If you are living in Melbourne and craving for the fluffy ‘holey’ dough, what will you do?
If you know a foodie friend who has tried all the good places, she might be the one to ask.
What if you were that person, who loved to explore good foods in Melbourne, or a common foodie who simply craved for certain food, doughnut for example?
Well, most of us might go to Google, search “best doughnut in Melbourne”.
I did. What did come out?
Places pop up first, doughnut shops with high star rating nearby.
Then, did webpages of doughnut brands come out?
No, it’s Broadsheet, Herald Sun and the Urban List that came out! They are not doughnut stores.
Well, let’s see what Broadsheet Melbourne has to offer.
Broadsheet lists 16 doughnut places in Victoria! Each describes the brands with product review, location, operating information and many pictures.
What has made Broadsheet successfully on the top of the list? As we can see in the picture above, Broadsheet does not use paid search listings. It’s optimising natural listings.
First, the 24-character title reflects the whole content with the main keywords at the front ‘Best Doughnuts’. According to MOZ, a good SEO post has short 65-75 characters that illustrates the content and important keywords at the front.
Second, it tags all the brands posted on the page. The tags link users to the business websites. MOZ says that mentioning brand names in the tags is important.
Finally, Broadsheet is easy to use and writes quality content. It describes each store with broad objectivity of the products and story of the business. This gives readers not only product reviews, but also stories of how the stores start.
It seems that optimising the Search Engine Strategies lead Broadsheet to this on-top-of-the-list success. Will this guarantee Broadsheet to win the list in the future? If you were to start a business website, would you follow what Broadsheet does?
Marketing through the Looking Glass 
Personally, I think that by continuing on what they are doing which is offering readers quality content, this will maintain broadsheet long-term success. As a user myself, I find myself keep revisiting website that has good content!
LikeLike
Hi Candy. I agree that quality matters in order to keep people coming back to the website. Combined with putting the right keywords relevant to the page content and tags, a business can be on top without having to pay for sponsored ad.
LikeLike
Hi, it’s interesting that you let me know about BroadSheet. I often search for food online too. I love reading reviews about restaurants from a well-written website so I can know more about which places have the best food or drink. I think when I have a business, I would create a website like that and let people find out about my business naturally.
LikeLike
Hi Anh, that sounds like a good choice. As a startup in the future, we may want to spend less, meaning we can exclude paid search engine. As mentioned above, we can be on top of the list without paying, as long as we keep our quality content relevant to search keywords and have links to other pages.
LikeLike
Hi Lora, it’s interesting knowing that what comes up in the search engine isn’t always what we expect. Like your example, Broadsheet came up instead of doughnut shop names. Reading your example, it makes me think that optimising a page will be more important and less costly. I’m just worrying if my website will lose the rank if all other companies use paid SEO?
LikeLike
Hi Stella. Indeed it is interesting to know how the search engine works. Broadsheet has optimised its website so that it can be on the top of the search engine list. That’s why it is possible for your website to be on top without paying. Don’t worry about other websites that pay, because there people will be curious to visit a website that is on top without a paid ad.
LikeLike
I like the way you illustrate the importance of SEO by searching a random thing and explore the results with us. It makes me feel excited and wanna know what’s happened next. As a marketing student, I always learn how companies should promote themselves through traditional and online platforms and SEO is rarely mentioned. However, SEO seems as important as other marketing channels now. As you said, SEO decides how front a business can show up in the result list.
But when every business is using SEO marketing, how can it guarantee my company will be the #1 instead of others?
LikeLike
I’m glad that you like the illustration Teresa. Optimising SEO need to be consistent in order to make sure you can maintain your website on top of the list. However, if you want your page to reach the number one top of the list instantly, you can consider paid search engine marketing. I also agree that other marketing strategies apart from SEO are crucial.
LikeLike