SEO

Google recently announced a new update to its Search Ads 360 platform – and it’s a big one. SA360 has gotten even more powerful since it was first launched over 10 years ago, making it simpler than ever for commercial enterprises to manage their search advertising efforts.

A select number of Search Ads 360 users finally gained preview access this past month.

The new platform experience will start rolling out over the coming months while allowing users to continue access in the classic experience. In this article, I outline what’s new and share effective ways to make the most of your budgets and inventory in the Search Ads 360 platform.

1. Greater support for alternative channels

One of the Search Ads 360 updates includes greater support for alternative search engines such as Microsoft Ads and Yahoo! Japan.

Other advertising channels have been neglected for years, and the consequence has been time-consuming workarounds to link data and make bulk changes.

As a result of the new update, Google promises that you will now be able to get more of your work done from the same place.

For Microsoft Advertisers, SA360 will now support additional features:

• Response search ads
• Call extensions
• Local inventory ads
• Access to a variety of audience types

For Yahoo! Japan advertisers, you can now utilize dynamic search ads and site link extension scheduling.

2. Access to new features

Search Ads 360 will now offer support for the newest features in Google Ads including:

• Performance Max – a new goal-based campaign type that lets performance advertisers access all of their Google Ads inventory from a centralized campaign. 
• Discovery campaigns – allows advertisers to run ads in Google discover feeds to deliver highly visual, inspiring personalized ad experiences
• Display and YouTube Advertising (previously only in the platform)

Google has also added advanced enterprise innovation features that will allow teams to scale everyday tasks such as:

• Campaign management
• Create automated rules
• Use labels across various advertisers simultaneously

The addition of Templates will combine current features like inventory management and ad builder for a unified and scalable experience.

For media managers who spend hours crafting forecasts, the new Performance Center will include enterprise planning capabilities with spend, CPA, and conversion forecasts in the coming months.

3. Updated inventory management

A revamped inventory management system provides streamlined workflows and more powerful controls over how you use your ad space.

Utilizing an inventory feed, SA360 can generate ready-to-go paid search campaigns using dynamic data such as price, description, and availability of your product from your feed.

This tool is especially useful for industry verticals with frequently changing prices and availability such as:

• Airlines
• Hotels
• Live and Streaming Entertainment
• Recruitment
• Retail
• Businesses with geo-specific offers

How it works

1. Provide high-quality data and make a list of attributes for your feed such as product name, price, and landing page.
2. Create templates for each type of output you want generated such as a campaign, ad group, ad, or keyword. (Tip: start small!)
3. Utilize functions and attributes to generate highly relevant ads.
4. Check your output and optimize until you are happy with the results.

Within minutes, you’ll have ready-to-go, targeted campaigns in your account that ready for launch.

In the new Search Ads 360, marketers will be able to manage templates across client accounts to update ads at scale.

4. Budget management

Any media manager will tell you that managing account budgets and pacing is one of the most critical components of campaign management and also one of the most difficult, especially at scale.

As part of the latest Search Ads 360 release, budget management will be improved and integrated with the new ‘Performance Center’.

Later this year, Google plans to provide complete access to these planning tools, allowing you to experiment with a variety of potential media budget flighting scenarios.

Features

The following are some of the features included in the present budget management system:

• Visual graphs that include target and estimated spend, plus KPIs such as CPA (cost per acquisition) or revenue
• Automatic budget allocation and bid adjustments set by your chosen budget bid strategy
• Forecasting capabilities based on historical performance data that factors in seasonality
• Estimated cumulative spend and likelihood to hit target spend based on historical data
• Pacing reports at the daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual level

As Google adds new features throughout the year, we can anticipate that these tools will become more accurate and streamlined for enterprise planning.

New look

The new Search Ads 360 experience closely resembles the Google Ads platform with similar navigation and a familiar user experience.

Upon launching the SA360 platform, you can see the identical account overview dashboard found in Google Ads for seamless navigation between the two.

Into the future

With the new Search Ads 360 update, Google opens doors for the next generation of enterprise innovations to optimize performance.

The new updates will help you get more work done in one place saving time and providing a better cross-channel view for data-driven decision making.

To learn all about the new tools, enroll in Google’s new Skillshop modules for Search Ads 360.

