Search engine optimization (SEO) is frequently changing, so it is important to evaluate your current SEO strategy often to ensure your site ranks high on search engines. With this in mind, here are some tips to help you plan an SEO campaign.
Examine your technical SEO
Technical SEO covers things like your site speed, crawling, backlinks, 404 errors, and broken links. These are an important part of your SEO and are definitely something to examine before you start a new campaign. Take the time to work on speeding up your site, taking care of 404 errors and broken links, and more can make a significant difference in your SEO and search engine rankings.
Identify your most important pages
As part of sharpening up your technical SEO, you need to determine what parts of your site need optimized first. Take the time to think about what pages are the most important. Which pages do you want a new customer to see first? What pages are the best representation of what your organization stands for? Once that is determined, look at your analytics and see what pages bring in the most traffic and make you the most money. Cross-reference this with your other list to see which pages line up.
You may have a lot of pages that are important to you that are not currently getting much traffic. Start your optimization with those pages. The pages that are not as important but are bringing in the most traffic can help you determine what changes to make to your most important pages.
Conduct keyword research
Keyword research is one of the most essential parts of SEO. Without it, you do not know what your audience is looking for when they find you, and you can learn which keywords you should be focused on. You can work on strategically incorporating these crucial keywords into the pages on your site. Once you have a list of keywords to aim for, determine which ones you are already ranking for and which ones you are not. You can then begin crafting a plan to optimize your site accordingly.
SEO will take time to work; it is not something that happens overnight. It can take weeks, if not a few months, before you start to see real results, especially if your brand is in a highly competitive niche, which can make it hard to rank for some keywords. If this is the case for you, focusing on some of the less competitive keywords in your niche is the best way for you to start upping your ranking in search engines.
When deciding which keywords to try to rank for, think about how many big brands are ranking for that specific search term, and if there is a significant amount of them, look for a smaller, more specific variant on the keyword. Google takes search intent into account now, so using different variants on keywords is a good way to help you rank. Focus first on keywords that will give you the best chance to outrank your competitors.
Long-tail keywords are great to target for an SEO campaign because they tend to be less competitive than shorter keywords. As voice search continues to increase in popularity, long-tail keywords are becoming an even more critical part of SEO. In general, a single word keyword target is the most competitive, with a two or three word keyword as moderately competitive, and keyword targets of four or more words are lower competition but can be higher conversion. Going after these keywords now, before long-tail keywords become more competitive, can help you get ahead of the competition now before they try to rank in these long-tail keywords later on.
Evaluate your content
You know what keywords you want to be ranking for, so now you need to compare that list to the focus keywords you are using in your current content. What content does not match your target keywords? Can you reoptimize the content? Does it need to be rewritten? What keywords have you not used yet that you want to rank for? Have you used the same keyword multiple times? The easiest way to keep track of these things is to create a spreadsheet that shows what keywords are on what pages and what you can edit to reoptimize or rewrite entirely.
Quality over quantity
If you have old content that is ranking for keywords that are no longer relevant, instead of writing something new, try rewriting something old first. It looks better for you to have well-written content than it does for your site to be filled with lower quality blogs. This can be time-consuming, but it is also beneficial to your site to have well-curated content that has been optimized and updated to reflect changes in the world and your industry.
Internal linking
Internal linking is an integral part of SEO, especially as your site grows. These links are essentially a guide for Google to help it figure out what your content is about and which content on your site is the most important. When working on content, consider what pages on your site are relevant to that content and add internal links accordingly. Just make sure you do not link to the same handful of pages over and over; make sure there is some diversity there. It looks better to Google that way. Your most important pages should have links directly to them from a few places on your site.
Final thoughts
These tips can help you plan a successful SEO campaign, but consulting the experts is the best way to ensure that your campaign succeeds and you see results in your SEO efforts. Oregon Advertising are experts in all aspects of marketing and advertising, and we can craft a plan for your next SEO campaign. Contact Oregon Advertising today to get started!