What do you know about SEO?
Have you taken classes on it? Have you implemented SEO techniques into your marketing plan?
Are you still operating with an SEO strategy you created years ago?
Google changes its algorithm all the time – about 500 to 600 times per year. And while most of them are minor, there are the occasional updates that impact business ranking significantly if you’re using old, outdated practices.
Because traffic is key to your online success, it’s vital that you remain on the first page of search results for whatever keywords and phrases your customers are searching for. Without that, your online success will falter.
To see where you currently stand, it’s important to audit your SEO strategy from time to time to understand where your weaknesses lie. It also gives you direction on the best way to go about improving your techniques.
Before you determine the best ways to improve your strategy, you have to find out where you currently are.
Link Audit
Start by determining where all the links to your site are coming from. Are they from high-quality sites?
Google assigns PageRank determined by more than 200 ranking characteristics, one of those being links from other sites. Think of a link as a vote for your site – some other resource recognizes its content for quality and shares it to its own viewers and resources. The higher the quality of the incoming link, the better it impacts your final ranking score.
Technical Audit
It’s equally important to ensure your entire website is working as well as possible. From a technical aspect, is your site coded and operating as efficiently as possible?
Is it easy for the search engine spiders to crawl your website?
How quickly does it load?
Is your site easy to navigate in a way that makes sense to your viewers?
Is your site built for a high-quality mobile experience?
Do the spiders detect errors on your pages as it crawls through the coding?
Do you use title tags and metadata throughout?
Do you use images with proper tags?
Dig Deeper
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Content Audit
While adding new content to your site is an important part of your SEO strategy, looking at old content to ensure it meets today’s criteria is equally essential.
Make sure that all of your past posts and pages are written for the viewer, not for SEO ranking. Is everything spelled correctly using the proper grammar?
All posts should be created to add value to the reader. What are you trying to teach with each page of content? Does it have enough value to share?
You should also think specifics rather than generalizations. If you have a complex concept, it’s better to break it down into multiple posts, linking internally to the pages that matter most to your content.
And don’t forget your social media strategy as well. Every time your posts are shared on social sites, it helps build trust, authority, and adds to your inbound links.
Analytics Audit
Do you know how well your site is doing currently with your customers? Do you know:
- Where your traffic is coming from?
- How much traffic is due to organic search?
- How much traffic is being referred? Who is referring?
- What pages are stopping the process? Where do people leave your site?
- How have your rankings changed over time?
- What pages perform the best? Which are the worst?
- How do your prospects and customer convert?
- How are your inbound links changing over time?
- How has your site grown over time?
This isn’t a guessing game. The more information you have, the better informed you are about how well your strategy is working.
It allows you to give your audience what it’s looking for, while tweaking what’s already in place to make it even better.
It’s Time To Improve Your SEO Strategy
Auditing your SEO strategy is the first step in improving your online marketing plan. Only with this in place can you move forward and make your online content even better.
Which brings us to your first goal in moving forward: your content strategy.
Content Is Everything
You’ve likely heard the adage: content is king. We talk about it a lot here on our site. For good reason.
Writing short articles used to get results in Google. Not anymore. Now Google is programmed to look for authorities on a subject matter. And the only way you can do that is with content.
The longer your content pages, the better.
Long content gives you a chance to connect on a deeper level with your readers. It also gives you an opportunity to provide your keyword more. But don’t overdo it. Keyword stuffing won’t win your ranking. In fact, if you do it enough, Google recognizes that too and will penalize you for it.
You can also build in interactive plans to keep your readers active and engaged. Thinks like pools, surveys, infographics, and videos can all help keep viewers on your site.
Spend Time With Your Headlines
The next time you stand in line at your favorite grocery store, spend some time looking at the titles on the front covers of the magazine. These companies know the secret to good marketing – the titles say everything.
If you want more traction to your site, spend more time on your titles. Your headlines are what give people a first impression, and motivate them to click … or not.
Make your titles compelling. Give them a spark that motivates people to click and read. Sometimes one word can make all the difference.
Call To Action
Everything you create, every post you write, every page that exists on your site should have a purpose. What is it?
What’s your call to action? Do you want them to click to another post? Sign up for a free report? Fill out a form? Watch a video? Get to know you better by visiting your about us page?
What is it?
With everything you do online, create a trail so you can take your readers by the hand and lead them to the next steps. Simple questions and phrases can have huge impact:
• Want more?
• Click here
• Continue reading
• Download here
If it keeps them on your website longer, it’s a win for your SEO strategy.
So what’s your SEO strategy? When was the last time you audited your site? If you’re ready to give your business a boost, let’s talk.
