Want to increase your organic reach? Let’s talk Authority First SEO.
Dale Bertrand is an SEO Strategist, Keynote Speaker, Business Coach, and the Founder of Fire&Spark. Fire&Spark is an SEO firm that helps e-commerce and B2B brands leverage Authority First SEO to double or even triple organic search revenue.
So, what is Authority First SEO anyway? Tune in to hear Dale and our CEO and podcast host, Daniel Budai discuss:
?? Becoming a Founder in Digital Marketing
?? What is Authority SEO?
?? Why Does Authority First SEO Perform Well on Google?
?? Purpose Driven SEO
?? Technical SEO
?? SEO Advice for E-Commerce Owners?
Becoming a Founder in Digital Marketing
Dale has a very technical background. After graduating from engineering school, Dale worked as a software developer for 20 years.
In 2008, Dale decided to switch over to digital marketing. He began as a freelancer then founded his SEO agency Fire&Spark.
Fire&Spark began as an office of 20 people in Boston. When the pandemic hit, they went remote and, like many agencies, never looked back. They’re now stretched across many time zones from Europe to the US.
?We focus on SEO. We’re SEO all day, every day.?
And many of Fire&Spark?s clients are in e-commerce. Dale and his employees especially love working with mission-driven e-commerce brands.
Primarily, Fire&Spark focuses on Authority First SEO.
What is Authority First SEO?
Authority First SEO makes brand authority the core focus. This means improving a website’s ability to post high-ranking content. Naturally, Fire&Spark also focuses on the technical aspects of SEO, but the authority side of SEO really moves the needle. Authority First SEO can double or even triple your organic traffic.
Dale identifies 3 fundamentals of SEO:
- Building a high-functioning website where Google can index your site.
- Keyword visibility: targeting the right keywords and search intent so that you’re offering information or a product that people are actually looking for.
- Authority: building authority on Google so that your content is relevant to search intent. The reason why Google should choose your piece of content over your competitors’ content.
Why Does Authority First SEO Perform Well On Google?
Dale says that Google search results used to be far easier to manipulate. When he was just starting in SEO, you could just put lots of keywords in an article or blog, whether they were relevant or not, and your content would be favored in search results.
Now, those manipulations are useless. Google?s AI is a lot better at understanding search queries. For example, if someone types in ?3D printing service?, they are looking for someone to manufacture parts for them on a 3D printer. If someone types in ?3D printer? into Google, they’re looking to buy a 3D printer. Google?s AI is now really good at discerning between the two. In other words, understanding search intent and queries.
?Fundamentally, an AI search engine like Google is about predicting human behavior.?
And the Google search engine is learning. It’s not just showing us the best results, it’s learning from what we click on. If we click on a website do we stay there? Or do we come back immediately to Google and click on something else?
This means that Google is better than ever at classifying web pages and ranking which ones it should show.
?At the end of the day, it’s all about making sure that you’re targeting the right search intent instead of keywords.?
As a marketer, therefore, you need to know what your customers are searching for. Google?s AI is excellent at understanding what people are looking for and finding the right content. That content needs to be good enough to satisfy your customers’ queries and make them stay.
Your customers won?t just be looking for your product or service, they’re looking for information related to your product or service. Namely any relevant pain points and problems. Knowing what your customers are searching for is what Dale calls ?customer intimacy?.
Essentially, your authority on Google is improved with awesome content that your customers engage with.
What is Purpose Driven SEO?
Purpose driven SEO takes a top-down approach to SEO. Bottom-up focuses on all the technical signals that Google needs to see. Top-down focuses on your overarching marketing strategy.
This involves a close examination of your brand. What is remarkable about your brand? Do you have a story? Do you have a social mission? Stories are very powerful from an SEO perspective. Telling a compelling story makes for a great purpose driven SEO campaign.
Having a purpose is key to building authority content. It allows you to partner with like-minded individuals and organizations. This, in turn, creates more content via content partnerships and UGC (User Generated Content) because there’s a subject matter that you all care about. UGC is not created because customers want to help you sell more, it’s created because they agree with your purpose.
Google wants to see brands that are either already established or are building momentum. Purpose driven SEO is crucial to establishing your brand.
What About Technical SEO?
While Dale focuses on Authority First SEO, he also recognizes the importance of technical SEO. The difference today is that platforms like Shopify, WordPress, and HubSpot make the technical aspects of SEO relatively simple.
The main technical focus, Dale says, should be on page speed. If your pages are too slow, Google can’t crawl or index your website.
From there, it’s all about establishing authority with relevant content that your customers engage with.
What Advice Does Dale Have for E-Commerce Owners?
Dale acknowledges that there is a lot of competition in e-commerce. So you need to establish whether your website has a content problem or an authority problem. Sometimes you need to address both, but usually, the emphasis should be on one or the other.
To establish SEO authority, carve out longtail keyword niches where you don’t have a ton of competition. If you already have some authority, make sure that you create content that addresses your customers? pain points.
Dale also advises against what he terms as ?inefficient content?. Writing articles is the hardest way to do content. FAQs are very efficient in getting your keywords in and satisfying top-of-the-funnel queries.
To learn more about SEO and driving traffic to your store, visit Fire&Spark and connect with Dale on LinkedIn.
Thank you for listening! We come out with new episodes every Thursday, stay tuned!
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