Big data strategies are playing a vital role in the future of SEO. Some of the most prominent SEO thought leaders are offering new insights into the role of big data in digital marketing.
Neil Patel is one of the biggest SEO influencers in the world. He has written about the importance of big data. He has also been praised by Forbes and other publications for his utilization of big data for small businesses.
You need to appreciate the relevance of big data in your own SEO strategy. This involves taking the time to understand the different aspects of your SEO strategy and the ways that big data can be integrated into them.
AJ Agrawal, the CEO of Alumnify, is another SEO thought leader that has talked about the role of big data. He discussed this in a post on Inc.
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Big Data Brings Big Changes to SEO
When people hear the word SEO, they immediately think of keywords – and more often than not, keyword stuffing. This happens when people mistake keyword density as an integral part of the optimization process. They think that by increasing the number of keywords in an article or webpage, search engines will have an easier time recognizing and indexing it. But as you may already have guessed by now, that is hardly the case.
Google and other search engines have used machine learning to fight keyword stuffing and other spam strategies. They even use machine learning to look for unnatural meta descriptions with keywords in images. This means that you need to be more be more diligent.
Repeating a word or phrase too much hurts your chances of ever getting into search engines’ good side. It would be considered as “manipulation” and may potentially hurt your website’s online presence overall. Worst case scenario, your website may be flagged down by Google and other SE’s on the grounds of deceitful, low grade, manipulative, or poor content. If an SEO company ever comes to you with this type of “grand idea” to boost website traffic, then you have got to know that they’re bad news. If anything, they’ll just earn your domain the big red flag and will hurt your relationship with search engines in the end.
This means you need to find a better strategy these days. The good news is that the same big data technology Google uses to fight keyword spam can be used to improve your SEO strategy. This includes seeing how keywords are used naturally.
Savvy SEO Experts Use Big Data for Better Keyword Optimization
Of course, that is not to say that keywords have nothing to do with SEO at all. They are still very important. However, one must know how to use and place them appropriately. This is what we refer as “keyword optimization” and it is far different from the manipulative version we discussed just a while ago.
Optimization is assistive to search engines. The words and phrases you place do not, in any way, try to trick SE’s into thinking that you have valuable content just because all the right terms are heavily used in your article. Instead, proper optimization of keywords guides indexers and bots through your article, helping them understand what it’s about better by putting markers in certain sections of the article.
How does big data come into play? Big data allows you to analyze your website the same way Google does. You can see how other sites use keywords to rank well in the SERPs. You can then customize your own site to rank too.
The appropriate distribution should be at least one keyword in the introductory paragraph, one in each paragraph of the body, and one in the closing paragraph. Aside from these distributed keywords, a primary keyword should also be inserted in the heading and subheadings of the article, particularly the titles formatted in H1, H2, and H3 (read more).
Aside from using major keywords, it is also advised to use guide words. These are terms or phrases that may not be the exact keywords but are also very helpful in explaining the context of the article. It can be related facts, terminologies, phrases, and other words connected or related to the main topic of the article. Using terms like this will help indexers appropriate your content better and make it show up in more relevant queries.
Big Data Makes Link building Opportunities Easier than Ever
Big data also helps with offsite optimization. Here are some ways that it can help:
- Using machine learning tools to evaluate prospective content partners to see how they rank and how natural their sites are
- Using big data tools to find new sites to acquire links from
- Using machine learning to determine the impact of links on your SERPs
Moz, SEMRush and Ahrefs are all examples of sites that use big data to help their clients with link building opportunities.
Another thing that you have to understand with doing business online is that presence is important. The more visible your company is, the more likely you are going to attract conversions and sales. SEO enables you to gain that kind of authority for your website. And how else can they do this but by making sure that other reputable sources recognize your content. You can check out Moving Mountains for more info. Big data is invaluable for this.
A good sign of recognition comes in the form of links or citations, which is another area that big data can help with. When you produce high-value content that readers can get a lot from, they tend to cite your ideas or concepts in their own work. Yes, just like how you would mention studies and scholarly articles on your research paper.
In the online setting, sources are cited in a similar way. The only difference is that you can visit the mother resource right away with a single click – something you cannot do when you’re reading an actual thesis book. These are what we’d call “outbound links” in SEO. And they’re very, very helpful when it comes to boosting your presence and authority online.
When more websites cite your content online, it gives search engines the impression that what you offer on-site is something of great value. It tells them that you have something meaningful to offer to readers and this would make them want to feature your content higher in the SERPs. With that being said, it is safe to say that the relationship between good links and good authority is directly proportional. That is to say, when one increases, the other does the same as well.
Anyway, advanced SEO can play a major role in your online marketing plan so make sure you don’t miss out on it!
Big Data is the Future of SEO
Big data is driving major changes in the field of SEO. You should pay close attention to these developments and make sure that your SEO strategy uses big data to its full advantage.
