One of the things we are sure you will hear many digital marketers say is that SEO or search engine optimization has changed. Thatβs because, unlike in the past, sending a few dozen blog comment links to a website does not help it rank anymore.
The other thing that has changed or, should we say, shifted is the emphasis on keywords. Sure, keywords will continue to matter in 2022 and beyond, but they shouldnβt be the focus of your content or even the intent of it. Your emphasis during the content creation process should be search intent, which we will discuss further later on in this article.
As a business owner, we are pretty sure that you already understand the underlying concepts of SEO and how valuable it can be for your business.
The important thing that business owners and those in the SEO community need to realize is that a sound SEO strategy involves multiple factors. Web pages don't rank just because they are keyword optimized, but also because they are technically optimized.
In this detailed guide, weβll explain the elements of a successful SEO marketing strategy and how anyone can create one to meet their content marketing goals.
If you are a business owner, this article should help you weed out all the snake oil salespersons peddling SEO from the people who know what they are talking about.
What Is a Search Engine Optimization Strategy?
An SEO strategy is often a checklist of the process a website will need to follow to rank for a particular set of keywords. The strategy also includes organizing a websiteβs content and optimizing it so that there is a higher likelihood of it appearing in search results.
In other words, the strategy is the process you need to follow to maximize the amount of organic traffic from search engines.
An SEO strategy will often include on-page, off-page, and technical SEO tactics. The goal is to improve your search rankings for all the primary and secondary keywords. The higher you rank, the more traffic your website will receive.
It is imperative to have an SEO strategy because it helps you remain on track instead of just having to create content or use keywords that you assume people are using to find businesses like yours.
When you have a strategy in place, it means that youβre creating content that people are actively searching for, and search engines like Google will pick up. Having a strategy in place also means that you follow each step as needed and when it will be more effective.
Many digital marketers new to SEO assume that they can publish content and send a bunch of backlinks to it. In reality, that is not how it works. Having a winning strategy in place means you arenβt trying to wing it in the hopes of ranking.
What Should Be Your SEO Strategy In 2022?
If you thought weβd provide you with an extensive list of everything you can do to rank a website in 2022, youβre mistaken, and here is whyβ¦
SEO in 2022 hasnβt changed. Sure, Google has updated its algorithm, which is something that the search giant has always done, but your strategy will essentially remain the same. Yes, use the same strategy as you used in 2021 and 2020.
What has changed in our experience, and a few other notable SEO experts have talked about is that Big G has become a lot better at recognizing spam. Sure, it's still hit and miss, with a lot of spam content ranking in some industries, but it has become rare.
If you were thinking of simply rewriting content or using AI to spin it, youβre taking a significant risk. Youβre free to experiment with it on a test website, but not your clientsβ website or even your own.
So, the strategy in 2022 remains:
- Generate high-quality
- Well-optimized content
- Offer value
- Build good backlinks
- And most of all, target search intent.
What Every SEO Strategy Template Should Have
SEO is quite easily defined as the practice of using qualitative content principles and various technical improvements to help improve your online presence. In other words, you should be doing a better job than the competition to rank higher and consequently get more traffic.
While quality matters, quantity plays a significant role too. For instance, you will want to write more content, use more links, and cast a wider keyword net to rank higher. However, it's perfectly fine to start small and slowly scale.
However, it is important to often create an SEO strategy based on your industry. That will mean studying search engine results pages to find what is ranking. Also, check Google search console to see how visitors are finding your website.
A couple of terms may not make sense yet to the beginner, but we assure you all will be revealed. Letβs start with hashing out the elements youβll need to build your SEO strategy.
Targeting The Right Keywords
Keywords, or key phrases, as they are called, are words that are typed into Google, Bing, or any other search engine. Ranking high for key phrases geared toward your business or ones that bring people to your business will mean lots of new free traffic.
Finding the right keywords can be tricky as many inexperienced business owners believe that the most commonsense ones are what they should target. A word of advice for the uninitiated, donβt assume what keywords to target, do the research required to find the right ones.
Generally, businesses with a relatively new website should find low competition long-tail keywords for their industry. This will help to secure SEO success early on, with minimal effort.
The next step is to use the target keywords in all the right places, and that is barely the first step to start ranking your website.
Over the years, keyword strategy has changed from being something you stuff onto the page to weaving it in. You donβt want the content to be spammy because if it does come across as spammy, thatβs when Google could penalize your website.
