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We understand the importance of a remarkable strategy needed while building the online presence of a business. To take this a step further, we interviewed the renowned Cyrus Shepard. Cyrus is well known for his experience as an SEO lead at Moz.com, where he was also a publisher of remarkable content. He implemented his practice and grew to become the founder of Zippy, a company that works in building highly qualified traffic through both SEO and content marketing. Known for his motto of ‘thinking about your audience first, always,’ Cyrus frequently writes blogs that educate his audience with the latest trends in the world of digital marketing as well. Our team at Blurbpoint.com undertook the chance of meeting with the renowned author of The Moz Blog and Above the Fold, to build communication, we’d remember for a lifetime. Flattered by the avail of his time, we would like to take this opportunity to thank speaker and marketing evangelist, Cyrus Shepard, for giving us this opportunity. In this particular interview, we see Vishal Parmar bring upon questions that allow you to gain a deeper understanding of the world of digital marketing with the proficient presence of Cyrus Shepard.
# 1 SEO HACK TO RANK HIGHER IN 2020
I believe that to simply have a smooth user engagement brings in the traffic through Google in 2020. This indicates acquiring an above-average click-through rate (CTR, regardless if this is an actual ranking signal or not) and having the best on-page engagement. It also leads us to focus on many things like time-on-site, dwell time, lower bounce rate, etc. While we don’t know how, if, or what Google measures as a proxy for user engagement, the aim should be to do anything to refrain your user from returning to the search result and choosing another site for their answer. Sites that satisfy the user with their content are the best ones that typically win over and over again.
3 SEO MYTHS EVERY BUSINESS SHOULD AVOID
I think there’s a trend amongst many business owners nowadays, I think it’s a myth that I often hear from business owners “We should rank because we’re the best _____ in the market.” They feel they deserve to rank because their product/service is better than others. Fair enough. But the question arises, “Is their website experience the best?”, “Do they add value to their business through their website and is communicated to their audience with ease?” Many are typically caught up in their myth-making process about their business, they fail to see the experience through their visitor’s eyes.
3 ULTIMATE SEO MISTAKES EVERY BUSINESS SHOULD AVOID
Three big—albeit common—mistakes I regularly see businesses make are:
1) Not updating their stale content regularly enough.
2) Not aggressively pursuing link building (especially for less-visible businesses).
3) Not comparing themselves to the competition to make sure they are delivering the absolute “best” results for the searcher.
Honestly, I am tempted to avoid this question, simply because I don’t have a good answer. What I do believe and know that some businesses are going to thrive based on their vertical (telecommuting, home exercise, social media, etc) while others are going to suffer (travel, some shopping sites, sports, etc.) And for the vast majority of businesses, there’s not much to do about it until the storm passes. So in the broader picture, now, businesses have 2 choices: Pivot into a vertical with higher demand, or wait for the storm to pass.
I know someone in the travel industry who is simply producing content for where he thinks the business will be a year from now. Fortunately, he has the resources to wait it out. Others may have to shift their business model entirely.
HOW E-COMMERCE AS AN INDUSTRY WILL CHANGE ONCE WE ARE THROUGH COVID-19 CRISIS AND HOW ONE SHOULD BE PREPARED FOR IT
Honestly, with this global change, people are forming new habits during this lockdown period which I believe will have long-lasting effects on e-Commerce. More people will work from home, permanently. Online shopping will continue to replace brick-and-mortar retail on a huge page. Meanwhile, overall spending will decrease as the global recession kicks in. In all, a lot of new opportunities we never considered are going to pop up in the next couple of years.
THINGS TO CONSIDER WHILE MIGRATE MULTIPLE DOMAINS TO ONE DOMAIN
First of all, my recommendation is to migrate one domain at a time. This way, you can troubleshoot better when things go wrong. Also, the best way to guarantee success is to change nothing during the migration except the URL. Domain migrations aren’t the best time to go for rebranding, redesigning the website or make some major updates in the content. Change things slowly and precisely. Any additional changes can increase the risk of things going sour with Google.
HOW WAS YOUR JOURNEY SO FAR IN SEO
I got into SEO by accident. I was building websites and wanted to learn how to market them. Falling in love with SEO was natural and soon shifted my focus from building sites to full-time SEO. After 10 years, I’m still not bored!
HOW DID YOU MANAGE WORK DURING WORK FROM HOME?
Since 2016 I’ve been working from home, the recent transition hasn’t been challenging. The only minor inconvenience is I was accustomed to spending the first couple of hours each morning in a coffee shop. Now I spend that same time at home so it’s a bit more monotonous.
WHAT SEO BEGINNERS SHOULD DO TO BECOME AN SEO MASTERMIND LIKE YOU
SEO is awesome because it allows anyone in the world to build sites that you can rank and—if you wish—monetize. And that’s the best way to learn. Simply build sites and rank them. If your income depends on it, this is a highly motivating factor. Additionally, if you want to be good there’s a learning/teaching aspect to it. I like to read everything, including patents that Bill Slawski often writes about including the blog about SEO for others to solidify my learnings.
YOUR TOP 3 RULES FOR SUCCESS
1. Start work early
2. Stay off social media
3. Exercise, meditate and eat right
