Most businesses understand basic SEO.

They also understand how important it is.

But when it comes to your business’s SEO strategy, creating content around keywords your customers search for isnt enough.

So, in this post we will learn:

  • What an SEO strategy is
  • How you create your SEO strategy

Let’s dive right in.

What is an SEO strategy?

An SEO strategy is the steps taken to increase the chances of your website appearing in search results.

This is achieved by creating and organising content based on relevant topics.

If this is done right, it results in organic traffic from search engines.

An SEO strategy keeps your content creation efforts on track.

Meaning you create content people search for without guessing what people are looking for.

An SEO strategy is important for content marketing because it determines how your content is seen in the SERPs.

Because if content is unorganised, search engine bots find it harder:

  • Indexing your website
  • Determining your area of authority
  • Ranking your web pages

Mobile SEO Strategy

Mobile optimisation helps visitors using mobile devices access your website and its content.

So website visitors have the same experience on a mobile device as they would on a desktop. 

Mobile optimisation is important because Google uses your website’s mobile version when indexing and ranking pages for SERPs.

Plus more than half of Google search queries happen on mobile devices.

So your SEO strategy needs to involve mobile optimisation.

What is an SEO?

Search engine optimisers, also known as SEOs, are professionals optimise websites to:

Basically, an SEO finds content opportunities for businesses to answer.

And these opportunities are questions people have about the business’s industry.

The types of SEO in an SEO strategy include:

  • On-page SEO: The content on the website and optimising it to improve keyword ranking
  • Off-page SEO: The links to the website from other websites. Backlinks from solid sources builds trust with search engines
  • Technical SEO: The backend of a website like its code. Important for rankings. A websites technical side is as valuable as its content

Remember, every business is different, so an SEO’s job is to:

  • Study the industry
  • Find what audiences care about
  • Build a strategy giving them what they want

SEO content strategy

  • List topics
  • List long-tail keywords based on topics
  • Build topic pages
  • Set up blog
  • Blogging schedule
  • Link-building plan
  • Compress media files
  • Keep up with SEO news
  • Track your content

List topics

When you think SEO, you think keywords but they won’t help with organic growth. 

To start you need a list of topics to write content about by listing 10 words and terms related to your product or service.

Use an SEO tool to:

  • To research these words
  • Find their search volume
  • Find variations related your business

Remember, short-tail keywords represent the main topic of content but need related keywords to include in the content.

Use search volume and competition to rank your list of 10-15 short-tail keywords.

With each main keyword being the pillar for the cluster of long-tail keyword content.

List long-tail keywords based topics

For each pillar keyword find 10 long-tail keywords using a keyword research tool.

These long-tail keywords should go into more detail on different aspects of the main topic keyword.

For example, creating content on just SEO is difficult to rank on Google.

So also creating content on:

  • Keyword research
  • Optimising images for search
  • Creating an SEO strategy

Plus other subtopics related to SEO will help attract visitors with different interests and problems related to SEO.

Depending on internal linking, search engine algorithms connect visitors to the information they need.

And Google sees pages going deeper into topics as better answers to people’s queries and ranks them higher.

Build topic pages

Create a pillar post for the main keyword as a topic overview and create cluster posts for the long-tail keywords.

The pillar pages give details on the main topic and brief descriptions on subtopics, which cluster posts go into detail on.  

Remember, base the number of main pillar pages on the number of products and offers you have.

This makes it easier for potential customers to find you in search engines.

Set up blog

Blogging help:

  • Rank for keywords
  • Engage with website visitors

And every blog post is an opportunity to rank in SERPs. 

Remember, every business needs a blog.

When it comes to writing more cluster posts, do the following:

  • Don’t use a long-tail keyword too many times. It’s keyword stuffing and you’ll get penalised.
  • Link to the pillar page of the topic. Do this using tags in your CMS or anchor text in the article body.
  • After publishing, link to the subtopic page from the parent pillar page. This tells Google that they are related.

Blogging schedule

Make a blogging schedule and stick to it.

At a minimum, make sure to blog at least once a week.

And remember, you are blogging about things your audience is interested in, not the search engines.

So make sure to do enough research on your target market.

Creating a content strategy helps with consistency and staying focused on your goals. 

Link-building plan

Link-building is getting backlinks, also known as inbound links, to your website from other websites.

Websites with more authority linking to your content have a better effect on your rankings. 

There are a lot of ways you can get backlinks:

  • Sharing links with local businesses for links to their websites
  • Writing blog posts and sharing them on different social media platforms
  • Reaching out to other blogs to guest blog for links back to your website

Compress media files

Page speed is an important ranking factor. 

Bigger the file sizes, make it harder for internet browsers to load your website. 

It’s the same for mobile browsers loading these images too, because of smaller bandwidth on mobile devices.

So, smaller file size helps your website load faster.

Use a compression tool to reduce file sizes before uploading images, videos, and gifs:

Note: When compressing media, keep files in the kilobytes (KB) range.

Keep up with SEO news

Stay on top of trends, changes and best practices in SEO.

Getting your source of information from the main search engines, like Google, is a good place to start.

But, there are also a lot of online resources that can help.

Track your content

SEO takes time and effort, so you need to know if your strategy is working.

It’s also important to know your overall process and potential area to improve. 

So monitor organic traffic using Google’s web analytics tool.

Other metrics to track include:

  • Indexed pages
  • Conversions
  • ROI
  • SERP rankings

Note: Tracking certain metrics can help find areas of opportunity as well.

SEO Report

An SEO report is an overview of SEO efforts over a certain period of time.

This helps show you where you are successful and areas that need improvement.

SEO reports also help present data to stakeholders to show why SEO is important and it helps business growth. 

Metics your SEO report can include are:

  • Organic traffic results
  • Your website’s SEO health
  • Backlink generation
  • Areas lacking growth and needing improvement

Note: For your SEO report to be effective, your website needs to complete SEO activities.

SEO Process

After you have an SEO strategy, create a process that optimises for:

  • New keywords
  • Changing search intent

Your process should look like the following:

Update old content

Update old blog posts to keep it ranking in the SERPs with:

  • New information
  • Up-to-date information

Also implement any SEO tactics that weren’t done in the initial post, like image alt text.

Optimise for new keywords and search intent

Keep your eye on the rank of:

  • Your blog posts rank
  • Ranking keywords

Use this new information to adjust subheadings and copy for new audience search intent.

Add more value to content

Sometimes, posts are out of date.

When you come across content like this, give it a complete refresh.

Do this by:

  • Updating information and stats
  • Adding new sections for more depth
  • Add quotes and data for referral traffic

Monthly content plan

Don’t slack with your SEO strategy, creating a monthly content plan helps.

It would help using a spreadsheet to keep track of progress.

SEO monthly plan

  • Do industry related keyword research
  • List blog post ideas from high opportunity keywords
  • Find blog posts to update
  • Analyse progress every month

A monthly SEO plan helps you build and stick to an SEO strategy.

Remember, don’t forget to find topics with low competition in your industry.

Conclusion

It’s hard to rank web pages in search results.

Instead of making content on high volume keywords.

Pick a strategy that helps accomplish your business goals. 

So instead, focus on what your business needs and create an SEO strategy around that.

Now it’s over to you.

Tell me how you created your SEO strategy.

Let me know in the comment section below.

1 thought on “Create an SEO strategy”

  1. Pingback: Link Building for Higher Rankings - XXMG

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *