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In an interview, let’s say I asked you, “Tell me about a time you worked through a conflict with a coworker?”

You’d probably think about a past experience, consider the lessons you learned from it, and articulate what happened and how it felt. You’d likely mention any shortcomings you had, how you’ve grown, and how you’d deal with conflict with coworkers in the future.

But let’s say I asked you a slightly different version of that question instead: “How would you handle it if you were assigned a project with a coworker, and you two had differing opinions on how to proceed?”

That changes the game a bit. To answer, you could no longer rely on any fairly familiar story about yourself.

Instead, you must use your problem-solving skills and your sense of self to answer how you’d hypothetically deal with a conflict that could arise in the future, without the advantage of hindsight. And, you’d need to think on your feet.

We previously covered behavioral interview questions like the STAR method, which asks candidates to articulate past experiences and what they learned. It’s important to use behavioral questions in an interview, but there’s another method you should integrate, as well.

Situational interview questions are largely hypothetical and can be intentionally ambiguous, such as, “How would you handle X if you … ?” or “What would you do if … ?”

Situational questions give you the opportunity to evaluate your candidate’s quick-thinking skills, while seeing how she responds to curveballs, which is critical information when deciding whether she’s qualified for the role.

Here are seven situational questions you can use when interviewing a candidate, and what you should look for in the applicant’s answer.

Situational Interview Questions to Ask Candidates, and How They Should Respond

1. How would you handle it if your team resisted a new idea you introduced? 

What to look for in a good response: You’ll want a candidate to express her respect and awareness of her team’s opinions and thoughts, while also demonstrating an ability to implement initially unpopular ideas.

Ideally, the applicant would say something like this: “First, I’d work on understanding the reasoning behind my team’s resistance. Perhaps it’s because they aren’t familiar with a new system I want to put in place, and many of them are comfortable with the old way of doing things. Once I understood their point of view, I’d put together either a presentation, or a training, to show my team why my idea is a good one. I’d do this while being cognizant of their hesitation, and incorporating their doubts into my presentation. I’d also allow my team to offer anonymous feedback, so each employee felt his or her opinions could be incorporated into the new system — I’d never want it to seem like my idea was the only way. Hopefully, research or training sessions could help my team come around to the idea.”

In this case, the candidate approached the situation from a place of compassion and understanding, rather than frustration. Instead of dwelling on her team’s resistance, she wisely found appropriate ways to introduce the idea to counteract her team’s doubts. She showed that she is able to problem-solve well, even when her own ideas or reputation are at stake, and even under pressure from her team.

2. How would you handle it if your employee wasn’t meeting your expectations, or was performing below average?

What to look for in a good response: If you’re looking to fill a leadership position, you’ll need a candidate who can handle tough conversations with employees. You’ll want your candidate to express honesty and transparency with each employee, while recognizing the importance of constructive feedback.

Ideally, you’ll want the applicant to say something like this: “I’ve had this happen before, and it’s never an easy conversation. However, it’s important to provide feedback to my employees and remain transparent with them when I think they aren’t performing as well as they could. That’s my job as their manager. I’d start out with something positive about their performance, to let them know I recognize their good behavior. Then I’d point out where they’re falling short, and ask them why they think that is — most of the time, the employee is already aware of her shortcomings. Finally, I’d suggest ways to improve, to show the employee I want to be a resource to help them grow.”

With this answer, your candidate has shown a level of maturity when delivering tough feedback. You’ll want your applicant to mention the importance of feedback, and you’ll also want her to show good communication skills when dealing with issues with her employees.

3. What would you do if you were assigned to work closely with a colleague on a project, but you two just couldn’t seem to see eye-to-eye?

What to look for in a good response: This question looks for a candidate who aims to understand her colleague’s point of view. You’ll want your applicant to demonstrate flexibility and an ability to compromise. Plus, it’s simply important to get a sense for how the candidate handles conflict.

Ideally, your candidate could say something like this: “Another project manager and I were assigned a project together. I quickly saw my colleague handled follow-up and communication with the client differently than I did. I like to follow-up often and chat on the phone at various stages of the process with the client, but my colleague didn’t see the purpose in communicating with the client so frequently. Eventually, I talked with my coworker about her follow-up style versus mine. We compromised and agreed to follow up with the client every two weeks, rather than every week, to make collaboration smoother. I was glad I approached the situation head-on, and also understood and appreciated that my colleague had a different work approach.”

Undoubtedly, any applicant you interview will eventually collaborate with someone who works differently. You’ll want a candidate to show she isn’t emotional or defensive when she runs into conflict, but rather, she approaches it from a business-perspective and communicates problems when they arise.

4. What would you do if you were working hard on a project and were almost finished when the goals or priorities were changed?

What to look for in a good response: A good answer to this question depends on the role you’re looking to fill.

First, your candidate might show flexibility by mentioning she would stay up late, adjust her priorities, and manage to finish the project the way it needed to be finished. If the position for which you’re hiring is junior level or requires someone to be adaptable to unpredictable deadlines or expectations, you’ll want your applicant to show a level of flexibility.

However, if the role is more senior or if it makes more sense for the position, you might want an applicant to show she can put her foot down. Perhaps you want to see her use more problem-solving skills to analyze those priorities and decisions, and figure out ways to hit those goals without redoing the entire project.

5. How would you handle an instance of receiving criticism from a superior?

What to look for in a good response: This question enables you to assess your candidate’s ability to learn, grow, and accept mistakes. You want a candidate who uses feedback to make changes, while demonstrating emotional maturity.

Essentially, you want a candidate who’s coachable.

For instance, your applicant could say something like this: “In my last position, I often met with clients face-to-face, and I greatly enjoyed it. However, occasionally they’d call me over the phone, and in an effort to appear adaptable, I’d always speak with them immediately. My manager heard a few of those phone calls, and he eventually told me that I sounded short on the phone, and worse, I often wasn’t as prepared as I could be, because I’d been in the middle of another assignment and was caught off guard. He was completely right — I’d never considered that I could simply tell the client I’d call them back, or let the call go to voicemail. In an effort to multitask efficiently, I was actually letting my client relationships suffer. I learned from that feedback and, going forward, felt confident telling the client they’d need to set up an appointment with me even if they wanted to talk over the phone.”

Here, the candidate demonstrates she’s open to hearing feedback, appreciates it, and uses it to fuel her growth. She owned up to her mistake but didn’t dwell on it, and demonstrated an ability to adjust her own work style in response to that feedback, rather than becoming defensive or accepting the feedback but not changing her behavior.

6. What would you do if you were almost finished with a project on a tight deadline, when you realize you’d made a mistake back in the beginning that required you to start over?

What to look for in a good response: No one is perfect, and it’s good if your candidate can admit to a situation where she made a mistake that required a re-do of a project. More importantly, you’ll want an applicant who can be honest with supervisors about her mistake, rather than trying to cover it up.

You want to hire someone who looks at mistakes as opportunities to learn, rather than as embarrassing failures.

Ideally, your candidate would say something like this: “First, I’d investigate the problem and the source, and make a list of a few different solutions. If none of those solutions were possible without fully redoing the project, and if I thought the mistake might make me miss my deadline, I’d immediately approach my supervisor and let her know the situation. Particularly if the mistake is my fault, it’s important I’m honest and open about it — it’s a good learning and growth opportunity for me, and could prevent others from making that same mistake. Finally, I’d put in extra time if necessary to finish the project.”

In this example, your applicant displayed honesty, a commitment to her job and making things right, and an openness to learning from mistakes.

7. How would you handle it if you were unsatisfied by an aspect of your job?

What to look for in a good response: It’s not practical or necessary to look for a candidate who loves all aspects of her job equally. Instead, you want a candidate who demonstrates a good level of professional maturity, understands some tasks are less enjoyable than others, and appreciates the necessity of those tasks for the company’s bottom line.

