In this 3rd session of our online COVID-19 Q & A series, we've got WordStream's in-house SEO expert, Gordon Donnelly teed up with content tips you can't miss. He will: • Show you how COVID-19 has impacted SEO. • Provide the latest on SEO best practices. • Release insider tips he uses for WordStream that you can use for your business. Search traffic has been strongly impacted by the pandemic. Use these tips to improve your organic rankings and increase qualified traffic to your site.

1. LIVE WEBINAR
© Copyright 2017 WordStream, Inc. All rights reserved.
COVID-19 + SEO: Not
Much Has Changed
(and That’s a Good
Thing!)

2. | Confidential 2
Gordon Donnelly
A Bit About Me
• Senior SEO Specialist
@WordStream
• Regularly assist with client
work on software/agency
side
• Falmouth, MA resident

3. 3| Confidential
Myth: COVID-19 has
fundamentally changed
the way businesses
should approach SEO

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“Search behavior drastically changed as a result
of the coronavirus, and it will continue to do so
over the coming weeks and months with ‘at
home’ keyword modifiers seeing a material rise.”

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“Consumerism has also seen a large
demand shift from desire-based purchases
to people buying what they deem as
essential for overall health and fitness.”

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“Every site should have a
page about COVID-19.”

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“You should be finding
new and emerging topics
to create content
around.”

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Why does this narrative matter?

9. 9| Confidential
9 Long-Term, Pandemic-Agnostic
Strategies to Increase Authority, Rank
Higher, and Scale Revenue Through
Qualified Organic Traffic Growth

10. | Confidential 10
1. Optimize Your Meta Tags!
• Find voluminous
keywords with high intent
to your product or
services.
• Optimize your core pages
for these keywords.

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2. Set Up Search Console
• Claim your site in Search
Console
• Sync to Analytics
• Submit your sitemap
(yoursite.com/sitemap.x
ml)

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3. Set Up Open Graph Tags
• Run a quick test to see if
your core pages “populate”
on social media
• Run a crawl to see where OG
tags are missing
• Configure in your CMS

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4. Compress your images (all of them!)
• Pull your hero images,
product images, and/or
service page images
• Run them through
tinypng.com
• Re-upload to your CMS
• (or use a plugin!)

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5. Link Building: Unlinked Mentions
• Get a free trial of Ahrefs.
• Search for your brand name in
Content Explorer.
• Sort by Domain Rating.
• Highlight all results that don’t
link back to your websites.
• Reach out to these publishers.

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6. Link Building: Partnerships
• Find a partner whose
audience would find your
content “useful,” and who
has a similar (or higher)
Domain Rating.
• Conduct aggressive (not
excessive!) link sharing and
guest posting).

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7. Beef Up Your Product Pages
• Conduct basic keyword
research for terms with the
highest intent to your
products or services.
• Implement long-form body
copy on your product and
services pages.

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8. Eliminate Orphan Pages
• Run a site crawl using a free
trial from Ahrefs or
SEMrush.
• Identify pages with no
internal links.
• Create internal links to
business-valuable pages
(+beef up content).

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9. Create an aggressive content strategy around
long-tail, informational variants
• Use a keyword research tool
to find long-tail,
informational, high-volume
keywords related to your
products and services.
• Hire an intern.
• Create min. 3 posts per
week.

19. 19| Confidential
Q&A!

20. © Copyright 2019 WordStream, Inc. All rights reserved.
Thank you!