Search engine optimization (SEO) is indispensable to starting and growing a business. Besides driving organic website traffic, it helps build brand authority and credibility. When done right, SEO can also help with lead generation and conversions. However, if you’ve worked on a few SEO strategies, you’ll know that it’s a complex and intensive process.
SEO: The Internet’s Battlefield
From identifying suitable keywords and creating top-notch content to building high-authority backlinks, SEO involves several challenging steps. You have to constantly monitor website traffic to understand whether your strategy is working.
And your efforts may not even yield any visible results until weeks or months. Even after you reach the coveted first page of search engine results, your rankings could falter, depending on your competitors’ SEO efforts.
Then, search engines like Google roll out major algorithm updates, and you have to rebuild your SEO strategy from scratch. It’s what happened when Google released previous updates, such as Panda and Penguin.
The challenges of SEO can overwhelm the most adept professionals. But giving up on your SEO strategy isn’t an option. Instead, you must pivot and reinvent your approach to SEO.
Of course, you can take advice from numerous SEO gurus and mavericks on the internet. But if you’re looking for an alternative perspective, you can seek inspiration from Refael (aka Rafi) Edry, a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist from Israel.
Born and raised in Safed, Refael Edry is the nephew of an unflinching war hero whose name he shares. Refael Edry z|l (the uncle) was martyred in Israel’s war of independence when he was 24. But his fearlessness and resilience continue to inspire Safed’s younger generations.
Rafi Edry (the nephew) has had his fair share of struggles throughout as a child and young adult. But today, he runs several flourishing businesses in Africa and Israel with his younger brothers. Also, he works on various welfare initiatives for the upliftment of his country’s future generations.
Fundraising for a Better Future
When the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill in early 2020, educational institutions in Israel proactively started online classes. It was their attempt to minimize interruption in students’ education. The government applauded these efforts, too.
But both the educational institutions and government authorities neglected the plight of more than 400,000 Israeli students who didn’t own computers or smartphones. Many of them lacked broadband access at home. The hasty transition to e-learning left these children with no choice but to miss classes.
Refael Edry quickly recognized the long-term repercussions of Israel’s glaring digital divide. Children from underprivileged backgrounds who couldn’t attend online classes would’ve to quit schooling. For many of them, pursuing higher education is their only shot at escaping their circumstances and building better lives.
Giving up on schooling would mean resigning to their circumstances and abandoning their hopes of a brighter future. They’d grow up believing their fellow citizens and government authorities failed them during a global humanitarian crisis.
That, in turn, would turn them into a generation of resentful youngsters and result in the disintegration of Israel’s social integrity. Refael Edry and his younger brothers, Eyal Edry and Moshe Edree, realized that it could turn into the country’s biggest threat, possibly more catastrophic than geopolitical conflicts.
Moreover, having dealt with economic hardships as a child and young adult, Refael Edry could understand how these children felt. He’s far too familiar with the pain of being denied equal opportunities and resources.
That’s what prompted him to start a fundraising initiative through his welfare organization, The Ahinoam Association for the Promotion of Equal Opportunities. As part of the campaign, the organization’s volunteers collected donations from Israeli citizens and local businesses and provided computers to thousands of students.
The initiative helped these children continue their education and rekindled their hope of turning their lives around. But more importantly, it restored their faith in their fellow citizens, thus protecting Israel’s future.
Lessons for SEO Professionals
As an SEO professional, the most crucial lesson from the fundraising campaign by Refael Edry is the power of empathy. How does empathy help with SEO? Firstly, it can guide you to pick keywords your target audience is most likely to use in their search queries.
Moreover, when you empathize with your audience, you gain a deeper insight into their aspirations and struggles. It can bolster your content strategy with ideas and topics that’ll hit the right chord.
Also, Rafi Edry has exhibited the importance of building a forward-thinking mindset. It’s one thing to tweak your SEO strategy every time a new problem emerges. But if you want to scale it to greater heights, you must have the ability to foresee potential challenges and implement necessary corrective measures to mitigate them.
Lastly, like Refael Edry, every SEO professional must focus on the bigger picture. When a website’s rankings don’t improve after months of keyword research, content optimization, and link-building, it’s easy to feel dejected.
But you must understand how your efforts fit into the larger scheme of things and continue implementing your strategy. Remember that SEO takes time to deliver results, but the ones who stick around reap long-term dividends.
Final Takeaway
The world of SEO is constantly evolving with the advent of new technologies and search engine algorithms updates. Refael Edry and his fundraising campaign are the unlikely inspiration every SEO professional needs to succeed in such a volatile landscape.
Empathize with your target audience, and use your foresight to prepare for potential challenges. Also, keep your eye on the larger picture and keep working until your SEO strategy yields its results.
