What are the most important enterprise SEO skills to master in 2023? Do you need to learn anything besides technical SEO? What about coding, designing, or copywriting—do you need to master these as well? What does enterprise SEO really look like?
If you’ve got these questions in your mind, keep on reading. Because in this article, we’re going to talk about 7 essential enterprise SEO skills to master in 2023—backed by research and industry experts’ opinions. Master these to help big fish of the industries, and charge a fortune for your SEO services.
But, first, let’s understand what enterprise SEO really is, and how it’s different from regular SEO.
What’s enterprise SEO? How is it different? What’s its importance?
Enterprise SEO is a type of search engine optimization that is specifically designed for large businesses or organizations. It involves optimizing a company’s website and online presence to rank high in search engine results for specific keywords related to its products or services.
One of the main differences between enterprise SEO and other types of SEO is the scale of the efforts. Enterprise SEO involves optimizing a large number of pages and a complex website structure, as well as coordinating SEO efforts across multiple departments and possibly even multiple websites. It also often involves more advanced tactics, such as technical SEO and content strategy development, as well as a larger budget and resources compared to smaller businesses.
The importance of enterprise SEO lies in its ability to drive more qualified and relevant traffic to a company’s website. Which in turn increases brand awareness amongst audiences that will stay with the businesses for long-term. Plus, a strong online presence can also help to establish a company as a thought leader in its industry, which is great for a company’s reputation.
In a nutshell, enterprise SEO solves bigger challenges and goes side by side with the marketing mix: social media, paid campaigns, email marketing, and/or print media.
Now that you understand what enterprise SEO really is, let’s talk about what skills you must possess in 2023 to help enterprises.
7 Essential enterprise SEO skills to master in 2023
Here are 7 enterprise SEO skills based on data and experts’ opinions that you need to master:
1. Keyword research
Keyword research is the process of identifying people’s words and phrases when searching for products, services, or information related to a business. These keywords are used to optimize a website’s content and meta tags in order to improve its ranking in search results for those keywords.
It is crucial for enterprise SEO because it helps businesses to understand what their target audience is looking for and how to effectively target those keywords in their optimization efforts.
Why you need to master it specifically in 2023 is because as the industries are getting saturated, finding the most suitable, hyper-relevant keywords is becoming crucial—to get the attention of the exact audience.
When explaining what keyword research actually is, Derek Bruce, Operations Director at Skills Training Group, said; “Keyword research isn’t just finding some relevant keywords, and you’re good to target. It goes way beyond that. When researching for keywords, you as an SEO, will also look at the important metrics like search volume, potential revenue, and more importantly, intent.”
Google is pushing updates like Helpful Content Update and more, to reward content that satisfies the intent of a visitor. That’s why you need to be someone pro at it in 2023.
Techniques for identifying relevant keywords:
- Conduct market and competitor research: Look at what keywords your competitors are ranking for and targeting, and consider how these might be relevant to your business as well.
- Use keyword research tools: Tools like Google’s Keyword Planner or Ahrefs can help you identify popular and relevant keywords based on search volume and difficulty.
- Analyze search data from Google Analytics: This can give you insight into the keywords that are already driving traffic to your website, which can help you focus your efforts on those that are most effective.
Tools and resources for conducting keyword research:
- Google’s Keyword Planner: A free tool provided by Google that allows you to see search volume and competition for different keywords.
- Ahrefs: A paid tool that offers a variety of SEO-related features, including keyword research.
- SEMrush: Another paid tool that offers a range of SEO and marketing features, including keyword research.
- Moz’s Keyword Explorer: A paid tool that provides data on keyword search volume, difficulty, and opportunity.
- Serpple Keyword Research Tool: A freemium tool that provides data on keyword search volume, global search volume, keyword competition, performance pointers, and queries in trend.
Using these tools, you’ll get insights about:
- Search volume: The number of times a particular keyword is searched for on a search engine.
