Here is a cliche among digital marketers: SEO Marketing is not what it used to be today.
However, you may hear that your SEO Strategy for 2022 should not focus on keywords.
Today, most businesses understand the concept of SEO marketing and why it is important.
But when it comes to developing and executing a sound SEO marketing strategy, creating content just for keywords is not appropriate.
To rank first in Google search results, the content on your website needs to match the intent of the user.
Moreover, optimizing the site for SEO may feel intimidating and tedious, but it is all about how search engines work.
And how searchers use them and implement that insight into your page’s copy, then methodically running through some completely accessible backend tinkering.
Keep on reading to learn more about SEO Marketing.
Importance of SEO Marketing
SEO Marketing is important because:
The majority of Traffic comes from Organic Search In case you do not have an SEO or search engine optimization strategy, you may be missing out on both revenue, and traffic.
For instance, if you are running an online store, you can expect 35% of total traffic to come from search engine pages and 33% of revenue from organic traffic.
This makes it the marketing channel that can help produce the highest traffic and revenue, according to research.
Paid Advertising costs are increasing and SEO is “free traffic” If you are generating most of your sales through paid advertising on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
This can take a large chunk of your profit margins.
Though generating organic traffic takes time, it will eventually become your best acquisition channel which makes it cost sustainable.
However, make sure to never consider SEO marketing as an afterthought even when the return is not immediate.
Ranking first in Search Engines can get 30% more Daily Traffic When you have a page that is performing well for organic traffic.
Even without any optimizations for search, there is a chance that you can improve the page to bring more traffic.
Learn more about Facebook Ad here.
Technical SEO Marketing
Technical SEO comes under the hood type of SEO.
It helps to make sure that you are optimizing your website for search engine crawlers, has good page speed, and is mobile optimized speed.
Moreover, it also optimizes your sites for humans by making sure its structure, navigation, and internal links allow easy browsing.
And that the meta tags contain information for both search engines and users to know what the page is about.
However, if your website has technical SEO issues in such areas, it can affect your rankings.
You will see benefits like:
- users engage more with the site as it is faster and all important content and pages are easy to access
- increase in crawling activity from crawl bots as the site is easier to crawl, in turn, increasing the organic traffic over time
Things to Do for Technical SEO
Let’s discuss what you will need to do:
1# Create Internal Linking Strategy Creating Internal links is not just about pasting links to appropriate anchor text across the website.
It is about creating the necessary pages that will pass authority to a number of other relevant website pages, blog posts, and/or vice versa.
Moreover, you can do this with a clear navigation system from your homepage that is for both user experience and search engine crawlers.
2# Submit a Sitemap to Google Search Console Submitting a sitemap to Google Search Console allows Google Bot to crawl your website and index it.
This means that that crawl bot will visit your website or e-commerce site, explore the homepage, and make its way down to the other pages.
It will do so to list them on search engine results pages.
After this, you will need to fix the potential errors. Here is what you can do:
- log in to Google Search Console and view the Coverage Report
- identify any 404 errors or redirect errors
- fix 404 errors and redirect errors
3# Optimize your Images It is important to note that search engines not only crawl the text on the webpage but also crawl your image.
Therefore, optimizing your images does not stop you from displaying photography and reducing image sizes should be your top priority.
For this, you can use images in JPG or PNG formats, to reduce the file size of your images.
Add images to the sitemap, optimize the alt attributes carefully, and name your images in plain language.
Learn more about E-Commerce Website Development here.
On-Page SEO Marketing
On-page SEO is the primary method of directly telling your readers and search engines what your page is about.
Search engines look for certain on-page factors that can help them in ranking your page on search engine results pages, SERPs.
Moreover, On-page factors consist of
- keyword and topic relevance,
- meta information,
- the slug in the URL,
- and the images.
Let’s look into some of the components:
1# Keyword Research
You can think about keywords as queries people use and type into the search engine.
In most cases, it replicates how you talk while asking questions, and where you will type them.
Two different types of keywords are short tail and long tail.
- Short Tail Such keywords are two or three words in length and often are of high volume, for instance, the keyword “Google Ad settings” has a volume of 1000 in SEMRush’s Keyword Research.
- Long Tail These keywords are four words or more in length and are often of lower volume, for instance, the keyword “how to search an image on google” has a volume of 320 in SEMRush’s Keyword Research Tool.
When it comes to choosing a keyword you want your page to rank for.
It helps to understand the intent behind the associated search query.
These fall under the following categories:
Navigational These are searches that users enter with the intent of finding a particular website or webpage.
Informational Queries that begin with words ‘how to’, ‘what’. ‘why’, etc
Transactional These queries are searches that indicate an intent to complete a transaction.
Moreover, these entail typing a product name directly into the search bar.
To choose a keyword, you will need to first know where to start with the keyword search.
Then whether you want to use paid tools or free tools to conduct keyword research, and what you can do with the data.
2# Match Search Intent and Create Pages
No matter what type of search query your page is targeting, it is important to understand that when it comes to choosing a keyword.
Google and other search engines want to rank pages that have the likelihood of concluding the journey of the searchers.
If you consider Google specifically, it wants no additional searches.
And it also does not want the user to hit ‘back’ and click on another search result.
Moreover, when you are choosing a keyword, you can get a good idea of what the search intent is from the top 10 results on a SERP.
To do so, you will need to search a term and make a note of whether that page is either an article or a product page.
Make sure to pay attention to only organic listings and not the ads.
You can find ‘Ads’ marked to the left or any SERP features like ‘People Also Ask, images, videos, or local listings’.
However, if you are doing content marketing, you may want to look for the top 10 listings of the articles.
To further narrow down the search intent, you can also get ideas from Google and other search engines.
For instance, f you want to look for a page that targets ‘search engine optimization’, you can have a look at the “Related Searches” box at the bottom of the SERP.
This list will give you an idea of what users are expecting to find from their search queries.
Furthermore, you can also note phrases as some of them as good long-tail keywords that you can use to create a blog post.
3# Content Optimization
Content optimization will help your pages to rank higher in search results for the target keyword.
Examples are tweaking or optimizing the content on the page, meta description, and title tags.
Moreover, content optimization will become easier when you have a clear keyword that you are trying to rank for.
A simple way to understand content optimization is by asking yourself ‘How can I make it clear to visitors what the page is about?’
For here, you can un a health check on your pages by:
- Does the heading clearly explain what is on the page?
- Am I using the keyword or some variation of it in the subheadings or in the body of the content?
- Does the URL Slug contain a keyword? IS it overly long or short?
- Is the title of my page enticing? Does the meta description make this page seem click-worthy?
- What are image file names and do they have the alt text filled in that clearly explains what is in the image?
On-page content optimization will include:
Building your keyword into the heading, understanding the topic behind the keyword.
And building it into the page, creating a URL or slug with the keyword.
And lastly, adding keywords to the image naming system.
It is important to note that creating an SEO-friendly page is about making the information digestible and easy to understand by the user.
Moreover, it is the formating that will get the readers to where they need to go, through the use of bullet lists, numbered lists, or headings.
Off-Page SEO Marketing
Off-page SEO includes reputation management like customer service and presence on social media.
However, it boils down to building backlinks, which are links that point to your site.
Moreover, the more high-quality, relevant backlinks you have, the better your pages will rank.
You will also understand the importance of having a high-ranking page in search engines based on where the clicks go from the diagram above.
There are two methods in which you can build links to your website:
- active link building
- passive link building
Let’s discuss them as follows:
Active Link Building
This is where you will put together a plan and strategy for the pages you want to build links from.
It also includes an understanding of what you want to build and then executing that plan.
In general terms, active link building is time intensive, as it is a competitive strategy to get into.
Some principles you will need to follow when requesting anything from another site are:
Put what is in it for Them The nature of your request is to get something i.e. a link.
However, you will also have to tell them what is in it for them.
Give them a reason to consider your request.
Do not request links from people who are your Competitors You find this obvious.
However, a lot of link requests come from people who want coverage in the same product and topic area.
This is because there is already an existing resource.
Some active link-building tactics are:
Foundation Links These are the links from social media profiles, local business directories, and niche directories.
However, if you are not yet signed up for social medial accounts on platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, Linkedin, Twitter, etc, then do so now.
Many experts recommend that you also create a profile for Google My Business whether on not you have a physical retail store or not.
Pitch Gift Ideas Gift guides are a list of recommended products or gift ideas that are centered around a holiday or a person.
If you google gift ideas, you will likely come across different ideas.
Getting your product in the right gift ideas can help increase sales and traffic to your website.
However, inclusion does not happen randomly and will need some effort.
PR Campaigns A press release campaign involves submitting a release to the media to get featured in
- local,
- regional,
- national,
- or industry press.
Instead of going to a PR company, you can take a shot at getting your own publicity.
For this, you can get in touch with bloggers and journalists who cover businesses like yours and tell them what you are up to.
Skyscraper Technique If your brand is doing content marketing, then you can use the skyscraper technique to build links.
It stems from internet marketer Brain Dean.
It is a method where you find link-worthy content from your competitors, and make something even better.
And reach out to the right people to steal their links.
You will need an SEO tool to find links to your competitor’s site and a tool to help you find emails for people to reach out to.
Guest Blog Guest posting gives you a way to get in front of someone’s audience while you are growing your own.
Broken Link Building This is where you will have to find pages that link to sites that have a page removed.
Recreate content similar to that dead content, and tell anyone linking to the removed resource to instead link to your content.
Passive Link Building
Passive link building involves daily duties or business as usual.
However, they can help compound your SEO efforts over time, even though they are not typical SEO-enhancing activities.
Create an Amazing Product or Service The simple way to get people talking about your business online is to have a great product or service.
This is when people share your business with friends and family as you are doing something special that makes you stand out.
Provide Amazing Customer Service Great customer service is spoken about. While equally awful customer service is also spoken about.
However, it is average customer service that goes under the radar.
While bad customer service can get you written about, which is good for SEO, it is obviously not good for your overall business.
Responsive on Social Media Being responsive on social media is not about jumping on any and all conversations.
It is about getting back to your customers when they reach out for help.
Build Connections This is a kind of networking.
However, a better way to think of it is as trying to make friends online.
If you know what an influencer or a writer is interested in, send them that article o product they will love.
Moreover, this will come down to building trust with people and once you have their trust, you have their attention.
Once you have their attention, you have enrollment and permission to share ideas or your perspective.
Converse Forums and Discussion Boards Make sure to be present in communities like Reddit, Quora, or niche industry forums.
This is where your ideal audience hangs out online and can help you build a good reputation and eventually customers.
However, be careful about promoting your business too often.
Takeaway
SEO marketing is important to the growth of your business. You can use it to grow your company or business through a number of digital marketing channels that can weigh the benefits of organic internet searchability.
Moreover, to rank first in Google search results, you will need to keep in view the intent of the potential customers. You may find it tiring, however, it is about understanding how search engines work and how searchers use them.