You are one of many who may need clarification about developing your website’s SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy. In addition, thousands of companies worldwide need help getting organic traffic (non-paid) to their websites.
For some time now, I have been watching with pleasure as Google SERP has risen to the challenge of “factscimilles” – sites that pretend to be factual but are not. I have seen the SERP put the kibosh on the “top 11.1225 best things since apple pie” lists, emphasizing the science behind the semantic (relevant) search.
I think it may take work to know where to begin your efforts. However, following a few crucial measures will improve your organic traffic significantly. Proper use of schema, researching long tail keywords, producing high-quality content and backlinks, technical SEO, and appropriate user information design will be your ticket to stardom.
As you can see, stardom is a long and winding road (I almost hear Paul signing).
Part One: Proper Use of Schema
The search engine is explicitly seeking to gain detailed information on your content via schema markup. Schema markup is a set of codes that informs a bot what the content on your website is attempting to communicate. By transforming unstructured data (text-based) to structured data, you have aided search engines in crawling (data gathering) and indexing, thereby improving the website’s rating.
It is worth the time and effort to use structured data. Rich snippets, which can increase the prominence of your pages in SERPs, are enhanced with more content and fed to search engines with extensive information about your websites thanks to your schema markup.
Step 1. Find the best schema type that describes your business and aligns with your business plan. For example, it may be schema.org/music or schema.org/theater.
Step 2. Add as much schema markup to your business entities and services as is necessary to explain them in detail. A schema markup expert will use more ontologies to add more comprehensible data.
Step 3. Choose your coding strategy and decide how to use the markup on your website. Many CMS tools can utilize specific schema-generating plugins and APIs because they are generally straightforward.
Step 4. As much as feasible, write your SEO schema utilizing natural language processing. The terms you employ matter and should align with your audience’s demands and search intent.
Step 5. Schema markup, like SEO, is a continuous effort. Set up a regular auditing program to discover problems to aid strategic site mapping. Some schema will depreciate with time, while others may add new necessary elements, and sometimes a new schema will develop.
Part Two: Longtail Keyword Research
Investigating the subjects for which your target audience searches is a big step in creating an SEO plan. Google is a great place to start since you can look up keyword ideas and associated search terms. Start with a keyword recommendation linked to your niche if you need clarification about what to include in your SEO approach. Make a list of keywords once you have one, then develop an SEO plan. Then, use these keywords in your content to increase the relevance of your website to consumers’ interests.
Please be aware that getting high search engine rankings is the purpose of keyword research while developing your SEO plan. Knowing how competitive a term is can help you prepare for how challenging it will be to rank for that keyword. Of course, the ideal keyword is one with high search volume and low competition in your target market, but if you’re going after a competitive phrase, the ranking could prove to be an uphill struggle. As a result, if you’re in a highly competitive area, you should concentrate on longtail keywords.
Use BuzzSumo’s “Questions” tool or “answer the public” to find pertinent questions from millions of forum posts if you’re unsure what to put in your article. You may also use Quora’s question features to find relevant questions on your subject. These tools are just a few that can help you focus your search approach and provide the most compelling content. There is no better strategy to increase the customer relevance of your website.
Keyword Research, by its very nature, involves snooping into your competitors’ websites and seeing what they are doing. You will get a good idea about their keyword usage, the type of content that has traction, the backlinks that have helped them rise in the SERP … In general, an excellent road map of the areas where you need to fill your gaps.
Part Three: Producing high-quality content and Authoritative Backlinks
If you write your articles, always try to answer a “Why” or a “What” and, even better, do a video version. Answer your audience’s most common questions, then explain more to become the ultimate guide!
The finest content informs readers, addresses genuine issues, and provides solutions. In an ideal world, content is also seen as helpful and shared, which increases traffic and aids in a high ranking in Google’s search results. But what exactly constitutes high-quality content? The objective of producing high-quality material is arbitrary.
A solid longtail keyword base is the first step in an SEO content strategy. Excellent content is only worthwhile with a reliable technical foundation. Consider dividing it into smaller chunks to influence search results more. You may boost your content’s relevance, impact, and effectiveness by introducing a technical framework into the creation process.
Not all backlinks are created equal, and their place in the hierarchy changes over time. There are a series of strategies for building solid backlinks, but as always, Google demotes the frivolous ones.
- For example, take skyscraper content, where you find an article in your field that is gaining real traction – the page has generated many backlinks, and then you go and try to do them one better.
- Instead of the top 10 ways to quit smoking, you will come up with the top 12 ways. Upmanship used to be an effective tool, but as of the September 9th update, it seems Google is trying to put this space under some form of control.
Another step to help yourself is to locate sites that are pointing to outdated links regarding the subject you write about and suggest they could replace it with yours.
There are many articles about backlinks, but I recommend hiring a professional unless you have extended time to create top-notch content and then take time to promote it.
Part Four: Technical SEO and proper user interface design
Last but by no means least is the technical SEO. Technical SEO is ensuring a website complies with the technical standards of current search engines to get higher organic ranks. Information architecture, crawling, indexing, and rendering are crucial aspects of technical SEO.
Your site must be mobile friendly at the very least, mobile optimized in the best scenario, and more than anything else free of duplicate content. You must use 301 redirects, canonical tags, Nice URLs, Meta tags, H1 and H2 Tags, and accessible and WCAG compatible code.
In addition to all o the information provided above, you must have a respectable site speed. Many site owners handle their site speed first without addressing significant optimization work, then wonder why their site is not ranking. Without SEO optimization, your site will not rank, no matter how fast.
I hope this answers some of the questions I have been answering lately. Please note that the changes Google has made to the search algorithm (which others usually follow) since August of 2021 have been very significant, and anyone using older guidelines needs to be updated and will have varying effectiveness.
In one of my following articles, I will address ROI. I cannot entirely agree when folks say it is impossible to calculate the ROI of digital marketing. So, I sat down and coded an ROI calculator, but that is for the next blog.
Dream Warrior Group, a Los Angeles SEO Company, provides the needed solutions for your online marketing needs. Our expertise includes Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Marketing & Google PPC campaigns. Call us now at 818.610.3316 or click here.