For instance, you’d want your applicant to say something like this: “I love working with people, which is why I pursued a management position, but I don’t love the paperwork — does anyone? Early on, I needed to figure out how to approach stacks of paperwork so it didn’t affect the enjoyment I had for other aspects of my job. First, I took a good look at the content and realized that, while it might not be fun, it was certainly critical for ensuring my team was successful. When I could see it contributed to our department’s goal, I appreciated it more. Then, I set aside one day a week to tackle the paperwork, rather than working on bits each day. Monday morning, first thing, I’d turn off my computer and avoid distractions, and get it done. In a way, this became enjoyable in it’s own way, since it was distraction-free time.”

You want to feel confident your candidate is mature and professional and understands the importance of seemingly mundane tasks. You don’t want an applicant who says she gives projects she doesn’t enjoy to her coworkers or interns. Instead, you want a candidate who has the flexibility to figure out how to make unsatisfying tasks work for her without resenting the position long-term.

“Business is personal — it’s the most personal thing in the world.”

These are famous words by Michael Scott from the TV show, The Office. And although this quote conflicts with the universal belief that business isn’t personal, Michael’s point of view is perfect when learning about a business’s fixed costs — or those costs that don’t change as a company grows or shrinks.

To identify and calculate your business’s fixed costs, let’s start by looking at the ones you’re already paying in your personal life. Then, we’ll explain how a business manages its own fixed costs and review some common fixed cost examples.

What Is a Fixed Cost?

Fixed costs are those costs to a business that stay the same regardless of how the business is performing. These costs are known as fixed costs to distinguish them from variable costs, which do change as the company sells more or less of its product.

Consider your personal routine. As a single adult, your expenses would normally include a monthly rent or mortgage, utility bill, car payment, healthcare, commuting costs, and groceries. If you have children, this can increase variable costs like groceries, gas expenses, and healthcare.

While your variable costs increase after starting a family, your mortgage payment, utility bill, commuting costs, and car payment don’t change for as long as you’re in the same home and car. These expenses are your fixed costs because you pay the same amount no matter what changes you make to your personal routine.

In keeping with this concept, let’s say a startup ecommerce business pays for warehouse space to manage its inventory, and 10 customer service employees to manage order inquiries. It suddenly signs a customer for a recurring order that requires another five paid customer service reps. While the startup’s payroll expenses go up, the fixed cost of a warehouse stays the same.

Average Fixed Cost

Keep in mind you have to keep track of your business’s fixed costs differently than you would your own. This is where average fixed cost comes into play.

Average fixed costs are the total fixed costs paid by a company, divided by the number of units of product the company is currently making. This tells you your fixed cost per unit, giving you a sense of how much the business is guaranteed to pay each time it produces a unit of your product — before factoring in the variable costs to actually produce it.

Let’s revisit the ecommerce startup example from earlier. Assume this business pays $5,000 per month for the warehouse space needed to manage its inventory, and leases two forklifts for $800 a month each. And last month, they developed 50 units of product.

The warehouse and forklift costs remain unchanged regardless of how many products they sell, giving them a total fixed cost (TFC) of $5,000 + ($800 x 2), or $6,600. By dividing its TFC by 50 — the number of units the business produced last month — the company can see its average fixed cost per unit of product. This would be $6,600 ÷ 50, or $132 per unit.

Fixed Cost Examples

So far, we’ve identified a handful of fixed cost examples since considering the costs we already pay as individuals. A home mortgage is to a lease on warehouse space, as a car payment is to a lease on a forklift.

