Every year Laura Haldane catches up with Danny Layzell from AzoNetwork to discuss the takeawys of that year’s State of the Marketing survey. We’ll summarise some of those discussions in blog form for anyone who wasn’t able to attend- first up is SEO.

This year Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has been named the number one priority for leading companies across the science, engineering and healthcare industries for the year 2023, according to AZoNetwork’s ‘The State of Scientific Marketing’ Report.

However, despite 66% of the 140 companies surveyed listing this as their main focus, 47% also agreed that this was the area they found most challenging. So, what are the best strategies for SEO that scientific companies should be using?

What is Search Engine Optimisation?

SEO is typically used by companies to organically rank as high up on search engine pages, such as Google, Bing etc. as possible, using key search terms or keywords to ensure they’re reaching the reach audience.

The most difficult aspect of SEO is its ever-changing nature. Whether it be adapting algorithms or the increasing presence of AI, companies can struggle to stay up to date and relevant.

Nevertheless, if you put in the required effort and invest your resources, the long-term rewards can be really successful.

What are the most effective SEO strategies?

Danny has identified E-A-T as the main formula a company may implement in their content to achieve this success. It refers to:

Expertise can be shown using author profiles on your content. It gives the opportunity for a company to highlight how any contributors or speakers in your content are expert in their fields, through their qualifications or experience.

When search engines are looking for a brand’s reputation of information, they rely on sources that don’t come from the company directly. Companies can benefit significantly through the opinion of external authorities, e.g. reviews or social media mentions by other organisations or experts within your industry.

The security and credibility of a company online is equally as important. Having aspects such as an SSL certificate on your website or positive customer service reviews can immediately authenticate your online presence to anybody clicking on your site.

The most successful companies are those putting out content in a way that showcases their E-A-T while still being relevant and engaging for their target audience!

Danny Layzell, Azo Networks

This is perfect for any content-focused websites. A single ‘pillar’ page acts as the main hub for the central topic, with multiple, related content pages linking back to the pillar page. Companies can showcase an intentional, authoritative approach to content creation by making it not only easy for the user to navigate, but also for search engine machines to navigate as well.

Why is SEO valuable for a company?

The difference for a company landing on page one or page two can be crucial in a Google search.

Only 0.83% of user clicks are attributed to websites on page two of Google, meaning companies have a less than 1% chance of gaining organic traffic on their site if they end up here compared to an average of 27.6% clicks received by the primary result on page one alone!

If you’re a marketer who finds SEO particularly challenging or are wanting to learn more, AZoNetwork offer a free audit to help companies fully take advantage of using SEO to optimise their marketing strategy.

Click here to read ‘The State of Scientific Marketing Survey 2023’ in full or watch the webinar in full.