Most marketers know the true value of a good SEO campaign, and many have have incorporated a few search engine optimization tactics into their marketing efforts. But do you really have a clear and coherent strategy for optimizing your site?
Developing a strong SEO campaign requires having a plan for each step of the process. The steps involved include determining and incorporating keywords, creating content and links and continuously improving based on results or changes in the industry.
Selecting Keywords
What do people search for when they are interested in your product or service? You need to know which keywords are important to your business before you can optimize around them.
Google AdWords is the industry-standard tool for keyword research. Simply type in everything you can think of that might be a relevant search phrase for your site, and you'll be able to see which of those search terms have received a lot of traffic--and whether there is much competition for those keywords.
Make a list of the top dozen or so keywords you want to focus on, and update that list periodically.
Utilizing Keywords
Once you know which keywords are important to your site, you need to incorporate them into your website content.
It is hard to get a single page to rank highly for a large number of different keywords. Instead, your goal should be to create different pages that each focus on only one or two keywords. A blog can be very helpful for this, especially for more specialized search strings and long-tail keywords.
Building Links
Besides these on-page SEO efforts, off-page SEO link building is also an important strategy. Much of your search ranking is determined by the quantity and quality of links to your site from other pages. You can help create an effective backlink profile in a variety of ways: trading links with related websites, posting links on social media, getting listed in online directories and guest blogging are all great ways to increase the number of links to your site. Develop a plan for how to build and maintain these links.
Measuring and Analyzing Results
How can you tell if your SEO strategy is producing results? You don't have to guess. There are multiple tools and services that allow you to track your progress and measure your return on investment. That means you can test different strategies to see what works and what doesn't. You can then focus on the efforts that provide the best ROI and duplicate individual successes throughout your site.
Keeping Updated on the Latest SEO Changes
Change is inevitable, and the SEO world is a particularly fast-moving target. Search engines regularly update their ranking software, and what works today may not work as well tomorrow (or, in some cases, may actually hurt your ranking.) This means that it is essential to stay on top of the latest updates and trends and be willing to change your strategy when needed.
