It’s that time of year again, and Search Engine Land has released a new version of its SEO Periodic Table, much like the Email Marketing Periodic Table we discussed last month.

The infographic, laid out like the scientific periodic table of elements, is stuffed full of useful SEO tips to help guide any search engine optimization program.

The main table is divided into six sections that can have a positive impact on a site’s SEO:

• Content
• Architecture
• HTML
• Reputation
• Links
• User

Let’s unpack the SEO tips included in each section.

Email marketing is a popular tactic with B2B marketers – 81% use email to reach their target audiences. And it’s equally popular on the receiving end – 86% of business professionals prefer email for business communications.

But just because everybody’s doing email marketing, doesn’t mean they’re doing it well. And that’s where Martech’s Email Marketing Periodic Table comes in. Like the SEO Periodic Table from MarTech’s sister publication, Search Engine Land (which we’ve written about before), the Email Marketing Periodic Table breaks down the most important factors for success.

Keys to Success

The easy-to-understand bites of information are divided into two overarching categories: Optimization and Deliverability.

So, your company has been active in making sure your site is well ranked on Google through search engine optimization, but you’re starting to see lots of competitors’ ads positioned above your organic listings.

Should you give in and start buying pay-per-click ads on Google?

Let’s first take a look at the changing landscape.

More Competition for Page 1 Rankings

Over time, Google has redesigned and introduced new features on its search engine to continue improving the amount of time used on the site and number of people finding it to be their go-to resource for everything. At the same time, it’s repositioned and tried various ways to display Google Adwords, to generate the best click-through rates and gain new accounts.

When Google first introduced paid ads to its search engine, there wasn’t much reason to consider paying for placement. The ads were positioned to the right of organic listings, making it easy for users to discern paid ads vs. earned listings and the result was that few people clicked on those ads.

Google announced this week that it’s postponing the roll-out of its previously announced page experience algorithm update from May to mid-June. It said the roll-out would happen gradually and be completed in August.

This provides a little breathing room for you to get your website’s page experience in good shape. As a first step, here’s the information you need to know.

Core Web Vitals

What Google has termed as Core Web Vitals are at the center of the upcoming page experience update. This comprises three measurements: Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay and Cumulative Layout Shift. We’ll take these one at a time.

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) represents how quickly your website loads. Unlike First Contentful Paint, which you may have heard of and which measures when the first element of your web page loads, LCP measures when the largest element on a page loads. To get a passing grade from Google, a web page’s LCP needs to measure less than 2.5 seconds. According to Google, a fast LCP reassures a site visitor that the page is “useful”.

2020 was a tough year for manufacturers. Covid-19 and the resulting economic slowdown put a dent in business for many companies.

Corporate Optimism Grows

But 2021 looks to be a better year, at least according to the results of MNI’s 2021 Survey of Manufacturers. According to the report, 47% of respondents expect business to return to normal this year, while 77% are somewhat to very optimistic about 2021 business conditions.

Other key take-aways include:

• 40% are planning or considering a facility expansion or upgrade
• 62% plan to source more domestic suppliers
• 62% expect to increase production

The most recent NAM Manufacturer’s Outlook Survey backs up those findings, with 88% of NAM respondents either somewhat or very optimistic about the future. On average, NAM respondents also said they expect sales and production to both grow 4.9% by the beginning of 2022.

Google organic search is the #1 resource used to find industrial products and services. Imagine if your website appeared on Page 1 of Google for high-value keywords to your business. How much website traffic and how many more additional business leads could you expect? What’s the magic number?

If you don’t employ search engine optimization (SEO) to position your website on Page 1 of Google organic search, your website AND your company are missing out on a lot of site traffic and new business leads.

How do we know that? It’s all in the numbers.  

Companies Using SEO Report Better Results

Pilot Fish tracks the website traffic and leads of its SEO clients and is able to compare that to companies that don’t employ SEO.

Here’s what we know from that research:

1. Companies that are committed to SEO are ranking on Page 1 of Google search for a broad array of keywords that will help prospective customers find them.
2. Those Page 1 rankings on Google search are generating traffic to our clients’ sites. That traffic is highly qualified, based on the keyword phrases used to reach those sites and the number of leads our clients receive from having higher website traffic.
3. Companies that do not use SEO oftentimes don’t give credence to the ability of their websites to generate a significant number of leads because it doesn’t happen now.
4. Well-optimized websites get a majority of their traffic from one source: Google organic search.
5. Companies that have succeeded with SEO are willing to attest that it works.

How much traffic are they generating?