Alex Medawar is Senior Media Manager at Performics and creator of Alex Medawar.com. As a seasoned digital media expert, Alex Medawar focuses on B2B paid search campaign management and strategy for global brands in the tech space. Utilizing a data-driven approach, Alex believes that both small businesses and large enterprises alike can speak to their audience and drive results within the digital media landscape.

Subscribe to the Search Engine Watch newsletter for insights on SEO, the search landscape, search marketing, digital marketing, leadership, podcasts, and more.

Join the conversation with us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

The payday loans algorithm continues to challenge search engine optimization (SEO) practitioners across the world, notably in the US and UK – the two largest markets for payday loans.

In 2012, UK’s payday loan market was worth around £2 billion and was so sought after that Google’s entire first page for payday loans was dominated by black hat results.

In response, the tech giant created a dedicated algorithm – which was revised in 2018 – known today as ‘payday loans 2.0’. The purpose of the algoritm was target what Google deemed “spammy queries”; never before had Google devoted an entire algorithm for one particular product or service.

The payday loan market in the UK is now heavily regulated and no longer as lucrative. But SEO professionals looking to help promote payday loan companies are still hoping to land on a search engine’s first page in order to access very high converting products with over 100,000 monthly searches.

Drawing on Tudor Lodge’s findings from the 2019 and 2021 algorithm, we look at how the payday algorithm has developed in the UK and US, and what techniques are succeeding in 2022.

 Frequency of updates

 Payday loan companies looking to rank their sites higher on search engines may fine they are struggling to make progress, even with the help of SEO practitioners. When this progress will appear, may also seem uncertain.

In the UK, Google infrequently updates its SEO algorithm which means a company with ‘good’ SEO could result in it ranking highlight for months or even a year, without having to change very much. This means companies can ‘ride the wave’ of their previous good SEO work.

There is an age-old SEO assumption that Google takes the techniques used by websites on page 1 of its search and uses these techniques as the basis for the algorithm. Therefore, companies which copy the links and style of content of page 1 should be successful.

In the US, however, the frequency of SEO changes for payday loans is significantly quicker, with the search results changing far more regularly and competitors having to be consistent to maintain those results.

This could reflect the more competitive environment in the US and how state-specific lenders, such as those from Florida or Ohio, might suddenly start to rank higher due to demand in those areas.

Role of exact match and partial match domains

 Traditionally, having the word ‘payday’ in a business’ domain name was a strong ranking signal to secure a page 1 position, but this seems to be less relevant as time goes on.

Filtering by the UK’s geography, only one website appears on Google’s Page 1 search results page with the word payday in the businesses’ domain name; it is one of the oldest payday lenders in the market. The same occurs when filtering for the US market, only in this instance, the firm has used a black hat technique.

As a result, companies looking to set up a website in this market do not need to include the word ‘payday’ within their domain name to be successful.

Popular techniques and red flags

There are a couple of techniques, however, which will stand businesses looking to gain traction in the payday loan market in good stead.

1. Careful phrasing is one of these techniques. Companies looking to improve their payday loan SEO should look carefully at the phrasing used by websites which rank on page 1 in the UK and US.

These websites tend to use the following terms: “direct lenders”, “bad credit”, and “alternatives”. Other popular phrases include payday loans online used by Dime Alley and include the word “instalment”.

Tudor Lodge’s previous investigation into the algorithm suggests these phrases push websites up the ranking because Google wants to: provide “alternatives” rather than expensive payday products; ensure “direct lenders” are promoted over brokers; and appeal to “bad credit” which is the real use of the product.

2. Another technique to be considered is the use of Google Business, a free service which allows organizations to manage and optimize their businesses’ profile on Google. In recent years, the platform has gained more exposure in the SERPs for payday loans.

Arguably this is not surprising since figures show Google Business clicks are surpassing normal clicks on Google for the first time ever this year. This is particularly relevant in the US where there are over 23,000 payday stores and the role of local listings is far more important than in the UK where the industry is mainly online.

For SEO practitioners, having a populated Google Business account with images, descriptions and organic reviews will only help to secure more exposure and clicks, even for new entries.

And of course, making sure the address and contact details on your website are very clear on the footer and contact us page. Without any contact details or address on your website, you are pretty much a ghost in Google’s eyes.

3. Another important detail for SEO practitioners and payday loan companies to think about is ensuring there is an explanation of how their product works. Customers need to know how to apply for a payday product listed on a website.

