Welcome back to another edition of Leveling Up!

In today’s email:

• 7 SEO ideas to drive more organic traffic right now

• The viral Craigslist hack that made Airbnb billions

• Why Apple’s AR announcement is a ‘gold rush’ for marketers

• And much more…

Here are the top 10 most interesting links to check out this week:

1. 🔨 Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at a “Billionaire Forge”

2. 💵 Now you can sell premium content on TikTok

3. 🤖 This is what you should know about Google’s Duet AI

4. 🔒 Open AI is offering grants to develop a cybersecurity program

5. 🥇 Why Apple’s AR announcement is a ‘gold rush’ for marketers

6. 📦 Optimize your PPC agency with these pricing packages

7. ✍️ The CMO of Zapier shares his thoughts on AI marketing

8. 💲 This four-letter code is the key to selling anything

9. 👗 Own a clothing brand? Here’s how to win at Snapchat ads

10. 📻 Here are 9 free podcasts that can change your life

👾 Deep Dive

7 Actionable SEO Ideas to Generate More Organic Traffic Right Now

Have you ever felt like SEO is a moving target?

What worked for last year’s – or last month’s – SEO strategy might not be adequate for the rest of this year.

Luckily we’re here with seven actionable SEO techniques that work to help you improve your organic search presence — covering both basic and advanced SEO tips

1) AI Tools for Content Writing 

These ever-improving AI-powered writing tools can help you create high-quality, keyword-optimized blog posts (or any other type of content) at scale.

This SEO strategy for content marketing is becoming increasingly popular for good reason: With these AI writing assistants becoming more and more accurate, they can help you save time and money.

There are many different tools that can help you, including:

• Jasper (best for long-form content such as blog posts or landing pages)

• Copysmith (best for e-commerce content like product descriptions; allows Shopify integration)

• Rytr (best for marketing-related content like YouTube descriptions or job descriptions)

• Anyword AI (best for copywriting content like ad copy)

2) App Store Optimization for Mobile SEO

App store optimization (ASO) is an SEO strategy that focuses on optimizing mobile apps in order to gain a higher ranking in an app store’s search results.

Here are five tips for App store optimization:

• Use keyword-rich titles: The title of your app is one of the most important ASO factors, so make sure to include relevant keywords.

• Use keyword-rich descriptions: Include relevant keywords and write a description that is both informative and appealing.

• Use keyword-rich keywords: Don’t stuff your keywords – only use them if they are truly relevant.

• Encourage positive reviews: You can do this by providing an incentive, such as a discount or coupon code.

• Optimize your app’s screenshots: Choose high-quality images that accurately represent your app:

3) Implement Content Optimization Right Away

For most people, SEO entails publishing content regularly, targeting new keywords, and getting links to those pages.

But experienced SEO practitioners know that you can increase your organic traffic more strategically by optimizing your existing content through a process known as “content optimization.”

Content optimization aims to optimize a page’s on-site meta tags like:

• Including primary and secondary keywords at the correct densities

• Having an appropriate word count

• Ensuring great readability

• Having optimal meta title and description tags

4) Provide a Flawless Page Experience

Google defines page experience as:

“a set of signals that measure how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page beyond its pure information value.”

The first metric is the Core Web Vitals, an amalgamation of metrics that measure a page’s load speed from a user experience perspective.

Boosting page speed can do more than improve organic performance; it can also increase conversions.

Once you have finished boosting your site speed, make sure your site meets the other three criteria that make an optimal page experience:

• Make your website mobile-friendly

• Buy an HTTPS certificate for your domain

• Remove all unnecessary pop-ups

5) Increase Your Dwell Time

Dwell time is the time a visitor spends looking at a page after they click on a SERP link and before they go back to the SERPs.

It’s not the same as bounce rate or time on site either, as the latter can include people who came from outside the SERPs.

Dwell time is like the offspring of bounce rate and time on site, but way more SEO-friendly than its parents.

The bad news is that you can’t do much to improve your dwell time — except improve your user experience.

Anything that makes your website more user-friendly will likely increase your dwell time. And the opposite is true, too: If your website looks untrustworthy, outdated, or amateurish, new visitors are likely to bounce back to the SERPs and click on another result.

