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A sales funnel—also known as a conversion funnel or a marketing funnel—is basically a visual representation of the different stages a prospect goes through before converting. Within the context of search engine optimization, converting could be anything from purchasing a product to signing up for a newsletter to simply accessing a specific page on your site. Most funnels consist of some version of the following stages: 

• Awareness. People at this stage may or may not know about your company. This is where the majority of your prospects start and where most will likely remain. 
• Interest. These prospects are intrigued but not necessarily hooked just yet. They’ve probably spent a bit of time on your website looking at what you have to offer. 
• Consideration. People at this stage are doing their research into both your company and its competitors in an effort to decide who to choose. 
• Decision. The tipping point. These prospects are on the verge of converting.
• Conversion. The people at this stage have done what you wanted them to do, but you aren’t finished yet. Now you need to put time and effort into nurturing a relationship with those customers in order to keep them loyal—and maybe inspire them to tell their friends and colleagues about your business, too. 

There was a time when search engine optimization(SEO) was all about gaming the algorithm. A time when keyword density and backlinks were the exclusive determining factors in where one appeared on the search engine results page(SERP). But that was decades ago. 

Modern SEO is different. It’s less algorithm-focused and more user-focused. Keywords are still important, certainly—but not more important than creating relevant, high-quality content. 

The problem is that too many so-called SEO agencies ignore this shift. They obsess over pointless metrics like what percentage of a blog post consists of primary and secondary keywords. And in the process, they ignore content quality. 

To say that search engine optimization (SEO) has changed a great deal over the past several years would be putting it lightly.  Today’s SEO landscape is nearly unrecognizable compared to what it looked like in 2018. And even now, it still continues to change. 

Here are a few tips to help you keep pace. 

Put the User Experience First

We’re just about rounding on the one-year anniversary of Google’s Core Web Vitals Update. Also known as the Google Page Experience Update, Core Web Vitals officially establish a website’s user experience as a ranking factor.  If you haven’t already started prioritizing things like interactivity, load time, and ease of use by now, it’s past time you do so. 

Or is it Time to Move to Greener Pastures? 

Facebook has had a bit of a rough year. 

The Facebook Papers first released by The Wall Street Journal (and recently made public by Gizmodo) revealed a company crippled by its own success. An organization that had become far too bloated, struggling under a management structure completely unsuited for its size. A business defined by questionable business ethics and poor technology management. 

Just a day after The Facebook Papers were released, the social network suffered one of its worst outages in history, which CNBC reported may have cost upwards of $100 million.