Data-driven Approach to Scale SEO

Botpresso founder Nitin Manchanda unlocks the secrets to a game-changing SEO strategy in this brightonSEO talk. Want to justify the ROI of your next SEO project? Follow Nitin’s approach here.

Can you tell us more about your topic, “Data-Driven Approach to Scale SEO,” and why you chose it?

As someone with an engineering background who transitioned into product roles and eventually became an SEO strategist, I believe in using a data-driven approach to scale SEO. This topic is based on my experience as a Global Head of SEO for Trivago and Omio and then, starting my own brand Botpresso. I chose this topic because working with these brands taught me a lot about the importance of a data-driven approach to SEO. Even if we make mistakes, a data-driven approach helps us understand where we went wrong and take calculated risks to improve. I’m sharing everything important I’ve learned about using data to scale SEO at Brighton.

Given the constantly changing algorithms and updates, how do you manage to contain everything related to SEO for your clients?

I can speak the language of developers, product people, marketers, and management. I understand that SEO is not just a marketing channel but rather an area that intersects with product and engineering because we’re building assets to improve user experience and convert traffic into value. Therefore, when working with different teams internally, such as developers, product managers, designers, and others, I can understand their perspectives and find common ground to manage SEO effectively. I can connect the dots and get things done.

What is one piece of advice you would give to beginners or newbies in SEO?

My first and most important advice would be to build something that enhances user experience rather than trying to please search engine bots. When working on anything related to SEO, such as content or internal linking, think about how it is helping your users.

Generating short-term traffic that doesn’t convert won’t benefit your website in the long run, as Google’s goal is to provide the best possible results to users. Therefore, it’s essential to focus on building assets that create a great user experience, as this is something that both users and search engines value.  If you can generate traffic for a short term that is not converting, Google will throw you out of the index essentially. So it’s better to focus on building assets that enhance user experience. By doing so, you can provide users with what they need, encouraging them to stay with you for the long term.

Are there any topics or attendees you’re particularly interested in hearing from?

Yes, I visited Brighton thrice as an attendee and spoke virtually last time. I know many speakers who are attending, and they deliver fantastic content. I am well-connected in the SEO community, and am very excited to meet lots of amazing folks there.

Do you see any trends specific to SEO in 2023?

The trend for 2023 is automation and artificial intelligence. Many SEO experts would agree with this, especially with the recent advancements in AI, such as ChatGPT and the announcement of GPT-4 by OpenAI. This year is all about leveraging AI to scale and execute tasks faster.

We have been using AI for the past four to five years, and we have weekly learning sessions within the team to discuss the latest technology and processes. For some clients, we have even produced content where AI contributed up to 80%. The results were fantastic, and we could scale the process at least 5x.  While we could rely 100% on machines to produce amazing content, we value user experience and ensure brand guidelines are met.

We conduct the research ourselves, break the topic into smaller chunks, and then rely on machines to produce content for those chunks. A person then reviews the content, fixes any factual errors, and ensures it aligns with brand guidelines. This human input accounts for the remaining 20% of the content, while the machines produce 80%. Optimizing the content production process has already resulted in positive outcomes such as impressions, clicks, and revenue for us, and we can say it is good quality content.

What are the most common mistakes that companies make with their SEO strategy?

Not investing enough time and resources into technical SEO. Many companies focus heavily on content creation, but technical SEO is just as crucial for ensuring that your website is discoverable and easily crawlable by search engines.

Many companies fail to stay up to date with the latest algorithm updates from search engines, which can have a big impact on their rankings. Companies also often neglect to take a holistic approach to SEO, failing to consider the impact other channels, such as social media and paid search, can have on their overall SEO strategy.

Another common mistake is failing to prioritize and align their SEO efforts with their business goals, leading to wasted resources and missed opportunities.

Finally, companies fail to measure and track their SEO performance accurately, making it difficult to assess the effectiveness of their strategy and make data-driven decisions. 

For companies with limited resources, adopting a growth mindset involves talking to people, building quick and dirty solutions, and collecting feedback to iterate and improve. I then suggest focusing on growth hacking instead of following a basic SEO checklist.

What are the top five apps or tools you use daily and why?