Websites listed on Page 1 of Google’s listings all ensure this copy is clear and concise, whether it be through a steps process – as demonstrated by Pheabs – or a dedicated ‘how it works’ page.

 In addition to best practice, there are a number of techniques which are now grossly out of fashion.

1. Long content and landing pages are one example. Whilst I personally have always been a fan of long content, and nice strong landing pages, there are several strong examples on Google’s Page 1 which seem to defy this.

These websites, some with limited content (but a strong backlink profile) and others just including a ‘how it works’ page and some strong FAQs on their homepages, have managed to maintain their top spots. This might suggest backlinks are stronger than content in this market.

2. Another faux pas is having multiple pages on a payday website. It could be assumed that having pages dedicated to each product, service and question would help the consumer journey, the sites that have multiple pages have declined and been penalized in 2021. This suggests companies should approach their website through the lens of having one, focused page which discusses different locations on said.

 Where do links fall into this algorithm?

 Links are always so vital for SEO, and Tudor Lodge’s studies show that acquiring links is likely to make a company’s website rank quicker in in the payday market, than adding more content would.

The role of PBNs is still evident with SEO professionals buying links and this is having a positive correlation on rankings, unless hit with a penalty. Some of the best ranking sites can leverage links from ‘gov.uk’ and ‘.edu’ by offering sponsorships and associating with good causes.

 Long SEO articles on third party sites

 Finally, there has been a surge in the US of companies who are ranking third party articles, rather than individual sites.

The SEO professional is writing very long and detailed pieces about payday loans and including lots of relevant keywords such as “no credit check” and “bad credit” – then listing their 4 or 5 favourite sites or clients in the text to generate leads.

Using third party sites, often regional or state press sites with domain authorities of 80 or higher, ensures these articles rank well and gains instant exposure via Google News. This technique is often underrated by the industry but has gained a lot of visibility in recent years.

It is innovative and well executed and essentially just SEO by any other name.

Content is crucial for just about any B2B business as it drives traffic and convinces your leads to become your customers. No wonder, most B2B businesses are increasing their content marketing budgets every year.

But do they use content marketing to its full potential? How do you create content that serves several goals, like traffic acquisition and rankings?

The big challenge with B2B content

While being extremely valuable to business success, B2B content is also extremely challenging for marketers to execute properly. The problem is twofold: Targeting.

Unlike B2C content where you usually target a single human being, in B2B you have to keep the whole group of decision-makers in mind. This group is usually referred to as a DMU (a decision-making unit) and, depending on your platform and your target organizations, it can include the head of marketing, CEO, IT representative, CTO, etc.

In other words, B2B content targets a group of decision-makers and normally takes more time (and more steps) to convert.

Creating convincing content that appeals to every single person within a DMU is hardly possible:

• CEOs may need to know how your product will save them money
• Head of marketing will need to make sure that your product solves an existing problem without making their department redundant. In this case, the best interests of the CEO may be in conflict with the best interests of the marketing team, and yet, the latter is likely to be the final decision maker, so you will need to keep their needs and challenges in mind.
• The IT team will have to ensure your platform is technically possible (it is possible to integrate into their technical environment).

Before you start creating your B2B content strategy for traffic generation, you need to know your decision-makers and be able to plan your content around possible conflicts.

In other words, plan your content assets that convey value and then decide which keywords you can optimize for.

Knowing your decision-makers

So what is the best way to know who you are targeting? You already know your target businesses in mind (those you created that B2B product for) but how to better understand their internal decision-makers?

B2B audience research is different from B2C audience research: You can hardly apply your web analytics demographics info because you have to keep all those intra-organizational levels and politics in mind.

To better understand your target DMU, try several of these options:

• Talk to your sales and customer support teams. They already interact with your potential and current customers on a daily basis. Let them describe their contacts and who those report to. Get all the details they can share, including their frequently asked questions and common challenges.
• Survey your customers. Using on-site and on-registration surveys will help you collect more data on the size of companies you are dealing with and your actual users’ roles within those companies. There are a variety of plugins allowing you to integrate surveys with your content.

Additionally, inbox Insight offers a handy checklist for you to organize your data and better understand your target DMUs.

From there, start creating a list of problems each person within a DMU may have and how your product may solve all of them. This is where matching those problems to searchable keywords is the required next step.

Planning your keyword strategy

It is not often easy to identify how people may be searching for solutions and answers to relevant problems. While there’s no such a thing as an ideal word count which would work in every niche, try and create a resource that will answer several related questions.