- Competition: The level of competition for a particular keyword, based on the number of websites ranking for that keyword.
- Other important metrics: These may include the cost-per-click (CPC) of a keyword, the number of clicks a keyword receives, and the number of times a keyword appears in search results.
2. Technical SEO
Technical SEO refers to the behind-the-scenes optimizations that are made to a website in order to improve its ranking in search results. These optimizations can include things like improving the website’s structure and navigation, increasing its loading speed, and ensuring that it’s mobile-friendly. Technical SEO is important because it helps search engines to better understand and crawl a website, which can lead to improved ranking in search results.
Why it matters the most in 2023 is because as the time goes by, billions of pages are being published on the Internet. Which is making it incredibly complex for search engines like Google to crawl websites, judge them using ranking factors, and finally reward them rankings.
“Enterprises and larger companies’ websites especially are complex to handle because they have thousands of products, press, and other important pages — that need to get indexed, crawled, and presented to readers fast. For that, an SEO must be a pro at technical SEO”, said Joshua George, Founder of ClickSlice, when we asked about the importance of technical aspects of SEO for larger company websites. And that’s only possible with excellent technical SEO.
And that’s the reason why you need to master it in 2023.
Key technical SEO factors to consider:
- Website structure and navigation: A logical and user-friendly structure and navigation can help search engines understand and crawl the site more easily.
- Site speed: Faster loading speeds can improve the user experience and will lead to higher rankings. Keep it under 2 seconds, which is recommended by Google itself.
- Mobile-friendliness: With more and more people using mobile devices to access the internet, it’s important to make sure that a website is mobile-friendly. This helps the website rank well in search results, as Google and other search engines prioritize mobile-friendly websites.
- Use of HTTPS (secure version of the HTTP protocol): This can help improve a website’s credibility and security, which can also positively impact its ranking. This is because HTTPS is a signal to search engines that the website is secure and trustworthy, which can be taken into consideration when determining the website’s ranking.
If done right, technical SEO can give you rewards, such as:
- Improved crawlability: By making it easier for search engines to understand and crawl a website, the website is more likely to get crawled faster, and get ranked well in search results as well.
- Improved user experience: By providing a good user experience, a website is more likely to retain visitors and potentially convert them into customers. This can lead to higher rankings in search results.
- Greater mobile accessibility: By making a website mobile-friendly, it is more accessible to users accessing the internet on mobile devices, which can improve the website’s ranking in search results.
- Improved credibility and security: By using HTTPS, a website can improve its credibility and security, which can be taken into consideration by search engines when determining the website’s ranking in search results.
3. Content creation and optimization
Content is a crucial element of enterprise SEO because it helps search engines to understand the relevance and authority of a website. It also plays a major role in attracting and engaging visitors to a website, as well as in building trust and credibility with potential customers. 2023 is an era of content. From small businesses investing in SEO to giant size companies, everyone is pushing more and more content to get the attention of their audiences.
As Rikin Shah, Founder & Head of Content at GetSure, says, “As an SEO professional, you not only need to understand the importance of consistent high-quality content, but also you need to have a know-how of how to create content, and how to optimize it further for search engines and readers.”
For instance, if there’s a great written piece with a super-helpful advice—but it’s formatted in essay-like big blocks of texts. Is it Google and reader-friendly? No. A more user-friendly approach is to have shorter sentences, shorter paragraphs of 2-4 sentences, subheadings for separate sections, and bullet points for key tips. That was just a basic example. Enterprises can have different, complex style guidelines, and tone requirements that content must meet. Using AI for SEO can be a valuable tool in ensuring that content meets the specific style guidelines and tone requirements of an enterprise.
You as an SEO, will need to keep an eye on that as well. 60% of content marketers create at least one content piece per day. And that’s exactly why you need to master it in 2023.
Here are some tips for creating high-quality, relevant content:
- Identify your target audience and the types of content that will be most useful and valuable to them.
