13 Steps To Create An Effective SEO Strategy
An SEO strategy or Search Engine Optimization strategy is the technique of planning, writing, and organizing your article in such a manner that it ranks on the first few pages of a search engine. It is the method of acquiring organic traffic for your website.
By organic traffic, we mean the leads that we acquire without paying anything for the same as in the case of paid marketing. Search Engine Optimization is achieved only when your content is relevant, compact, and crisp. The best blog posts answer a question posed by the searchers on the web efficiently and cover all the points conclusively.
SEO has always been a very crucial element in getting leads to turn into conversions for websites. Google comes up with algorithms that emphasize originality, uniqueness, and usefulness as apposite characteristics for improved search engine results.
One such Google algorithm that was launched in 2019 to better understand the nuances and refine the search experience for users was the BERT algorithm. The priority was to deliver even more focused answers to queries than before.
There has also been the word E-A-T that has been around for some time concerning SEOs. The term means that Google places importance on articles that have the elements of Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. hence the word E-A-T SEO.
Even if we keep Google’s perspective aside, these three should be our criteria while creating an article for websites to generate leads.
Creating content for SEO can be very interesting and quite challenging as well. It requires a thoughtful strategy for content as well as the propensity to sniff out opportunities that enable us to provide answers for questions that people pose on search engines.
You have to be very clear about the content topic while starting the article. The other considerations like keywords, your originality, command over language in which you are writing, and organizing your article to optimize for search engines are there. We will discuss those elaborately in this article as we move forward.
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Let’s look at 13 of the SEO strategies to apply and implement so that your posts rank higher on search engines in 2020
#1. Keyword Research
Keywords constitute the most crucial element of search engines. As we who are involved in the digital domain in some way or the other are aware of, keywords are of prime importance when you writing any content for Search Engines.
Several tools in the online sector can help you find the relevant keywords for your specific topic. You will have to go through their search volume and see if they are worth writing on.
A keyword with high search volume means that they are searched most widely on the internet. Chances are that if you share an article that offers answers conclusively for the questions posed by online users on the search engine, then there are chances that your content will be ranked on SERPs
Let’s look at another way to rank your website or blog post on search engines. Long-tail keywords are generally specific keywords that have low search volumes relatively but if incorporated in an article and blog post properly, they can give you results within a very short period.
You can go to any digital tool like Ubersuggest, Semrush, Keyword Planner, Keyword Everywhere, Google Keyword Planner and many such tools available to you to find a set of keywords that you can write on that will give you positive results for your website.
#2. Find out the probable topics on those Keywords
After you’ve chosen a set of keywords now look for topics that you can write on these keywords that are on the top of a reader’s mind when they type this search query on search engines like Google.
You will see a variety of topics that you can write on one keyword. Therefore, the next step is to create topics and subtopics on that keyword for more than one blog post on your website. The article will have the same keyword but will provide a whole lot of new information that is educational, informative, and will inspire people to take the desired result whatever that is.
For example, if you are writing on digital marketing courses, try to create a maximum number of articles on the keywords digital marketing courses that are relevant to the online users.
One very effective way of finding out what the search results are for your keyword is by typing your keyword on the Google dialogue box and you will see the varied number of topics listed. These are the areas that are in high demand and are listed by users to provide answers.
Let’s take an example here:
If you type “Keto diet” on the Google Box you will see a variety of topics like “Keto Diet for women”, “Keto diet for men”. You can select any of these topics to write on since they have a high search volume.
Once you have created a sheet for the various articles that you intend to write on, it’s time to start working on creating that article that you aim to rank high on search engine result pages through a high-quality write-up.
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#3. Be crystal clear from the beginning
The key to being a successful content creator for SEO is to be able to meet the challenges of being unique, different, and superior to the rest in terms of the information provided and the quality of writing.
You will see a plethora of articles on the topic you have chosen on the internet. What will differentiate you from the rest is the quality of being original, your authority over the subject matter, and details of the information disseminated on the topic.
