4 SEO steps to take your content out into the stratosphere
SEO is a concept that is often an unknown within content strategy. People know they need it, but seldom know how to go about implementing an awesome SEO strategy. We would like to bust some myths and show you exactly how to create a SEO strategy that both works and engages your target audiences.
That’s great, but how do I go about SEO to make it worth my while?
It’s actually quite a complex undertaking, but if you take it step by step, you will find over time your content will reach the people who you need to see it. Perhaps that’s a good place to start. SEO takes time. It’s not a quick, jump on a plane without a destination kind of gig. You need to put in the hard work to realise your SEO dreams. Let’s start by looking at the steps you need to take to begin your SEO journey of blasting your content out into the stratosphere.
Get your key words and phrases down
That’s right! Research is key with this little number. To begin the research phase, you can start by checking out your competitors websites, along with other’s in your industry. Be aware that keywords can be different in the various countries and regions. Jot down the words that are repeated and that are specific to your industry. Afterwards, get yourself a couple of tools, such as SemRush, Moz, Google Analytics and Screaming Frog. There are more tools, but those ones mentioned should get you started.
That’s all well and good, but what do I do with these tools? Well, you analyse the data and see what keywords are ranking high. If you have Google Analytics on your website already, you will be able to see what keywords and phrases people are searching for when they land on your website. If you pop in some keyword queries into SemRush, you will be able to see how they are ranking on your website in comparison to competitors. If you have Google Ads, you can check the keyword suggestions on that platform. Even if you are not running Google Ads, it is wise to create an account there, so you can check out the keyword suggestions. Later, when you are ready, this will give you a good base to set up Google Ads for your business.
Meta data is almost everything
What the hell is Meta Data I hear you ask. Meta data is the page title and description of each page in your website. This is super important to get right. It helps Google and other search engines know what the page is about. It also will be what shows in Google searches. You can literally tell Google what you would like displayed for each page. Taking it to the next level, it is possible to show a series of pages on a Google search and have them appear underneath the main title and description of your website.
Within the Meta Data, you also need to mention keywords in the title, the url and the description of the page. Not to mention in the page itself. WordPress has a plugin called Yoast that can help you easily add the Meta Data. Squarespace has an excerpt section on each page, you’ll find most CMS’s have somewhere you can add the Meta Data easily. If you’re a rockstar coder, or your website developer is, you can add the Meta Data in the Head section of the HTML. You can add Twitter Cards and Google Graph while you’re at it.
You got the first two steps sorted, now it’s time for some awesome content
SEO is only as good as the content on the page. Write good content and Google will reward you. If you write content that is more on the storytelling, human side of things, Google will love you like Madonna loves herself. Long tail content is our favourite way of appearing high up on the Google search. Long tail content is articles or posts that are over 2000 words in length and talk about a specific problem your target market is having. Within the long form content, you need to ask common questions about your services or products.
However, you also need to be able answer those questions without putting on your salesperson hat. Don’t go deep in the product or service you offer. Stick to asking and answering the pains your potential customers are having. Use your home page and product or services page to go more in-depth with your offerings. At the same time, on the home and secondary pages, it is important to still ask questions and give answers. In these pages, you can be more service or product specific. Interlink your internal pages as much as possible to get some cross-linking action happening. Setting up some external linking will give you some of the juice from high performing sites.
A word of warning, try not to link to too many external sites on purpose built conversion pages. You want people to have only one Call to Action on those pages. Don’t give users a choice but to click on the CTA. If you want to take them anywhere, add a text link or button at the bottom of the page, that takes the visitor to your high converting page, back up to the form or CTA you want them to click on.
Sharing on social and how it helps SEO
That’s right! Sharing on your beautiful social media channels, helps your SEO tremendously. Especially when you use the right hashtags, keywords and write really good content. Always, always add a link back to your website. A good strategy can be to create landing pages specific for social media, where the content is high ranking and it answers a question, or helps with a pain your target audience are having. Research is key here again. Each platform is different and a beauty business, will have a different high performing social channel to a tech or healthcare audience.
Choose what you share and on which channel, wisely. Facebook is a gold mine of data and sharing on Facebook, even if you don’t see high engagement, can work wonders for your brand regardless of the industry. As with everything, having a social media strategy in place, that runs alongside your content, SEO and ads strategies is key to creating a long term plan that will boost your sales and get your amazing business known all over the world.
Next time, we will take a look at Technical SEO and show you how to ace that as well!
If you would us to take a look at your SEO and organise a strategy for improvement, escalation or to set it up, get in contact.
