Ranking #1 is Pointless – Here’s Why Your SEO Goal is Leads, Not Rankings

Every SEO conversation starts with "rankings."

Every SEO KPI starts with "#1."

But here's the thing.

Both of those are wrong.

Your only goal in SEO is new leads and sales. So in that sense, ranking #1 is pointless.

Ranking first feels nice, but if you're focusing just on Rank 1, you're ignoring a huge part of the customer acquisition process.

Generating leads – and consequently revenue – requires a different approach.

It forces you to re-think little details, like how you're optimizing title tags. And it forces you to re-think big details, like how your team is organized.

The end result, though, is that you can often drive more leads and sales without ranking in the first position, for less money and time spent.

We'll look at why that is, and what three things you can do to land as many leads as possible.

Do Rankings Still Matter?

Yes and no.

Ranking #1 is obviously great. There are some solid theories on how to outfox the competition.

But it just isn't always possible. And it's becoming less important over time.

Your goal isn't just ranks and clicks after all. It's leads and sales.

So that often requires a "long and indirect way of thinking." Increasing traffic will increase leads, but that doesn't mean it's the most efficient way to do so.

SEO is just one piece of the puzzle. If you want to make your marketing strategy the best it can be, you'll want to ditch the siloed approach and divide your efforts equally among all parts of your campaign.

The metric that should reign supreme is Cost Per Sale (or acquisition).

What's the amount that you paid for each sale? How many dollars did it take you to get one sale?

This one single metric tells you (almost) everything you need to know about how your campaigns are performing. Regardless if we're talking about SEO or PPC.

Cost Per Sale helps you set the appropriate context, too.

For example, is a $30 cost per click expensive? Maybe. Depends on who you're trying to reach and what you're selling.

Let's you're considering splashing the cash on a new ad campaign for work Crocs (yes, those exist).

If these things retail for $30-50 bucks already, you can't afford a single click worth $30. It's simple math. And you won't have enough left-over profitability to reinvest in other areas.

However, if your average order value is a few thousand bucks for each new client, that $30 CPC might barely make a dent.

ROI > cost per click, click-through rate, and every other metric above.

Regardless of if you run a B2B company or an online store, your goal isn't just to "rank #1." Or even have the top AdWords spot.

Your goal is to maximize the amount of money you're driving from search. And that typically involves a bunch of different things working together, like using featured snippets or showing up in directory listings to increase your odds at getting the most clicks.

Ranking in the first position on Google is obviously great.

If you can do it. And if it doesn't require a tremendous amount of resources that could be better used elsewhere to give you the same (if not better) results for the money.

It's about identifying the opportunity cost.

And then determining if it can be put to better use in these other areas.

How to Maximize SEO Leads (Not Rankings)

Now, how can you generate leads?

What will make prospective consumers click on your link? How can you customize your ad and landing page to increase the chance that visitors will convert?

Here are three things you can do to turn web surfers with a mild interest in your services into paying customers.

1. Improve Your CTR

Your paid click-through rate has a direct impact on conversions.

Generally speaking, the better the CTR the better the conversion rates you'll see.

You can start by benchmarking each type against the industry to see where you should be (vs. where you are right now).

In general, average search ad CTR is clocking in at about 1.91 percent, and you can expect display ad CTR to fall somewhere near 0.35 percent.

CTR is becoming a big deal for organic search, too.

Studies have started to show that you can 'steal' traffic away from people ranking above you simply by having a more clickable title tag and description.

Convert more SERP clicks than the person above you, and Google might even swap your two positions.

So instead of over-optimizing your page meta data for keywords, you can focus on maximizing clicks.

Next up, we'll look at the oldest trick in the book to turn a passerby into a clicking customer: the catchy headline.

2. Write a Better Headline

If the word "clickbait" makes you feel like you've fallen short of your purpose in life, don't think of it as clickbait!

The more intriguing your headline is, the more impossible it will be for potential leads to resist clicking it. It's not witchcraft and it's not rocket science. It's barely even journalism 101.

But if knowing that is the easy part, then what's the hard part?

The answer: Finding a diamond in the headline rough.

