Search engine optimization (SEO) is the optimization of a website for search engine and one of the most important things that is required for a website or an online business.
The SEO strategy is important because it helps to increase organic traffic and leads to your website from your target market and audience. Strong SEO strategies will attract more traffic and, in this article, we will discuss some of the important strategies.
What is SEO strategy?
The SEO strategy is the planning, sketching, resource sourcing and development of the steps that increase the ranking of your search engine. We can say that these strategies represent improvements for your website as they increase organic traffic and leads.
Whether you have a blog or e-commerce, without SEO you would not be able to reach the market standard. The stronger you have the strategies, the more ranking you will gain for your website.
The strategies we will discuss in this article are as follows:
- Analyse your audience and your industry
- Keyword research
- On-Page SEO
- Off-page optimization
- Blog
- Content Marketing
- Link building strategies
- Analyse your campaigns
- Update Your Content
1. Analyse Your Audience and Your Industry
In addition to SEO, every marketing company needs to know its industry and audience. Analysing your audience means knowing the people you are marketing to, and this is also known as the target audience.
The target audience does not mean the area of your audience, but also age, gender, places and their queries.
Relevant content:
Knowing the audience is important because SEO demands the content that your targeted audience wants. Moreover, having relevant data to the search queries of your audience will increase your ranking.
For example, if you have a tech site, you should publish articles that are technology-related, rather than health-related content. Your audience will love to learn more about technology from your site, rather than looking for another niche.
How to analyse your audience?
If you do not know your target audience or its details, please read below to find out.
- Take a look at surveys and market research online, especially where you want to start your business.
- Perform surveys by sending e-mails, adding surveys to your website, or setting professional surveys.
- Use social media platforms to find out what people are demanding
- Scan the audience of your competitor websites with online tools
If you analyse your target audience correctly, you can increase your leads and sales while your strategies work. However, you will conduct the campaigns according to the report of your audience analysis.
2. Keyword research
The first major thing in search engine optimization SEO is keyword, because all SEO revolves around your keyword.
There are several ways to search for keywords, but the basic strategy is to list the words that are in your head. You can find the relevant keyword by typing the words in the Google search box.
When selecting a keyword, there are some factors to keep in mind, such as long-tail keywords, because they are less competitive than shorter ones.
Try to search for the search volume and difficulty of the keyword to know the efforts needed to rank your keyword. There are various tools to overview the keyword such as SEMrush, Ahrefs, UberSuggest.
These tools are enough to tell details about a specific keyword, i.e. difficulty, organic search volume, similar keywords and much more. Once you have found the right keyword, hurry to the third step.
3. On-Page SEO
This step is about including keywords in your content and other optimization that will increase the position of your site in search engines like Google.
Some of the techniques in on-page SEO are described in detail below:
Internal linking
It is a somewhat old technique, but it is still effective if done correctly. Internal links are the reference you give through links from one page to the other.
The main advantage of using it is that the link is transferred from a website with high authority to a website with low authority. Internal links on your website must be relevant because the viewer is always looking for the relevant article. In this way, they would not have to go elsewhere to search for another query, as they will find it on your website.
Short URL
Search engines always love the optimized and short URL, especially the URL that has the keyword in it. The URL of the article or page must have the informative words that describe the entire article.
This is why keyword is the best choice to add your URL.
Content optimization
The optimization that indexes your article and increases the ranking is content optimization because it is the factor that search engines take into account.
Content optimization includes various things like meta title, meta description, images, image ALT text, titles, subtitles and using keywords in the content that help the search engine index your article.
For better optimization, SEO needs using relevant keywords in your article, while it needs both an internal and an external link. Keyword placement should be done in such a way that it looks natural.
Website speed
The speed of the website is a factor that plays a big role, as the search engine always wants to provide the users with the maximum experience, the speed of your website should be efficient, including the mobile experience.
Users search for the speed check and if they find that your site is slow, they may close it to open another one. You can check the speed of your site using various online tools such as GT Metrics.
4. Off-Page Optimization
Off-page optimization is the ranking factor for a website, while it stays outside the boundaries of the website. Just like on-page optimization, it is also very important for the ranking, because it creates reference and authority for your website.
Here are some of the techniques of off-page optimization:
Comment
A few years ago, people used to leave a comment on a blog along with a link that is considered a backlink. In this way, the ranking of your website also increases, but the trend has not stayed the same.