Google is now mature enough to steer your search into a more popular direction, so I suggest starting your keyword research by simply searching Google. Type the search terms as you yourself would use them, and pay attention to:

• What Google Autocomplete suggests in the search box
• “People Also Ask” boxes and featured snippets
• Words Google shows within search snippets in bold (on desktop)
• Google’s “Related Searches” and (on a mobile device) Google’s categories that usually appear below organic search results:

All of these will help you collect the core terms your target B2B customers are using when searching for solutions to their problems.

From there, use keyword research tools to extend your core terms and discover even more related terms.

Keyword clustering is a good way to better organize your keywords by intent and identify some common searching patterns. Here’s a good guide on using those identified keyword clusters to create a content strategy that will apply in both B2B and B2C.

Promote and repurpose your B2B content

Publishing your content is a good first step to start generating some organic search visibility. But unless you promote your content, you will not achieve much as search engines need more signals than just useful copy.

Promoting your content is a whole new topic that has already been covered in much detail. A lot of content promotion ideas apply to both B2B and B2C content, including social media sharing, email marketing, and more.

When it comes to the B2B niche, some of the more effective content and link acquisition methods include:

• Organic promotion via email messages. Emailing is the main source of communication for most B2B businesses, so including your recent or most important content assets in your email signature will get you some clicks and possibly even backlinks. Wisestamp will help your employees create a cool signature that can pull your recent articles. They offer some cool email signature examples for you to get inspired.
• Content repurposing. With so many complicated DMUs in mind, you will need different content formats to cater to all of them. Making your content possible to download as a PDF file (to make it shareable within a company) is the first step. You can make that happen using Google Docs. Another idea is to turn your content into a video format which is pretty easy using Movavi. This would expand your reach to video-only platforms, like Youtube. Additionally, consider reusing your visuals (graphs and screenshots) in a PowerPoint format to create content to promote on Slideshare and Linkedin. Venngage makes it very easy. In other words, turn your content into lead magnets!
• Webinars make excellent B2B content because they can be used at every step of the sales funnel. You can live stream them, turn them into many videos, transcribe to create text content, enable lead generation forms to engage your prospects. There are lots of platforms that allow you to do all of that.
• Use email marketing. Email automation is an integral part of any B2B pipeline. Here are a few examples of email marketing campaigns to get you started with yours.

Creating optimized content that targets different roles and comes in different formats will require a lot of organizational efforts. 

Conclusion

Content planning and creation take a ton of time, so it makes sense to set up a content marketing strategy that serves several goals, like organic traffic and sales generation. Hopefully, the above tools and steps will show you some direction. Good luck!

Ann Smarty is the Founder of Viral Content Bee, Brand and Community manager at Internet Marketing Ninjas. She can be found on Twitter @seosmarty.

Subscribe to the Search Engine Watch newsletter for insights on SEO, the search landscape, search marketing, digital marketing, leadership, podcasts, and more.

Join the conversation with us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Even though spending on SEO plays such a major role in the online business sphere, most web admins spend their lives attempting to crack Google’s organic page ranking algorithms. As SEOs may or may not lose sleep over the latest updates, Google Discovery is surely a dreamy-eyed way to win more audiences.

What is Google Discover?

Discover is the brainchild that replaced Google Feed in 2018 and helps around  800M monthly active users with content exploration. Discover aims to push hand-selected news and articles directly to user feeds without the need for searching. Google builds a profile of users and supplies them with content considered relevant to individual interests.

Nothing is anonymous online, and we all leave digital trails of our fundamental interests. Just as your website offers opportunities to glean first-party data, so does Google. With the average person estimated to make at least three to four searches per day, that’s plenty of information to harvest.

Source: Google Search Central

Google plays their cards close to their chest about how they build consumer profiles. Experts believe that the following are factored into the creation of these blueprints:

• Search history unique to Google
• Browser history of websites visited
• Activity on any installed apps
• Location, assuming this information has not been barred in settings

That’s certainly enough material to understand what a user may be interested in. Much like social media targeted advertising, Google knows what your audience wants to see and will do all it can to meet such desires through Discovery. It’s your responsibility to optimize your Discovery presence and ensure that your content is chosen to be pushed.

Why optimize Google Discover?

