Every business needs an SEO marketing strategy if hoping to stand out in a crowded online world of literally billions of websites. Figuring out how to beat your competitors with compelling content that lands at the top of search engine results pages is essential.
In the following article, we explore how to put together your own effective marketing strategy as it relates to SEO. There are three basic areas of focus with a few details you’ll need to hone in on for each one. Let’s begin!
Get Your House In Order
When SEO companies tell you to get your house in order, they are telling you to focus on your physical website. You have to make sure it is SEO-optimized before going out into the rest of the online world with it. Content is a huge part of that, and here’s how to make sure you’re on-point.
1. Brainstorm Your Topic for Ideas
Spend some time developing your keywords. Drill down as far as you can to find those long-tail keywords that are in-demand but have low competition. You can get a lot of help with this using the free Google Keyword Planner tool.
2. Develop a Content Calendar
Ideally, you’ve picked some descriptive keywords to target. Now start designing the content itself and figuring out where it will go. Creating a content calendar helps you visualize the topics you’ll be covering in more detail and holds you accountable for publishing at regular intervals.
3. Stay Up On Current Events
A content calendar gives you a safety net. You can rest easy knowing there’s always something to publish. At the same time, it frees you up to jump on emerging trends that are necessary for building and engaging an audience.
Virtually every industry has some form of hot topic or breaking news. Riding those trends and contributing to them in your own unique way will tell potential audience members that your website is relevant.
4. Create Different Types of Content
Most reputable SEO agencies will tell you that you shouldn’t be focusing on only one form of content. It’s great if you can write a superior article, but what about the people who’ve gone to mostly video consumption?
You risk missing a key demographic, and it’s really unnecessary. As long as you’re creating content, there are tools and technologies that can translate that content into multimedia. Our best strategy tip here is to create long-form content, break it up into chunks, and make sure both the long-form and the chunks have their own representations in audio, video, and text.
Spread the Word
Assuming your content is good, your SEO and local SEO optimization is on-point, and you are starting to get some engagement, it’s time to spread the word. These for tips will help you do just that.
1. Know the Major Publishers Surrounding Your Industry
Link-building is still an extremely important part of boosting your SEO. To successfully do it, you’ll need to know who the major publishers in and around your industry are.
In other words, who do people trust more than any others in your industry? From there, you have the sites whose attention you’ll need to get.
2. Get Active
There are two things you’ll need to do when getting active with an ancillary publisher (or even a direct competitor). You’ll need to engage with their community in a sincere and straight-forward manner, and you’ll need to find ways of getting them to your website.
Example: you read a great blog on a website relevant to your industry. You list out other considerations they didn’t cover, create a great piece of content around it, and then write a cover letter expressing appreciation for what they do and inviting them to look at your point of view.
Find a live human from the other site to send that cover letter to. Email them. Rinse and repeat.
3. Use Social Media to Your Advantage
Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, are great places to promote your content. They’re also great for engaging with others’ content. Either way, it improves your odds of link-building.
4. Show Gratitude
If someone does share your stuff, make a point to thank them. Send them a thank-you email or, better yet, a thank-you card in the mail.
Master the Technical
Growing your blog is about creating great content and making sure someone sees it. But there’s one more avenue we haven’t mentioned that’s just as important and way more boring: the technical. Here are four quick tips for getting it right.
1. Tag Materials Appropriately
Appropriate tagging ensures that content is not misclassified under an irrelevant category. It also gives users easier roadmaps for finding what they’re looking for on your website.
2. Make Navigation User-Friendly
In addition to tagging, make sure the main navigational headings and subheadings are logical and easy-to-find. Don’t get cutesy with your descriptions. Audience members shouldn’t have to do detective work to know what’s on each page of your site.
3. Review and Update Links
Sometimes internal and external links will go down. This can happen for a variety of reasons, many of which are not your fault. Your site can still be penalized for it, though.
Every now and then, go into your major webpages and articles and test the links. If there are any down links, either remove them altogether or get the updated link.
4. Optimize Content for Keywords
Your content is for people. Create with that thought top-of-mind. After you’re done, though, go back in and look for more ways that you can use your keywords without it interfering with the user experience.
Win With Your SEO Marketing Strategy By Putting Users First
We hope you can see the importance of an SEO marketing strategy. It certainly makes life easier on your audience once they’re on your page, and it can ingratiate your site with search engines that are looking to deliver the best results for their users.
If you feel like your SEO marketing strategy could use some help, it’s time to see what TFG Media Company can do for you. Contact us today if you’d like to know more about our services or get started on building or rebuilding your web presence.
