Levelling up your SEO strategy is what can make your business rank higher on search results, gain more leads and sales, and also increase your brand awareness, but how can businesses optimise their strategy to maximise return on investment?
There is no finger-click easy way to optimise your strategy, the same way that becoming an industry expert in your sector can take time, expertise and experience. That being said, knowing which SEO tools to use will improve the organic online exposure of your business.
Optimising your strategy comprises many factors, for example, competitor analysis, looking at industry trends, implementing PPC and display ads, and working on your social media marketing strategy.
However, these are a few points to consider; SEO is made up of many different components beyond those listed above. To help you bolster your strategy, we’ve compiled a number of other SEO components you can enlist on your campaigns.
Keyword clusters
Keywords are extremely important for SEO strategies. Learning the best ways to go about researching various keywords and clusters will help you reach the highest results., but why exactly are keywords important? Well, Google’s algorithm works with natural language processing (NLP) which is the automatic computerised processing that analyses ‘natural-sounding’ pieces of text.
This is where keyword clusters can work in your favour. Keyword clusters are a group of related keywords that are usually connected because of their search intent, and because of this, are becoming a huge ranking factor.
Technical audits and backlinks
Although the idea of analysing any technical issues can be intimidating, taking in any technical issues into consideration will be a game changer. Most users will only wait up to two seconds for a web page to load, and if it doesn’t look professional or perform properly, the level of trust will decrease.
The functionality of your website will show users how reliable and active your business is online. Because the whole world has experienced a digital transformation, this is more expected than not.
Technical audits and issues include things like ensuring you are using HTTPS, which is a crucial ranking factor. You can use backlink analytic tools that can give you details about referring domains, anchor texts, where your backlinks are coming from and any broken links to take care of.
Google prioritises content that is valuable and engaging for searchers by using the E-A-T principle: expertise, authority and trustworthiness. Essentially, backlinks are links from one website to a page on another website. This can be an article, infographics or guest posts that links back relevant anchor text to your website. This is where Google’s E-A-T comes in again.
Google will prioritise backlinks from high-authority websites, which will then help Google determine your E-A-T. You can use backlink analytic tools to provide you with information about referring domains, anchor texts and more.
Schema Markup
Most businesses aim to be number one in the Google search results page, but there is a spot above that (position zero) which is the very first thing below the search bar, and this is run by schema markup.
Essentially, Schema markup (simply put, very structured data) is the coding, or semantic vocabulary, that Google and most other search engines use to read and analyse the content on your webpages to determine your ranking.
Schema works by targeting particular information that is marked with microdata to create ‘rich snippets’. Google then uses this to determine the highest-priority piece of information out there.
Essentially, when implemented correctly, Schema provides Google with insight and context to a web page’s content, which can then help businesses rank higher.
Utilising Google Console
Google’s Search Console, known to all marketers, is an all-in-one, free monitoring toolbox that allows businesses to analyse and report on search engine performance.
Via Search Analytics, you can review relevant information and data such as your engagement rates, traffic flow and click through rate, which, in turn, help you get your webpage to rank higher and can enhance your on-page content.
However, Search Control isn’t limited to this – it allows you to analyse sitemaps and individual URLs and carry out index reviews to ensure Google has the most updated information on your webpages.
Optimising your content
Content planning is a huge part of SEO. Although this falls under the more creative side of things and can include articles, blog pages, social media content calendar planning and more, it’s important to ensure your content is aligned throughout all your channels and webpages.
Your content planning should have its own strategy, linked to your digital marketing strategy, that takes your audience, business goals and industry themes into account.
Whether you are writing content for a publication, a guest post or your own blog pages, it is important to link back to the most high-performing pages on your site, while using the most relevant keywords that will attract your audience and help Google rank you higher.
In doing so, you will have produced high-performing, optimised content that will allow you to attract more organic visitors, while helping boost brand awareness.
SEO strategy optimisation can be time-consuming, whether you are carrying out keyword or competitor research, website analysis, onsite optimisation or off-page digital PR and link building activities.
Doing so effectively can result in your short-tail keyword and long-tail keyword rankings increasing, boosted organic traffic flow and better search engine result performance for your business.
Another way to optimise your strategy is to hire an agency to take care of your SEO needs. Industry experts can provide you with the resources you need to understand SEO better, all the while boosting your brand visibility. The aim is to optimise all aspects of your SEO campaigns, from the creative to the technical, to provide visitors to your site with a better user experience and transforming leads to sales.