Discover attracts a loyal, returning audience to your website. It allows users to follow a particular brand or business, ensuring their content will always appear on their smartphone. Naturally, you need to earn this loyalty. The usual caveats apply here. Work to attract your target audience by speaking their language, delivering content that shows your brand can be relied upon.

Source: Marketing Charts

Perhaps more pertinently, Discover knows what users want to hear about – and delivers this in spades. Imagine that a user’s five most visited websites are for their local NFL team, a health food store in their town, a website specializing in tips for joggers, a website that sells running shoes, and a food blog packed with recipes. This suggests that the user in question enjoys sports and fitness. This individual’s Google Discovery feed will reflect this lifestyle.

Somebody with more sedentary hobbies may receive articles on the latest comings and goings on Netflix or technology and gadget news. If you optimize your content for Discover, it could be your website and articles that are pushed onto a smartphone. As Discover has an enviable CTR, this is not an opportunity to pass up.

How to optimize your website for Google Discover

Now that we’ve established that Discover fast-track site traffic, and by extension, conversions – how do you achieve this optimization? This fifteen-point checklist covers hints and tips to enhance your success rate.

1. Comply with Google’s policies

First thing’s first. Do not forget that Discover is a Google property, which means abiding by the search engine’s usual rules and regulations. In essence, that means continuing to follow organic SEO and page ranking practices.

As much as keeping on top of Google’s regular algorithm updates can sometimes feel like a full-time job, it remains necessary. To optimize the potential of Discover, your website must maintain standard white hat SEO protocols. If your dedication to improving page ranking and quality score slips, your content is less likely to be selected by Discover.

2. Create a Google My Business account

Here’s another quick and simple hack to help produce tangible results. Google always wants to provide users with the finest and most relevant connections. If you’re using Discover for ecommerce, the big G will consider a GMB account as a seal of quality. You’re likelier to be selected by Discover if you have an active profile – especially one that boasts organic, positive reviews.

3. Ensure mobile compatibility

When investigating different web design possibilities, highly prioritize mobile compatibility. This sounds like a no-brainer as Discovery is a mobile-centric tool, but you may be surprised at how many fall at this hurdle. Use Google’s Mobile Usability Report to check how your site is doing.

If you build your website through WordPress, consider taking advantage of the Web Stories plug-in. This is made for use on Google – after all, Web Stories even have their own segment on the search engine’s home page – and will often pique the curiosity of Discovery.

4. Feature larger images to create compelling UX and boost CTRs

You can even feature your card images in a large format by using the robots meta tag max-image-preview setting. This is a great way to gain more screen space and win audience attention that will drive CTR. According to Google, this increased a food blog’s CTR by 79 percent and drove a weekly magazine’s clicks by 332 percent across six months.

Source: Google Search Central

5. Find a unique niche and demonstrate your knowledge

Like when bidding for a plum PPC spot, popular keywords can create an extremely competitive environment in Discovery. Unless you’re among the major players in your industry, you risk being muscled out by more prominent names. For example, if you’re writing about sports, ESPN is always likelier to be selected to discuss the playoffs and significant incidents in a game.

That doesn’t mean that Discover is pointless, you’ll just need to think outside the box. Come up with a topic that could be less commonplace within your niches, such as a particular player, team, or set of stats. Discuss these at length, appealing to the regulations of the E-A-T algorithm, and the results will come.

6. Consider your target audience

Discover is designed to match the ideal content with the perfect audience. That needs to be considered when creating blog posts and similar copy. Take the time to build a picture of your target audience and use analytics to ensure you are appealing to them.

Based on the results, you may need to adjust your approach. For example, emotive language may attract one type of reader but deter users likelier to convert. Equally, you may find that you need to use less prose and more images to draw users you really want.

7. Master your headlines carefully

Over 14 percent of all Google text searches include a question. Embrace this in your headlines. If you pose a question, you’re likelier to be selected by Discovery and attract an audience’s attention.

All the same, never lose sight of Google’s quest for relevance. That means not trying to pull a bait and switch. A blog headlined “how to hire an app developer” needs to discuss the trials and tribulations of this very process. An article that says, “don’t bother – here is a DIY mobile app design guide to save money,” will not be embraced by Discovery.

8. Ensure your content is of the highest quality

We’ve just established that Google Discover has limited patience for clickbait, but you may be able to slip some of this material through the net.