The Google update announced that these comments will no longer be considered a high-quality backlink, but anyone who thinks this technique is a waste is wrong.
If you comment on the right blog in the right way, this technique will still work and benefit your site.
Forum posting
Another way to create a backlink is the forum post in which you participate in a discussion related to your niche. While answering or interviewing, leave the link, but remember that it should look naturally placed.
In this way you can get the backlink that will help the search engine to increase your position in the SERP (search results result page).
Social media
According to reports, people spend more time on social media than on blogs or newspapers. There are various social media platforms to help you promote your website.
As more people share your content on social media, it is seen as authoritative by visiting through various IPs, proving that your site is being discussed around the world.
5. Create a Blog
Blogging is an amazing way to prioritize your keyword in SERP, while there are several other benefits to blogging, helping the brand to communicate and increase engagement to its follower audience.
Blog posts are considered as web pages because every single post contributes to increasing the ranking of your website. Whether you have a business website, an online shop or a portfolio, blog is very important and beneficial.
The following are the tips for making better blog posts:
- First, don’t put your main keyword, especially if you have a long-tail keyword, more than three to four times in a single post. If you use the keyword over and over again, Google will signal the term “keyword filling,” which will reduce your ranking.
- Specify the internal links to the keyword you are searching for, but you can also do this in the form of tags.
- When you publish your article, use the pillar page to link to this article, but find the place where it fits best.
6. Content Marketing
It is true that after the keyword, content is the most important thing. Fine SEO needs High quality content that is relevant, friendly and easy to understand.
If you have good SEO practice on your site but do not meet the standard for writing content, then your site will not be ranked.
You need special strategies to find worthy keywords and to make sure your content is not plagiarized to write and publish the content.
Here are some of the strategies to be followed:
- Before you write or publish the content, you should know what your audience wants. The more you write according to your audience, the more accurately Google displays your site when the user searches for your keyword.
- Write the original content and never try to copy it from another website. Copying content from a person’s website not only ruins your ranking, but Google also penalises your website. The best way to proceed before publication is to check your content through a copyright checker.
- It is a good way to add a few graphics or quotations to your content as an example that will increase creativity. Remember to add the quote to the fact you are writing.
7. Linking Strategies
There was a time when quantity was more important than quality in linking, but today high-quality links are more helpful than less authority links.
Because in today’s world, quality backlinks not only increase the ranking, but also the domain authority of your site. Here is one of the ways to link building to increase the ranking:
Guest Posting
One of the most commonly practiced off-page SEO practices is guest posts because it creates a lot of benefits for the web owner. In guest posts, you write an article for another person’s blog while pasting the link into the post which is backlink.
Guest posts can be paid or free, it depends on the authority of the posting site. This is the best way to get a high-quality backlink and authority for your site.
8. Analysis of Your Campaigns
Analysing your performance and campaigns is critical for any business. In SEO analyzing your campaigns is important, whether you have started campaigns on social media or on your website.
The analysis is important because it helps you to know the results of your performance as well as the efforts needed to reach a certain milestone.
The analysis informs you about changes to improve the quality of your website according to modern standards.
There are several ways to analyse your performance, such as when you’re on social media, then the analytical section of Facebook will tell you your views, bounce rate, and session average.
For the website, you can use tools like Ahrefs, Google analytics to track the backlinks, the traffic source, the visitors and many other factors.
9. Update Your Content
SEO is essentially optimization based on the channel’s latest algorithms; the algorithms never stay the same, and once it is updated, your content needs to be updated according to the latest update.
After some time, you should update the contents such as images, information and some other credentials, because this way you fulfill the updates of the algorithms.
But if you don’t upgrade, your competitors will rank higher than you.
Frequently Asked Questions FAQs
1. What is the difference between White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO?
Black Hat SEO is the technique of reaching the ranking by breaking the rules of the search engine while not focusing on the human audience.
The White Hat SEO is the tactic of ranking according to the laws of the search engine while it considers writing according to people.
2. Is it difficult to learn SEO?
SEO is not difficult to learn until you are willing to learn. SEO needs more creativity than learning while you understand the algorithms of the search engine.
3. How often should a keyword be used in an article?
The keyword should only be written about three or four times in a suitable place, otherwise it will be considered keyword stuffing by search engines.