At Searchmetrics, the software we produce to help customers rank online is as important as the people on our team who can help you make sense of it all. As we launch the new Searchmetrics Digital Strategies Group, we talked to Jordan Koene, one of our leading consultants and SEO strategists, about the state of content marketing and the current conditions and challenges modern marketers face. In this Pulse, we dive into what he’s learned from working with our clients to get the best out of our Searchmetrics Content Experience and Searchmetrics Search Experience software.
How well is digital marketing generally established today?
Jordan: This generally varies by industry. For tech-focused or online-driven companies, the practice of digital marketing is well-established. One of the challenges facing these organizations is finding the right talent to continue driving digital marketing strategies. I believe this gap in knowledge drives much of the speculation and capabilities of digital marketing.
How do you conceive and establish a successful digital strategy?
Jordan: Generally speaking, I advise leaders to focus on one to three digital channels and master them! Creating a plan that achieves all elements of digital marketing is impossible. A focused team, targeted at achieving nothing less than excellence, will always have a significant impact on the business.
Focus on the core values of the business and build digital strategy around this value position. It is always easier to grow organically when you have this focus, even in a digital world. Far too many marketers want innovation to lead a digital strategy vs focusing on the core values of the business.
Which challenges are marketers commonly facing?
Jordan: Within a lot of companies, digital marketing in general – or organic growth, to be more specific – is just not a priority. What adds to that and makes it a vicious circle is that the knowledge about impact and implementation is just not given. That forces a lot of businesses rather rely on external experts in a case-by-case fashion rather than focusing on the creation of internal resources and manpower. The lack of a dedicated budget often worsens the problem.
When it comes to working with existing in-house marketing teams, they often need solutions to managed Content. The over-bloating of websites has created a need to reduce and focus on the high value content within a website – and identify the latter beforehand.
Other commonly faced challenges on the technical side are understanding the impact of material website changes on Google rankings. i.e. javascript, PWA, or technical debt improvements, and a lack of clarification on the use of internal links and what data granularity is needed to create growth.
What is your advice for in-house marketers?
Jordan:
Make sure data analysis is done every step in the Content creation process 
- Start your content creation process with data
- Understand the relationships of intent, seasonality and demand for any topic
- Know that scale is not the only solution for growth
- Create a content production process that evaluates and refreshes content for higher performance
To create high impact SEO results, aim to establish it as an acknowledged part of the organization
- Understand that SEO is not only about tactics. Business strategy and planning is required to be successful!
- Build your intercompany collaboration and management skill. The more effective you are at internal partnership, the more successful you will be.
- Create an environment that fosters learning. To create high impact SEO results, you must invest in the educational journey, creating knowledge in the organization.
- Build reliable and predictable SEO reports. These reports must use leading metrics such as average rank improvement, site speed or performance and URL to URL performance.
Do any of the challenges sound familiar to you? Do you need strategic guidance to kick off your digital marketing strategy or just a little support to bring your SEO and content efforts to the next level? Talk to Jordan and his team – they are happy to help!
Meet the Searchmetrics Digital Strategies Group
