At midnight on January 1, 2022, when the ball drops in Times Square, many search engine marketers want to check their analytics and rankings.
Google appears to have replaced Santa as the provider of “naughty or good” lists in the online world.
Some sites will rank better before the new year.
Others are cleaning the coal dust off their socks, frantically analyzing why they’re on the naughty list.
Holiday Core algorithm update For seasoned search engine marketers, coming from Google is nothing new.
And I don’t know who needs to hear that, but the post-Christmas update will be there next year.
Don’t feel guilty about taking a few days off.
Take a moment to think about how you can be better in the new year.
This is what I did.
Below is my list of New Year’s SEO solutions.
1. Remember to have empathy
In my experience, most search engine marketers are very “left brained”.
Sure, there’s a ton of creativity in the world of search engine marketing – but most search engine marketers would rather figure out why a piece of code isn’t loading as fast as it should than trying to understand the complexities of a searcher’s head.
Don’t get me wrong, Technical Aspects of SEO And paid search is essential — what we do doesn’t work without being tech-savvy.
But technical fixes are not enough to show continuous improvement in your search engine marketing results.
I believe the best tool any marketer can have is empathy, the ability to understand the feelings of others.
If we as marketers can understand the feelings, motivations, intentions and behaviors of search engine users, we can create pages and content that not only provide value to our visitors but also increase our site’s bottom line.
I’ve always prided myself on being able to empathize with searchers.
But with every core algorithm update or IT guys screwing up a website, I find it easy to put my empathic urges on the back burner in pursuit of technical fixes.
Those ones technical fix It’s for Google, not the searcher.
I need to remember to spend as much time – or more – getting to know the people who are making the queries, just like I’m looking for ways to improve the performance of my site.
The dividends from empathetic marketing practices are often larger than the dividends collected from technical fixes.
It’s wise to keep this in mind.
2. Automate everything
Over the past few years, many prominent SEO professionals have touted the advantages of using the Python programming language Automate rote SEO tasks.
In the hands of a capable programmer, Python is a powerful tool that can significantly reduce the time required for SEO.
Python can help you scrape data to come up with content ideas, analyze common on-page SEO issues, track and analyze issues in backlink profiles, and more.
Those interested in some of the possibilities of Python should read this article: How to Analyze SEO Data with Python: A Reference Guide.
As I’ve said in the past, I’m not a coder by definition.
However, having been working on code for so long, I know what to look for when analyzing how the code will react with search engines.
For someone like me, I encourage you to dig deeper and Learn the basics of the Python language.
If you master the complexity of your code, nobody cares.
In fact, I think spending too much time learning a language is a waste of time.
For me, the ultimate goal of learning any new technology is to understand its full capabilities and limitations.
If you understand what a piece of software can do, then you can plan what you need, or figure out how to program what you need, or hire someone to program it for you.
Hiring people to automate your work is nearly impossible Search Engine Optimization Strategies If you don’t know how Python (or any other software) can help you achieve your goals.
My goal in 2022 is to learn everything Python can do.
If you’re a freelance Python developer, feel free to contact me around May, as I suspect I’ll have some projects by then.
3. Track correctly
Introduction Google Analytics 4 Has caused trouble in the tracking code of many websites.
Many people move from high confidence in the correctness of their analytical data to uncertainty.
When you don’t trust your analytics data, you can’t make good decisions.
You can’t plan properly.
We often encounter leads that are poorly tracked.
This has become such a serious problem that we recently implemented a policy that we won’t continue any other work until tracking is set up.
it needs to be set like this everyone in the organization Trust the data.
If you increase traffic by 140% and the boss doesn’t trust the numbers to be accurate, no one gets credit. There is a good chance that the strategy used to increase traffic will not be approved again in the future.
Why would someone approve an activity that doesn’t work based on their worldview?
On the other hand, if Traffic drops And no one trusts the data, so it’s nearly impossible to accurately diagnose what’s causing the traffic drop — at least if the entire team is involved in action items to diagnose and fix the problem.
4. Embrace the grind
Good SEO is an ordeal.
In many cases, we are implementing strategies and have to wait weeks to know if our efforts are paying off.
We are a lot like farmers – planting our seeds in the code of our website, watering and caring for the code, while knowing that a storm from Google or a drought that lacks consumer interest could mean a disastrous harvest.
Successful SEO professionals embrace the day job.
We work on content to enhance our authority.
We check the code daily to make sure nothing is broken.
When Google announced the upcoming update, the web looked like a small town that had just heard the storm was coming – and SEO pros worked hard to hold down the hatches, even if we weren’t entirely sure how to prepare for the storm.
all in all, SEO becomes a daily chores list.
Those SEO experts who embrace this kind of day-to-day work are successful.
Those looking for a panacea and a quick fix end up chasing their tails.
Embrace the grind.
This is your way of demonstrating long-term, sustainable SEO success.
In summary
If you’ve read this far, I’d love to hear about your search engine marketing solutions.
Feel free to tweet about your SEO New Year’s resolutions using the hashtag #seo2022.
I’m looking forward to reading all the New Year’s resolution inspiration I’m sure Search Engine Journal readers can provide.
More resources:
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