You’ll quickly lose their trust and struggle to attract followers. The same applies to content that has not gone through a quality check process and is littered with typos and errors. Quality matters, so do not try to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes. Another way to create compelling, relevant content for your audience is by checking your Google search traffic and keyword research. This will help you distinguish and craft top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) content for key segments of the search journey and align it with the sales funnel.

9. Keep your finger on the pulse

News and current events are the bread and butter of Google Discover. On paper, Google will always look to deliver the latest and greatest news articles to users. Criticism has been leveled at Discover, claiming that it has been top-of-the-funnel (TOFU), but it still pays to remain relevant when attempting to appeal to algorithms.

Anecdotal evidence claims that Discover ranks some search terms that SEO does not, opening new opportunities. That does not mean that you should throw together a hot take on the latest Twitter controversy and wait for the clicks to roll in. If that flies in the face of your brand values, you’ll suffer in the longer term. Just avoid shying away from existing talking points that would add value to your audiences. Also, don’t hop on this bandwagon unless you have something valuable to say as a brand.

10. Encourage users to ‘heart’ you

If you have a captive audience outside of Discover, encourage them to follow you on this platform. Discover offers a heart icon that matches the purpose of a Facebook like, which is a direct way to show appreciation for the material.

If somebody follows an article from your site in their areas of interest, it will be noted on their Google profile. They are then likely to receive more content on the same subject from your brand – as are other, unrelated users that Google considers to have similar interests.

11. Increase your brand awareness

As an extension of the point above, users are prone to discover – and follow – your Discover profile if they are aware of your brand. Use your marketing campaigns to raise your Google Discover profile, steering people toward following you on here.

12. Regularly create and post new content

Discover is often looking for the newest insights and articles to share with users. As a result, a freshly published blog is much likelier to be selected than something penned weeks, months, or years previously – assuming it meets the quality standards we previously mentioned. Evergreen content occasionally gets picked up, but not as often.

Just be aware that articles selected by Discover tend to have a shorter shelf life than something penned with organic SEO in mind. You can still look to appeal to both markets. Discover can be just as helpful for an inbound marketing strategy. Just do not expect your blog to remain on the platform longer than three or four days.

13. Include images and videos in your content

Regardless of whether a picture is truly worth a thousand words, there is no denying that Discover looks to curate variety in its content. Websites that included images and video in their blog posts saw a much greater uptake in selection by Discover than those that relied on pure prose.

Quality matters just as much as quantity here. A quick video shot on your smartphone and shoehorned into your content will not cut the mustard. Discover looks for crisp, high-definition image quality in moving and static pictures alike, so always opt for the greatest resolution you can that retains mobile friendliness.

14. Interact on social media

Discover loves social engagement. As with organic SEO, Discover is likely to select and push content that attracts comments and shares on social media. This creates a chicken and egg scenario. Will your content go viral on social media because it was picked up by Discover, or did Discover push the content because it was gaining social media traction?

In truth, the order of events matters little. Discover can sit neatly alongside the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube to bolster awareness of your content and amass an army of new followers. As always, this creates a snowball effect – the more followers you gain, the more strangers will have your content pushed to their appliances.

15. Track your analytics – and improve where necessary

Finally, as with your SEO performance, you should always keep an eye on your Google Discover traffic analytics. You’ll find this in your Search Console. Do not be alarmed if your Discover traffic looks low. It takes a couple of days for these visits to hit the report so things may change in time.

Discover may not be essential if you are still attracting attention through other means. But no website should ever turn down an opportunity to boost website traffic! So if your numbers are tracking lower than anticipated, revisit points one through fourteen and implement what you can to improve performance.

Joe Dawson is Director of strategic growth agency Creative.onl, based in the UK. He can be found on Twitter @jdwn.

Subscribe to the Search Engine Watch newsletter for insights on SEO, the search landscape, search marketing, digital marketing, leadership, podcasts, and more.

Join the conversation with us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

30-second summary:

• SEO is vastly underutilized in the content creation industry
• How can internet marketing lead to success in Esports and gaming?
• Anthony DiMoro discusses the needed innovation during the content, gaming, and web3 boom

Despite a strong track record and success model within the digital marketing world, for multiple decades, SEO still finds itself almost entirely abandoned in the new age markets of content creation, Esports, gaming, and web3 related properties.

But, why is that? Why would businesses, brands, and creators operating in these spaces, reliant on success in a digital marketplace completely ignore SEO?

