Casie Gillette says: “We have to adapt, adapt and adapt some more. And that is key for me in 2023 and beyond.”

So you say you have to adapt strategies and tactics and adapt everything more rapidly than ever before. So that takes me to strategy because marketers and SEOs will often sit down once every so often, even once a year, to establish the strategy. Does that mean setting a strategy should happen much more often than it used to?

“I think so. I mean, how we run our client programs is we sit down monthly and have an overarching goal of 'what we're trying to achieve this year.’ But things change so quickly, even in the past few weeks, we have GA4 launching, and all of a sudden, we have to adapt how we're reporting on things, measuring, or using GA. We have SGE coming. What does that mean, and how do we adapt? So at the end of the day, a lot of times, the strategy itself doesn't always have to change and that, hey, looks like our goal is we're going to use these marketing channels to get X amount of leads or sales, but the tactics involved in that have to change at a much quicker rate. So like, when we do our program planning, we're sitting down every month to say what’s happened. Here are some of the things we saw. How do we capitalize on something that's working, fix something that maybe isn't, or take a look again? How are we trending toward our goals, and what do we need to do to adapt to that? Now we're sitting down at the end of the year and talking about what we do for this upcoming year. Not anymore. I think we have to move so much quicker than we ever have before.”

And do your clients appreciate that? If you're dealing with clients to a certain degree, they'd like an endpoint to aim for. And that constant iteration might be disconcerting to some clients.

“Yeah, well, I think that's the biggest challenge of managing clients, right, is you're always managing the expectations. And so I think as long as you're showing that you’re working toward this goal and how you're getting there, then you're still showing them that the tactics are changing. And maybe it might not seem as smooth as it is. But at the end of the day, as long as you're showing them results, that's what matters. And I think an example of that is I have a client who sells displays, and they have this page. That's a category page that always performed exceptionally well. But we've seen it trending down, trending down, trending down. And so when we dug into it, like, you know, they're used to us, like doing things like updating pages, like building links, whatever it might be. We had to shift our approach because we found that the search results themselves for all the terms they were showing up for. It shifted to a very product-focused SERP. So if we're showing them why we're changing our strategy, I think it goes a long way versus just telling them to get some consistency. We had to shift from doing some of the normal things we might do. Well, let's focus on Merchant Centre. Let's make sure we're optimizing shopping feeds. Let's make sure we're optimizing images and doing these things to target the SERP now because it is much different than it used to be. So I think as long as you're showing them that you are aiming toward the same goal, the tactics that you're using really shouldn't matter.”

So you said that, to a certain degree, the SERP has been showing more product-centric pages. Is that a trend that you've seen across different industries?

“We work primarily in B2B, but I have some E-com clients. And I think we're all seeing the changes in SERPs over the past however many years, but specifically with my E-com clients, there are so many more products or so many more images. They’re shopping results. Another thing is that a lot of times we have clients who might be doing shopping already. Maybe they're already doing paid search, and we have to determine if it is worth focusing on this from an organic perspective. Or should we use this budget and focus elsewhere? Because we're not going to make any inroads here, right? You already have your paid result. You’re already in the shopping feeds. It's taken over the search result. Should we focus elsewhere? So often, we're reprioritizing what we're doing to ensure we're driving results because there are some battles we can't fight, and we have to make sure we're making the most of the budgets we have for the client to show results. So yeah, I am seeing that specifically for my E-com clients. And again, it just forces us to adjust what we're doing, not just from an SEO perspective, but from an overall marketing perspective.”

You mentioned shopping feeds and opportunities like that. Maybe ten ago or so, I remember working in E-commerce and SEO for different clients. And then it was certainly a legitimate target to be able to try and optimize for phrases such as ‘red dress.’ Would you say that nowadays? Generally, that's beyond the possibility of most businesses.