For your content to be appealing you have to be clear about what you are writing from the very first paragraph. Incorporate keywords into the first few paragraphs of your article for search engines as well as online readers to understand what the topic is about.
Some of the formats that work for Search Engine Optimization are Guides, Listicles, Long-form Content, Interactive Formats, How-To’s, A Versus B, Statistics, Busting Myths Etc.
#4. Emphasize the technical aspects of SEO
Getting our content ranked on the search engine is our primary objective while writing for SEO. We put a lot of time and sincerity into writing the article with care.
However, there are some practical aspects to Search Engine Optimization ranking that you cannot ignore if you want to be successful and gain maximum value from SERP pages.
Key Points
You have to be sure that the webpage or blog page has optimized loading speed. This is one of the many big concerns of a blog and/or website.
Even if your article is exceptional people are not going to wait around waiting for your page to lead. According to studies, the time that online users give a website to load is 3-6 seconds approximately. The attention span of online users is slow owing to the innumerable options available on the web for them to get information from. If your site is slow they will move on to a competitor’s website and you will lose out on all the potential customers and traffic that you were getting.
Make sure your website is secure and HTTPS instead of HTTP. You should have an SSL certificate that boosts the trust in your website. SSL certificate ensures that the message received and sent is encrypted and hence cant be accessed by hackers or any malware. It directly is received by the intended recipient.
Google, as well as online users, trust HTTPS websites because they are safe from malware and guarantee privacy. This is one of the most pivotal areas where you need to work to have better goodwill and online reputation from users as well as search engines.
Avoid linking pages that do not exist which is a 404 error. Make sure that your content does not redirect to a dead link. Make sure the link is working and you have redirected the users to the current URL of the link you posted.
If you go through SEO topics you will invariably come across two terms On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO. When you are writing content for SEO you have to make sure that your on-page SEO and off-page SEO is in order.
On-page SEO is the total of all the links that are incorporated in your content that relate to your website helping improve your position in search rankings. Meta tags, Keyboard in subheadings, Keyword density, title tags are an example of on-page SEO.
Off-page SEO refers to link building, the number of backlinks that you get from other sites owing to the value of your content. They speak of the trustworthiness of your content when other publishers and websites recommend it to their online readers. As a result, your website gets more visibility and exposure by ranking high on the list of search engines.
These are just some of the technical aspects of the meaning that you have to take care of when you want to have an improved search engine ranking.
#5. Write Exemplary content incorporating keywords as much as required. Do not overdo the usage of Keywords
Your article should have an adequate number of keywords distributed over the article prudently. Remember if there is too much keyword incorporated in your blog post, it will be considered keyword stuffing which is a negative trait for any e-content out there on the web.
Keyword stuffing is considered spam and it will be a deterrent to your ranking on the search engine. Ideally, keywords should comprise 1-3 percent of the total number of words in an article.
Anything more than that is considered too much and Google and other search engines will understand that you are trying to influence and maneuver search engine ranking in your favor by randomly distributing keywords without it being required. Therefore, make sure that you do not violate any such rule that can negatively affect your search engine ranking.
You need to provide as much information as possible on the topic that you are writing. Take the utmost care to not leave out important points that might add value to your content. This needs thorough understanding and research on the subject and jotting down all the important points before starting to write down the post.
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#6. Build links
Link building is also known as a backlink which is when an external website links your page on their website, blog posts, or articles for your good quality writing.
Building links directly relate to your performance on the search engines. Positive link building helps bolster faith, maintain page and domain authority as well as expertise on the particular topic that you are writing.
Social media, other platforms like Quora, Reddit, StackExchange, Riple, Stack Overflow, complementary websites, and local SEO are some of the areas from where you can build credible links to your website that will enable you to rank higher on search engines thereby optimizing your content and webpage for SEO.
It helps to get more exposure and to get a whole new set of target consumers who come from an external website to your link thereby allowing you to provide high-grade content for them to turn them into your brand advocates.
The quintessential elements of getting referral traffic and backlink from various sources are is high-quality content on your blog post and website. If you do not create valued content then no website is going to link your article on their web page. Also, you cant impress your readers without creating good content.