You need to find the right keywords and see how Google is matching them in its search results, in other words, intent. For instance, a car dealership in San Diego will obviously want to target βbuy a car in San Diego.β
However, if you Google the top five results are from Yelp and a list of the best-used car dealerships, the intent isnβt for people to find specific businesses. While you can rank for it, you might want to try another keyword that brings up dealerships.
An effective SEO strategy is only as good as the keywords you choose, that's why the process can be particularly time-consuming but it is the foundation on which your SEO campaign will be built.
Keyword research can get complex, and there are millions of articles about it. But youβll want to keep things simple, to find ones that are easy for you to rank for, especially if the website hasnβt been around for long.
Metadata
Metadata can be thought of as your shopβs window. The meta title and the meta descriptions are the first things that a prospective visitor will see on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
The metadata unsurprisingly influences whether a prospect will click to visit or scroll over to the next listing. Your SEO content strategy should include drafting metadata content that gets people to click.
Google uses whatβs referred to us in the SEO industry as Crawlers, which do the job of tiny robots or spiders scouring through the internet, collecting information that helps match search queries.
When you have keywords in the metadata, heading tags, and image tags, it helps Googleβs algorithm make sense of what it is looking at and the relevance of each page.
Backlinks
As we move towards the more technical aspect of SEO, the other factor worth considering is backlinks. As SEO professionals, one of the jobs we are tasked with is building backlinks to the website.
A backlink is when another website links back to your website. The link can be from a blog post, main page, or any other page of the website to any other page on your website. Generally, backlinks are built to the main page, but if you have too many going to the homepage that looks strange to Google and can harm your rankings.
Backlinks work like a vote, which over time adds to your domain authority, and improves the odds of people clicking on your website. Websites with more high-quality links are considered to be more authoritative by Google.
A skilled copywriter can help a business earn a boatload of organic links by writing excellent content. However, the content should be drafted to match the searcherβs intent. If you do it correctly, there is no reason why others in the industry will not link to your site.
A popular content method is Skyscraper articles. Skyscraper articles are referred to as link magnets since they are juicy bits of highly relevant, informative content that users find useful. It is also the type of content that other websites want to link back to.
While this is one aspect of link building, others include outreach, doing press releases, and asking for testimonials. Some people may also engage in trading links and buying them from other websites, activities that Google frowns upon.
However, it is perfectly fine to build links by guest blogging, answering questions on Quora, putting your links on YouTube, etc.
A solid SEO strategy will include using diverse link-building methods both for sort and long-term gain.
Technical SEO
Another major part of a successful ranking strategy is technical SEO. A website can encounter various technical issues, most of which can be addressed via the site's backend. However, once the issues are addressed, they can have an immensely positive effect on the websiteβs ranking.
It is worth saying that if a websiteβs UX, or user interface, as it is called, isnβt accessible and smooth, it will be challenging for visitors to accomplish anything on the website.
An instance of this is mobile-friendliness; it is estimated that over 50% of all online traffic to websites comes from mobile devices. If the UX isnβt user-friendly on a mobile device, it will negatively affect a business.
The other aspect is removing toxic or low-quality backlinks. Often competitors with malicious intent will buy cheap, low-quality backlinks as part of a negative SEO campaign against a business. If you detect low-quality links, disavow them right away since they will hurt your rankings.
Websites also need a clear XML sitemap along with a clean URL structure. Interestingly, this is just the tip of the technical SEO iceberg.
The best way to find and eliminate all these technical SEO issues is to get your website audited. An audit should be able to reveal everything wrong with the site, after which you can hire an expert to address them.
SEO Metrics
It is nearly impossible to run an effective SEO campaign if you have no idea what defines βeffective.β Having a thorough understanding of SEO metrics will help you measure, improve and analyze the effectiveness of your SEO strategy.
Optimize For Voice Search
The rise in the number of voice searches means that you'll have to adjust your website to meet this new need. According to Forbes, 58 percent of consumers use voice search to look for local businesses. And twenty-eight percent of these users use voice search at least once a week.
Voice search queries usually include full-length questions, which you can then use to beef up your content.
The most common voice search queries are "who", "what", "where," "when," and 'how.' You can use these to write site pages, blogs, FAQ pages, and other pieces of content that address these queries. Whatever your content is, you must solve a pain point for your audience, and the best way to do this is by answering these queries.
