Nowadays, search engine optimisation is a crucial aspect for the success of any website in digital space. The World Wide Web consists of more than 2 bln individual websites but less than 100,000 of them are generating the majority of traffic. For a website operator who aims for online success, their website must be searchable by Google or other search engines and show up on the first page or even in the top results. This requirement makes Search Engine Optimisation an important consideration to enhance the organic nature of your website to secure high rankings in search engines. In fact, the improving the visibility of your website in search involves significantly more than the aesthetic elements. Although it will not have an immediate impact on your website’s ranking in Google, it will help people in navigating your site with ease when they eventually do view it. It is also important to note that improving SEO takes a lot of time and effort to do it effectively. To support users in these efforts, in the past five years, a collection of tools and handy analytics have been developed by some platforms to guide users through the process of optimising their SEO, making the consumers to identify weaknesses, implement changes and grow search rankings. This article is a discussion on the main features, advantages and functionalities of such platform and how it is employed for optimising your website’s SEO.
Platform Features and Functionalities
I. Understanding the Core Features of SEO Platforms
The most important features present in every SEO platform are the tools for keyword analysis, site audit, backlink tracking and analysis, and competitor analysis. The keyword analysis is going to show the relevant keywords for users’ market, and in the same time the most performant ones. Keywords are the heart of the page’s rankings on the search engines and that’s why they matter so much. A site audit will give users a proof of the website’s health and will show where the technical issues pop up. Backlinks are good both for traffic and for relevance in search engines algorithms, so a backlink tracking tool will help users monitor and enchase this area. Competitor analysis will offer users some feedback on how certain competitors are doing and what improvements could be made on their own websites to better their position.
II. The Importance of DataDriven Insights
Datadriven insight: the other important feature of SEO platforms are the insights they can generate from the data. The platforms are able to accumulate and analyse vast amounts of data they produce, and turn it into useable information that the users employ to boost their websites’ rankings. Datadriven insight helps reveal patterns and trends, such as which keywords are driving the most traffic, or which pages have a greater chance of people leaving without viewing other pages (‘bounce rate’). These insights are pivotal for SEO agents to peer into the intricacies of their business, to identify the underperforming pages and evaluate their strategies, such as content creation, and decide where best to focus their SEO efforts. In addition, datadriven insights enable SEO agents to track the impact of SEO campaigns, helping them measure the return on investment (ROI) that can enable the necessary adjustments. This focus on data means SEO strategies are not based on guesswork.
III. Integrating SEO Platforms with Other Digital Marketing Tools
It is also important that an SEO solution integrates with other common tools that marketers use, such as Google Analytics, content management systems (CMS), and social media platforms. This would enable the user to view their marketing performance across different channels in a unified way, promoting synergy between SEO and other marketing activities – understanding how organic search is performing in the context of a marketer’s broader objectives. An example of this would be an integration with Google Analytics, granting deep insights into how their organic search traffic is converting into leads or sales. Other examples include direct integrations with CMS systems such as WordPress which would allow users to implement SEO recommendations in the context of their content management workflow – while avoiding mistakes. Finally, combining data from different systems and sources into a single reporting dashboard could enable easier monitoring and management of online properties.
IV. User Experience and Accessibility
The other crucial feature of a good SEO platform is its UX/UAC. Such platforms are meant to be userfriendly, considering that they serve both novices and SEO experts. It’s recommended that these platforms have an intuitive user interface, with the capability to guide users through the processes step by step and provide information on what has to be done, when and how, with tips. Most platforms include tutorials, webinars and in some cases, offline courses to help improve their users’ fundamental knowledge of SEO principles. Furthermore, good UX/UAC also factors in accessibility, which could take form of users having access to SEO tools in different languages and having these tools installed in various electronic devices, including mobile phones, tablets and even smart watches, which helps to bring SEO closer to users, as they can access them on the go.
V. Customizable Reporting and Analytics
Many SEO platforms also offer customisable reporting options, where users can generate reports catered to their specific needs. This includes reporting on monthly SEO performance to stakeholders, such as reporting on latent semantic indexing (LSI) keywords, or a high level overview export of meta titles, descriptions and the total Word Count on pages where internal links are being built out for internal use. Customisable reporting allows users to choose what metrics are most important to them, and export that data as reports in charts, graphs or tables for visual clarity. Additional convenience comes with having the data directly available on customisable analytics dashboards that allow users to track live key performance indicators (KPIs).
VI. The Role of AI and Machine Learning in Modern SEO Platforms
As time goes on, more and more AI and machine learning will inevitably be developed and incorporated into our beloved piece of SEO software. In the past, it has been difficult to cull through mountains of data manually, widely and expeditiously. By pairing AI into machine learning capacities at our fingertips, these mountains of data can be effortlessly broken down, and the trends spotted and predictions made, all of which can be utilised to enhance the SEO process. Pictures courtesy of public domainFor instance, nowadays, keyword rankings are a crucial metric that indicates the performance of our websites. Some of the better SEO softwares even delve into machine learning techniques when it predicts future ranking potential. Thus, armed with this sophisticated metric, users could constantly test the ranking fluctuations of the keywords in mind, before initiating any changes to our website structures and content. Imagine users could simulate several distinctive scenarios and its ranking consequences in advance, thus saving much headache and time! Aside from these intelligent functionaries, AI can also aid us in automating and expediting the more arduous procedures that we have to endure on a daily basis. In the past, having to bore ourselves into researching more keywords and tweaking content in the same old fashion might be more than tolerable, but not any longer. Regrettably, a part of us is only human and bound to commit errors and mistakes from time to time.