But there are a number of fixed costs your business might incur that you rarely pay in your personal life. In fact, some variable costs to individuals are fixed costs to businesses. Here’s a master list of fixed costs for any developing company to keep in mind:

• Lease on office space: As long as your business operates in the same building, your rent cost doesn’t change.
• Utility bills: Your heating or cooling bill might fluctuate as seasons change, but it is generally not affected by business operations.
• Website hosting costs: When you register your website domain, you pay a small monthly cost that remains static despite the business you perform on that website.
• Ecommerce hosting platforms: Ecommerce platforms integrate with your website so you can conduct transactions with customers. They typically charge a low fixed cost per month.
• Lease on warehouse space: Warehouses are paid for the same way you’d pay rent on your office space. They do not change in price as you store more or fewer products inside, but can have storage and capacity limits.
• Manufacturing equipment: The equipment you need to produce your product is yours once you buy it, but it will depreciate over its useful lifetime. Depreciation can become a fixed cost if you know when you’ll have to replace your equipment each year.
• Lease on trucks for shipment: Truck leases work the same way as a car payment, and will not charge differently depending on how many shipments you make.
• Small business loans: If you’re financing a new business with a bank loan, your loan payments won’t change with your business’s performance. They are fixed for as long as you have a balance to pay on that loan.
• Property tax: Your office space’s building manager might charge you property tax, a fixed cost for as long as your business is on the property.
• Health insurance: Health insurance costs might be a variable cost to an individual if they add or remove dependents from their policy, but to a business, the recurring costs to an insurer are fixed.

Calculating your fixed costs isn’t always the most fun part of growing your business. But knowing what they are, and when you’ll pay each one, gives you the peace of mind you need to serve and delight your customers.

93% of B2B businesses use content marketing.

Only 5% feel that their efforts are very effective.

And an estimated 50% of all content is going completely unused.

Where did it all go wrong?

Just a few years ago, you could post 1, 2, 3, 300 blog posts on your website; furiously direct traffic to them through all your social platforms; amass zillions of inbound links; target a bunch of keywords; aaand easily rank on Google.

Controlling your message and gaining customers was (well, almost) a piece of cake.

No longer.

The halcyon years are over; as Gartner’s Hype Cycle predicted, we’re knee-deep in the trough of disillusionment.

Like the overhyped marketing channels that came before (TV spots, billboards, banner ads) content marketing peaked — then slumped.

After the huge success of a few early adopters, more and more people joined the party until the novelty disintegrated.

Resistance has built, but expectations haven’t faded — from marketers, at least. And the tighter they cling on, the less effective content marketing becomes.

So where do we go from here?

Quitting isn’t an option. Content marketing can’t be consigned to the past like those other clearly-defined tactics, because the boundaries around it are so fluid.

If content marketing is simply the strategic distribution of valuable content, then it encompasses almost all of marketing today.

And it can be as powerful as it once was.

But first, we need to understand the recent changes it has undergone, the barriers that stand in our way, and how to overcome them.

We don’t have to bin the playbook — we can rewrite it.

Here’s how.

Less is more

This one’s a no-brainer: we’re drowning in content.

Brands are generating more than ever, with one study counting a 300% increase this year compared to last.

The problem? Consumer demand for it remains static.

There’s only so much we can consume, process and share.

We still appreciate great content to the same extent, but as saturation increases, the big results are going to a proportionally smaller number of pieces.
But that’s not all.

Further analysis shows that 5% of branded content garners 90% of total consumer engagement.

And a quick search of ‘content marketing law’ confirms this is the case more or less across the board: on average, 19 out of 20 pieces gets little to no attention.
Or, if a team produced 90% less content, they would still achieve the same results.

The solution is simple. Publish less. Publish well. Publish only when you have something valuable to say.

Then, devote freed-up resources to optimizing the evergreen content you already have.

Evergreen Content

• ‘Evergreen’ content is simply content that doesn’t lose its value over time; it has no sell-by-date.
• ‘Temporal’ content only has short-term relevance.

Both have their place. Temporal content keeps things fresh and buzzy with short spikes of interest. But it’s evergreen content that generates those lovely compound returns that make content marketing valuable in the first place.

It can be tempting to try and keep up with our fast-paced online life by churning out a constant deluge of temporal content. But relying on those little bursts of interest is a) expensive, b) time-consuming and c) unsustainable — to the point of diminishing returns.

Even if a post gets a lot of initial buzz, studies show that shares don’t equal links.

Evergreen content, on the other hand, has consistently been proven to drive the biggest amount of organic traffic for the minimum amount of effort.

