When it comes to digital marketing, SEO strategies represents a core area of focus for modern professionals.
While knowledge about this practice varies from one company to the next, the tendency is to get lost in keywords. While this forms a core of what SEO is, it most certainly isn’t the only consideration.
With the view of combatting certain misconceptions in this area – SEO stuffing and repeated keyword usage, for instance – our blog this week dives into all you need to know to roll-out sound SEO strategies. Continue reading to find out more!
Keywords
To put it briefly, keywords are phrases that denote high-interest areas that define a given subject.
In terms of SEO strategies, careful research needs to be done in order to select keywords that are likely to perform well. In this regard, phrases which enjoy a high search volume and those with low SEO difficulty rankings, are options which must be prioritised.
If you’re wondering how to figure out search volume and SEO difficulty, this is easier than you may think. Online platforms such as Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest and other tools like SE Ranking – to name a few – come highly recommended for keyword research.
In identifying keywords for your business, long-tailed varieties are also useful. Not only do these function as synonymous phrases for shorter keywords, but they’re also a way of making content highly specific and optimising it for longer search queries.
In fact, long-tail keywords account for 70% of all web searches.
Blogs
When it comes to driving SEO through keywords, blogs are an important tool. This is because they facilitate the incorporation of a number of keywords in a highly versatile manner, executing the bulk of a company’s SEO strategies.
Once you’ve identified your keywords, therefore, the next step is to incorporate them into your content. In this process, there are specific keyword placements that come highly recommended. These include:
•Title
•First paragraph
•Sub-headings
•URL
•Image alt text
•Meta description
•Other organic placements on the page/blog/article
While the usage of this strategy is relevant to most, if not all, content pages, SEO stuffing is something that should be avoided at all costs.
This refers to the practice of loading content with keywords in a way that’s deemed to be excessive. Here, you can avoid using the same keywords by resorting to synonyms as well as other long-tailed variants.
It’s also important to remember that you can optimise and rank for multiple keywords at the same time – even within a single blog post.
One practice that’s discouraged, however, is the use of the same keyword for multiple posts.
What happens here is that two or more blogs from the same site could start competing with each other, rendering optimisation efforts a waste.
Website
Apart from the keyword strategies highlighted above, SEO is also improved through an optimised site structure. In this regard, pillar pages and topic clusters prove to be highly useful.
Pillar pages are a type of master resource page that dives into the core topic of your business.
Here, it is crucial that you include a variety of links, sub-categories, and curated content. It is equally essential that you have high-ranking keywords scattered strategically throughout this content.
If you’re looking to drive high volumes of traffic onto your site, it is important that your pillar pages are structured, easy to navigate, and pleasant to look at. While these are generally longer than an average blog post, they don’t dive into topics too extensively – your aim here is to establish authority through the provision of high-quality information.
Topic clusters
Topic clusters are a form of singular pillar pages.
These act as the main anchor for your content and are usually linked to numerous other pages on your site. These are, therefore, a way of organising your website content in a more coherent and structured manner.
Off-site SEO strategies
Off-site SEO refers to the actions taken outside your website to rank well within search engine results.
In this process, backlinking is one of the most prominent off-site SEO strategies.
Backlinks are created when one site links back to another. By improving your backlinking score (i.e. have other sites source your posts/pages as a source of authority), search engines are clued into the fact that your content is relevant and valuable.
Other off-site activities that can be targeted include guest blogging, social media marketing, brand mentions, as well as influencer marketing campaigns. Through these methods, it’s possible to increase references to your posts and pages all over the internet.
Key takeaways
SEO strategies are an important part of successful marketing efforts.
By focusing attention on the areas highlighted above, companies can expect to enjoy greater traffic, authority, and conversion with a little hard work and patience.
Interested in finding out more SEO strategies?
At Hype Insight, we aim to provide you with sound SEO strategies and advice. Contact us today for more information about our services; success awaits!