“Yeah. And that's what we've been seeing. So if I go back to that example, I mentioned how we had to shift that used to rank for very broad display terms. And so that's why that page performed well. And so we’ve gone to a much more product-specific strategy. We're targeting these longer tail terms that are more specific to the products. Even the category pages I mentioned, we started putting some actual products on it right, like top products and the categories themselves, to integrate some of that. I have another E-com client who sells custom stickers and custom labels, and the search results were very competitive with a tonne of products and shopping feeds. We went to a long-tail industry-specific strategy to build their presence because it was so hard to compete. I mean, so many clients and people have been doing that for a long time that it was all right. Some people are going to need to refine their searches. We know someone will refine what they're looking for. So let's target those. We've taken a very long-tail approach to be as specific as possible for a lot of this. We have to make the most of our budget and the client’s money.”

Are clients more receptive to long-tail keyword phrases with little demonstrable search volume? As you would imagine, a few years ago, certainly the client was saying, but I want these terms. I want to rank for this. Is it hard to push back, or are clients better-educated nobodies?

“That's such a great point. Many of my client contacts now have so much more knowledge of SEO that it makes it helpful. A month ago, I had a client say that the search volume for this is deficient. And so it just goes to the education aspect of our receptive clients. And part of our job as marketers is to educate them on why. Let me use that long-tail example. Before I talk about the custom stickers and custom labels, one of the ways that we would show progress for them, aside from just starting to see revenue and starting to see increased traffic, is we would provide them with an overall picture of their keyword visibility. So you might not necessarily be ranking for custom stickers, but you're now ranking for restaurant stickers and custom brewery stickers. And here are all the variations of terms that you're now showing up for. And here's how those pages are generating traffic and revenue. So, again, as long as you can start showing results and show that you’ve had a lot of success and your clients have been very receptive. But yeah, there is that educational element. This doesn't have a tonne of search volume. But if we combine all of these, it will help you build relevance for that broad term. Here's what the search results look like. Anyone who works with clients knows that there's that educational element, and I'm making it sound like it's all sunshine and roses. It's not just picking which battle you're going to fight and move on. I feel like it’s my goal, and my job is to make sure my clients are successful, and I have to be able to prove that.”

So when do you identify the correct time to adapt? And what metrics do you keep an eye on to help steer that decision?

“One of the first things I do every week is sit down and look at each client's analytics. I look through their rankings. I look through their search console. And part of that is for me to understand what is normal. What's the baseline? Because that way, I know that if things change, if I see trends, something changes, it's not a surprise. I'm sure that everyone has experienced this, where you go to pull a monthly report or something, and you don’t know what happened there, and you find out that someone put a noindex tag on this page. So I try to make sure I understand what is normal when it comes to traffic when it comes to revenue and even rankings. I'm not always saying to my client that rankings drive success. But I use that to prove the value of, hey, look like, here's where we're seeing this increase. Here are some of the things that were working, that's working for us. So I keep an eye on those things to determine if I'm seeing changes, if I'm seeing that trend, I was talking about that product earlier, where I was seeing it continuously decrease. Well, I need to know why. So if I suddenly see that my client in position two is now in position twenty, I need to see that this is just the tool. Sometimes there are little flubs in the system. Or was there a significant change to what showing in the search results? And that goes to how you adapt your strategy. Here's another example. So I had a client who used to rank number one for digital marketing. And let me be clear, they had no business ranking for this term. But they did. It drove traffic, not relevant traffic, but it drove tonnes of traffic. Well, sure enough, Google rolled out their new update last June, and we're nowhere to be found. So I'm looking at that, and now, all of a sudden, we're seeing, you know, 10s of 1000s of fewer visits a month. But the question becomes, in the adapting sense, do I need to figure out how to get this back into that top position? Not really, because it wasn't doing anything for me from a business perspective. But it is showing me that these search results changed pretty significantly. There’s not anything I can do here. What I have to do to adapt is focus on those other things that did affect other pages that are important to the site, that are important to the buyer, and that are targeting their buyers. And what do I need to do from there? So, again, I think it's really important to understand those key data points to know what I need to change in what's happening.”

One other question that you asked that I loved was what is normal? And that's a great question to ask clients. And that's a great question about future trends and what the client expects over the coming six to twelve months. And that'll help you identify when to get scared and when to be comfortable with that.

“Yeah, 100%. You touched on such a great point, like asking the client. We have many clients whose seasonality is attached to their business. So just going back to that sticker label company, we write content for them and ask them what's happening in September. And we're asking this in May or June because we need to start putting things out that are going to apply to September. Because all of a sudden, we're going to see search volume start skyrocketing for parking permits and bus things and anything tied to that. So it's always really important to understand that we are doing what is normal to the client so that you can change and can adapt your strategy. So it's good to know that information, and you don't know that unless you talk to them about it.”

How does an SEO adapt their own skill set to stay relevant and up to date for any future activities they have to do?

“One thing that I still pride myself on is that I've been doing this sixteen, seventeen years, and I'm still in it. Aside from just looking and ensuring I understand when talking about the normal and understanding my clients’ baseline, I am still in it. I'm still putting together recommendations or guiding my team on what that should look like. I'm still in the search results every day. I'm listening to podcasts. Because I've learned, and anyone in this space knows, the best part about the industry is the people. People are willing to give information. I'm not out there when things are updating. I’m not sorting through my data to see the changes in what industry. But I will look at how it applies to my clients. What am I seeing from my side? But I think you still have to be in it. And people would say, ‘Well, how do you get into SEO? How do you get good at it? And I always say, ‘Build a site. Build a site and try to rank for something or figure out an industry that you're passionate about, and try to get your website to rank in search results because that's how you're going to figure it out’. I don't think that changes. So you still have to be involved in it. And I was looking and seeing what you are doing and how it impacts things. What happened, and how were the search results impacted? So again, you're just constantly learning. And in a way, it forces you to adapt because you have no choice.”

Great advice. Before I was an SEO manager, I had a few different sites and was tinkering, trying to do other things. And I was surprised how many people within a big agency didn’t have their own websites. And I think it’s sometimes a bit tunnel-visioned in approach to being unable to adapt. So I think having your site certainly gives you that experience so that when something goes wrong, we've probably experienced it before. So you know how to make that other changes soon as possible?

“Yeah, absolutely. When I was in college, there weren't web design classes, so I took an HTML class. And in my first SEO job, I realized I needed to understand this, and I bought HTML for dummies and started building sites on WordPress. But now, it's taught in schools, and people have access to the Internet at such a young age. And they're so much more advanced in that sense. So, if you’re coming out of school or starting into this space, it's much more accessible. There’s almost no excuse not to do that.”

So you've shared what SEO should be doing in 2023. Now, let's talk about what SEOs shouldn't be doing. So what's something that's productive in terms of time but ultimately counterproductive? What's something that SEOs shouldn't be doing in 2023?

“I think a lot of times people chase, it's not the algorithm necessarily, but chasing these keywords, or you're chasing what you're deeming success, but at the end of the day, you have to focus on things that matter. And this isn't necessarily SEO’s fault, either. Because a lot of times, CEOs have certain things they think they should show up for, and they're not seeing it. So it's almost like, all right now, I have to adapt to that. So it just it's easy to get caught up in that stuff. And I think it's so important. We have limited time and we have a limited budget. Regardless of whether you're an agency or whether you're in-house, you have to focus on what matters to the business.

And that's something that SEO as an industry and as a channel has grown, and now everything is so much more integrated. And that's a huge advantage. Like, if you have paid data, you're able to see keywords, and you're able to see ad copy that works. If you're doing email marketing, you can see what subject lines work and what's getting people to click through, and we can integrate that into everything we're doing. So again, avoid getting caught up in these glamour-type things. Focus on what matters to the business itself. And don't worry too much if your page traffic drops because was that doing anything for the business? And that’s easy to overlook. Make sure that you're focused on what matters to the business.”

Casie Gillette, Senior Vice President of digital marketing at Walker Sands, and you can find her over at casiegillette.com.