Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is brilliant for a lot of reasons. It will increase your traffic, your business can become an industry leader by using it effectively, and your friends will be impressed that you’re on the first page of Google!
But one thing that you can’t get away from with SEO is that it takes time. Even when doing everything right, sometimes there’s no guarantee that you’ll see results for around 6 months.
During this time, you’ll be juggling on-page, off-page, and technical SEO leaving you with so many tasks to do to help your site rank higher up on the SERPs (search engine results pages). It can get quite overwhelming doing this every day over the long term.
Well, one way that you may be able to give yourself more time in the day is by automating certain aspects of SEO, leaving you free to do the things that matter to you.
But what can and what can’t be automated? Does automating tasks mean that they’ll be done poorly? And does this mean that a robot will be doing all of your work?! Carry on reading to see what our Liverpool SEO agency has to say on this, and more!
Can SEO Be Automated?
Yes, some tasks that are part of SEO can be automated. By using any one of a number of SEO tools on the market, or by using your own piece of code if you are more experienced, you can save time by automating jobs that were previously performed manually.
Some tasks can’t be automated, like coming up with campaign strategies. There are many parts of SEO that rely on human insight to do right. What parts of your business are right for you to push, for example, or how you can design a website that fits the tone of your business.
And there are some tasks that can be automated but it’s probably best if you don’t. For example, writing all of your content. You can find multiple AI content writers on the web, but none of them are able to replicate what a good writer with experience in the subject matter could come up with.
How do I automate SEO?
How you go about automating your SEO will vary depending on what task it is and what your experience level is. Fortunately, there are beginner-friendly ways for you to begin automating most SEO tasks.
For most people, automation will be performed by an SEO tool like SEMrush or Ahrefs. While coming with a hefty price tag, these tools pay for themselves by allowing you to get your work done quicker and make more informed decisions.
Suppose you’re a coding wizard with experience working with Python and JavaScript. In that case, you’ll find that there are some programs you can create to automate otherwise manual-only tasks like competitor analysis.
Should I be automating some SEO tasks?
There are definitely areas of SEO that you should be automating. If you don’t, then you’ll quickly find your days consumed with tedious tasks and wondering “wow I wish there was a way I could get this done quicker!”.
Some of the best examples of tasks you should be automating are:
SERP tracking
Sure, if you want to know how you are performing for a specific search term then you can check this manually and see how you are performing.
But you’ll likely have a load of different search terms that you want to rank for, and your position in the SERPs can change daily. Keeping track of your performance can therefore become very time-consuming.
Position tracking is a common feature on many SEO tools like SEMrush and SERanking. You’ll be able to see how you were ranking for all of your target keywords and if this has changed over time, and you might be able to see how this varies geographically too.
Backlink profiles
You need to know what types of websites are linking to your own. If too many low-quality sites link to your website, then this can negatively skew your link profile and then you can actually be punished as a result.
Provided that you have not bought these low-quality links, then you might feel a bit hard done by if this happens! Fortunately, there is something that you can do to avoid any penalisation.
Google Search Console allows you to see all of the domains that are linking to your site. There, you can also choose to disallow links to your website, which means that these links will no longer count toward your link profile and you won’t receive an action from Google.
Manually tracking every single domain that links to your site would make it impossible to get anything else done. Fortunately, SEO tools include backlink overviews that provide you with an insight to the quality of the domains linking to your site. This makes it immediately clear whether you have a problem or are smooth-sailing.
Site audits
Depending on how many pages your site has, performing an audit yourself can be a mammoth task. Manually checking every page for any URL issues, response codes, metadata issues, and other factors is not something you need to spend your day doing.
We like to use Screaming Frog to run our site audits. It’s a great tool for crawling sites and showing you where the problems lie if any.
You can even export the data from your crawl to a .csv file so you can display the information however you like, create workflow tasks, or make reports easier. Speaking of which…
Reports
Automated SEO reports are brilliant. They are quick, accurate, and look presentable. If you are giving this report to someone with SEO experience, they’ll be able to see exactly what they need, but someone with no SEO experience will need an overview from yourself to understand what’s it all means.
When you use an SEO tool to track your progress, you can automatically create a pdf report that shows your SEO data across the week or the month. Most tools allow you to automate these reports so that they are compiled at recurrent intervals that you set.
When combined with a human touch, these types of reports can’t be beaten. You can offer your interpretation of the data and sum up the technical jargon, but the data is there too if the person viewing your report is interested.
Automate your SEO by hiring an SEO agency
If you are a business looking to improve your SEO, then one of the best decisions you can make is to hire an experienced SEO agency to do it for you.
Having someone behind the wheel who’s been around the block is invaluable. They know what works and what doesn’t for a business like yours, and know how to respond when Google releases an algorithm update out of the blue.
Sure, if you have the time to sit down and learn all about SEO, put it into practice, and keep on top of the latest industry updates you could save a bit of money, but you won’t get the same results. And your business will suffer as a result of you being pulled in multiple directions.
So get in touch with our team at Blaze Media and we can schedule a consultation. We love meeting people like you who are ready to invest in themselves, and we’ll love working with you even more!