wastes your limited crawl budget. Your crawl budget refers to the number of pages Google will index from your site within a given timeframe. You want to save this budget for meaningful updates that can help your SEO.

On the other hand, a broken link can cause the spider to abandon the crawl altogether. If a crawl ends early, then all of your remaining pages do not get indexed in Google search results.

How to Identify Broken Links on Your Site?

The first step in identifying broken links on your site is to monitor the user signals described above. Factors such as an increased bounce rate, decrease in visit time, or an unexpected decrease in ranking indicate that there is an SEO-related issue with the page.

This is easier to achieve whenever you own a smaller website. However, if your website features an expansive content library or hundreds of product pages in your store, you'll likely need a helping hand.

1. Use Google Search Console to Identify 404s

Google Search Console is a free tool for site owners and is something that every SEO should utilize. This service allows you to monitor important website statistics, identify critical errors, upload a sitemap, manage backlinks, and request indexing. If you have yet to utilize this tool, you'll need to go through a few steps to get started.

First, you'll need to verify ownership of the site in question. To do this, be sure to follow Google's step-by-step guide here.

After you are successful with this process, you can prompt Google to crawl your website. As a result of this, you'll gain access to in-depth reports that describe general traffic analytics, feedback on critical webpage errors, and an analysis of your site's mobile readiness.

With these reports available, you'll want to locate Diagnostics and click on Crawl Errors. This will list out reported errors in tabs titled Server Error, Soft 404, Access Denied, Not Found, and Other. Click on Not Found.

Toward the bottom of the page, you'll find a list of all URLs that yield a 404 not found response code. It will also inform you of when the 404 was first discovered. We recommend checking for broken links here anywhere from once a week to once a month depending on your website size.

2. Finding Broken Links with Google Analytics

You can also utilize your Google Analytics account to generate custom reports that describe your broken links. This will generate a list of internal links, external links, and backlinks.

To create a custom report in GA to track broken links:

1. Log in to your Google Analytics account. From the menu, locate Customization.
2. Click on Custom Reports.
3. Click + New Custom Report.
4. Choose a name for your report. You can name it “404 Errors,” “Broken Links,” or anything else that you can easily identify.
5. For the Type, choose Flat Table.
6. Under Dimensions, click + Add Dimension. Do this three times and select Previous Page Path, Page, and Page Title.
7. For Metrics, select Unique Page Views.
8. Next up is filters. You will need to know the exact page title of your 404 page. If you do not know the page title, enter a made URL into your browser that uses a nonexistent pathway. For example, “www.dashclicks.com/whereismy404page.”This will pull up your 404 page. Simply hover over the tab and copy the text that’s in the preview bubble.
9. Back in GA, let’s set up our filter. The first should Include Page Title. Set the third field to Regex. Finally, enter your 404-page name into the text field.
10. Verify that everything is correct and click Save.

This should generate a full report of your 404 errors from both internal and external links. The Previous Page Path tells us where we can find the broken link. The Page column tells us where the user was attempting to go when clicking the link. The Unique Page Views column tells you how many times a new user attempted to use the broken link.

Bonus Tip - Investigate What Plugins Are Available with Your CMS

If you utilize a traditional or hybrid CMS such as WordPress or Drupal, there are plugins you can use to quickly identify broken links throughout your site.

A quick search allowed us to discover Broken Link Checker, a monitoring plugin tool that identifies existing broken links. It will also send you notifications by email as new errors pop up. It currently features a rating of four out of five stars. For Drupal, try Broken Link.

Plugins are generally community-developed and may not be updated regularly. Your mileage may vary when using these alternative solutions.

How to Fix Broken Internal Links?

Now that you have a comprehensive list of all 404 errors, it's time to create a plan. We want to organize all of these broken links and segment them by their reason for existing. Understanding why a 404 error is happening will help you choose the appropriate course of action when addressing the broken link.

1. URL Entry Error

The most common reason for a dead link is simply user error when typing out the URL. For these, simply navigate to the page that contains the broken link and update the hyperlink with the correct URL. You can avoid this common issue by copying and pasting the link as opposed to manually typing it.