You can benefit immensely from social media. Social media has a huge number of your focus group on different platforms, so it becomes easier for you to turn the leads into conversion thereby creating a high conversion rate for your website.
#7.Understand and study your brand’s requirements
Every brand has its own set of unique characteristics. Before you start writing, have to align your content with your brand’s voice positioning and requirements.
Reminder you can only be able to create informative content if you understand your brand and it’s a message well. Focused content will mean that you delineate all the important points that work in favor of your brand.
User experience also constitutes an important part of the SEO process. Make sure that your content speaks about the salient points of your brand very clearly. Otherwise, you will confuse readers regarding the message you want to convey about your product or service.
Moreover, the content that you write should be educational, valuable, desirable, inspirational, and you should create your content in such a way that your brand can answer the queries of a user.
You have to be credible when sharing information and to do that effectively, you have to know your brand extremely well to be able to provide the right kind of information to users regarding it.
#8. Audit your website
Auditing your website constitutes an intrinsic part of improving the overall performance of your SEO rankings. Even if your content is excellent, many factors contribute to the ranking in search engines.
Your content is the mainstay of your blog post, there is no denying that. But there are website speed, backlink factors, broken links, web pages, off-page analytics, on-page analytics, and many such factors that come together to grade high on search engines.
Auditing is a lengthy process and requires considerable time and effort. You have to understand and analyze what’s working what is not.
Analytics is your friend. They give you detailed information on your strengths and weaknesses without bias. As a result, you can improve on what’s lacking and work accordingly.
There are several digital tools like Woorank, semrush, Moz, Spyfu Seoptimer which analyze your entire website and prepare a report for you working on various parameters like outbound links, meta descriptions, finding duplicate content, competitor analysis, semantic web, mobile usability, page speed, security, response time, anchor text, etc to give you vital report on the performance in these areas.
#9. Optimize for Google algorithm
Make sure to go through the Google algorithm updates and have a fair idea of what they say when you’re writing content. Ask someone who works with algorithms in case of any ambiguity.
There are several Google algorithms like but Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird. Additionally, a lot of other algorithm updates will be coming up in the year 2020. Notice what they say and structure your content accordingly.
#10. Stay updated on SEO news and the best practices involved
Digital marketing itself is a very flexible, dynamic, and evolving marketing landscape. SEO being an integral part of digital marketing activities is also subject to flexibility and change.
As a content strategist for SEO, you should update yourself on the latest news and SEO practices that can help better rank the content on search engines. Needless to say, SEO best practices and their sound implementation can have immense positive impacts on your website ranking as well as an overall marketing strategy.
When the content is filled with infographics, images, and file sizes that are big remember to compress those images and files to a considerable extent. Upload it to your content after that. It helps in better efficiency in websites.
It helps in reducing page load time and increases the efficiency of your web page in terms of page speed and is one of the vital factors for ranking on search engines.
There are many sites like Compressnow, Trimage, JPeG Optimizer, Optimizilla, Kraken are some tools that help in reducing bulk size images to optimized size for webpages to load without a glitch.
it is one of these practices that have to be kept in mind whenever uploading any content with different content formats on your page.
Several blogs give you ideas on the best practices in SEO that will propel your website towards immense growth in the web space. Some of them are Moz Blog, The Alexa Blog, Hubspot, Search Engine Roundtable, Search Engine Marketing Blog, etc
#11. Post regularly
Blog as much as you can as it not only helps develop domain authority in your field but helps in sharing ideas on related articles as well. You can innovate and choose a diverse range of topics related to your field.
You can write on a variety of topics based on your keywords that your consumers need answers for. According to research, blogging, four times a week is extremely beneficial for your website. It is great for your online presence too as it helps establish the fact that you are committed to delivering value-filled knowledge and information for online readers consistently.
It also helps to build the trust and authoritativeness of being an expert in your field providing and disseminating useful, pertinent, and usable information.
#12. Monitor and track your content quality
Your content is the reason people are going to visit your website or blog post to gain value from the articles written. Therefore other than writing content that provides knowledge to your online consumers and readers, you need to track your content’s success from time to time to understand just how well the content is faring in the online domain.
There are a lot of important metrics to track that can give you an idea of what works for your SEO and what doesn’t. You should keep a record of the number of visitors you’re getting the leads, the return on investment, the keyword efficiency, and backlinks among others.
Create a monthly report using any spreadsheet like Excel, Google Sheets, IWork, or any other such document so that you can have clarity on how your content is performing at a given specified time.
Let’s look at 5 of those metrics that you should always keep an eye out for when creating content for your website.
Organic traffic
Since the main aim of creating search engine optimized content is to gain online traffic, you have to employ tools to track the organic traffic rate, measure how much readers are engaging with your content, and up till which point. There are Heat-maps and other parameters to ascertain exactly how much your online consumers are reading your content.
SERP
Your search engine results page ranking or SERP ranking is another criterion by which you can understand whether you are driving organic traffic to your web page or blog post.
When you type the title of your content on the keyword used in a certain article you will see some results appearing on the first, second, third pages of the search engine.
If your content ranks high, it means your content will be on the first few pages of Google. That is a direct confirmation that your efforts are paying off and you are getting results from your blogs.
Page visits
When you writing a blog post you ensure that you are distributing links to other articles on your website in that specific blog post. The reason to do so is to drive traffic to those other links as well thereby improving the overall performance of your website.
Most of the time we provide hyperlinks to the URL of a web page we want visitors to visit when they reach a particular page of a website. The whole point of having links to articles on your blog post is to be able to give your readers more value, more distinct information, and more quality knowledge on the aspects that are important to your readers. The page per visit metric is, therefore, an important metric to consider if your goal is to improve your SEO performance.
Social Sharing
Social media has a ubiquitous presence in our lives today. You will hardly find a person who doesn’t have a social media presence in one or many of the channels available to us on the internet.
Therefore if your content goes viral or gains importance on social media platforms, you know you are on the road to making your content a success. The most important quality of sharing original value-driven content is its ability to provide some use to people reading it.
And when you provide answers to the queries they have they are likely to share that content with other people. This gives you a far wider platform to showcase your talents and skills.
You not only have a much wider audience base but also get referrals that are from important influencers and people. The analytics tools also give you are a fair idea of how much traffic you get from social media platforms.
These are valuable insights that help you to understand your goodwill on social platforms which can provide results in the form of more leads and conversions if the promotion is done correctly.
Recurring visits
Recurring visits are users and consumers who come back to your website to clean information from your content. You can derive all the information from Google Analytics and when you get a recurring visitor it means that your content provides exceptional value to them. As you get more visitors your traffic increases and along with it your search engine rankings.
#13. Involve a mix of different media and make your content scannable and snackable as part of SEO strategy
There are two do things to consider when you are writing content your content should be snackable and your content should be scannable.
Snackable content is the breaking up of your content into small interactive parts that are convenient to read and remember. Snackable content helps to retain information better as well as gives the online readers a better experience on the web page.
There should be a lot of white space between paragraphs in your article. The paragraphs should be small not more than 45-50 words each.
Scannable content is something that is succinct and delivers information as precisely as possible with as much precision as required.
There are no complicated words and phrases used and the content is provided in the form of bold text for important parts, highlights italics for better comprehension, and bullet points for people and search engines to better analyze the content and see whether it is ideal for higher search engine rankings.
Your content should also have a mixture of different media like infographics, images, or gifs, and other compressed media to make your content richer, more aesthetic, and more entertaining.
Conclusion
After keeping all the above points in mind, remember the content that ranks high in search engines is a percipient mix of honest information, expertise, and confidence in disseminating useful and desirable content.
Search engines look for write-ups and blog posts that cater to the searches of the online user. But you have to be responsible and create original content with complete sincerity.
You are here to survive in the long run and only your reputation and reliability, as well as your wish to provide beneficial content, is what will help you to survive in this vigorously competitive world of web marketing.