- Conduct keyword research to identify the specific terms and phrases that people are using when searching for information related to your business.
- Use data and research to support claims and enhance the credibility of your content.
- Write in a clear and concise style that is easy for your audience to understand.
- Include multimedia elements like images and videos to enhance the user experience.
4. Copywriting
Copywriting is the process of writing persuasive and compelling content that is designed to influence the behavior of the reader. In the context of enterprise SEO, copywriting plays a crucial role in attracting and engaging visitors to a website, as well as in converting them into customers.
Even if you can’t master copywriting, you need to at least become ‘good enough’ at it. Because copywriting is a mixture of all these skills combined: writing, marketing, design, salesmanship, and research. A good copywriter understands all of these to provide the best possible services to clients.
And, because we’re living in an era where now getting attention is as hard as building a rocket, you need to have some good enough copywriting understanding to judge the copy of competitors, and provide guidelines to in-house copywriters where to take inspiration from. Just to be clear, copywriting not only gets the attention of the readers, but also helps you build deep personal relationships based on emotions — and not to forget, sales.
Ramunas Berkmanas, Digital Marketing Specialist at Ramberk, says, “From the title, to H1, and all the way to ending CTA — a good copy will keep the reader engaged, excited, and enthralled — until a reader successfully clicks on the ‘buy’ button.”
Techniques for creating compelling, persuasive copy for readers:
- Use powerful and emotive language: Words that are strong and evocative can help to capture the attention of the reader and convince them to take action.
- Craft compelling headlines and subheadings: Headlines and subheadings are the first thing that a reader will see, so it’s important to make them as compelling as possible to encourage the reader to keep reading.
- Use storytelling techniques to engage the reader: Stories can be a powerful way to engage the reader and make them feel more connected to the content.
- Clearly communicate the benefits of a product or service: It’s important to clearly communicate the benefits of what you’re offering in order to convince the reader to take action.
- Address any objections or concerns the reader may have: By addressing any objections or concerns that the reader may have, you can help to overcome any barriers that might prevent them from taking action.
Strategies for optimizing copy for search engines:
- Use relevant and targeted keywords throughout copy, headlines, and meta tags: Including relevant keywords in your copy, headlines, and meta tags can help search engines understand what your content is about and improve its ranking in search results.
- Use proper formatting and structure: Proper formatting and structure can make your content easier to read and scan, which can improve the user experience and help search engines understand the content more easily.
- Use internal and external links to support claims: Including links to other relevant content can help to support your claims and provide additional context for the reader, which can also help search engines understand the content better, and breed trust in the hearts of readers.
- Use social sharing buttons to encourage social media sharing: Adding social sharing buttons to your content can make it easy for readers to share your content on social media, which can help to increase its visibility and reach.
5. Link building
External links, also known as backlinks, are links from other websites that point to a business’s website. These links are important for SEO because they help to demonstrate the credibility and authority of a website to search engines.
“The more high-quality external links a website has, the more likely it is to rank well in search results. Read that again, and jot down to it”, says Sean Stevens, Director of Immerse Education, on the importance of building backlinks. It’s the second biggest ranking factor.
There are several techniques that businesses can use to acquire high-quality external links, including creating valuable and informative content that other websites will want to link to, reaching out to industry influencers and bloggers to request links, and participating in online communities and forums related to the business’s industry.
It’s also important to avoid using any unethical link building tactics, such as buying links or participating in link schemes, as these can be penalized by search engines.
It’s now more important than ever because Google is putting more and more emphasis on building high-quality, natural backlinks. Why? Because publishers can spam content by writing content through AI tools such as ChatGPT, but they cannot spam high-quality links, which need to be earned via helpful, genuine ways.
That’s why you need to become a pro at building backlinks, if you’re looking to help enterprises via your SEO skills in 2023.