The trick is to use PPC to test this.

You can create multiple headline variations in ads and get real feedback within hours. Then you can determine which internet marketing tactic works best to go use on your landing pages and even for optimizing organic SERP CTR.

The trick is to brainstorm 10 headlines that will spark your customers' interest. You may not be a headline-writing expert, but you know what they say: a broken clock is right twice a day.

If you come up with enough headlines, you, too, could be right twice a day.

High aspirations, I know.

The first thing you'll want to consider as you write your new headlines is emotional drivers. In short, these are feelings that compel people to take action, such as:

The pie-shaped emotions in the middle are going to be your best bets when it comes to driving someone to click. Don't just distract people with Obi Wan's reaction. Amaze them.

For each headline, try working with a different emotional driver. Your headline might enrage people about an everyday problem your services can fix or spark admiration for the number of hours your services can save in a person's day.

In this case, you won't just be testing headlines. You'll be testing the underlying motivations that resonate best with your customers.

Now that you have an angle for your headlines, it's time to get down to the formula.

Keep these four elements in mind as delineated by Steve Rayson of BuzzSumo:

Content Type: When someone clicks on your link, what is it going to take them to?

Topic: What's the general keyword associated with your content?

Format: Will visitors be redirected to a website? A PDF? An article?

Promise Element: As a visitor, what will clicking on this link do for me? Next, add in your emotional driver/emotional hook, and you'll get a finished product that looks something like this:

Congratulations – your new CTR will be on the rise shortly!

Now that visitors are actually visiting your page, it's your job to make sure they convert once they get there.

3. Move CTAs from "Dead Zones"

When you designed a landing page, you probably didn't slap things on the page at random and cross your fingers for success.

However, you may not have known how to optimize your page for conversions, either.

There's a right way and a wrong way to place CTAs and important info on your landing page.

The wrong way is irrelevant, but the right way looks like the letter "F." Essentially, that means it looks like this:

You're going to want to place the things you want read on the blue lines. Why? This study, which found that website visitors typically start reading at the top left corner of a page, then continue reading lines that fit an F-shaped pattern.

Wondering what this looks like when executed correctly? Wonder no further:

We can also see this method in action on the website:

And if you can't trust the Los Angeles Times, who can you trust?

Designing your page a la the F pattern is your first and most important step to optimizing your CTA placement and generating leads. Once you've got your CTAs placed to your liking, access a heat map tool like Crazy Egg to track where your visitors are clicking most and adjust your design accordingly.

For example, if people aren't clicking on your CTAs, that's a problem!

The best rankings in the world won't solve this problem for you.

But now you know how and why results are low. And more importantly, how to fix them.

Conclusion

Nobody's going to argue with a #1 ranking.

Except, if you should be trying to rank for something else instead. Or if it's going to be nearly impossible to ever hit #1 for that keyword.

For one thing, if your primary keyword is a phrase nobody's searching, appearing at the top of that page isn't going to do you any good. For another thing, tweaking and tweaking your SEO tactics and neglecting everything else won't give you the kind of balanced, powerful marketing strategy that generates leads.

There's a lot of nuance at play. And you have limited resources.

That means you need to constantly weigh your SEO opportunity cost.

Start by identifying your best-performing SERPs. Once you do that, work to improve your CTR, hone your clickbait-writing abilities, and redesign your page so that CTAs are placed in your visitor's natural line of sight.

Ranking #1 is pointless if you're able to still generate as many new leads and customers.

And you'll often save time, effort, and money in the process, too.

Image CreditsIn-Post Image 1: MozIn-Post Image 2: HubspotIn-Post Image 3: Screenshot taken by author.In-Post Image 4: WikimediaIn-Post Image 5: BuzzsumoIn-Post Images 6 & 7: Nielsen Norman GroupIn-Post Image 8: Envato Tuts+

Source: Ranking #1 is Pointless – Here's Why Your SEO Goal is Leads, Not Rankings

What SMBs Should Know About Picking an SEO Firm

Consumers instinctively search with Google when they're researching products or looking for neighborhood shops, restaurants and other businesses to patronize. Until that ingrained behavior changes, search engine optimization (SEO) remains a top priority for all types of businesses, but small businesses in particular.