This isn’t an either/or; but the scales should be tipped highly in favor of evergreen over temporal.

However, evergreen content needs to be watered regularly to stay healthy. Enter historical optimization.

Historical Optimization

Historical optimization is the practice of refreshing ‘old’ (i.e. not published today) content to increase lead generation and traffic.
It helps with:

• content with high conversions but low traffic;
• content with high traffic but low conversions;
• and content that is underperforming relative to the time and resources it took to create.

By employing historical optimization, you capitalize on the existing authority and traffic a post already has.

Content should be updated to improve accuracy, freshness and comprehensiveness.

Useful areas to tweak? Titles, the quality of the copy, internal and external links, images, meta-description and CTA.

You can also ask GrowthBot for the keywords you rank for and compare them to keywords similar organizations are ranking for.

Then, content can be resurfaced as brand new (with a publication date to match — Google favors fresh content).

Distribution and Resurfacing

The distribution of content is almost as important as the content itself.
And by dedicating efforts to resurfacing existing content, you can reach the same (or a larger) audience with less effort, as well as reducing pressure on staff to keep churning out new stuff.

It’s a tactic that’s helped online publications like The Atlantic (where more than 50% of monthly traffic comes from content not produced that month) significantly raise their readership.

Resurfacing can include everything from evergreen hits, newly refurbished stories, temporal content that has found renewed relevance; or simply nuggets of information or research that continue to be useful.

It all boils down to the oft-cited definition of content marketing success: helping the right audience find the right content at the right time.

By staying abreast of the current content climate, you can evaluate if a story is worth resurfacing (or writing) in the first place; and if so, how best to distribute it.

But this relies on more than an educated guess. Smart automations like GrowthBot can help clarify what’s of interest to your target audience. Try asking it what stories are trending for a certain topic, or which posts are the most-viewed on a relevant site.

Another great way to find popular content on any topic is with Ahrefs’ Content Explorer.

Smarter SEO

Today, the top distribution channels are controlled by a small number of huge companies: specifically, Alphabet and Facebook (and everyone they own, including Google and Youtube).

So, we’re essentially at the mercy of their algorithms — which are subject to constant change, including:

• Google’s algorithm being updated to favor ‘real experts’ on a topic (not content machines or college kids copywriting to pay their tuition fee).
• Search engines in general (including technology like Amazon Alexa) becoming more complex and sophisticated — they’re now able to understand semantically-related concepts.
• Personalized search making keyword rankings unpredictable and harder to calculate.
• Google displaying featured snippets on the SERP (search engine results page).
• Facebook updating their organic reach News Feed content with the same intent: to keep users from navigating to different sites.

These changes represent a shift in the classic function of SEO.
Obviously, the first step is to ensure your content is sufficiently engaging and educational not only to rank high in search results, but to entice readers away from the SERP.

However, that’s no longer enough.

Build Around Topics

To assert yourself as a ‘true expert’, you need to create accurately and consistently around a certain topic — not one-off content to target certain keywords.

Topic clusters have been lauded as the future of SEO and content strategy, but are widely underreported on (so now’s the time to strike!) A topic cluster is simply a group of interlinked web pages built around one ‘pillar’ page.

The pillar page and cluster pages link back to each other via the use of the same hyperlinked keyword.

When one of these pages performs well, the entire topic gets a rankings boost, leading to more visitors and a positive feedback loop traffic and conversions.

This will also improve search ranking of similar content on your site, which can even lead to you owning multiple SERP positions for a certain keyword.

Implementing topic clusters will clarify a site’s organization and architecture. It also encourages a more deliberate approach to posting.

In the past, a team would generally post for the sake of interest or topicality. With topic clusters, they can use organic gaps in an existing cluster as a strategic starting point.

Featured Snippets

Featured snippets are the high-ranking search results featured in a box below the ads on Google. In a nutshell, they’re there to answer a user’s question straightaway.
Being featured, unsurprisingly, results in tons more exposure: RKG Merkle’s Ben Goodsell noted an 677% increase in revenue from organic visitors and a 400% increase in click-throughs.

