Developing an SEO Strategy for your Website In 7 Steps
Nowadays, nearly every business has a website or a few professional social channels. When faced with saturation like this, it can be hard to stand out and get the kind of attention you want. Fortunately, if you take the time to craft an SEO (search engine optimization) strategy while building or revamping your website, you may just be able to find that elusive traction.
What is an SEO Strategy?
Developing an SEO strategy involves organizing your website's content by topic to maximize the likelihood of appearances in search results. Another way to think about this is that you're organizing your website structure based on things like content design, URL structures, and web development. But if you're starting a new website, you probably just want to focus on the building process, right?
Actually, the build itself should only be part of your focus. Another important consideration is SEO.
SEO is essential for new sites that don't have any backlinks or indexed pages yet. This is why you need to keep SEO in mind as you build. So, let's think back to those website topics we just discussed.
How to Develop a Fool-Proof SEO Strategy For Your Site
Step 1. Compile Short-Tail Keywords
First, you should make a list of topics, terms, and words associated with the products and services you provide. Then, enter these words into an SEO tool like Google's Keyword Planner to do some research. You'll learn about their search volume and be able to adjust them so that they rank higher. Adapting your language to include popular keywords will increase the likelihood of your appearance in search results.
So, by making these necessary adjustments to your language, you can align your topics with popular short-tail keywords (search terms of no more than three words). Once you find high-ranking words, make sure that you include these in your website design. Include any variations, too, as long as they make sense.
Once you have 10-15 of these keywords, you've identified your SEO strategy's pillars. These pillars will support the next level of SEO strategy we'll be discussing – long-tail keywords.
Step 2. Determine Your Long-Tail Keywords
For each of those pillar short-tail keywords you created, you should now come up with just as many long-tail keywords that develop upon each pillar. Long-tail keywords are longer sets of words, but they should also be more specific.
Like before, use an SEO tool to choose the most effective keywords. If your short-tail keywords are the most prominent topics or pillars on your site, then you should use your long-tail keywords to create a cluster around those topics. A search engine's algorithm will look for the relationships between long- and short-tail keywords to help identify the information users seek. Therefore, the specific relationships between these two types of keywords will help you attract traffic.
As mentioned, long-tail keywords should be clustered around the short-tail keywords. An easy way to do this involves building a page or post for each of your pillar topics. These pages should describe your pillar topics and introduce subtopics which can be further addressed.
For example, a pillar topic may be one of the services you provide, and within the page, you've created for that service, you should describe it using some of your long-tail keywords. So, if you offer "artisanal pizza" (short-tail), then you may describe it further as "woodfire oven stone-baked pizza" (long-tail) or through whatever popular keywords there may be that accurately describes the product.
Remember to keep search intent in mind as you use SEO tools to evaluate keywords. Sometimes a low competition keyword that better matches the product or service you provide may create the fastest route from the customer to you.
Step 3. Plan Content and Schedule Postings
Now we need to talk about content calendars – a schedule for all social channels and blogs. Blogs and social channels are great ways to associate your business with relevant search terms. These blogs should relate in some way to your pillar keywords, but they also offer you the ability to broaden your target audience.
To do so effectively, you first need to research who your target market is. Once you get an idea of what they're looking for, you can include the type of popular keywords that appeal to them throughout your text. For the calendar part, schedule your ideas for the month – what are you featuring on your socials and blogs, and how can you adapt these to popular search terms?
If you're creating well-written blogs and other posts that engage your audience and utilize popular search terms, your SEO strategy is off to a great start!
Step 4. Focus on Link Building
Now you should think about link-building. Proper link-building seeks to attract inbound links to your site. This might be tricky if you're a relatively new business with few connections, but you can start by linking to other companies, partners, or sites, requesting that they link to your site in return. Once you have a mutual agreement, you could link to each other in your blog posts, social media, or website.
5. Track Your SEO Changes
Once you've developed your social media strategy, you'll still want to keep track of any changes in the world of SEO. The search engine landscape changes just like the marketing world, so keeping tabs on current trends is always in your best interest. In addition, consider using news alerts to stay committed to search engine optimization.
6. Track Your Traffic Using Analytics
Without monitoring your traffic and using web analytics tools, you'll never be able to tell whether your SEO strategy is making a difference. Consider creating a spreadsheet where you can track what SEO changes you made each month and how they affected your traffic. This way, you'll be able to make informed decisions concerning the content on your website.
7. Stay Consistent with SEO Best Practices
Now that you see how having an SEO plan for your website can increase traffic, you can go forward realizing these strategies for yourself. Just remember to be honest and specific while choosing popular keywords. It's this specificity that will guide users directly to your site.
Work With a Top SEO Agency Today
If you take all the steps above and still feel like you lack the audience you deserve, then reach out to us at WEB ROI. Not only can we help you with SEO, but we can also walk you through social media strategy, website design, advertising and more!
