A Guide to Using HubSpot’s Built-In SEO

HubSpot is useful to growing businesses and new websites in a lot of different ways. But arguably one of its best offerings is built-in SEO. As you’re likely aware if you’re exploring topics like this, or you’re in charge of a new business or website, search engine optimisation can get a lot more complicated than it sounds at first. And yet, it’s vital for expansion in the modern, digital world — making built-in assistance like that offered by HubSpot more or less invaluable.

First though, why exactly is SEO so important, beyond the basics?

In a very fundamental way, SEO is part of a “Smart Content” strategy that any modern company ought to be looking to build up. This is something we’ve defined in the past as “the type of content that marketers would use to keep the reader’s attention on them and their brand.” Thus, it is not entirely about SEO, which is fundamentally about grabbing the attention of search engines. But SEO is absolutely a component of a comprehensive smart content strategy, because through that added search engine attention it can lead to more views from new readers.

In more of a general strategic sense, SEO is also vital in that it represents one of the most effective ways for a business to maximise its resources. As a prominent voice in digital marketing and SEO, Ayima describes these types of efforts as ways to “blend technology and talent to achieve spectacular results.” The technology in this case is represented in the data-driven insights that yield SEO strategy, and the talent the workers who put that strategy into action. Combining and maximising resources like this is simply a good idea for any business looking to make the absolute most of what it has. SEO just happens to be one avenue by which it can be done to extraordinary effect.

These purposes convey why SEO is so important beyond just the raw purpose of generating more page views. And by extension, they should make it clear just how important it can be that HubSpot can do a lot of the work for you.

Here is how HubSpot’s built-in SEO works:

• HubSpot will analyse your site’s content when you work with its SEO optimisation tools. This essentially means that a tool will automatically rake through content in order to assess it purely from an SEO viability standpoint.
• The service will generate reports on potential optimisation issues, and rank them according to which ones might be most problematic. This lines up priorities for you to focus on in adjusting your SEO.
• The service also recommends actions to take for each of the problems it identifies. Thus, while it’s ultimately up to you and/or your creative team to adjust content, you will have guidance strictly based on SEO knowledge.
• HubSpot will also keep track of the latest changes in search engine preferences and practices, ensuring that its SEO optimisation guidance is up-to-date.
• The SEO optimisation tool can also help you with real-time advice. As it’s described in a post on Medium by Ilex Content, this entails the use of a “built-in to-do list” that will help you to keep SEO at the forefront of your mind even while writing fresh content (and thus decrease the likelihood of having to adjust later).

These represent the simple but effective ways in which HubSpot can essentially adjust and guide your site's content in order to adhere to search engine preferences and SEO needs. They are not fully automated services, but they do quite a lot on their own to help you with challenges and processes that can otherwise require a great deal more attention. But even on top of these efforts, HubSpot's SEO practices can also help to educate site owners on new and developing search engine optimisation strategies.

This final point is best exemplified by HubSpot's focus on "topic clusters," which have become vital in SEO of late. Google changes on a fairly regular basis, and has recently begun to demonstrate a clearer preference for "topic-based' content, as well as topic authority, rather than simple keywords. HubSpot's cluster strategy gives you a means of adapting to this change through what is ultimately more of a site organisation strategy than a pure content adjustment.

Essentially, the idea of a topic cluster is to establish a "pillar" page on a given topic that in turn links to subsequent related articles. With those related articles also linking back to the pillar page, you can establish a cluster. These pages are all clearly related, with the "pillar" and its linking activity performing as an authority on the topic at hand. These are things that a search engine can recognise and reward — giving you one more example of how HubSpot's insights can assist your SEO.

Ultimately these are all fairly simple tools and ideas to take advantage of. And make no mistake, it’s well worth doing so. While we spoke above to what SEO can achieve, and why it can be helpful, it’s more appropriate to say that it is now essential — particularly for smaller businesses or those in competitive environments. A terrific post on Business 2 Community delves into the specific reasons for this necessity, and wisely points to things like cost-effective brand building, higher conversion rates, and successful competition against bigger brands as significant factors. These are the benefits that most businesses can’t afford not to strive for, which is ultimately why this service from HubSpot is so deeply valuable.