Ahrefs reports that 99.58% of featured pages already rank in top 10 of Google, so if you’re already ranking high your chances are promising.
But, as outlined in this awesome Moz guide, there are plenty of ways to optimize your content to increase its chances of getting featured, including: keyword research, on-page SEO, Twitter monitoring, structure, formatting and imagery.

It’s also important to try and answer as many similar questions possible.
You can also look for relevant existing snippets already owned by another company and try to get a mention.

Another handy feature is the ‘people also ask’ widget, which gives an insight into what Google links together. By exploring this, you can sniff out untapped content opportunities and strategize for the future.

Facebook

By combining PPC with recommendation algorithms, Facebook has flippedthe digital advertising value chain upside down.

As outlined in Buffer’s report, Facebook’s new algorithm relies on three active interactions: commenting, sharing and reacting.

Adam Mosseri, Head of News Feed, explains: “Page posts that generate conversation between people will show higher in News Feed.”

But a no-go for brands is posting content that ‘baits’ customers into commenting, sharing or reacting; this will result in demotion of your content on newsfeeds.
The engagements need to be based on genuine interest, not just consumption.

The algorithm also places equal emphasis on posts that have been shared privately as well as publicly.

For most brands, reach and referral traffic from Facebook will continue to decrease; so it may be worth re-evaluating investment and resources dedicated to Facebook.
There’s no silver bullet — content needs to authentic, meaningful (and usually emotionally driven) to succeed.

Buffer’s Brian Peters summarizes: “Instead of creating content, for your brand, that people interact with, we need to start creating content, for the people, that will spark enough emotion to generate a comment or share.”

Breaking Out of Our Rut

The final barrier is our dependence on the same, worn-out methods; a strategy that worked in the past won’t necessarily continue to work.

That’s why it’s important to keep experimenting, testing and iterating with different channels and acquisition tactics.

This will help you build up a portfolio of experience to fall back on if your core strategy starts losing traction or just isn’t working.

It’s also useful in terms of tapping into new audiences or digging deeper into your target audience’s interests.

Here are some methods to try.

Conversational Marketing

Conversational marketing means having a real-time, one-to-one conversationwith a customer or lead.

According to a recent study, 90% of consumers want to use messaging to communicate with businesses. Platforms like Drift and Intercom make scaling these conversations possible.

This signals a change in the way content marketing is distributed, making the prospect of customers receiving the right content at the right time — i.e, when they’ve just asked you for it — a reality.

Alex De Simone, CEO of Avochato explains: “Machine learning technologies that enable marketers to tailor who sees a message are starting to decide what the content of conversations should be. The shift from traditional content marketing to machine-mediated conversational marketing will change the way marketers operate, empowering them to deliver better content at scale.”

Video Marketing

Experts are convinced that video, one of the fastest-growing and most in-demand channels out there, is the content marketing platform of the future.
In a world where more and more is automated, video emerges as one of the last communication channels that can’t be faked.

Don’t agree? Here are the numbers:

• Video is projected to claim more than 80% of all web traffic by 2019.
• 90% of customers report that product videos help them make purchasing decisions.
• Digital marketing expert James McQuivey estimates that a single minute of video content is the equivalent of 1.8 million words.

Sites like Simpleshow and GoAnimate are a great place to start.
Video marketing is powerful because it’s visual and auditory, making it easier for users to remember than text-based content. And when a customer remembers your video, they will also remember your brand.

Emerging Technology

Emerging technology is predicted to go mainstream over the next two years, and its widespread availability will create opportunities for marketers to optimize their content.

By 2021, early adopter brands that redesign their websites to support visual and voice search will increase digital commerce revenue by 30%.

And experts predict that AR/VR will amass $150 billion in revenue by 2020, indicating that the production of visual content will go from a ‘nice-to-have’ to a ‘must-have’.

While virtual reality still represents unexplored territory for most, its rise can serve as a reminder to keep experimenting with visual content such as interactive graphics, imagery, videos and apps.

