20 tips for your SEO strategy
In this article, I will guide you in creating an SEO strategy. SEO positioning is a good ally for the visibility of your website project. There are many ways to create an SEO strategy, as many as the sectors, the country, and the business of reference. There is no single strategy, there are best practices that make it possible to achieve positioning, visibility, and profiled traffic objectives.
SEO strategy definition
“An SEO strategy is the set of optimization techniques for search engines, with the aim of achieving the traffic and positioning objectives agreed with the customer”.
Seo strategies: the types
As I have already written, SEO strategies are very complex and very different. Good analysis and a great ability to observe the functioning of the Knowledge Graph and the functioning of the reference SERP is a good start. On-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO make up a large part of an SEO strategy.
The on-page SEO strategy concerns the optimization of all elements of a web page (content, technical structure, meta-data optimization, mobile responsiveness).
The off-page SEO refers to the strategies external to one’s own site carried out to increase popularity and authority.
The technical SEO studies how to improve all the technical aspects of the website (scannability, speed, indexing).
A SEO consultant plans strategies to increase the profiled traffic and the online positioning of the website and combines on-page, off-page, and technical SEO with good observation skills to reach the positioning objectives.
Three big aspects make up an SEO strategy:
- on-page SEO
- off-page SEO
- technical SEO
The SEO is divided into:
- local SEO
- SEO for images
- voice search SEO,
- YouTube SEO
- International SEO
- SEO for e-commerce
The online positioning strategies listed are more specific positioning strategies. Search engine optimization techniques vary by project, industry, competition, and goals.
SEO positioning: the first stages
The first stages of an SEO strategy involve:
- analysis of the reference market
- study of the target
- business goal planning.
In this phase, the nature of the digital project is outlined together with the vision, mission, and objectives. After defining the key points of the project, the phase of keyword research begins, the creation of the site tree, the writing of the SEO-oriented pages, the programming of a content strategy plan.
If the site is online, these elements are analyzed:
- structure
- Technical Problems
- on-page SEO business
- check the link profile
- study of the quality of intercepted traffic.
By analyzing and implementing what emerged in the initial studies phase, the hierarchy of positioning and online visibility objectives is established.
Become more visible with an SEO strategy
Contact me for a free quote!
How to create an SEO strategy
Over the course of reading, I’ll walk you through creating an SEO strategy step by step. If your business is about to start, I refer you to the articles: swot analysis for your project and how to do keyword research, where you will find point by point the list of operations to be done to start your business.
Google Analytics Check
Verifying the history of Google Analytics, in our case, is important to check the acquisition of organic traffic and identify the most important pages of our site. Google Analytics is software with countless possibilities.
For our SEO strategy we will need this information:
- checking the history of visits and performances with Google Analytics;
- organic traffic control ;
- control of the best-performing pages;
- identification of the most important pages of the last year (contents path = all pages = comparison = select page views and average time on pages).
Once you’ve done these steps, here’s what to do:
- note the main changes of the first 50 pages: identify the pages that have lost the most traffic, study the reason and act promptly (they may need more content or not contain the main keywords in the text);
- create goals on Google Analytics.
Seo Audit
Check for technical issues using Screaming Frog and Google Search Console. Check the site structure and see if the site structure is in line with your online positioning goals.
Crawl depth
How far is the page that represents the core business of the site from the Home Page? If it is deeper than two clicks, fix it immediately by decreasing the distance of your page service from the home page. Are there landing pages? Do they have priority in your digital project? Are there pillar articles? Are they up to date? Do they play a major role in the website hierarchy?
Seo on page
Check the titles, meta descriptions, and URL. Are these elements in line with the positioning objectives? Do a quick check of h2 usage via Screaming Frog. Check desktop and mobile speed with Google Speed Test. Follow the directions to improve the speed of your website.
Coverage and performance with Google Search Console.
Check the following elements:
- index status: are the pages correctly indexed? Check if the sitemap has been submitted;
- crawl budget: check how many times your site is visited by Google;
- robot.txt control: make the most important pages of the site accessible. Avoid HTTP and HTTPS versions being online, enter HREFLANG (on multilingual sites), update the sitemap, avoid duplicate URLs;
- crawl errors: check for 404 and duplicate errors;
- internal links: controls the architecture of the site and the internal structure of the site’s links. Are there any hierarchies? Are they organized in a logical and fluid way according to the visitor and the positioning objectives of the site ?;
- link profile analysis: analyzes the number of incoming links and their quality. What kind of AD do they have? Are they do-follow, no-follow, spam? If it is the case, clear the link profile of the client’s site of spam links with Google disavow. Check if there is a balance between no-follow and do-follow links, the amount of do-follow inbound links must exceed at least 50% of the total links;
- sitemaps: update the sitemap, prefer the most important pages and if there are very similar pages, choose a canonical version. The canonical tag is very important;
- AMP. is the version of the site responsive and mobile-friendly ?;
- duplicate content: eliminate duplicates;
- duplicate metadata: change duplicate metadata;
- duplicate titles: fix duplicate titles;
- verification of structured data
Performance check on Google Search Console
Checking the CTR
Open the Google console, enter search results, insert flags on clicks, CTR, positioning. This is where the most positioned and most traffic-producing pages will open. Act promptly on those that are losing positioning by modifying their content (if necessary) and meta-data. Check each page in GSC and see if there are any losses of impressions, positioning, clicks.