Let’s explore why, and how things need to change as 2022 continues to show that the boom of these is not slowing down, but is also rapidly evolving.

1. Content creation and streaming

There is no rhyme or reason as to why content creators (which includes streamers) fail to utilize SEO, considering the fact that their entire brand relies on success within the digital marketplace.

Instead, creators seem to often lean into the following troubling trends, and solely rely on these recycled methods:

Automation and inauthenticity

There is no social platform that has not experienced, in some form or fashion, a form of automation. But content creators, particularly in the streaming sector (like Twitch and YouTube) use this to the point of “overkill”.

“Going LIVE” posts flood timelines, and when they are the majority of what a particular creator posts, it flatlines engagement. While it may seem like a “bot”, it actually is more a real strategy for creators. While informing your audience that you are going live is important, it shouldn’t be or appear, inauthentically posted or automated.

Going further down the rabbit hole will see a more aggressive form of automation in DMs and messages. DMing a new follower or connection is a solid tool for networking when done organically, but the second a bot steps into the chat, your chances skyrocket of someone not only disregarding your content completely but also unfollowing you altogether.

Authenticity is key in proper brand building, especially when you’re being looked at by a potential business or collaborative opportunity.

If you’re heavy into automation and inauthenticity, why would a brand or business spend money on your content or brand? They would, rightfully, assume that is how you do business.

Farming and cycling (aka Botting)

Every few years a new app or platform pops up promising to help creators and streamers reach milestones of affiliate or partner, but are, more often than not, simply a recycling of hacky, spammy, models

Follow for Follow systems have plagued the niche, and have fueled an even more robust “sub for sub” system, but not view churning. This is becoming a more prevalent issue.

Cycling content clips and/or highlights can be an engagement factor for a feed and can help keep your audience engaged, but when in a collective of other cycles, coupled with any incentivizing to push engagement is something completely different.

Some of these models try to divert away from appearing to be a clear violation of, for example, Twitch’s Terms of Services, but it’s all a mirage.

Take it right from Twitch’s TOS page:

“Fake engagement is artificial inflation of channel statistics, such as views or follows, through coordination or 3rd party tools. This behavior is characterized by the creation of incidental or duplicitous views or follows. One common form of this activity is often referred to as view-botting. Another, when done in a coordinated manner, is sometimes identified as “Follow 4 Follow” (F4F), “Lurk 4 Lurk” (L4L), or Host 4 Host (H4H), which involve a mutual exchange of interaction intended to increase the visibility of both channels over those with legitimate interaction. Using services that promise higher visibility in exchange for lurking in a large number of channels or viewing streams on pages with several unrelated, active embedded streams, is considered a form of fake engagement and is not permitted on Twitch services.”

Does the app or platform you use have instances where members are motivated to pop into someone’s channel to say “hello, I am here from PLATFORMNAME” and then leave? Are you a part of a system where videos are cycled to generate views and inject this behavior?

Then you may be, in essence, engaging in a form of view botting, albeit a more human version, and also engaging in fake engagement.

Let’s look further into how Twitch defines these things:

“Artificial engagement and botting limit growth opportunities for legitimate broadcasters and are damaging to the community as a whole. False viewer growth is not conducive to establishing a career in broadcasting because the ‘viewers’ do not contribute to a healthy, highly engaged community.

As a reminder, fake engagement and artificial inflation of channel statistics are violations of our policies. Participating in, organizing, and/or running these services will lead to an enforcement issued on your account, including and up to indefinite suspension”

Why run the risk? Furthermore, why try to “game” or “cheat” the system to inorganically generate some form of success?

Sure, it can be a good confidence booster, but you’re looking to monetize this, or even make it a career, rather than protecting your analytics and ensuring they are transparent is key, and could make or break a financially rewarding opportunity or deal with a business who will, assuredly, do their due diligence.

Community toxicity

One big issue in the industry, overall, is toxicity and how many creators and viewers engage in this at varying levels. But to take things further, many communities and platforms fuel this behavior or lead the charge.

Association is key, and if you’re aligned or using a service or platform, ensure how they interact, specifically when criticized, aligns with your brand and is something you would not mind a potential business partner or collaborative partner seeing.

Whether a member of the community leaves or someone reports an unsuccessful experience, a brand’s reaction and the behavior/conduct of their prominent members/admins speak volumes in the world of business.