  1. Google Search Console (GSC): There is no better tool than the one which gives you access to first-party data. It’s a fantastic tool but very underrated. I’ve been using it for trend analysis, finding top and underperformers, coverage and indexing analysis, and much more.
  2. OnCrawl: My go-to SEO crawler because of the depth it covers, and it brings crawl results together with log data, GA, and GSC data in one place.
  3. Semrush: For research and position tracking. I love their Keyword Gap feature, which is mostly my starting point for any competitor research.
  4. Quickblink: It’s my monitoring tool that helps me avoid SEO horror stories for the brands I’m working with. The world might not know much about it, but they will soon know about it as I’m opening it for open use soon. Quickblink will let you focus on building and will take care of monitoring everything that matters for the business.
  5. ChatGPT: Latest addition to my toolkit. It’s kind of assistant to me now for writing PRDs, creating python scripts, summarizing my posts into LinkedIn posts, etc.
Nitin Manchanda

Nitin Manchanda is the Founder and Chief SEO Consultant at Botpresso. He led SEO for international brands like Trivago and Omio in the past. Currently, he is helping businesses grow organically through his consultancy.

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10 Must-Have GA4 Reports For All SEOs

Love or hate it – if you’re a digital marketer, you cannot ignore it. With the Google Analytics 4 migration clock ticking fast, we have UK’s leading digital marketing agency MD and brightonSEO’s Measurefest speaker, Farhad Divecha, shedding light on the must-have GA4 reports for all SEOs. Here’s an updated slide deck to go along with your reading.

Tell us about your topic, 10 must-have GA4 reports for all SEOs, and why you chose it?

I’m very acutely aware that everybody’s being pushed to move to GA4, and I’m acutely aware that many people are unhappy about that. They find it very, very different and fairly challenging. I have also seen much information and misinformation about GA4 and its workings. I know it’s quite a powerful tool, but you’ve got to understand the system and make the most of it. At BrightonSEO, I will specifically uncover GA4 reports for SEO, show how to set them up via GA4 + GTM, explain insights to be gained from those reports, and discuss actions that SEOs can take from those insights.

How’s your experience with GA4 been?

Personally, I really like it. I think it’s way more powerful than Universal Analytics. I say this because we have been using Facebook Pixel for much longer than GA4, before it even existed. Facebook Pixel has so much flexibility in what you can measure and how you track conversions and important actions on your site —moving to a similar event-based model with much more ability to track important parameters and get flexible reporting is a step up.

One piece of SEO advice for folks learning the ropes?

The most important thing any SEO can do is look at the data and start realizing where they’re already — getting organic placement rankings and traffic — compare that to what they want to achieve and understand why that gap exists. 

Look at the traffic you get from certain non-branded keywords and understand what stops you from getting that traffic on the keywords you want to rank for. Usually, that’s a very good starting point, so understanding what’s working in some ways is also understanding what is not working. It lets you figure out how to reach Point B from Point A.

What presentations are you most interested in attending/speakers you are most interested to hear and why?

I remember looking at the list and thinking there were some really interesting ones — topical conversations about equality, embracing diversity, and how people can put their genuine, authentic sleeves forward. There are a couple of AI sessions that I’m looking forward to. And, of course, the SEO topics because it’s fascinating to see how deep some people get into it and try to reverse engineer the algorithm.

What has been your core mantra in driving your agency forward?

I think there are two things. It’s incredibly good client support and a laser-sharp focus on growing internationally at scale. We set ourselves up for some high client support targets within the company that we insist everybody meets. So when a client asks us for anything, we have to respond within four hours, and if it takes a little bit more time, we have to start working on the solution within 12 hours. We aim to deliver most solutions within 48 hours. Where they want tweaks, where they want things changed, where they want an opinion, where they want advice, that sort of stuff is resolved very quickly. That’s why our clients stay with us for as much as 10 to 12 years. The agency average in the UK is a bit more than one year. Yeah, so it’s a massive difference for us. We believe in always taking a step back, looking at the bigger picture, and delivering on the impact.

What are the top 5 tools or apps you use daily and why?

Apart from the obvious platforms (Office 365, Meta Ads, Google Ads, DV360, LinkedIn Ads & TikTok Ads), I personally spend time daily using:

  1. Unyte.ai – Our marketing mix modeling tool
  2. Google Analytics – To track traffic & online actions for us & our clients
  3. Adobe cloud – For all things creative 
  4. Swydo – Reviewing daily activity reports for my team 
  5. SharpSpring  – Our CRM and marketing automation tool

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Farhad is MD of digital agency AccuraCast. He advises corporations on their analytics and data strategy, and is passionate about using technology to improve performance marketing.

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TikTok Boom!

If your brand is not on TikTok yet, it may be time to rethink. In this brightonSEO spotlight, Rachel Fellows, Studio Manager at Red Bullet tells us how TikTok Advertising can make your brand stand out in front of a content-hungry audience. Here’s her TikTok slide deck!

Tell us more about your presentation on TikTok Ads and what you are going to unravel.

I’m going to delve into some insights on the boom of TikTok over the past few years and how companies can leverage this great engaging channel for their businesses. Ever wondered what it’s all about and how you can use it? I’ll be going into detail on that and some tips on how to start.

What has been your experience with TikTok Ads and what trends have you noticed?

From the B2C campaigns I’ve run on Tiktok so far, it’s been an interesting trend of high engagement and high impressions. These campaigns have been mostly upper funnel awareness but we did see some decent conversion as well. You can build up audiences fairly quickly but you have to make sure that your creative is engaging as audiences get bored easily. It’s also interesting to see some companies you wouldn’t necessarily associate with a more relaxed tone of voice really getting into the vibe of the platform. Trend wise make sure you’re creating for sound ON, music is a massive part of the platform!

Metaverse is going to be massive, I know that people are skeptical but I’m fairly confident it will become the new normal if given time.

RACHEL FELLOWS, STUDIO MANAGER, RED BULLET

What are your go-to resources if one wants to learn more about TikTok Ads advertising strategy and optimization?

I would recommend using Tiktok business learning as a starting point on how to start optimizing your ads. I’d also recommend Buffer’s excellent marketing guide to Tiktok; it gives some great practical advice and some background learning as well! I’d also encourage you to use Tiktok as a resource too there are loads of videos on advertising there as well.

Do you use TikTok in your personal life too? What are your fav trends?

I use Tiktok in my personal life ( I have a whole 20 followers!), one of my favorite bonkers trends at the moment is people running with an ‘item’ to Johnny Cash’s song ‘Ring of Fire’. It’s silly but very funny and just goes to show how something simple can go viral.

What tips do you have for attendees to maximize their time on-site at brightonSEO?

Plan ahead, don’t worry about watching everything just go to the talks you’ll get the most out of you can always watch the recordings/look at the slides for the others at another time. Make sure you check out the exhibition stalls as well.

What presentations are you most interested in attending/speakers you are most interested to hear and why?

I’m looking forward to Diana Andreea Mereoiu’s talk on ‘B2B strategy for Paid Social‘ at the Fringe Event on Oct 5, 2022. More often than not the focus is on B2C so it will be great to hear strategy ideas for the B2B nuances.

What are the biggest challenges you face in PPC campaign management?

The biggest challenges at the moment are the uncertainty over CPC cost, budgets keep having to go up and the market is getting more and more crowded. I am also interested in the direction of automation and AI; in a few years’ time what will our role be as marketers?

What are some exciting trends in Paid Digital Marketing?

My favorite thing about Paid Digital marketing is that there are always new channels/things to try out! Metaverse is going to be massive, I know that people are skeptical but I’m fairly confident it will become the new normal if given time. I also think users are becoming more and more aware of their privacy rights and how their data is used.

What are the top 5 tools or apps you use almost every day and why?

  • Headspace – I use this every day to meditate and clear my thoughts, it really helps with my mental health and feeling calm. 
  • Tiktok for obvious reasons. 
  • Google Ads – It’s easy to use and I can keep an eye on my accounts on the go. 
  • Spotify – I find it impossible to concentrate without some music on in the background and the odd podcast.
  • Whatsapp – For obvious reasons again!

What was your worst job and what did you learn from it?

Without going into too much detail, in my worst job, I was really struggling with my mental health and found it very stressful. I was being gaslit by a manager and the work just kept piling on, when I left there I felt the most sense of relief! I learned that no matter what you have to put your health first, no job is worth staying awake at night worrying about it. If you feel like you’re not being listened to, it’s too overwhelming or you’re starting to feel the effects physically then it’s time to move on to something better!

What advice would you give yourself when you first got started in marketing?

Offline marketing is not for you bestie! Try everything you can, learn from the best, and keep pushing yourself.

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Rachel is head of client and account services at Red Bullet Web Design and has over 8 years of experience in Paid Digital marketing. Rachel has worked with a range of different sectors and companies enhancing their digital offerings.

In a very short span of time, TikTok now sits on the high table with biggies like Facebook and Instagram turning out to be one of the most valuable platforms for brands across the board. Analyzing, optimizing, and tracking your TikTok Ad campaigns is now easier than ever with Swydo’s TikTok Ads integration. Go on, give it a try, and have your own TikTok Boom! 

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