What is SEO? For the initiated, here is Webopedia's entry for the term:

SEO is short for search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is a methodology of strategies, techniques and tactics used to increase the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine (SERP) — including Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines.

Ranking high—ideally first—is vitally important for businesses that want to get noticed by internet and mobile users. The search engine results that attract the most mouse clicks or touch-screen taps are likeliest to attract their dollars, after all.

Given this, it's natural for small and midsized businesses to seek out the services of an SEO firm. Tim Clarke, Research Manager at business-to-business research firm Clutch, shares his tips for finding an SEO service that works for you.

"Companies should beware of over-the-top promises that only require a few hundred dollars of investment per month. SEO campaigns typically need three to six months to produce tangible results for all industries, and competitive markets may require even more time," said Clarke.

"Avoid packages or arrangements that sell a set amount of keywords. Many SEO firms will focus on keyword growth even if it doesn't lead to client sales or revenue," he added.

While budgeting for an SEO campaign, SMBs should prepare for an approach that's as individual as their own organization.

"Every SMB should create a custom online marketing plan. One-size-fits-all never works. Firms that haven't engaged in much marketing of their website often start with paid search through Google AdWords or other search engines," said Clarke.

"Generally, these companies are willing to buy traffic to their website in the early stages of organic SEO. As organic returns begin to show over time, they will reduce PPC [pay-per-click] advertising and direct mostly or all on organic SEO," he continued.

Recently, Clutch published its Business Guide to SEO Services report, complete with survey results gathered from 500 large enterprises and 305 small businesses. Among small businesses, 52 percent use SEO.

However, the experience doesn't appear to have been a pleasant one. After interviewing 150 clients of SEO and digital marketing agencies in the company's listings, Clutch found that 19 percent had a negative experience with an SEO provider before settling on the right firm.

Naturally, no business owner wants to see their online marketing dollars go to waste, so it's important to select the right SEO firm.

Basic and effective SEO packages for local small businesses can costs $300 to $500 per month. "Basic SEO services are a low-cost, low-risk investment for smaller businesses and local contractors, companies with a new website, or companies with fewer SEO services demands," states the report. For that kind of money, customers should expect "local organic optimization techniques" that include listings on Google Local Business and other local directories.

Source: What SMBs Should Know About Picking an SEO Firm

How to Deal with Content and #SEO When You Run a Small #Business: #SEMrush Solution

How to Deal with Content and SEO When You Run a Small Business: SEMrush Solution Running a small business often means that your resources are limited; no single-purpose teams, no unlimited budgets, and very little help. In these circumstances, the main resource of an SMB marketer is time. But since you pay in this coin for any and all ... read moreExperts Weigh In: How do you stay relevant? Especially when you're running a ... "As small business owners, we stay relevant against competitors by regularly studying SEO ourselves (rather than hiring an outside consultant or company) — and publishing content, including both articles and ... read moreTransparency Report #30 – How to Lose 50% of Your Business Overnight On the one hand, you can experiment using a decent payments plugin to try getting that handled for you. But on the other, I just trust a reputable SaaS solution more ... a sort of compromise between running a business effectively and still remaining ... read more

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Source: How to Deal with Content and #SEO When You Run a Small #Business: #SEMrush Solution

11 Reasons You Need to Focus on Long-Tail Keywords for SEO

It's hard not to be repetitive when you blog as much as I do.

I've brought up long-tail keywords a lot throughout my blog posts. That's because I focus a lot on them.

They're the foundation of an effective SEO strategy. Long-tail keywords account for 70% of all web searches.

I've spent so much time explaining how to find and use them, but it occurred to me that I never took the time to explain why they're so important.

Obviously, the 70% statistic I just quoted is a big part of it, but that's just one piece of the puzzle.

It doesn't paint the big picture.

Long-tail keywords are how you generate organic search traffic to your website. They're the holy grail of SEO.

The purpose of this post is to explain in detail (with supporting facts and examples) why long-tail keywords are so important to your SEO efforts.

