SEO is one of the most effective ways to drive prospects to your website and convert them, but it requires some work.
An efficient SEO program requires keyword research, audience research, development, and content marketing to work well and together. As a small business owner or employee, you are probably hard-pressed for time and resources.
Fortunately, there are hacks that you can use to bypass the time-consuming stages in implementing SEO strategy.
1. Use competition to cover your keyword research
Keyword research is not only necessary for SEO but also PPC and content marketing. One of the easiest ways to identify keywords is by monitoring your competition.
If you have access to Slack, GrowthBot is a cool little marketing based Slack integration that you can use to conduct quick keyword research via a chat.
Ask GrowthBot what keywords XYZ company ranks for, or what PPC keywords they are buying.
Alternatively, you can also use SpyFu to find the keywords your competitors are bidding for.
Run a Google search on these keywords and check the number of backlinks the first five posts on the first SERP (Search Engine Page Result) returns. SmallSEOTools offers a free backlink checker that is quite reliable.
If that number doesn’t seem very daunting, you have good chances of being ranked using that keyword.
2. Pre-plan your blog content strategy
Many companies overlook content strategy and planning. A vague idea and random effort won’t give you results like a planned and documented strategy will.
Using the your target keywords, you can create a content plan for each month, quarter or year. Many successful publications choose themes for each month, cycling through a defined set of themes.
You can create blocks for each theme that shift every month and fill each block with topic ideas.
You can find topic ideas by asking GrowthBot what the top posts are on XYZ website (a top publication in your industry).
You could also use FAQFox, a tool that identifies questions being asked by people around your area of interest, on the websites you enter. You can create topic ideas that answer the questions that FAQFox finds you.
3. Set-up keywords on a social content curator
It turns out that social signals do affect your SEO ranking, but it may not be what most people once thought it was about (the size of your social media following. The more engagement you have on your posts, the better your social media profiles are likely to rank/affect your rankings.
To build a rapport with your audience and convince them to visit your website, you have to show them that you are about more than selling your products.
You can’t post only the content that you create. Instead, you can plug the keywords that you found during step one into a social media management tool like DrumUp that also provides keyword-based content suggestions.
Use the @mention and #tag suggestions offered by the tool to increase visibility of your outgoing posts, so you can capture attention from relevant people.
4. Always fill in your meta title, description, and keywords
Although Google doesn’t always consider the meta-description for page ranks, the search engine sometimes uses it when displaying your page as a query result.
If your blog is WordPress based, you simply need to install the meta description and tags plugin and fill in the details each time you publish a post.
The activity takes less than seconds and you can always use your description as an ad space to communicate to viewers what they can expect and woo their clicks.
5. Create a blogger outreach strategy
To improve your search rankings, you need external websites to link back to you. One way of facilitating this is by creating in-depth, useful resources that top bloggers and influencers in your niche would want to link to.
Many top sites create comprehensive collections of tips, tools, and statistics to attract backlinks. This strategy works well because many bloggers search for tips, tools, and statistics to include on their posts and that might lead them to mention or link to your post as a reference.
Alternatively, you can also commission bloggers to mention you on their posts where it makes sense. It is important to note that the bloggers own the sites where you are requesting mentions and that you compensate them with a fair amount for doing so.
A standard disclaimer is necessary when indulging in such an activity.
Many publications offer sponsored posts. These rarely have direct SEO benefits, but they can increase your ranking by increasing your website traffic.
About the Author
Disha Dinesh is a Content Writer at Godot Media, a leading content agency. Her interests include social media and content marketing. When she’s not writing, she’s on the hunt for social media trends and inspiration.
Source: SEO For Growth