Meta-data enhancement:
- does the URL match the meta description?
- Does the title tag contain strong and emotional words? That’s boring? Here is an example of a functional title tag, if possible insert the main keyword [Number] + [Emotional Adjective] + [Content] + [That Does What Exactly?]
- meta description: does it feel like you’ve landed in the right place? Is it in line with url and title?
Rich Snippet implementation
Implement rich snippets to increase CTR. Consider when it is possible to enter them and if it is the case using Google Data Highlighter. Recommended article: moz.com/blog/higher-organic-click-through-conversion-rates-rankings
Measure progress using data comparison in Google Search Console
Study of the reference market of the business
Answer these questions to identify your target market.
- In which market is the business located?
- What are the competitors’ products-services?
- What are the main rankings?
- What are the highest search volume keywords in the industry?
- What are the keywords that are easiest to rank for?
- What are the most used long-tail keywords and related search terms?
- What is the target audience?
- Are there gaps in unexplored and little-used keywords?
Check the current positioning
Do a quick check of the current positioning. Study how to enhance the positioning acquired and look for new ones with keyword research. Intervene with on-page SEO activities.
Keyword Research
Do keyword research to position yourself or to acquire new positions that take into account the current positioning, the one to be achieved, the best keywords in the sector, and the customer’s objectives. Longtail keywords, google suggests, search intent will be part of keyword research.
Suggested tools for your keyword research:
- Semrush
- Seozoom
- AHREFS
- Answer The Public
- Google Suggest
My list of SEO utilities might be for you.
SEO Strategy
Develop an SEO strategy that is in line with the positioning objectives and that takes into account the objective of the reference business, the structure of the site, the size of the site, the amount of pages/articles/products/media to be optimized.
Edit SEO ON Page
It carries out an on-page modification and review of the elements of the site based on the criteria that emerged during the SEO audit phase, the check of the current positioning, the study of the reference market and the target, the keyword research of the SEO strategy and verifies if they are in line with the client’s objectives.
Content AUDIT
Carry out a thorough analysis of the site’s content and its positioning. Decide what to implement, delete or write based on the needs of our target. Check the freshness of the contents. If you are interested in the content audit checklist, I recommend that you read the recommended article: www.searchenginejournal.com/content-audit-checklist
Topic Clusters strategy
The contents are organized according to the topic clusters strategy: pillar content, cluster content, hyperlink?
Does the project need to position itself in a very competitive sector?
Content Updates and Hot Topics
The constant updating of the contents with new positioning and hot topics improves the positioning of the contents and the traffic. Update your articles by observing seasonal trends, current trends, and hot topics in the sector, hot topics.
Take care of the formatting of the text
- use of bullet points
- care of text spacing
Take care of the formatting of the text and add a bulleted list with bullet points.
A bulleted list organizes, offers a feeling of general understanding of the topic.
Dedicating to a single point can be convincing, but 10 points that revolve around a pivot are more convincing.
Create a list of services and benefits in your pillar. The lists accompany the reader in the discovery of the article.
Tips for formatting bullet points
- adopt clarity and simplicity;
- keep the same length;
- use grammar;
- take care of punctuation.
Paragraphs, titles, and subtitles: readability
Paragraphs cannot be too long, but they must contain an accomplished thought.
To facilitate the passage/connection between the argumentative blocks, use titles and text strings that are graphically different from the paragraphs. Follow good header rules of having a dominant H1 tag followed by other h2 titles with a smaller font.
Monitoring of keywords
Monitor the positioning of the keywords tracked and entered in the SEO software. Check its performance and identify strategies to improve visibility and traffic acquisition.
Creation of the editorial plan of the contents
Create a content editorial plan that is in line with the positioning and traffic acquisition objectives, seasonal and that takes into account the main events in the sector and in relation to the brand. Use seasonal SEO and topic clusters techniques.
Performance monitoring
Over time, it always monitors the performance of the project with GA, GSC, and the SEO tool used to track the performances.
Local SEO
Does the business need LOCAL SEO? If yes, create the GMB page and optimize it according to local SEO best practices