As summarized by Ginny Mineo, you should: “Re-calibrate your strategy between compounding, recurring, and experimental content channels.”

The successful content marketers of the future will learn from the past and quickly adapt to the present.

Content marketing can transform itself by relying on selective, higher-quality content, powered by smarter research and emerging technologies.

People are hungry for immediate answers.

Luckily, it has never been easier to find the information you’re seeking via search. 

A lot of marketers want to know: how does HubSpot optimize for search? I talked to our blogging team to find out, and put together a series of insider tips we’re eager to share with you. Check out the tactics below, and start maximizing organic traffic to your own blog.

How to Rank #1 on Google

1. Embrace Complex Clusters

Search algorithms are ever-evolving, and in 2018 they are as smart as ever. Search engines are now capable of recognizing connections across search queries.

This has big implications for marketers. Gone are the days when the searcher typed in simple keywords. Searches today are complex, putting the heavy lifting back on Google and other search engines to connect the dots.

For example, if you type “movie about doctor clown” into Google the first result will be the movie Patch Adams, despite the fact that there is no overlap in the search terminology. The takeaway: search engines are incredibly intuitive. Google recognizes exactly what the searcher wants without the searcher explicitly stating their question. Go ahead, try it for yourself!

At HubSpot, our blogging team realized this shifting behavior, so they altered our blog strategy to focus on topic clusters, instead of specific keywords.

To do this, they first identified what topics to prioritize. They then aligned our existing blog posts into the aforementioned clusters and generated tons of new content under those clusters. Finally, they built internal and external links at every available opportunity, creating connection points between content that share the same topic cluster. In doing so, we signal to search engines exactly how the pieces fit together. While it can be time-consuming to reorganize your content, the payoff is huge.

2. Prepare an Answer for the Target Query

Let’s use the example of Patch Adams once more. If you type “movie about doctor clown” into Google, you will see a small box with a short answer summarizing the premise of the film right below the search bar. There’s no need to click into a link to see the answer; instead, Google makes it easy to get the information on first glance. This answer box is a featured snippet. And if you’re not using your blog to optimize for featured snippets, start now.

Here’s the incentive: Google pulls the featured snippet from one of the pages that ranks on page one of the search results, but the featured snippet does not necessarily need to exist in the #1 link. This is a huge opportunity to get content that is not in the #1 spot to actually appear above the #1 spot. Want to see a live example? Search “Let’s get meta” into Google, and see for yourself.

To identify which content is good for featured snippets, Google frequently serves up answers for “Who, What, When, Where, Why and How” queries. If you think your content is addressing one of the aforementioned questions, prioritize writing a golden-nugget answer, and you may just see your content sitting right below the search bar.

Another key reason to prioritize for the featured snippet is voice search. As voice search is on trend to become 50% of all mobile searches by 2020 — a prediction by both Google and Bing — featured snippets are now being tapped as the trigger response by virtual assistants. So, as search evolves, so should you.

3. Revamp Out-of-Date Blog Posts

There are a number of benefits to creating new content like having additional pages to be indexed by search engines, providing education to your curious users, and it is a good way to stay relevant in your industry. However, as any tenured blogger knows, new posts can take a while to build up steam. In fact, it is often slightly older posts that generate a large portion of traffic because they have had time to develop authority.

One of the most effective strategies HubSpot’s blogging team implements to boost SEO was is to historically optimize our old posts. Historical optimization is the process of taking old posts and making them new again with higher-quality, refreshed content, keywords, and links. By leveraging your already existing search authority on these posts, search engines will reward your freshness, which will then lead to a surge of new visits to your content.

Do You Know How Search Engines Determine Rank?

We surveyed 295 individuals across the United States, asking the question “Do you know how search engines, like Google, rank the results you get after a search?” An astounding 48% of people answered “no.” As a marketer, you do not want to be in that 48%. If you do not evolve with SEO, you risk losing key business opportunities to maximize your brand awareness and generate leads. It is time to understand, strategize, and capitalize on invaluable SEO tactics — like blogging — that will propel your business into success in 2018 and beyond.