1. Long-tail keywords are how you outrank the competition

New York-based SaaS company Conductor recently performed a comprehensive, nine-month study of its keyword rankings within Google's search engines.

It found that long-tail keywords with and without on-page optimization were impacted more than single-word head terms.

What this means is that long-tail keywords are your path to overtaking the competition.

Even if it's a search query they're already covering, you can gain traction with a better-optimized post.

Let's take a look at a few virtual reality-related keyword searches in Google Keyword Planner.

Although "VR" has over 1 million monthly searches, and "virtual reality" has fewer than one million searches, the competition and costs are high.

Consumers who are searching for these high-level keywords are likely interested in the VR industry, but they might not be buying anything.

If you're actually making a VR product, it's probably a game, app, or headset.

We can tighten SEO and compete in our niche by looking for more refined keyword queries.

Best VR games, best VR apps, and best virtual reality apps all have a worthy search volume. They're much closer to the sale, too.

If I want to buy a VR game, I'm not searching the generic term "VR."

Instead, I'm likely searching blogs for the "Best VR games" to decide which one I should buy.

Even if I know specifically which game I want, long-tail keywords can still be useful.

Here's a good visualization for Arkham VR.

As we add and change keywords around, we find different searches with different results.

If we target enough of these long-tail keywords with a review of Arkham VR and listings of other PSVR games, we can become the PSVR experts.

From there, we can expand to become experts in everything related to VR.

That's the value of long-tail keywords, but it's not all they do.

2. Long-tail keywords are how people actually search the Internet

The entire point of Google's search business is to present users with the right information based on their searches.

If I search for "SEO Trends to Prepare for in 2018," it's because I'm specifically searching for information on these trends.

Some savvy SEO already wrote a 2018 SEO trend article in April 2017.

This is all well and good, but a lot has changed in online search between then and now. A lot more is going to change in the future, too.

That's why Search Engine Land and Search Engine Journal waited until December 2016 to list 2017 trends and will do the same for 2018.

As a digital marketing expert, I won't be looking for "SEO." I'll be interested in "SEO trends," "SEO brand success stories," and other long-tail keywords.

One of the biggest SEO trends for both 2017 and 2018 is mobile search optimization.

In May 2016, Google raised the character limit in SERP titles and descriptions.

With an extra word displayed, long-tail keywords are an even more vital part of mobile site optimization.

Just keep in mind that people are typically only searching for one of three reasons: to do something, learn something, or go somewhere.

Keep this in mind when you're planning your keyword campaigns.

3. Long-tail keywords provide context to your content

Google has always pushed contextual search, and with its 2017 Hummingbird update, it's only digging its heels deeper in the sand.

For those of you who don't know why it's called Hummingbird, Google's updates follow a theme.

Android updates are named alphabetically after desserts.

You can find monuments to each sweet treat spread throughout Google's Mountain View, CA, campus.

Meanwhile, Google's search algorithm updates are named after animals.

With each successive update, these animals have been thinning the SERP herd of weak or dying results.

Panda and Penguin were especially feared by SEO experts.

Hummingbird adjusted search algorithms to match exact phrasing more often and to deepen their understanding of context.

Essentially, Google is focused on long-tail keywords and strengthening their search results.

You should be too!

4. Long-tail keywords have better conversion rates

According to recent research by WordStream, the top 10% of landing pages convert at 11.45%.

The average conversion rate for long-tail keywords is 36%!

That's a huge difference!

But, again, it doesn't tell the entire story. Here's a more detailed breakdown of conversion rates spread across different web properties.

More realistically, you're experiencing a 2-5% conversion rate on your website.

Maybe even less, if you're just starting.

You're not going to magically increase to 30% overnight just by adding a few long-tail keywords into your website.

That's not the point.

There's no "easy button" for life.

What long-tail keywords will do is solidify your CRO funnel through organic search traffic.

With fewer than 25% of web pages ever being viewed, you can't afford to not pay attention.

It's cheaper to research these longer terms and write blog posts related to them than it is to pay for a PPC campaign on each of them.

Still, a solid PPC campaign can be a great placeholder until your SEO efforts are done.

It's a process, and Google understands this.

