Sit still. Did you feel that?

That is the traditional SEO ground shifting beneath your feet.

The way that your company gets ranked on the first page of Google or Bing has significantly changed in the past 2-4 years.

Are you seeing it?

I started to notice it about a year before I sold my company in 2017. We had relied on creating the best, most useful content in our industry to get found and generate leads (mainly via organic search traffic).

I saw firsthand how tactics and pillar SEO practices that worked a few years ago are no longer as effective.

Companies with larger budgets were dumping content into the market.
It took longer for our blog posts to get ranked.
Search, as a percentage of our traffic, plateaued.

In this episode, I'm going to reveal how small marketing teams can compete in this new SEO world.

SEO Is Not A One-Size-Fits-All Game

The first thing you need to know is that SEO is different in different markets.

Your market exists on a spectrum.

On one end, you have low-density markets where there is little digital content being published.

On the other end, you have very crowded markets, like marketing, where thousands of new content assets, like blog posts, infographics, videos, and podcasts, are being published daily.

What Matters Most To Increase Search Engine Rankings

Let's be clear about one thing. Regardless of where your business falls on this spectrum, you still need to produce the best, most compelling and helpful content in your market.

Next, identify where your industry falls on the spectrum. Are you in a crowded market or are few companies taking advantage of digital channels (this is very rare these days)?

If you are in a less dense market, you can still focus on the technical on-page aspects of SEO to get ranked. Marketers love this because it is very much within their control.

As you move across the spectrum, things get a little more complicated.

The technical side of SEO still matters, but it alone won't get you on the first few SERPs (search engine results pages).

So, what is the major driver in SEO for crowded markets?

The answer is your relationships and reputation.

You need to get people to link to your articles from their blog posts and other digital publications. Getting people to link to your resource involves:

Nurturing Relationships
Outreach
Persuasion
Persistence
Rejection

In my experience, most marketers hate this part. They like pulling the levers behind the scenes to drive traffic and bring in leads.

This key SEO skill resembles more of a sales role and that is not what most digital marketers signed up for.

How To Get Ranked In Search Engines In a Crowded Market

Since you are most likely in an increasingly competitive market, I want to share three simple tips for improving your search engine ranking.

Warning: While three steps sound simple, following the advice below actually takes a lot of time, skills, and effort. You are not going to get it right the first few times you work this system.

Three SEO Tips For Boosting Your Search Engine Ranking in a Crowded Market

Step 1) Create better, more comprehensive and helpful content than everyone else out there. This involves research into what is ranking today and what is being shared.

Step 2) Leverage your relationships, reputation, and quality of your content to get people to share and link to your blog.

Step 3) Take care of the basics, like your on-page SEO.

Like most digital marketing tactics, search engine marketing is changing.

One of my favorite ways for small marketing teams to leapfrog their competition is to recognize these shifts sooner and make adjustments to capture more traffic, leads, and market share.