Best practices for link building:
- Focus on building relationships and earning natural links: This involves creating high-quality content and actively promoting it to relevant websites and individuals, rather than trying to artificially inflate your link profile through tactics like link buying or link swapping.
- Avoid trying to manipulate search rankings: Search engines can penalize websites that engage in manipulative link building tactics, so it’s important to focus on building a natural and diverse link profile.
- Diversify your link building efforts: Diversify your link building efforts by obtaining links from a variety of sources. This can include guest blogging, resource page link building, and earning links through partnerships or sponsorships. A diverse link profile can help to increase the credibility and authority of your website in the eyes of search engines.
6. Local SEO
Local SEO is the practice of optimizing a business’s online presence in order to improve its visibility and ranking in search results for local customers. This is especially important for businesses with physical locations, as it can help them to attract customers who are searching for products or services in their area. Local SEO has seen an explosion over the last few years. So much so that 46% of all searches include local intent. That’s huge.
“It’s so in-depth, and definitely goes way beyond just simply optimizing Google My Business listing. Future SEO professionals need to master local SEO to provide better services to businesses”, says Jonathan Merry, CEO of BanklessTimes.
That’s why you need to master it in 2023…as companies with physical products need to dominate local SEO, to earn the most from their local customers.
Some tips for optimizing for local search results:
- Claim your Google My Business listing: This allows you to manage your business’s online presence across Google, including Google Maps and Google search results.
- Optimize your website for local keywords: Use local keywords in your website content and meta tags to help search engines understand the relevance of your business to specific locations.
- Obtain high-quality external links from local websites: Links from local websites can help improve your ranking in local search results.
- Consistently use your NAP: It’s your business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP), which you need to make it consistent across online listings and directories. Ensuring that your NAP is consistent across all online listings helps search engines understand that your business is legitimate and can be trusted.
- Encourage customers to leave reviews on local directories and review sites: Reviews can help improve your ranking in local search results and can also be helpful for potential customers when deciding whether to visit your business.
7. Measurement and analysis
To effectively optimize a website and online presence for search engines, it’s important to track and analyze the effectiveness of SEO efforts. This can help businesses to identify areas where they are succeeding and areas where they need to improve, as well as to measure the return on investment (ROI) of their SEO efforts.
Michael Galindo, Founder of Digital Marketing Agency Consultant, says, “We’re in the age of data; we don’t even publish a single piece of content without first looking at what data says. Being familiar with such tools and being confident about your judgment with those numbers is crucial, when it comes to SEO in 2023.”
And it’s even more crucial when you’re doing enterprise SEO—because you’ll be dealing with a large amount of data, and monitoring a plethora of pages.
Key metrics to measure: Some key metrics to measure when tracking and analyzing SEO efforts include search engine rankings, website traffic, conversion rates, and the value of organic search traffic. It’s important to track these metrics over time in order to identify trends and patterns that can help to inform optimization efforts.
Tools and resources for tracking and analyzing SEO performance: Some popular tools and resources for tracking and analyzing SEO performance include Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and various SEO analysis tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz. These tools can provide valuable insights into search rankings, website traffic, and other important metrics that can help businesses to understand the effectiveness of their SEO efforts.
Ready to master these enterprise SEO skills in 2023?
So that’s it. Heading towards 2023, as an SEO, you at least need to possess these skills: keyword research, technical SEO, content creation and optimization, copywriting, link building, local SEO, and measurement and analysis.
But, the more, the better. For instance, if you can also tap into basic design, coding, machine learning, and other technical skills—you’ll dominate your area of expertise, and also charge a fortune for your services.
Before you leave, read this response from Claudia Torres, Founder of TheFab20s, when we asked about what trends SEOs should follow in the upcoming year: “I’ll emphasize that it’s important for you to stay up-to-date with industry trends and best practices in order to effectively optimize websites and help big businesses. Going forward in 2023, there can be more Google updates, new search engines, and new industry-specific organic search trends that you must follow.”
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