Test that the link now directs you to the appropriate page, and you're all set.

2. The Page No Longer Exists

Another common reason for 404's is that the page no longer exists. For example, if you discontinue a product in your e-commerce store, there's no reason for that page to exist on your website any longer.

In this particular example, having a 404 page makes sense. You are permanently retiring the URL and do not want users to visit the page should they try to enter the URL manually.

What you will need to do is delete any broken links that attempt to direct visitors to the nonexistent page. With the broken links gone, there's no longer a reason to attempt to visit that URL.

3. The Requested Content is Found at a New Destination

Sometimes the correct call is to create a new, improved webpage instead of trying to update the old one. You might also want to create a new, more user-friendly page by combining the information from two underperforming pages into one super page.

If this situation applies to you, you'll need to locate all of your broken links that attempt to direct users to the nonexistent page. Rather than deleting the broken link, simply update the hyperlink to reflect the new URL. Save your changes and test your new URL to ensure that navigation is successful.

4. Using a 301 Redirect

Whenever you migrate your content to a new page, you must always perform the above corrections. However, there are specific cases in which you may want to take additional action to improve your user experience. This would typically be in cases where a specific page on your website is known to receive a higher volume of direct traffic.

While you know to correct the broken links on other internal pages, some users may try to access the dead page by entering a direct URL. This results in a 404 page that worsens their usual experience. Instead of allowing them to meet the dead page, you can automatically redirect them to the new page by setting up a 301 redirect.

Not only will users be able to access the new page when using the old URL, but Google also transfers all existing page authority to the new page.

To learn how to set up a 301 redirect, check out our comprehensive tutorial here.

How to Fix Broken Backlinks?

Correcting internal broken links is simple. You have full control over your domain and can easily update or delete links as necessary. Addressing a broken backlink can prove to be slightly more problematic.

A backlink is any link on an external domain that directs users back to a page on your website. Because we no longer have the ability to edit the backlink URL, we have one of two options.

1. Contact the Webmaster

The first solution is to contact the webmaster directly. Keep it professional and let them know that you appreciate their support, advise them of the new URL, and point out where the link exists on their website. A dead backlink will negatively harm their SEO, so they should be happy to address the matter.

However, this strategy forces us to rely on others to correct the problem. If you'd prefer to take matters into your own hands, you can use an alternative strategy that we previously discussed above.

2. Fix Broken Backlinks with 3XX Redirects

This is the most common and effective way of addressing the issue of broken backlinks. When generating your broken links report, you will be able to view external sources backlinking to your site as well as the associated location on your website. When you identify which page users are trying to access, you can set up a redirect to solve the issue without needing to contact the webmaster.

Addressing broken backlinks should be a priority as it is the only way to receive the SEO benefits being shared by the referring website. Additionally, a broken backlink will hurt the referring domain and may make them wary of linking to your site in the future if you're not proactive with your site health.

For any permanent relocations, you want to utilize a 301 redirect specifically. This funnels all of your SEO benefits from the old page to the new page.

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For temporary changes, you need to use a 302 direct. This is Google's preferred protocol for this and ensures that your SEO benefits remain with the original page.

To gain a deeper understanding of 3XX redirects, we once again recommend checking out our guide here.

Be Proactive with Link Management!

Broken links are going to appear and are a normal part of owning and operating a website. The key is to remain proactive in monitoring your site health so that you can rectify broken link errors as soon as possible.

The solutions for remedying the most common broken link causes are simple, so do not sacrifice your SEO work and risk lowering your site ranking. To summarize, keep an eye on the following to stay on top of broken links:

• A sudden increase in bounce rate
• A decrease in your average session duration
• Lowered page rank

Furthermore, check your site in Google Search Console or Google Analytics regularly to check for 404 crawl errors. You'll be able to quickly identify the source of the broken link and make the changes immediately. Be sure to submit your updated website for indexing.

If you're not confident in your ability to manage links or your SEO, check out DashClicks' SEO fulfillment service. Our team works with clients in every website niche to deliver you qualified traffic and improve your search ranking.