Search Engine Optimization, more commonly known as SEO is the crux of a digital marketing campaign. With all of the digital marketing strategies resting in the hands of SEO professionals, it’s common for businesses to rely on SEO to bring them to the top of the digital ladder. However, getting to the top of Google SERPs isn’t necessarily an easy activity.
To assist you on your journey to success, we’ve built this list of the top 10 actionable SEO techniques that can help you increase the amount of organic traffic you’re able to attract on your website:
Refresh your prior successful content
When you have a landing page that has managed to gain a huge amount of traction over the years, it’s important to use that to your advantage. Say you have a blog on your website under the title “Top 10 Google algorithmic changes that have severely impacted businesses over the years.”
Naturally, Google updates its algorithm quite a bit and if you want to keep the traction of your article alive, you need to keep updating it with all algorithmic updates to ensure that all the information on your blog is recent and factual. This helps in working towards a well-implemented SEO strategy since every detail of the article is up-to-date whilst continuing to grow the audience on your most successful piece of content.
Understand search intent
SEO used to be only about keywords back in the earlier days of digital marketing. However, a lot of changes have occurred and the digital marketing campaigns of modern times are based on user intent and not the keywords they place in. Surely, the keywords still play a huge role in being able to understand what the user wants – however, it’s important to be able to distinguish between “red sweater” and “small size red sweater with white stripes for kids.”
Understanding search intent allows you to understand the content that each keyword needs. For example, while the keywords “red sweater” display the possible need for being able to understand how to knit one, the latter displays commercial interest.
Build a topic cluster
To be able to build a flawless content marketing strategy for your business is the key to success. Topic clusters are the key to building a strong content marketing campaign for your brand’s website – but how?
Simply put, topic clusters are a series of semantic, related pieces of content that interlink to form one complete piece of content. Examples of topic clusters include – “Digital Marketing 101: All you need to know about SEO” which can further hold links to articles about keyword research, SEO techniques and more.
Strong title tag and meta descriptions
SEO isn’t just about keywords or search intent – there’s a lot more involved in the process. To get to the top of Google SERPs, your content needs to be clicked on in the first place. To build your website’s CTR, your content’s title tag and meta description is the first thing that a user will set their eyes on.
Your title tag and meta description should be factual, impactful and mildly descriptive – all at once. No user will be attracted to click on your content if they aren’t interested in the first piece of information that you have to offer.
Do your research
Although this particular point is mentioned in practically every article related to performing well with your digital marketing strategy, we cannot emphasize enough on how crucial it is to analyse your competitors well. Not only is it important for gaining insights on the process of your competitor’s process of implementing a digital marketing strategy, but it also allows you to learn the keywords that they’re focusing on.
Analyzing a competitor allows you to gain insider knowledge on the processes that you could be following, especially if you have no experience with the world of digital marketing. From backlinks to keywords, research is the core of an actionable SEO strategy.
Repurpose unreached content
Content that has failed to create the impact you were hoping to create can be repurposed to create fresh content in different forms. Although you will feel inclined to discard off a piece of content that doesn’t do well, we want you to think it through.
You can repurpose the content by turning your textual blog into a video and even an Ebook. Content can be repurposed as long as you’re doing it right – the important part is being able to reach the customer you want to reach.
Bloggers and influencers are your best friends
For content marketing, the value of your content lies in the hands of the blog that you post it on. While there will be a sufficient amount of marketing material that’s posted onto your website, it’s important to reach out to the right people for your guest posts and more.
Bloggers and influencers can help link back to you or mention your business’ name on their articles and blogs. This can help in building your credibility and brand image through easy SEO.
Featured snippets for the win!
Although ranking first on Google SERPs is well capable of getting your brand’s recognition up by a storm, featured snippets are capable of doubling up the amount of organic traffic you receive.
Google snippets are won by those that are ranking in the top 10 positions of Google SERPs, allowing the ones that win these snippets to be able to claim them. Claiming a snippet will allow the user to gain insight onto the information they will receive by clicking on your article, allowing them to make a subtle judgement of how useful it can be from a distance. This gives you a higher potential for raised CTR.
Check mentions that aren’t linked back to your page
Many a time, brands end up missing out on potential customers solely because they’ve been mentioned on articles, blogs and guest posts that don’t link back to them. Customers are highly unlikely to open a new tab and type in the name of the business they found interesting on a completely different platform, which is essentially why backlinks exist.
Look up the brand mentions that don’t link back to you and you’ll be able to gain a whole new crowd of organic traffic on to your website.
Understand the mind of your buyer persona
Before you dive deep into the world of content marketing, it’s important to understand the mind of your buyer persona. Say, for example, your business deals with furniture designed for party hire. To reach your niche audience, you’ll need to perform an adequate amount of research for your market.
What are the questions that your audience is asking? What queries do they hold for the products that you’ve displayed? Are they related to the kind of events that the furniture can be hired for? Or are they confused as to how long they can hire the furniture and props for? Once you understand the concerns of the public, you can respond by providing them with content that answers the questions they have. Not only does this place you on top of your competitors, but it gives you the undue advantage of being able to build your credibility in the eyes of the customer.
Written by Kiara McColl is a content manager at Clickmatix digital marketing agency, where she gets to do what she loves doing- writing and managing content with smart digital marketers in the company.