It’s that time of year to take a good hard look at your business and rank your success, literally.
Quarter one is a distant memory, you’re already behind forecast, it’s tough out there, but spring is in the air and one of the most effective ways to get back on track is to make your SEO work hard.
Brands who want forensically good PPC & SEO campaigns to get their business in shape need to make a mark in their niche sector by bringing real results to boardroom table.
Here’s a six-step guide to pulling you to page one in search, after all, there’s little to be gained coming in on page two!
- What is SEO?
Let’s start at the very beginning. While Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is seen as something of a dark art, in reality it boils down to using different tactics that are designed to improve a website’s rankings.
A successful SEO campaign will put your company above your competitors. As people search using keywords, and if your site is optimised, Google (other browsers are available) will suggest your business first, above other sites who are also using those keywords.
So, owning keywords is a crucial aspect of SEO and being clever about it, will not only keep you above the golden fold, but save you lots of money.
- The power of SEO
SEO is important because customers who are Googling what they want are most likely to go with the businesses they are given first.
The power of well-executed search engine optimisation campaign is that it can build you a foundation that no competitor can infiltrate. SEO which doesn’t compromise not only helps to send your business to the top of the page, but also builds your brand reputation, improves the customer journey and can start your journey to becoming an industry leader.
- How to improve your SEO
There are three main elements that will improve your SEO. They are Technical SEO that fix your website errors, Content Marketing that rewrites your copy using an intelligent keyword strategy and Digital PR which delivers link building campaigns to build you a solid backlink profile.
- Technical SEO
Technical SEO lays the foundations for search engines to find, organise and understand key pages on a website. It’s essential to create a powerful website and is fundamental for keyword rankings.
This is when companies need to bring in the experts, as it is detailed and painstaking work by basically website nerds, who have trained and built up their expertise in how to do this effectively.
And what’s more, who are up to speed on the ever changing and complex Google algorithm.
Good SEO Techs, dissect your crawls, txt files and every meta description to find errors that are limiting your business of opportunities you’re not yet aware of.
From site maps and indexing issues to implementing structured data and SERP features, good Technical SEO experts should get your business to the top of page one with calculated and precise actions.
- Content marketing
Effective Content marketing is all about maximising keywords, so Google puts your business first. This is an artform, as it needs to appear organic, engaging and work that algorithm.
Content is split down as earned, paid and owned. Owned is everything your business, well owns. It’s content on your website and social media platforms where you can really get the best ROI for a keyword strategy.
Paid is as it sounds, any paid for content, from pay-per-click (PCC) as well as advertising which serves users with content that’s relevant to search audience’s interests in the form of ads online or on social media. Whereas earned, is content you create but breaks outside of your business that isn’t paid for.
A good Content marketing campaign should hone in on copy length, perfect the correct tone of voice, research keywords and provide targeted copywriting that achieves your SEO objectives ie: ranks your business and converts sales.
- Digital PR
This is all about creating PR campaigns that not only drive your keyword strategy but most importantly, through clever news driven content that grabs the attention of media publications to secure backlinks from external third-party domain referring websites.
It’s about providing well written, native copy, for sites with good domain authorities (above 60 ideally) and advocating quality over quantity.
Digital PR experts harness relationships with press and media to target nationwide or industry specific audiences to get backlinks to your website, that helps to drive organic traffic and encourages conversions.