Creating an SEO strategy for your business is crucial if you want your website to appear on your customers’ search results pages. But with the amount of SEO guides and gurus out there, it may seem impossible to get started.
Here’s a simple breakdown of how you can build an SEO strategy to boost your business.
First up, let’s talk about what SEO is.
SEO is short for Search Engine Optimisation – essentially the steps you take to improve your website so that it ranks higher in the search results (on Google, Bing, Yahoo! etc.) of your customers.
There are different ways to improve your SEO, including on-page SEO, technical SEO and off-page SEO through link building.
But, with all these different factors that affect your SEO, it can be difficult to decide where to begin. Below is a step-by-step guide on what you should prioritise first.
Write down your key topics.
What topics would you like your content to cover?
Think about your products/services and pick 10 topics associated with your business.
For example, “florist”, “gifts”, “occasions”
Use an SEO tool to research your topics.
There’s no point in creating content if your ideal customer isn’t searching for it.
But, how do we find out what people are actually searching for?
Use SEO and keyword tools to research your list of words. We’d recommend Google’s Keyword Tool, SEMRush, Ahrefs and Keyword Surfer.
You want to focus on their search volume and also jot down the variations of your topics that fit in with your business.
For example, “florists that deliver”, “florist UK”, “flowers”.
Short-tail keywords vs long-tail keywords.
The keywords you came up with around your list of topics are known as “short-tail” keywords. However, with the volume of content on the internet, it’s often difficult to rank for popular topics on one keyword alone. This is why you should also come up with long-tail keywords (more like phrases) associated with your topics.
Think about what your customers may be searching for.
For example, take “same day flower delivery”, “delivery flowers”, “gift ideas for mum”.
Build your content around your topics.
Now you have your list of topics, plus your associated short-tail and long-tail keywords, you’re ready to start optimising your website.
Use your list of original topics you came up with and create a page on your site or blog post for each of those topics.
These topic pages are your pillar content and will link off to other blogs on associated subtopics.
Boost your SEO strategy even further.
This strategy is just one way of improving your SEO, but to take it up another level, you need to also be looking into building up links to your website from external sites, auditing your technical SEO and optimising your existing website pages.
It’s also important to remember that as search engines evolve and develop, so does SEO. Keep up to date with the latest trends on sites like Hubspot, Moz and Google Digital Garage.
Need some help getting your website to appear in your ideal customer’s Google search? Get in touch with a member of the Mattix team today.