Happy Equinox! It barely feels like the year has started and yet in the UK at least spring has very much sprung.
After a hectic few weeks in the world of digital marketing, where we’ve seen the US government stop just short of declaring war on TikTok, Google’s core search algorithm update and plenty of excitement around quarterly earnings, it felt like this week was a little quieter. Perhaps everyone is gearing up for the Easter holidays, or maybe just enjoying some spring cleaning.
As such this week’s edition is a little truncated, with just one quick feature looking at something I found quite interesting around SEO this week, as well as a few small developments from the world of digital. Normal service will (probably) resume next week.
SEO – more than just a to do list
Search Engine Journal this week published a thought-provoking piece on how SEO isn’t something you just “do”. Over the years I’ve heard words along these lines from plenty of clients and peers – “we should do some SEO”, as though it’s a switch that can be flicked as opposed to a sometimes-painstaking long game.
I won’t spoil the full article, but the gist is that like any digital marketing channel, you need to start with clear, measurable (dare I say…SMART?) goals in mind (as opposed to “I’d like us to be better on Google”), preferably aligned to wider business or marketing objectives. Then you need a clear strategy to achieve this, beyond stuffing more keywords into blog posts.
Ensuring you have sufficient resource (i.e. don’t just expect an intern with 3 weeks experience to transform your organic search results), measure regularly and then are integrating these activities with your marketing efforts shouldn’t be things that readers of this need to know, but articles such as this are good reminders of best practice and can be helpful aids for your colleagues to point them in the right direction.
Further Reading
There hasn’t been a great deal of progress following the developments last week that US legislators are moving to force ByteDance to either sell TikTok or face a ban. However, there are some interesting opinion pieces out there which are worth a look, as well as a good look at how brands are preparing.
I covered this within this newsletter a few weeks ago, but ICYMI Search Engine Land has since compiled a brief but useful list of the key takeaways from Google’s core search update this month. Speaking of Google, Forbes latest CMO letter looking at how AI will transform search is worth a few minutes of your time.
BeReal (remember them?) is running out of funding, and may not be around for too much longer.
And finally, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicts that AI will overhaul 95% of marketing tasks. It’s never been a better time to make sure you’re staying up to date with trends around AI and marketing, to ensure you’re safely ensconced in the remaining 5%!
That’s it for this week – if you found this interesting then I would really appreciate if you shared this with your friends and peers.
If you’re feeling particularly generous, then I won’t stop you from buying me a coffee. Have a great weekend and see you next week!