The solution

Explore more viable outlets, look for services more rooted in things such as SEO and internet marketing, and lean into those service offerings and/or benefits. 

There is a reason why influencer marketing and even things as minute as Twitch SEO are gaining impressive traction.

Because, with effort and a professional, dedicated, and intuitive approach, businesses can work in areas that really matter. They can take you outside of the box that a platform’s discoverability model may keep you contained in. It can make you more appealing to businesses.

Explore and re-invent the way you do business. If you’re investing hard-earned money into your equipment and also pouring hours into creating, you owe it to yourself to be efficient with your branding and marketing.

2. Esports

The Esports boom is not slowing down and you can expect the industry to expand further as there is considerable buzz around the college Esports industry in 2022.

The projected boom shouldn’t come as a shock, in fact, it was projected back in 2019 when a report from Estreme Networks and eCampus News “which surveyed 281 technical and administrative leaders across K-12 and higher education in North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East, found that –

• one in five schools already have an esports program
• 71 percent were considering or might consider adding an esports program in the future

Fast Forward to 2021, and the State University of New York (SUNY) reported that 2,077 students enrolled in a SUNY esports program in the 2021 fall semester, compared to 636 students that enrolled in the 2020 fall semester, and those numbers are going to grow in 2022.

This creates a more competitive marketplace driven by greater revenue opportunities, meaning that Esports teams, players, casters, and businesses need to gain an edge to keep up and scale.

So, where does that come from? Esports SEO.Let’s backtrack to my article back in August 2021 and what eUnited’ Matt Pothoff said regarding the importance of SEO:

“eUnited does use elements such as SEO to increase visibility when selling merchandise or showcasing new sponsors. Additionally, we help players revise their stream titles and descriptions for better chances of obtaining new viewership when users are searching for different topics on Twitch”

Now, let’s circle back to the here and now, and an interview I did on Gamactica Portals with  Christian Bishop, Director of Twitch Properties:

“SEO and working through the Google machine is incredibly important,” Bishop said.

“This can very much make or break the success of a website or piece of content. Investing in SEO has been one of the most fruitful and rewarding decisions I have made with my media companies. I would love to see creators do more around SEO to drive traffic to their channels and content.

Discoverability and growth can be hard for a lot of creators, SEO might be one of the angles to break through.”

The fact is, internet marketing and SEO are proving to be differentiators in many layers of the industry, including esports, and making it a huge part of the foundation of your team, career, or your organization is more vital than ever.”

There is no denying this need within the esports landscape yet it remains vastly unutilized by many organizations and teams.

3. Video games (Developers and publishers)

Regardless if you’re a big named studio, an indie team, or a solo developer, video game SEO should be a big part of your strategy, because the industry is seeing a rapid YoY increase in revenue flow.

Take this infographic from Statista, demonstrating the market size (in US dollars, billions) from 2010 to 2021 and it speaks for itself.

The influx of revenue means that it demands a more competitive and fluid marketing approach that reaches an exact target market. Given the number of game genres and considering that markets aren’t always the same, you cannot always approach it broadly. For instance, fans of Animal Crossing may not like your FPS game.

4. The new markets of web3, cryptocurrency, and NFTs

Regardless of where you stand on cryptocurrency or the controversial Non-Fungible Token (NFT), they aren’t going anywhere. If you operate in the gaming and streaming industries they are likely already operating in your space.

So, you can choose to disassociate them completely from your brand or be open to working with businesses that operate with them. Regardless of where you lean, you should understand the niches and network with the brands and names within them – they will, more often than not, overlap in your niche.

Marketing will likely do the same and you have probably already seen it exist, in some fashion, in your favorite game, or on a platform you use (such as Twitter), and with the birth of NFT SEO and Crypto SEO, these sectors are going to be pushing even more efforts into penetrating your market space.

Business owners in these spaces will need to rely more on these methods, as a shiny, new-age-looking website will only take you so far.

The importance of marketing and targeted networking will only continue to scale upwards, and those who either don’t use it or refuse to use it all together will either be making their track to success or a much more difficult path.

Anthony DiMoro is CEO of Gamactica. He can be found on Twitter @AnthonyDiMoro.

Subscribe to the Search Engine Watch newsletter for insights on SEO, the search landscape, search marketing, digital marketing, leadership, podcasts, and more.

Join the conversation with us on LinkedIn and Twitter.