In this post, we'll discuss what an SEO strategy is, its importance, and how to define an SEO strategy that works.
First, let's review the 101s...What is an SEO strategy? An SEO strategy is a process of organizing a website's content by topic to improve the likelihood of appearing in search results. In a nutshell, it's everything needed to make sure your piece of content gets found (or indexed) by search engines and then ranked well on the search engine results page. SEO strategy is the set of goals that collectively define how a website will be effectively positioned within search engine results to help the website generate the maximum return on its investment.
SEO can be broken down into two main parts: On-page and Off-page. On-page refers to all the things you can do to your site itself, while off-page refers to everything else that happens outside your site.
On-Page SEO: These are all things you can do on your own website to improve its search engine ranking:
Keyword research – Discovering what people search for online will help you choose keywords relevant to what you offer so that more people will find your site when searching for those terms. For example, if you make custom T-shirts then 'custom t-shirts' would be a good keyword because it's popular but not overly competitive (meaning there are many sites competing for that term). Keyword research usually involves finding long tail keywords – those with 3+ words – as they tend to be easier to rank for than short head terms like 't shirt' or 'custom.
Off-page SEO: This refers to all of the things that you can do off your website that will increase its visibility in search engines (and therefore increase traffic). These include things like guest blogging (writing articles for other websites), social media promotion, and link building (getting other sites to link back to yours).
The first step in developing an SEO strategy is to determine what keywords you want to rank for. Next, you need to create pages on your website that are optimized for those keywords. This is done by adding keyword-rich titles and meta descriptions, as well as making sure the page has fresh content that relates to the keyword. The next step is to do link building and social media marketing so that search engines can find your website easily and see that it's relevant to their users.
Once you've taken these steps, you can start driving traffic from search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! by using pay-per-click advertising (PPC). PPC ads can be placed above or beside organic listings at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs).
A typical SEO strategy will include:
- Keyword research - Identify keywords that are relevant to your business and target them with content on your site.
- On-page optimization - Make sure your content is relevant and optimized for search engines by adding appropriate keywords where needed.
- Link building - Work on building links from other websites back to yours so Google knows it is an authoritative source of
Every minute of every day, someone is Googling something, which means there's always an opportunity to be found by search engines. Perhaps the most important takeaway from this post is that SEO isn't a one-time deal. SEO is a process that requires time and dedication. This doesn't mean you have to be on your toes at all times (seriously, you don't). But it does mean that you need to dedicate enough time and attention so that your site advances in the SERPs. In other words, if you want to improve your rankings, you have to keep working hard at it over a period of time.
If you are not yet sure of what to do, try reaching out to us. We would be more than happy to talk about your project and work with you to make it a success.
At basemonkeys, we develop digital experiences that flaunt your brand's personality and equip it for success. We use our expertise to turn ideas into a beautiful user experience that conveys your marketing message. Combining design, development, and strategy across the full open channel of social media, Web, and mobile, we create unique experiences that help you connect with your customers.
