In the past year, a ton of websites have lost significant traffic from Google…but for good reason. HubSpot’s blog is one of the best and most trusted resources for all things marketing and sales. Nonetheless, they’ve seen an 80 percent drop in organic traffic from Google since March of 2024. They weren’t the only victims of Google’s algorithm change. Ecommerce sites, news publishers, and others saw double-digit declines in search traffic.
In that same time span of time, Artifact Branding & Marketing has seen our client’s websites gain 25 to 40 percent in organic traffic. So what’s the deal here?
The simplified answer is this: Companies need to publish content that is squarely in their area of expertise. Google and other search engines know a LOT about what your company does and who you serve — and that information defines search engines’ perceptions of what your site has topical authority on.
How to Protect the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of Your Website
Too many businesses (like HubSpot) publish what’s referred to as “SEO-first content” that’s meant to game the search engines to show up higher in results. But search engine algorithms are smart enough now to recognize that “content-for-robots” kind of content. What search engines want to serve in results is helpful content written for people.
So, how can you protect and even grow search traffic to your website? Here are some tips on the non-technical side of SEO that can put you ahead of your competition.
1. Publish Content for Humans
The key insight here for your content strategy is pretty simple: publish valuable content
written to help people, not to cheat search engine algorithms. That being said, you still need to abide by some key rules so search engines know you’re not cheating. And this goes back to topical authority.
2. Stay in Your Area of Expertise
The thing HubSpot did wrong was overreaching with their content. Instead of sticking to what they know, are good at, and are known for, they branched out into topics unrelated to their business in an attempt to get more website traffic. They published content on famous quotes, how to write a resignation letter, cover letter examples and other topics that have no correlation to their area of expertise.
Mark Twain, or somebody, once said, “Write what you know.” While that’s probably not great advice for aspiring novelists, it does hold true here. If you’re truly creating content to serve your specific audience, you will inevitably stay within a certain set of topics related to your expertise and the offerings your business provides. Aim to go deep, not wide, with your content.
3. Provide Real Insights and Perspectives
The thing HubSpot did wrong was overreaching with their content. Instead of sticking to what they know, are good at, and are known for, they branched out into topics unrelated to their business in an attempt to get more website traffic. They published content on famous quotes, how to write a resignation letter, cover letter examples and other topics that have no correlation to their area of expertise.
Mark Twain, or somebody, once said, “Write what you know.” While that’s probably not great advice for aspiring novelists, it does hold true here. If you’re truly creating content to serve your specific audience, you will inevitably stay within a certain set of topics related to your expertise and the offerings your business provides. Aim to go deep, not wide, with your content.
The Big Picture
To rank competitively on Google, your website needs to offer new information that’s not already in their dataset. Doing so requires content with personal perspective and original insights. Publishing general consensus content will continue to become less and less effective. If you want your business to stand out and appeal to your target audience, you shouldn’t be publishing boring stuff other people have already said anyway!
This is why if you’re sticking to the rule of presenting valuable content that serves the needs of real people, you’re probably going to be just fine.
Take Action to Improve Your Website's SEO
Knowing this information about the latest in SEO is one thing, but actually executing it is another. At Artifact, we help clients navigate the ever-changing waters of content marketing and SEO because we want to help small business owners and marketing leaders succeed. And by succeed, I mean sustainably grow their sales pipeline and increase revenue.
I could tell you a list of benefits you can get by working with us on your branding, website, content marketing, and SEO. But instead, I’ll give you some real results our clients have achieved:
- Generated over $100 million in pipeline revenue in the span of one year
- Tripled the amount of traffic to their website
- Increased number of leads from their website by 4x
- Secured the #1 position in search engine results in a very competitive industry
- Attracted and recruited top industry talent after struggling to do so with their previous website
- Closed a deal for a multi-million dollar acquisition