What Is A Good SEO Strategy?
It is near impossible to answer this question because there are many ways to approach SEO. Not to mention that strategies will vary from one industry to the next. Also, local SEO strategies are going to differ from national SEO strategies slightly.
Generally, you donβt want to always gun for the most popular search terms and then expect to compete with established businesses ranking for those keywords.
Your SEO strategy should include knowledge of your audience, then taking an approach that best targets them and the search engine.
If you are in the midst of creating an SEO strategy, keep the after-mentioned tips in mind.
Your Content Should Be Engaging for Both Humans and Search Engines
Googleβs algorithm improves with each update that we know of, but in between, there are minor updates that we suspect most people donβt notice.
What we do know is that Google wants to improve its search results. The goal is to help users find what they are looking for in the shortest time. Thatβs why the best results are on top for that keyword.
Unlike what some in the SEO industry will have, you believe there is no magic formula or a hack, as they call it, to start ranking your website. Even if you find a so-called backdoor, Google will close it, and you risk the site being penalized at best. At worst, blacklisted.
We stress that content should be written for humans first and then for search engines. In fact, write for both! For instance, optimize your meta tags, (Heading and title tag) using your target keyword but make it attractive to the user.
The goal should be to provide your audience with the information they want using engaging and well-written content. It isnβt hard to find keywords being shoehorned or stuffed into the article.
Well-written SEO content ensures that all the right keywords are weaved into the text naturally. That way, they donβt appear stuffed. This is the key to straddling both sides of the equation.
You can also use an SEO tool like Surfer SEO to optimize your content or hire an expert that uses the tool to draft content for you.
Use The Keywords In The Right Places
As mentioned earlier, the motive of your content should be humans first, but search engines should be a close second, and thatβs where keywords come in. Not only do keywords help visitors and Google find what they want, but they do so quickly by isolating all the standard search phrases.
It is worth remembering that SEO helps drive 100% more traffic than organic social media campaigns; the latter dominates half of the online traffic. Thatβs why we strongly advise that keywords need to be at the heart of every SEO step you take.
That brings us to how to use keywords? Weβve already established that chucking them in isnβt going to work. Well, it all starts with research. Tools like Google Ads and Ahrefs is your friend here.
Find keywords and related clusters of keywords that can be tied into a single article but ones that have good search volume. Then make sure that the keywords are included in the metadata and the anchor text for internal links.
Donβt stuff keywords into your content at the risk of sounding repetitious. Every keyword should flow naturally. If anything, you should aim for excellent readability.
Nail The User Experience (UX)
Your SEO strategy should aim to minimize bounce rates. That means users should stick around on your site for long. The higher your bounce rate, the less Google will favor you for that keyword.
Items of interest to users should be no further than three clicks away. The more time users waste on your site being frustrated, the worse it will be for you because even Google canβt figure your website out.
You will want to scan for and immediately fix problems like a messy site structure, dead links, and error pages, all of which will impact peopleβs experience on the site.
In addition, make the website as easy to navigate as possible. In some cases, that may mean taking the minimalist approach, making it easier for Googleβs crawlers to scan all your content to determine its rankings.
One way to get it right is to look at what other sites in your niche are doing. See how their website is structured and do something similar.
Pair your headings with short paragraphs that are easy to read and fluff-free.
You will also want to clean up subfolders that donβt serve the purpose. Then ensure that your website is mobile-friendly.
Doing this will reduce your bounce rate significantly, which should help generate higher conversions and improve your rankings.
Since Google launched Core Web Vitals, it has become increasingly important that your website loads fast on all devices and browsers.
Relevant Backlink Building
Building backlinks should undoubtedly be part of your SEO strategy, but not just any links. We are talking about links from websites with a reputation and, ideally, excellent authority in your industry.
Now there are quite a few ways to do this, a few we covered in the previous section. Suffice to say that the first step is identifying websites related to your niche and would gladly link back to you.
For instance, if you sell used cars, an online magazine that reviews cars would make an excellent backlink. To get it, you would need maybe to write an article for them or a car review, and they would, in exchange, link back to your website from that article. Thatβs just one way to do it.
Quality links matter because Google wants to know how much authority your website has and if it can be trusted based on that. So, if an already established website links back to you, thatβs instant trust.
