Tips To Create Your Own SEO Marketing Strategy

What is SEO and why is it important?

People use the internet for many different purposes, and, as a result, there are many websites/web pages. This often means that when a web user looks for something – a product, a service, piece of information etc. – search engines often pull up thousands of web-links.

Research has shown that a very large percentage of searchers will not even look past the first page of results, and so any websites that feature lower in the search engine rankings will, in all probability, receive very few visitors. For businesses, this means the loss of a potential customer which will have a negative impact on profits.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the practice of increasing the visibility of a web page or website. So, when a person carries out a search for something related to the contents on the website, the link to the website will appear among the highest-ranking on the search results page.

In theory, this means that more users are likely to click onto the website, increasing traffic, and the numbers of potential customers.

Top Tips

The following are some simple top tips for creating your own SEO marketing strategy:

1) Look at website and suitability to target audience

Before implementing any SEO strategies, it is essential to analyse the target audience (the group/groups of people your product/service is aimed at). Data should be gathered on areas such as age, sex, geographic location and needs of the group/groups. Use this data to check whether the current website is catering to the needs and wants of the target audience.

2) Do your keyword research

The idea of the keyword research is to identify words and phrases that are tailored to the target audience and their needs, and determine search volume (the amount of results that come back when the keywords are used in a search) and relevant referral data. From this you should be able to see what is popular, and what is not, based on people’s searches.

3) Prioritize, and identify gaps/opportunities

With the data from your keyword research, you can then begin to prioritise; highlight keywords that have a high search/referral volume. Look again at the current website, and the target audience data, to see if there are any gaps or opportunities.

A gap is when the website content includes a term, but, the referral volume, compared to the search volume is very low).

An opportunity is when there is a large amount of search volume for something that your company offers, and is relevant to the target market, but doesn’t appear in the website content.

4) Look at competitors

As with any kind of marketing process, it is often important to check out who the competition is and what they are doing. Again, use a few keywords, and type them into a search engine. Write down which websites appear at the top of the rankings for each keywords. Analyse these websites; what they look like, what they offer, etc. Compare it to your own website, and see what are they doing better/differently. Ask yourself if your website is is the best/most effective it could possibly be, and if it caters to the target audience.

5) Create and implement a plan of action

Look at the data that you have gathered so far; and work out areas of improvement. Consider things such as; website design/content, external links, URL and website terminology. Work out how these can be changed, and who will be responsible for the changes. It might also be a good idea to plan how long these changes should take. Then you are ready to put the plan into action.

6) Monitoring and assessment

It is essential to monitor progress, to see whether your website has high visibility. If not, why not? Ask yourself what more you need to do to increase visibility. If so, keep checking to see where the website ranks. If you find that it has slipped down search results, identify and take the necessary steps to ensure that it stays on top.

7) Spy on the competition

Sometimes we wonder why someone who is a rival is more successful than us. If you ever feel that way, look at what your rival website is doing to get their SEO right. Try to implement those strategies to your advantage. It may not always be successful but most of the time it works.

Try implementing these tips for a favourable SEO result in your business or website. Have anything to add? Let us know in the comments below.