Search engine optimization, or SEO, refers to the strategies you employ to improve your website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Google updates its algorithm constantly in order to provide users with relevant results and weed out spammy sites that lead to irrelevant or outdated information.
Updates like this one only make it more difficult for online business owners to get started with SEO. Fortunately, we’ve put together some actionable advice on getting started with an effective search engine optimization strategy.
1. Research Keywords Relevant to Your Audience
When building out organic keyword campaigns, focus on conversational keywords that resonate most with your audience. You have to prioritize keywords that answer specific questions that your customers are asking at the buying journey that they are in.
Once you know the topics that matter to your audience, answer their questions by providing content surrounding the specific topic.
For example, you can find keywords by searching for your products on Google. Then scroll down to the bottom of your search page and look at the “related searches” section.
In the example above, you can see that the two most popular searches are “best yoga mats” and “best yoga mats for hot yoga.” These are great keywords for you to use when writing content about your product.
Include a call-to-action for customers to contact you, whether it’s filling out a form or adding their email address into your database. This way, you can start collecting information from your audience members and using those leads to contact them down the road.
With that new leads’ data, you’ll be able to provide even more tailored information about your product so that they can make a more informed decision.
2. Create Valuable Content
The best way to keep your site on the front page is to focus on user experience and quality content — the more valuable your site is, the better it will rank.
The foundation of every successful website is solid content. Search engine optimization can only do so much for a brand if the content it promotes its products with is weak or contains spelling and grammatical errors.
SEO content is a crucial part of any digital marketing strategy — it improves your brand’s visibility on search engines and drives traffic directly to your site.
Creating content for search engines is only the first step. The true aim should be to create high-quality, engaging content that your audience will want to read, view, or interact with.
This type of content — whether it’s a productive blog post or an instructional e-book will not only boost your website’s credibility and authority but also increase the likelihood that visitors will return to your site.
3. Link Building
A link from a high-value website is considered a vote of confidence and increases trust in the linked page.
The links that point back to your content help search engines determine how relevant that content is to users’ queries. Furthermore, links also signal search engines that a page is worth crawling.
To be effective in your link-building efforts, you’ll want to focus on creating valuable content and strong relationships that are built upon trust. Doing so will ensure that your website is more likely to earn natural links from other respected websites and blogs — which is essential for improving page ranking and search engine optimization.
Here are a few types of links to consider:
3.1 Guest posting
To get your brand noticed, expand your visibility, and build trust with potential customers, you should look at guest posting as an alternative. This approach involves publishing articles on other websites that can be easily found via search engines.
You might also be interested in How to Optimize Your Business for Local SEO.
By leveraging the power of other relevant blogs, you can establish yourself as a trusted authority in your industry — all while building valuable relationships with like-minded brands.
Here are some tips on conducting yourself ethically as a guest writer:
Add value
Your articles should offer valuable information. Don’t try to slip one past them by adding fluff or keyword-rich content without anything substantive behind it.
Stay Relevant
When planning a guest post for another site, ensure that you remain focused on their audience. Stick to topics of interest to them, and don’t dilute your message in an attempt to broaden appeal.
Avoid Spammy Practices
Keyword stuffing is a spammy strategy some businesses use to “trick” search engines into giving them higher rankings. But beyond that, the practice makes your copy painfully hard to read and turns potential customers away. So avoid keyword stuffing at all costs, and work on creating natural, content-rich copy that focuses on delighting your customers instead.
3.2 Create Infographics
Visual content is a great way to create engaging and easily digestible content. With the right information, these graphics can be powerful, persuasive, and informative — allowing people to take in data through icons and color rather than having to read lengthy blocks of text.
Infographics are not just about pretty pictures — although they are beautiful images, infographics can make complicated topics easier to understand.
Below are a few pointers for more effective infographics for your business:
Good visuals make good impressions
Use professionally designed images that match your brand’s identity to help you stand out from your competitors. Images should not exist for the sake of decoration but function as visual representations of data.
Draw Inspiration from Existing Infographics
Examine other infographics and note what makes them visually engaging, then choose a topic you want to cover and create your infographic based on your research. Consider the visual hierarchy, color schemes, font types, and overall graphic design of each one carefully.
Proofread
An infographic is a giant advertisement. Before you publish, proofread your work. Grammatical errors typos and reflect poorly on you and your brand, and they’ll make your content look sloppy and unprofessional.
3.3 Build Relationships
Relationship building is the crux of any successful online marketing campaign. Google will eventually uncover low-quality link-building efforts and penalize them, so it is better to invest your time and resources into cultivating valuable connections with decision-makers within your niche.
Here are a few ways to build relationships with other websites:
Offer Value
Find a blog in your niche and look through their posts to get started. Search for what problems they are experiencing, which you can address with your product or service. Then create content that speaks directly to their pain points. Focus on providing the information they are looking for in a way that is easy for them to consume.
Readability
Writers know that excellent content combines well-written content and an easy-to-read format. Headings, formats, internal links, and lists are all important when it comes to creating great content — they help readers quickly scan as they read through a page.
This helps them better grasp the content and will likely make them take longer to finish reading, thus giving your content much more time in front of their eyes.
Link to Relevant Resources
Linking can create a stronger identity for your business. In addition to bolstering your content’s credibility, it gives you the ability to partner with influencers whose audiences will be interested in your products, as well as relevant news articles that can improve your SEO.
Conclusion
SEO is an investment you cannot afford to ignore. By 2022, the importance of this strategy will only continue to grow. By leveraging effective SEO strategies, you can avoid falling behind your competitors.
To make the most of emerging strategies and opportunities, you’ll want a firm grasp on cutting-edge best practices, proactive monitoring of existing ones, and a keen eye for new developments.
