# What Are SEO Anomalies? A Search Marketer’s Guide You know that feeling: you have a hunch that things are out of place. Something’s wrong. Do you know what it is? Your #1 competitor just stole your most profitable SERPs! What if you could [know when SEO changes happen](https://medium.com/@e.vardon/ai-and-seo-the-missing-link-in-your-search-strategy-22c3f29a9090) on the fly? Better yet, what if you could see opportunities when they’re right under your nose? These are called SEO anomalies. A.K.A strange occurrences and opportunities that happen related to your search marketing. Few marketers have the tools or time to pay attention to them, too. This is your opportunity to climb up the SERP ladder while others fall off. ## Start Defending Against Marketing Failures Today! Discover why over a 1000 businesses trust Hawke AI to help protect their marketing ROI. [Request a free trial](https://morphio.ai/request-trial/ "Request a free trial") ## **What are SEO anomalies?** Let’s do a refresher real quick. AI (Machine learning) learns how a business operates and anomaly detection reports spikes (or dips) that deviate from the norm. In particular, a SEO anomaly would be a ranking that jumped (or dipped) more than expected or a particular keyword is generating a surprising amount of traffic. The cause of the anomaly could be keyword-related, from metadata, due to page speed or backlinks—the list of possibilities goes on and on. Read our blog post on [Anomaly Detection Advantages and Disadvantages for Marketers](https://morphio.ai/blog/anomaly-detection-advantages-and-disadvantages/) to learn more about anomaly detection in general. ## **How to use SEO anomalies to boost SERP performance** Search marketers leverage anomalies to outrank competitors, boost traffic, and polish their strategies. But, all of this has probably left you with the question “How do I find anomalies, to begin with?” The answer: use artificial intelligence software powered by anomaly detection like Morphio. Morphio integrates with Google Analytics and Google Search Console to study your business. You will be alerted in real time of SEO opportunities or red flags like lost ranking positions. With that explanation out of the way, let’s get into the meat and potatoes of today’s article: learning how to identify and use [anomalies in SEO](https://morphio.ai/seo-anomalies). ## **Backlink anomalies** Backlink anomalies are unexpected links or backlinks that make a larger SEO impact than planned. You may expect several exact-match anchor text links to boost rankings, but a single one does, for example. Instead of spending more time on the original link campaign, search marketers move their focus elsewhere to hack growth. Seeing as link popularity remains as one of [the top three Google ranking factors](http://moz.com/blog/link-building-survey-2014-results), keeping on top of your link profile is still as important as ever. Search anomalies help marketers do so in a couple of ways: understanding the highest quality backlink sources and which strategies to double-down on. Ultimately identifying link anomalies helps a marketer [enhance their SEO](https://morphio.ai/blog/blog/7-best-seo-automation-tools-for-digital-agencies) and save time. Win-win! ## **Keyword anomalies** Keyword research is the backbone of good SEO. It’s a lengthy process, too. We’ve all experienced keyword anomalies at some point or another. Using SEO [anomaly detection software](https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2020/02/03/how-to-apply-anomaly-detection-and-reap-these-three-benefits/) will help those moments become predictable and measurable versus a surprise. This provides search marketers insight into what keyword trends and types of search terms tend to drive the most traffic. No more guessing or being in the dark! There are three types of keywords to keep in mind when analyzing anomalies: 1. **Informational**: Users are seeking information or an answer to a question. These are typically targeted in tutorials, guides, and similar blog posts. “How to do SEO” would be an informational keyword. 2. **Transactional**: Search terms that include words like “Affordable,” “Best,” or compare two products imply the user is interested in buying something. Lists, reviews, and comparison articles target these. 3. **Navigational**: Brand names and branded terms are used to find a specific business through search engines. ## **Content anomalies** Content marketing is a game of experimenting and testing. Certain topics and styles of content will outperform others. It’s a matter of finding which resonates with your audience the most and maximizes engagement. Content anomalies are topics or individual pieces of content that smash KPIs. Leads, traffic, social shares, and other metrics get blown out of the park. This makes you raise the question “Why?” to replicate findings for future success. Once you have found a piece of content that has abnormal behavior, gauge aspects like: - **Word count**: Was the article a short form of long-form piece of content? - **Type of content**: Was the article a comparison, review, infographic, list, etc? - **On-page SEO**: Did this article have anything special in terms of on-page SEO? The keyword density, linking, and fine details may have been more fine-tuned than other content. - **Writing style**: Did the tone of voice or personality differ from the norm? Readers may enjoy that style of writing more than others. ## **Competitors have anomalies, too** SEO anomalies don’t _only_ apply to your business. They apply to competitors, too. Anomaly detection can be used to be alerted when competitors’ website content, metadata, and SERPs jump up or down. ## **Conclusion** SEO anomalies are everywhere. It’s essentially Google telling you “Here’s what you’re doing right and here’s what you’re doing wrong.” Anomalies can appear in backlink profiles, rankings, keyword selection, and content. But, you have to be able to _find_ the anomalies in the first place. That’s where Morphio comes into the picture. Most businesses aren’t taking advantage of anomalies because they don’t have the tools or know-how.