That's why my next point is true.

5. Long-tail keywords help you rank for single keywords

We ultimately do want to rank high in the SERPs for short keywords.

Long-tail keywords help us do that.

Let's take a look at the SEMRush report for my site, NeilPatel.com.

I rank in the top 3 positions for 2,076 keywords out of the 88,834 keywords I rank for.

There are obvious keywords like digital marketing, SEO, Pinterest, and affiliate marketing, but can you really think of 88,834 keywords?

You'll eventually have to extend to long-tail keywords, and I have a pretty even distribution of around 8-10,000 pages occupying the lower results on SERPs.

It's not just my blog.

The Huffington Post is one of the largest blogs online. Let's look at its report.

Although they rank at the top for many more queries (409,853 to be exact), the distribution is similar.

That's because it took thousands of pages of focused content within each niche to rank for them.

Long-tail keywords brought all of these media organizations to the top of SERPs.

It's their business model.

Make it yours.

6. Long-tail keywords fuel your blog strategy

I've mentioned it a few times, but I want to make this its own point.

A blog is the best way to rank in SERPs.

It's the cornerstone of any content marketing strategy. Period.

Here's how long-tail keywords in blogs look to search engines.

To be effective, long-tail keywords need to be used in the correct context within the URL, title tag, and body text.

For even more visibility, using the focus keyword in alt images and headers goes a long way to optimizing your site for SEO.

Now, if I just wrote a single blog about SEO, I'd be done.

That's not going to help.

I need long-tail keywords to continue creating content.

I bet "search engine optimization tips" will get me some traffic.

Let's put it into Google's Keyword Planner tool and see what comes up.

Aha!

I have three more blog ideas now for "search engine optimization companies," "affordable search engine optimization," and "local search engine optimization."

I can continue following the rabbit hole to create an entire month's content calendar on the term SEO alone.

Then we do the same for content marketing, influencer marketing, conversion rate optimization, social media marketing, and so on.

Soon, we'll have a blog worthy of competing with the best.

HubSpot's annual State of Inbound report consistently shows that the more often you blog, the more traffic you'll get.

Long-tail keywords are the key to creating a consistent content calendar.

Just remember to add actual value to the conversation.

7. Ranking for long-tail keywords builds a strong conversion tunnel

Another reason you want to blog about long-tail keywords that it helps build a conversion funnel.

Generating traffic and leads is the top marketing challenge faced by companies today.

A HubSpot survey found that 65% of companies are worried about it.

This is because their content marketing efforts aren't attached to a proper conversion funnel.

Here's what a basic business sales funnel looks like.

Steps 1-5 can all be accomplished through a blog that addresses long-tail keywords.

Ranking for the actual product is great, but to build customer trust, you need to provide as much information as possible.

Each customer will come to you at a different point in the sales funnel, and you need to lead them to the negotiation and closing parts of the funnel.

This is why blogging and page hosting is consistently ranked more important than paid advertising in the customer-acquisition process.

The more pages you have, the more keywords you rank for. It builds a larger funnel.

Step 6 and 7 in the sales funnel are easy to optimize.

Once you do, you need to keep building them up and out to reach as many customers in as many steps of the buying process as possible.

Long-tail keywords are the way to do it.

8. Integrate structured data on long-tail keywords to outrank SEO on SERPs

Structured data has been a top priority for ranking in SERPs for over a year now.

Google even has a Structured Data Tool for checking the schema on your site.

Schema.org runs a database of structured code like this.

<div itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Book"><span itemprop="name"> Inbound Marketing and SEO: Insights from the Moz Blog</span><span itemprop="author">Rand Fishkin</span></div>

This code adds a specific data structure for search engines to provide rich, interactive results.

Here's what it looks like on the live site.

Since Allrecipes.com is obviously hoping to rank for all recipes, it does so by applying structured data to long-tail keywords.

It actually doesn't even matter where on the first page this ranks because the information box with the recipe shows above all other search results.

Using structured data is more effective than a PPC or SEO campaign.

It's a sign of the new way to search.

9. Focus on long-tail keywords to answer voice assistant searches

The broad concept of SEO is typically applied to Internet search engines like Google that provide results tfor human users.

That's all changing thanks to voice assistants like Amazon Alexa.

According to available numbers, there are currently 8.3 million Echo smart speakers on the market.

Amazon estimates it'll ship another 10 million in 2017!

That's a lot of people who can use Amazon's voice search to find the top-structured answer only, often focusing solely on Amazon's platform.

The total voice assistant market (including Google Home and Apple Home) is expected to reach 30 million by the end of 2017!

It's a sign of a new age in which our devices may be making the searches for us.

People are increasingly using voice assistants to search for music and books, to control their smart home devices, and to consume news.

And Google is noticing that more people are using voice search even on its Android phones.

With mobile device usage increasingly being banned in vehicles, voice assistants and smart cars are gaining popularity as well.

In fact, 21 million connected cars are expected to ship this year, according to Business Insider.

When searching for anything in a moving vehicle (even a self-driving one), you need the right answer the first time.

Long-tail keywords help you train these voice assistants to provide your information to mobile voice users.

It doesn't seem like a big deal right now because we're still using the Internet in the standard way, as well.

Your kids are watching, though, and younger generations will adopt voice search more and more.

Be prepared or get steamrolled.

10. Posts focused on long-tail keywords provide more value to the reader

The top digital marketing techniques of 2017 are content marketing and big data, according to a recent study by Smart Insights.

Long-tail keywords don't just strengthen your SEO and CRO efforts.

They also ensure that your pages provide real value to your readers.

This is what Google, Bing, and other search engines are ultimately looking for.

Keyword research is a method of mining for data that fuels the rest of your marketing efforts.

The key to content marketing is providing value.

Here's a handy chart to help visualize it.

While video, infographics, apps, and personalization are all important, your web pages need to be solid enough to support them.

There are plenty of more sophisticated methods of reaching an audience.

But the tried-and-true method of gaining organic traffic from providing real value to satisfy a real need never goes out of style.

Long-tail keywords are the foundation of this.

I have one last tip, and it's an obvious one that should go without saying.

11. Long-tail keywords are most of your keyword research and organic traffic anyway!

Have you taken the time to actually look at your Google Analytics reports?

The vast majority of search queries that bring traffic to your site are from long-tail keywords.

Check out this report from Ogio golf bags.

These search terms that are getting impressions and generating clicks (and sales) are mostly long-tail keywords.

The more keyword research you do, the more you'll find that long-tail keywords are already fueling your organic search traffic.

You're just ignoring them!

So the simple answer is to stop ignoring the answers right in front of your face.

Even in Google's Keyword Planner Tool, you'll get related searches in the form of long-tail keywords.

But everyone's using Google.

If you stick to only Google's tools, you'll miss out on more long-tail keyword opportunities.

Using a tool like KWFinder, you can get even more detailed information on long-tail keywords related to your niche.

The more keyword research you perform, the more long-tail keywords just naturally pop up.

Wordtracker is another great free keyword research tool that can provide thousands of long-tail keyword suggestions.

It's also a great place to scout the competition and get in-depth analysis on how you can rank for each keyword.

This type of data analysis is invaluable!

You already have the data.

Do what you can with what you have.

Conclusion

Keyword research isn't sexy, and it seems like it's only meant for SEO.

It's actually the foundation of your entire digital marketing strategy.

Want to become an innovative thought leader?

You'll need to know what subjects to lead thoughts on.

Want to create a solid content marketing plan?

You'll need long-term keywords to fuel a content calendar.

Regardless of what digital marketing strategy your company is focusing on this year, effectively researching long-tail keyword trends is the key to winning.

What's your digital marketing focus for this year?

Source: 11 Reasons You Need to Focus on Long-Tail Keywords for SEO

Going Beyond #Google: Are Search Engines Ready for JavaScript Crawling & Indexation?

Going Beyond Google: Are Search Engines Ready for JavaScript Crawling & Indexation? | Latest News

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Source: Going Beyond #Google: Are Search Engines Ready for JavaScript Crawling & Indexation?

Why HTTPS Matters for Content Marketers: Website Security, SEO, and Customer Trust

Full disclosure: As a content marketer, I'm still trying to round out my technological knowledge. The complex inner workings of the internet might as well be some combination of elves, gnomes, and unicorns. As long as it delivers my content (and a steady stream of memes and status updates), it doesn't matter how the internet works, right?

But it's time for all content marketers to get at least a little technical. There are new marching orders from our overlords at tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Apple, and they're going to directly affect your content marketing strategy.

The issue is a web security protocol called HTTPS (Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol Secure). Other terms you might encounter are SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or TLS (Transport Layer Security).  Or you may just know it as the little green padlock in the top corner of your web browser:

No matter what you call it, HTTPS provides a secure, encrypted channel for a website to transfer data to a browser, and vice versa. It uses digital certificates to verify that each party is who they say they are—and that no third-party is intercepting the data.

It's easy to see why HTTPS is a good idea—you don't want some shady character snooping on your passwords and credit card information when you're online banking at Starbucks. And you wouldn't want to think you've connected with your bank, when you're actually on www.stealyourmoney.biz.

Beyond the safety considerations, however, the push for websites to adopt HTTPS matters for content marketers. Not having HTTPS on your site can now hurt your marketing efforts in two big ways: search engine visibility and customer trust. Here's what you need to know.

HTTPS Is an SEO Ranking Factor

Google is one of the major supporters of HTTPS, using its considerable leverage to increase adoption of the protocol. To that end, they have added HTTPS status as a ranking factor in searches. Since Google owns well over half of the search market—and over 90% of mobile search—your site's ranking on Google has a massive impact on your organic traffic.

If your content is just as good as a competitor's, but they have HTTPS and you don't, they're likely to rank higher on the results page. Over time, the coveted top spots will all go to HTTPS-enabled sites, with unsecure sites fighting for the scraps. This graph from Smart Insights shows just how much traffic you lose by dropping even a single slot on the SERP:

The top result has a 30% click-through rate, while the second gets 12%, and the CTR declines steadily from there.

It's easy to see why HTTPS matters for content marketers who care about organic traffic (which, let's hope, is all of us). If you're trying to create SEO-optimized content that gets viewed and gets results, not having HTTPS on your site can hamstring your efforts from the start.

HTTPS Is a Trust Signal

Let's say, though, that your content is so useful and so compelling that it still gets a decent ranking, and someone actually clicks through. In the address bar right now, Google Chrome (the most popular browser, with over 60% of all browser traffic) will show a "not secure" warning before your URL:

In future builds of Chrome, that warning will get more dire, with red text and a caution sign:

These warnings may eventually escape the address bar, becoming a popup window that warns people away from your site.

It's easy to imagine the impact these warnings will have on people's confidence in your site. When there are plenty of secure websites in the SERP, that warning is enough for your average consumer to hit the back button and find a site with the soothing green padlock.

How to Get HTTPS

In the past, managing even a simple site's security certificates could be a hassle. But in addition to pushing HTTPS adoption through penalties, Google and many others are also investing in making the technology easier to get. Even if you don't have a web development team, you can likely get HTTPS up and running with minimal hiccups.

First, check with your internet provider to see if they offer automated HTTPS—many will help you get set up and manage your certificates. For example, our client Pantheon offers free, automated HTTPS to all of its clients. [Ashley: This is true, and useful, but may be overly promotional. Your call.]

If your provider doesn't offer HTTPS management, I recommend Let's Encrypt. They're an open-source, free and automated HTTPS provider (or Certificate Authority), funded by contributions from the major players in the tech industry. If you have a little tech savvy, it's pretty simple to get set up.

Is It Secret? Is It Safe?

Adopting HTTPS is the right choice for you and everyone who visits your site. But it's more than just the right thing to do. The decision to adopt HTTPS will make it easier for consumers to find your content, and will give people more confidence in your site's bona fides. On the other hand, not having HTTPS will hurt both your ranking and your reputation.

Looking for more ways to boost your search engine ranking? Check out these quick SEO research tips.

Source: Why HTTPS Matters for Content Marketers: Website Security, SEO, and Customer Trust