There's no magical key to instant success in search engine rankings — but that means nobody else has one, either. Building an effective SEO campaign is all about putting in the work, slowly and steadily, over time. Maybe you've already noticed a drop-off in the effectiveness of a campaign designed to exploit some change in Bing, Yahoo or Google algorithms. Or maybe you want to get optimization right from the start. Either way, SEO should be part of your company's long-term strategy, taking users all the way from click to conversion. Don't focus your questions on search engines, but on how to effectively communicate with your customers so search engines can deliver the optimally qualified results.
These five tips to boost your seo strategy aren't quick fixes, but they will strengthen your search engine game.
1. Highlight Your Value Proposition
This may seem like a no-brainer, since your point of differentiation in the marketplace is part of your business plan. However, many businesses don't include their value proposition in their website's title metadata — even though doing so will help users decide whether to click. When writing this text, ask yourself why someone would search for your product, then make sure to provide the answer.
2. Define Success
What exactly do you want from your visitors? A follow? An email? A sale? Having definite goals gives you a starting point for fine-tuning. Remember, though, that you may have to prioritize what you're going to improve in order to reach those goals. It makes no difference whether you have 100 or 100,000 visitors if none of them convert.
3. Think About the User Experience
Envision the entire user experience from click to conversion. How easy is it for users to find relevant content once they land on your home page? Does each page of your website have a clear focus? Are your keywords user-friendly? Build your site to deliver the experience you want your visitors to have.
4. Be Agile
Search engines win by serving up relevant content to users. Crawlers care nothing about your business, and everything about your potential customers' searches. If you try speaking to what search engines look for, you'll get caught up in tactics that are so short-term they might not even win the day. You need to consistently push out content your users are searching for, plus keep an eye on trends and be ready to change. For instance, make sure your content looks good on mobile — if it doesn't, get ready to roll out new index pages.
5. Stay Involved
Encourage your employees to be active on social media and regularly take stock of what they're learning. Use that to feed into your integrated strategies. And if you really want to stay on top, try Google Webmaster Tools, which will tell you what's getting indexed, what's getting linked and what's getting traffic. This data will help you formulate a plan for tweaking your approach and take you back to Step 2; or, possibly Step 1. Either way, it's all part of the long-term plan.
Effective SEO campaigns take time and continual optimization before seeing real results, but your dedication will lead to results. Remember: Slow and steady wins the race.
