The Complete Lowdown on Holistic SEO

November 16, 2023

It’s time to get into the nitty gritty of a concept that is challenging the things that we thought we knew about search marketing – we’re talking about holistic SEO. It sounds daunting, but it’s actually serving to improve organic experiences, and given the fact it’s been raining core updates lately, there’s no better time to embrace some adaptability.

Here’s the lowdown on what it is, why it works, and why it ought to be on your radar.

What is holistic SEO?

Holistic SEO is a comprehensive strategy, designed to optimise the entire digital presence of a business – not just a website. It’s a multichannel approach that aims to enhance user interactions, on-site, off-site, and beyond.

How is holistic SEO different from traditional SEO?

One of the most vital understandings in holistic SEO is that your website does not exist in a vacuum, so your strategy shouldn’t either. In traditional SEO, a website audit is used to prescribe tactics to address issues, and naturally, over time these items are ticked off from the ‘to do’ list. Often, it’s hard to make tangible connections between these isolated optimisation efforts; holistic SEO serves to bridge these gaps.

A holistic roadmap looks for actions that span all aspects of a business’ digital presence, using them to support value-driven objectives – think user satisfaction, engagement, and accessibility.

What are the benefits of holistic SEO?

We’ve outlined some of the benefits of holistic SEO, equipping you with a clearer understanding of the way this kind of approach could serve to supercharge your current strategy.

Improved user experience

As we’ve explained, holistic SEO is all about implementing user-centric upgrades, making it easy for your customers to interact with your website and off-page presence. When we’re assessing a domain from this perspective, we consider user expectations and apply them to aspects such as functionality, layout, and content value. Ultimately, we want users to land on a site that serves them with exactly what they were looking for, in a smooth, responsive way. The result is higher engagement rates, longer durations spent exploring content, and lower bounce rates – and these factors all weigh in on overall ranking.

Enhanced brand visibility and credibility

Holistic SEO can help to craft and sustain a solid brand presence. By aligning your off-page experience with the broader strategy focus and overall user needs, you can showcase your business to searchers in the best light. From leveraging social media and online reviews, to securing valuable brand mentions, there are plenty of ways that you can reinvigorate your brand positioning by taking a holistic POV.

Holistic SEO also helps to garner onsite topical relevance – the concept itself is a vote of credibility, achieved through creating high-quality, search-driven content, delving into subtopics and clusters to convey expertise.

Holistic SEO strategies place you in good stead for algorithm changes

We’ve barely had time to catch our breath in between the four core algorithms that have been rolled out this year (so far!). Want to know what a core update and holistic SEO have in common? Both concepts are shaped by user quality. Google makes changes to ensure that users are being served with the most helpful, well-presented content – which holistic SEO serves to inform the creation of! If you don’t want to be sent into an existential crisis every time a roll out is announced, then it’s time to reassess your organic priorities.

Holistic SEO can encourage higher conversion rates

When done right, holistic SEO can grow your bottom line. The practice is essentially a culmination of ‘green flags’ that the typical customer needs to see before taking action on a page, and in the lead up to landing on a site – i.e, making a purchase or contact enquiry. Factors such as easy-to-use navigation menus, seamless, secure user experience, and well-produced content all contribute to increased trust. You’re creating a safe, valuable, setting that gives customers all of the context they need before they convert.

Holistic SEO is based on long-term sustainability over short-term wins

Holistic SEO is geared towards creating a sustainable online presence, rather than seeking short-term gains. We all know by now that SEO is a long game, and attempting to bypass this will often result in resorting to black hat tactics. While quick wins do have a role within the strategies that we put together for clients (such as deploying a low-hanging fruit approach or implementing technical fixes), we pursue them in tandem with our bigger picture efforts.

How to think holistic: 3 steps to refocus your SEO strategy

If the benefits of holistic SEO sound interesting, then we’ve got some pointers to follow if you’re ready to shift your perspective towards this way of working.

Step back and review your digital presence from an outside POV

Many business owners think that they know the inner workings of their main marketing channels, but getting wrapped up in these complexities only places you further away from the everyday searcher. Every so often, we’d suggest taking a step back and acting as if you’re engaging with your own brand for the first time – sounds very meta, but trust the process! If you were in the market for your own services, assess your entire presence against these key pointers:

  • Would your website result look as appealing as your competitors on SERPs? Or would you be enticed elsewhere by attractive USPs or more compelling meta content?
  • When you explore your own Google Business listing, does it encourage you with helpful content and reviews?
  • What about your social media platforms – do they target trustworthiness by making use of user generated content, or is it all a bit faceless?
  • Click through to your website and explore from the homepage – can you find exactly what you’re looking for in a few (less than 3 is the sweet spot) clicks?
  • Do you feel like the content you’re serving would push you towards converting? What could be improved to act as more encouragement for users?
  • Can you see clear signposts towards the place you’d ‘take action’ – i.e, sending a contact enquiry or making a purchase?

Document all of the findings of this process for all devices (i.e, desktop and mobile), and you’ll have the skeleton for your holistic improvements.

Consider the human values & interests that characterise your audience

It’s not uncommon to hyper-fixate on the kind of customers you think you should be attracting, but if you’re not thinking about their ‘why’ in relation to your business, then you’re missing a trick. Look at your audience from a new perspective – think about the ways you want your product or service to resonate with these customers, then use creative copywriting to craft content that conveys these values. To supercharge this, consider what kind of action these values would trigger, and build this intent into your output. For example, if you’ve got a sustainable activewear brand, then consider which broader themes might resonate with your audience in their daily lives – i.e sustainable shopping, workout guides, and fitness advice.

Taking this approach means you’ll be publishing valuable content that addresses the needs and wider interests of your audience.

Focus less on rankings, and more on user journey

A key principle of holistic SEO is understanding that the success of a website isn’t solely determined by SERP positions – but rather by the overall experience it serves users with. In holistic SEO, high rankings are an indicator that your relevant, up to date, accessible content is performing from a user perspective – but accepting that there could still be room for improvement is an active way to approach your presence holistically.

Replicating this success using traditional SEO approaches often means relying on tactics that don’t have any long-term or user value – for example, focusing solely on keyword density (if your SEO provider mentions this term, run for the hills!).

Don’t neglect your off-page strategy

The channels within your marketing mix aren’t separated by perimeters if you think about them from a holistic POV. Once you can blur the lines between your on-page and off-page presence, you’ll start to see some synergies come into play, and this kind of cross-channel interaction is what holistic SEO is all about. For example, your on-page tactics are no longer limited to your website – once you’ve learned how to adapt them for social, you’ll be able to cater to an entirely new portion of searchers.

In this sense, off-page efforts are far more dimensional than simply a matter of link building and sharing content – analysing how your audience behaves off-page will unveil a whole new series of user journeys to nurture on-page. Social signals like this are actively shaping the way we interact with search engines, so adopting a holistic mindset will enable you to capitalise on these algorithms adaptations.

If you want to get ahead of the curve, start joining up the dots behind your digital presence now. For more guidance on holistic SEO, contact us today, or take a look at some of our latest client case studies in the meantime.