The same applies to internal linking. It would help if you werenβt afraid to link to all the useful pages within your site. A solid link-building strategy delivers results, without a doubt but provided that your on-page is on point.
Use Featured Snippets
Featured snippets are the new norm in SEO, and thatβs evident from how they show up in SERPs. Most likely, you are already familiar with them or have heard about them in the past. These are the highlighted answer boxes that appear on the top of the page for a search query. Earning this featured snippet is a win.
The good news is that there are certain stylistic and formatting choices you can make that improve the odds of you landing in these featured snippets. These include using numbered lists, bullet points, answering questions based on searches directly, infographics, etc.,
While data shows that featured snippets donβt necessarily always result in direct clicks, since Google previews answers for the search query, it is still worth it since 19% of SERPs have them.
Featured snippets work great for raising brand awareness and helping to get your name out there. In other words, your website will still get clicks.
If you have relevant content on your site, then all that's needed is to structure it correctly. Google provides a tool that will help structure your content to win the featured snippet.
Remove Heft from Your Website
Again, we canβt overstate the importance of making sure that your website is technically sound so that it can stand on its own.
Whether you are publishing blogs, selling products, or helping people by answering questions, your site has to load fast and be accessible. Most people donβt have the attention span to wait more than a few seconds. So, if your website does not load within 3 seconds, they are off to another website.
Fortunately, there are quite a few ways to improve site speed and the smoothness of your UX. For starters, delete all defunct and unused plugs. Then youβll want to hire someone to clean up the code, optimize everything, compress images and ensure that your sub-folders are well organized.
Finally, use a tool like Google Page Speed Insights or GTmetrix to measure the speed of your website. Interestingly, these tools will also show what is potentially slowing down your website so that you can fix it or get it fixed.
Keep An Eye Out For The Latest Google Algorithm Updates
Google tends to get smarter with each update to provide users with highly relevant search results. The core updates, as they are called, are mainly tweaks to the algorithm, and they are often unexpected. Some sites will benefit from the updates, while others may be penalized.
Rankings and, consequently, penalties are mainly determined by a few factors such as speed, quality of the content, accessibility, and excessive advertising. However, we understand that sometimes these things canβt always be avoided.
If you are responsible for building your own SEO strategy, start by subscribing to industry websites and forums. There are various Facebook Groups like Superstar SEO and Legiit, where you can learn about the specifics of each expected update.
You will also want to keep a closer eye on your traffic with Google Analytics and SEMrush for the latest updates.
Update and Improve Existing Content
It is worth bearing in mind that there is no virtual finish line that you need to cross and call it quits on your SEO strategy. There are constant updates, and you are battling the competition, which means SEO work is ongoing. Plus, whatever youβve already done can be further improved upon.
If you have not been using SEO correctly, go back and update your keywords, content, internal and external links before looking at expanding off-page SEO efforts. If you have pages performing better, maintain that traffic. If not, work on growing it. You will want to constantly build upon what you already have to outdo the competition.
You will also want to spend time on competitor analysis. Find out what they are doing right, what keywords they are targeting, and then use what works for yourself.
Invest time in writing cluster articles. Start with a cornerstone article, out of which you can have multiple related articles. For instance, if you have written an extensive guide on buying a used car. The next step is to have other articles spawn from it, like βTop 10 Mistakes When Buying A Used Carβ or βHow to Save $1000 on Your Next Used Car Purchase.β
Try to write evergreen content. That will mean once youβve put in the effort to rank, you wonβt have to worry about a dip in the trend.
Final Word
Ranking a website is challenging. Some niches can be more complex than others. It also depends on which part of the world youβre ranking the website for and how good the competition is around you.
While many SEOs, may make it appear that the process is highly technical and requires a great deal of experience, the fact is that SEO is a consistency and numbers game. Sure, there is a great deal of technique involved, and there is such a thing as the wrong approach. But it isnβt as overly complex as it is made out to be.
Make sure that you start by setting a realistic goal for your website, then formulate an SEO strategy based on how you want to reach that goal. Your goals can be customer acquisition, higher conversions, or more people signing up for your newsletters.
Since SEO is time-consuming, we donβt recommend that business owners do it themselves. However, if you opt to do it yourself, make sure that you use a custom-tailored strategy for your business. In addition, always have a plan B in place!
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