Strategies for SEO
Imagine standing in a crowded room trying to sell roses to passers-by. Your roses look and smell beautiful. But every other person in that room is also selling roses. So how on earth do you stand out from the crowd? This sort of dilemma is faced by businesses every day as they try to make their voices heard among a bustling digital space.
Being online is a great start. But without the right strategy you’ll just get lost at sea. If you want to succeed it’s crucial to think about SEO and make sure your part of the web is fully optimised and meeting its full potential. So, here’s how to create a successful SEO strategy in 2020 that should boost organic traffic from search engines and improve conversion rates.
Step 1 – Create a List of Keywords
When it comes to SEO, keywords are incredibly important. Google works to return the most relevant content for a specific search. So, it’s your job to make it clear what your content is about by incorporating keywords into headers, titles, URLs, links, image ALT text and throughout the body of your content. But don’t just take a stab in the dark as to what words you must use. Instead, carry out thorough keyword research by:
- Brainstorming potential searches you would use to find your content.
- Using tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console to find out how people already get to your site.
- Typing a keyword into Google’s search field which will in turn populate a bunch of suggestions. This is helpful as it’s generated by Google and therefore points at what people have been looking for.
- Use tools such as Ubersuggest to analyse search volumes for specific words.
- Use a mixture of short and more specific long-tail keywords.
The keyword list you form will help you to craft an SEO-friendly content strategy based around specific keyword topics. For example, you can take each keyword and draft titles around this SEO concept in order to formulate a wider, more advanced content plan.
Step 2 – Research Google’s First Page
Once you have conducted thorough keyword research, type one of those words into Google and see what appears on the first page. This is content that Google has deemed relevant so it’s good to note down any patterns and trends that you could modify on your website/blog. For example, if lists such as ‘top tens’ or how-to content makes up the first 10 or so results, then this technique can be added to your SEO strategy.
Step 3 – Create Something Better than What’s Available
Creating content that’s keyword rich, useful, easily sharable and miles better than anything else out there will help you to stand out from the crowd. So, if Google’s first page is littered with top ten content marketing strategies, how about going a step further by creating a ‘content marketing guide 2020’ packed with all the latest stats as well as web optimised images? This is a good idea because Google loves long-form content and if people are hooked enough to read it to the end, this could boost your overall SEO success. What’s more, taking the time to include relevant statistics can work in your favour. This is because writers tend to link to content that features data in order to back up what they are saying thereby potentially increasing your backlinks.
Creating complete guides on a topic is a great hook for backlinks as many people touch on a topic but don’t have time to go into it in detail and therefore need an article that does the job for them.
Step 4 – Optimise for On-Page SEO
There are many on-page SEO techniques to focus on, but here are 3 of the most important:
#1 Internal linking – link from high authority pages to pages that need authority and use a keyword-rich anchor text in your internal links.
#2 Keep URLs short – make the most of short URLs by incorporating just your target keyword. Or, your target keyword plus one additional word.
#3 Focus on semantic SEO – this means using relevant words in your copy as well as the main keyword. You can find relevant terms by typing your keyword into Google and checking out the ‘searches related to…’ section.
Step 5 – Write with Search Intent in Mind
Think about what the user wants to see when they type in a specific keyword. Chances are they require simple, easy-to-read and visually appealing content. So, use plenty of bold fonts and header titles. Break your text up with fully optimised images and for mobile content keep paragraphs short and easily scrollable. In other words, keep people on-page and don’t direct them off all around your site. This isn’t easy via a device.
Get advice from the SEO pros
There are many SEO steps to consider but having a keyword strategy will make the rest of the process a whole lot easier. Speak to Whitefish Marketing, a Kent SEO agency, for all your SEO and content optimisation requirements.