And Google won’t like that.

6) Focus on Topic Clusters Instead of Keywords

Google is evolving, and so is its algorithm.

Its objective now is to understand the intention of its users — what they expect, what they’re looking for, and, more specifically, what search results would best help answer their query.

However, don’t expect your website to appear on the first page of Google simply by creating keyword-focused content.

It’s not enough to look at keywords alone; we need to look at the context around them.

Also referred to as “user intent,” you must pay attention to what your users are looking for.

Here are two things, in particular, you should consider:

• Know your target audience: The type of content you’ll create will depend entirely on your audience. The better you know them — their location, age, interests, etc. — the better the content you’ll create (and the better your SEO).

• Organize content into clusters: This entails having:

  • A pillar page: These are generally your site’s most important pages (for example, on an e-commerce site, this will often be top-level categories) that you want, and can expect, to rank for a broad range of keywords.

  • Cluster pages: These are pages that live around and are linked back to their relevant pillar page. They will generally answer questions or cover topics related to the pillar page in more detail.

Here’s a topic cluster around “workout routines”:

7) Create Voice Assistant-Friendly Content

Do you write as you speak?

Maybe you do when you chat with your friends over WhatsApp, but not usually when you are at work.

And do you search in Google as you speak?

Once again, you likely don’t.

However, with the advent of voice assistants, that’s no longer the case.

Now that 4.2 billion voice assistants are being used worldwide (a number estimated to hit 8.4 by 2024), searches have become more fluent, conversational, and complex for Google.

And in a more conversational search engine world, you must optimize your website for voice search.

Here’s how you do it:

A) Use Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords — those that contain three or more words — play a key role in voice search. To rank for this type of keyword, you’ll need to create content that targets them on your website using the following process:

• Identify one long-tail keyword using this guide (e.g. “how to wash a car”).

• Find lots of semantically related keywords (e.g. “car washing guide” and “best soap for washing a car”).

• Write a long-form, comprehensive blog post that suitably positions those semantically related keywords throughout.

B) Use Structured Data

According to Backlinko, 40% of voice search results come from featured snippets. Using structured data can help boost the chances of your content being used to answer a voice query over a competitor’s.

As Ana Gotter explains:

“Schema markups are often used to point to local businesses with snippets of code in order to help Google understand what your website is about and thus better connect you with relevant searches.”

Here’s an example of how web pages with schema markup for events appear in the SERPs:

To get started, head over to Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to find out whether you’ve already implemented schema. If you haven’t and you need more detailed information, check out Google’s guide to Schema markup that explains the type of code you need and how to implement it.

And for 10 more SEO techniques to try, check out our blog post here.

The Viral Craigslist Hack That Made Airbnb Billions

In this episode of Leveling Up, Eric Siu shares how Airbnb founders Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky outsmarted the leading classified service company.

Watch to learn:

• Did Airbnb hack Craigslist?

• How Airbnb was born and became a 72 billion-dollar company?

• How did Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky outsmart Craigslist?

Click here to watch the full video.

Top 3 Available Marketing Jobs

1. Senior Paid Media Manager (Single Grain). Remote | F/T | Manage and optimize ad campaigns on Google and Facebook, develop and lead strategic presentations to clients, including media strategies, QBRs, and year-in-reviews. (Full job description here.)
   

2. SEO Manager (Single Grain). Remote | F/T | Perform ongoing keyword discovery, content strategy, expansion, and optimization. Audit client websites to identify optimization opportunities and prioritize work based on SEO impact. Develop and implement link-building strategies using competitors as a baseline and more. (Full job description here.)
   

3. CRO Manager (Single Grain). Remote | F/T | Analyze web data to monitor website performance and identify areas of opportunity. Execute CRO activities to help achieve overall marking goals and objectives for assigned clients and more. (Full job description here.)

Until next week,

The Leveling Up Team

P.S.

Here are more ways we can help your business grow:

• Listen to our Marketing School podcast for daily marketing tips

• Subscribe to the Leveling Up YouTube channel

• Read the Single Grain blog for actionable marketing playbooks