Searchlite – Steal Our Slack vs. Email Policy for Optimal Comms

This month’s Searchlite intro was written by Sr. SEO Analyst, Skye Sonnega

Hi search marketing friends!

It’s not March in Minnesota without at least one more snow storm. I’m seeing 60’s on the forecast for next week, it only goes up from here, folks!

This month we have a new and improved newsletter. Over the past few months our team has made a conscious effort to document and share learnings from client projects, internal projects, readings, and more. You may be seeing more of our own articles sprinkled throughout these newsletters and on our LinkedIn! We share a lot of cool insights internally, so now it’s time we share them with you.

In this edition of Searchlite, we’ve got a case study on our latest team communication policy, a guide on content refreshing, and much more, all written by Uproerians. Let’s dive in!

Steal Our Slack vs. Email Policy for Optimal Team Communications

by Dave Sewich, Sr. SEO Manager

Key Takeaways:

• Instant messaging tools like Slack are vital real-time collaboration and communication, especially in today’s hybrid work environment
• However, if we use these tools in an undisciplined way, we run the risk of letting them eat away at our productivity, focus, and wellbeing
• By implementing a framework for how to use our communication tools, we can take advantage of the good these tools can bring us while avoiding common pitfalls

Why it Matters
When work gets busy, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that, as knowledge workers, we make our living from the output of our minds. While there’s huge upside to using tools like Slack and email, defaulting to using Slack for everything and doing so in an unstructured way has at times left us feeling scattered, distracted, and burnt out. We were able to reign in Slack by using a decision-making framework to help us know when something can be a Slack message or would be better sent as an email.

On top of that, we started implementing best practices to help reduce the number of overall messages we were sending. While this solution won’t be the right fit for every team, we would encourage everyone to at least be intentional about how they do internal comms.

Key Takeaways

• Consistently create high-quality content and optimize it for search engines to maintain a resilient SEO strategy.
• Adapt to algorithm changes by monitoring and assessing industry trends and understanding the history of search engine algorithm updates.
• Commit to creating valuable content that provides value to your target audience, demonstrates topical authority, and maintains high search engine rankings and a positive user experience.

Why it Matters
This article emphasizes the importance of consistently creating high-quality content and optimizing it for search engines to maintain a resilient SEO strategy that can endure any algorithm update. It highlights the need to adapt to algorithm changes by monitoring and assessing industry trends, and the value of understanding the history of search engine algorithm updates to predict and prepare for future changes. The article stresses the importance of committing to creating valuable content that provides value to your target audience and demonstrates topical authority on the subject matter to maintain high search engine rankings and a positive user experience.

Content Refresh Examples (& How to Identify Them)

By Skye Sonnega, Sr. SEO Analyst

Key Takeaways

• Content refreshing is a low hanging fruit opportunity for giving existing content on your site a performance boost.
• Content refreshing doesn’t only consist of copy editing. Optimizing for conversions, seasonality, structure, and more are all fair game tactics.
• Organize your content refresh strategy by priority and establish a cadence that aligns with your content production schedule.

Why it Matters
Producing content isn’t just about hitting publish and crossing your fingers. Recent studies found that content marketers are updating pieces of content 2-3 times a year. Search engine algorithms are changing rapidly, so consistently revisiting your web content and finding small areas for improvement will ensure it has its best shot at performing.

Balancing Automation & Expertise in Keyword Research

By Ben Bjerken, Sr. SEO Analyst
 

Key Takeaways

• Automated tools are helpful for keyword research, but SEO professionals should avoid relying on them for all of their insights because they can provide misleading data.
• Automated keyword research tools provide a high-level overview of keyword data. Zoomed out, this data can obscure the relevant keyword trends that should inform an SEO strategy.
• Avoid accepting an automated tool’s insights at face value. Instead, use manual research to uncover the underlying meaning behind the data.

Why it Matters
SEO professionals frequently use automated tools to do the heavy lifting for keyword research; however, these tools are fallible. Thus, it is critical to use manual research to uncover underlying trends and inaccuracies hidden within the data provided by automated tools. SEO professionals must apply context to a tool’s findings, and this process requires a balance between automation and their own SEO expertise.

Using Fiverr to Create Content? Here's Why You Shouldn't

By Brenna Miles, Content Specialist

Key Takeaways

• While most of the conversations revolve around cost when not using services like Fiverr, it shouldn’t be the sole focus. Cost of content isn’t always indicative of its quality.
• However, there are other reasons to avoid freelance marketplaces. For example, the help you source from Fiverr may not truly understand your target audience. There’s also a potential for serious plagiarism that can wreak havoc on your content strategy.
• While these reasons are important, there’s one that trumps them all: Outsourcing content to Fiverr and other services often results in content development siloes.

Why it Matters
Many businesses and agencies alike find themselves using services like Fiverr when they need budget-friendly or time-sensitive content. However, using these services often results in a siloed and transactional approach to content development. Content is sourced in a piecemeal fashion without consideration for the search strategy, resulting in content that just doesn’t deliver results. The solution? A holistic approach that you won’t find via Fiverr.

Interesting Reads

• Unlearning SEO: SEO Mirages

• Regular Old Intelligence is Sufficient -- Even Lovely