There is no better way to learn whether your business’ SEO campaign is working or not than doing your hands-on. However, putting theories into practice is challenging, especially because theory and real life are not always aligned. What can a business owner or SEO manager can do to learn about the effectiveness of a particular SEO strategy?
Probably one of the best ways is by observing what others are doing, take note and put what works into practice. If you are looking for a starting point, I’d suggest for you to observe via a unique event – SEO competition.
Wix, a popular platform for creating business websites, has launched an SEO competition called SEO Hero in late 2016. What is the competition all about? We talk with Alissa Ludanskaa, Head of SEO Team at Wix, about the competition in a Q&A session.
What is the SEO Hero competition all about?
Back in November 2016 we decided to launch an SEO Hero competition and challenge the SEO community to a battle on Google’s SERPs. The competition: create a website and try to achieve the highest ranking in Google for the search term “SEO Hero” in four months’ time. Judgement day for the challenge is March 16th, 2017, and the winner will receive a grand prize of $50,000!
Why is Wix running this type of competition?
The idea for the competition came about while brainstorming ways to address a reputational pain point that Wix has had for some time: SEO.
While we have always worked to make sure Wix sites were built the right way in terms of SEO, we had started putting our heads together to figure out new solutions for boosting our users’ online presence.
Despite some great product improvements, we realized that our biggest problem lay not in our product, but in the eye of the beholder. We had heard the chatter about Wix’s SEO, and it was not pretty. So, we decided to tackle this PR problem head-on, as boldly as possible – an open challenge to the SEO community to compete for that ever-elusive #1 ranking!
What do you hope to achieve?
The aim of the campaign is to open up the conversation about Wix’s SEO capabilities, and confront the stigma that Wix has bad SEO. In short, the campaign is meant to show the world that it doesn’t matter which platform you use, SEO is difficult and takes a lot of hard work and dedication. The SEO success of a website will rely on the work of committed and talented SEO’s, i.e. the real heroes of SEO.
What kind of response have you gotten to the competition?
In terms of PR, the competition certainly generated a lot of buzz, and we’ve gotten some great coverage in the media.
We were really amazed by the amount of entries, and especially impressed with the hard work and creativity put into so many of the entered sites! The SEO community is passionate and professional, and this was clearly demonstrated in this competition. It’s been pretty cool to see the spirit of competition is alive and well in the world of SEO.
Do you think that Wix sites have a chance to win?
Definitely – without a doubt. As a matter of fact, we’ve already seen more than a few Wix websites ranking in top positions in the competition!
We’re constantly trying to empower our users by providing them with the most effective tools to promote their sites in terms of SEO. Still, SEO takes hard work – which is why we couldn’t be more proud of the Wix users who have entered the competition.
This feeling of pride in our users certainly extends beyond the competition – we are especially proud of all those Wix users who work their butts off to optimize their sites and grow their online presence. As an homage to our Wix SEO Heroes, we’ve created this site to celebrate their hard work and achievements in SEO: www.real-seohero.com.
The competition is almost over – what do you expect for the final month?
We’re in the home stretch, and it’s definitely getting pretty exciting. From what we can see, there is still some fierce competition for the #1 spot, so the last days of the competition will be real nail-biters. We’re just weeks away from finding out who will win the title of SEO Hero, and at this point it’s anybody’s game.
Who is your personal SEO Hero?
Well, if you couldn’t already tell from Wix’s competition entry, our personal SEO Hero is Rand Fishkin! We never miss a Whiteboard Friday, which is why we’ve used the Rand’s likeness in our designs and throughout the campaign, as to us he is the real guru of SEO. We’ve even created this video in his honor: