Let’s dive into the nuts and bolts of creating a winning SEO strategy.
Conduct an SEO site audit
The first thing you should do is conduct a site audit. A site audit serves as a roadmap for what to do, telling you what to work on and helping you determine the KPIs critical to success. A site audit will examine many different aspects of the website.
The first thing he does is look at the place name, age and history. Older sites with good practices are in better initial shape than a new site or one that hasn’t adhered to content development best practices.
The site audit will also examine the factors on the page. On-page factors include things like headlines, user engagement, and overall keyword targeting. Websites with clear headlines that focus on keywords and have good user engagement are set for success.
Next, the content itself is reviewed. The audit looks at how content is organized in sitemaps and whether or not the content meets the needs of readers. A content review also looks at the images used in the content. Stock photography can be detrimental to your SEO content campaign goals if used across many sites on the web. Images should also be properly optimized for fast loading. Auditors also look for duplicate content, which is not good for SEO strategies.
The audit also looks at the architecture of the website. The site should be easy to navigate and find usable content. It also considers technical aspects such as outline and markup. The audit will also want to see your current click-through rate (CTR).
In the audit, the quality of incoming links will be taken into account. A list of spam links will be made so that you can disavow these links. You want quality external backlinks that lend credibility to your website. You don’t want search engines to see you as a spam site.
Start keyword research
Keywords can be a single word or phrase that describes what a searcher is looking for. Keywords tell the search engine what your content is about. It must address search intent, be relevant, and have search volume. Volume is how many times per month searchers search for that word or phrase in a search engine query.
Search intent refers to the intent the reader has when performing a search. Looking for advice? Do they want to buy? Search intent is very important to drive traffic to websites. For example, someone with the search intent of buying car insurance might enter the term “cheap car insurance”. By understanding intent, you can create content that fits the need. In this case, a summary of the best cheap auto insurance providers can be something that the searcher clicks on for more information.
Search volume tells you how relevant the term is and if it’s being searched for a lot. While you can write content for keywords that don’t have a lot of volume, chances are you’re also targeting high-volume keywords that are highly relevant.
You want your search terms to be related to each other and limit the number of topics your site addresses. For example, a bicycle website might explore keywords related to road bikes and mountain bikes. It would also be off topic to have content about skateboarding. You want to stay on topic so that search engines see you as a subject matter expert.
Set up MVP pages
Similar to a Most Valuable Player, your website needs Most Valuable Pages (MVPs). These are pages that target the highest volume keywords and are central landing pages that readers can go to. To identify these pages, think about what your company is known for or what you want to be known for. A good example of an MVP in SEO content would be category pages on an e-commerce website. Category pages provide an overview of the products listed in that category. This type of landing page is more suitable for a search engine than an actual product page. They’ll start on the category page and move on to more details if they’re interested.
When you can drive traffic to these MVPs, you’ll capture leads from search engines who are specifically looking to solve certain problems you address. These pages become the hub for readers to get started and then branch out on your site to more specific solutions.
Carry out a competitive analysis
It’s important to know what other websites are doing in the topic space in which your website lives. Competitors are other websites looking to rank for the same keywords you’re targeting. See what they’re doing and what’s working for them. Once you see what’s working in search results, craft your content to be better than theirs so that search engines see you as the best answer to people’s questions.
Look at the most competitive keywords for your industry and see what content is ranking. Check out their backlinks to see where they’ve gotten a nod to create useful content. The more you understand about your competitors, the better you will be able to create a plan to outdo and beat them in this SEO game.
Think about UX
Your user experience (UX) will go a long way in determining your SEO success. Good content is content that users stay on for a while without returning to the SERPs to look for better content. As stated above, your site should be easy to navigate so that once someone is on your site, they can click through multiple pages and find the content they are looking for.
Much of the UX is determined by the architecture of the site. You want a sitemap that makes sense, that gives people a hierarchy of content. Broader content can be informative, and as they click through to other content, it becomes more sales-oriented, helping them choose a solution to their problem. You don’t want people to get confused on your website. This means they will probably leave the website quickly and the search engine will not rank you as high.
[ad_2]
Source link
