Five Tips For Your SEO Strategy

Find The Right Topic

SEO Tips: Sounds easy? Theoretically, it is because you are the expert in your field and can write about it as much as possible. But beware, you may have already registered a lot about a specific topic. If you now write another blog post on the same subject, speaking of the same search terms that people might type into Google to find your page, you’re diluting the focus of your site.

Google then does not necessarily know which pages deal with the same topic should be displayed in the search results. You can see which pages are shown for a keyword in the search results in the Google Search Console. So it makes sense to pay attention to a corresponding SEO strategy when planning new content. Define topics that could interest consumers and in which you can position yourself as an expert. You don’t have to constantly write unique blog articles or news, especially those dealing with company news, such as the annual company-run, etc. This may be interesting for some but is somewhat irrelevant for a content and SEO strategy.

A new blog article or other texts on the website should always support the marketing goals; after all, they are not an end in themselves. It is essential to consider which phase of the customer journey a user is in because suitable content should be provided for each of these phases. The customer journey tries to show the “journey” of a consumer and all points of contact (touchpoints) with your company until he makes a purchase decision. 

Is Keyword Research Still Necessary?

Google is getting better at understanding search queries and what intent a user might have. However, it still makes sense to research keywords and put yourself in the user’s shoes and understand their meaning because that is precisely what the Google algorithm is trying to do and would like to display the corresponding pages in the search results.

Don’t focus or focus on generic terms. A general time such as B. “dog food” will hardly rank your website. What does someone want to find just by typing this word? In addition, you will have intense competition that you will scarcely be able to beat. It is better to research longer word combinations, so-called long-tail keywords. In principle, these are niche keywords, such as “dog food for small dogs,” “special nutrition for small dogs,” etc. Users are primarily looking for help, guides, comparisons, etc., or buying something specific. So please pay close attention to the target groups, their questions and expectations and present appropriate solutions.

You can also discover terms that users used to come to your website in the Search Console. Often you will find search terms here that you had not even thought of and that may be useful. You can find out how to proceed with your keyword research in the article. You will also find tools that you can use and learn how to classify the found keywords into subject areas ( “clustering” ). This work is also an essential basis if you want to place ads in Google AdWords/Google Ads because it is also vital to do keyword research and to use well-defined topics for the respective ad groups.

Analyze The Competition

This is not about a classic competitor analysis, which you have undoubtedly already done, but about finding out which of the researched keywords that you want to use other competitors rank with. Look at the first websites that appear in the search results. Why do they rank before your website? Is the issue addressed holistically? Do they offer a better user experience? Are they structured in a more reader-friendly way? Do they perhaps address utterly different target groups, etc.?

Also, research what competitors are publishing on specific topics so you might be able to provide another aspect that is important to your target audience. The ranking of your website on Google can only ever be seen about the competition. It’s never static; once you’re in the first place, you don’t necessarily stay there forever. If the circumstances change, you quickly find yourself in the back seats.

Here you have to be honest with yourself – as hard as it is. If my competitors rank better, I have to think about optimizing my website and the content for my target groups.

Optimize The Content

Once the topic has been determined, the keywords have been researched, and the text has been written, the content must, of course, be prepared accordingly for the search engines. This does not mean you have to mention the keyword X times in the text. But of course, it should appear in the <H1> heading, at the beginning of the text, in the page title <title> and the meta description <meta-description> (more on this in the  SEO Tips article ). There are numerous extensions for content management systems, such as the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress. These plugins help implement the essential SEO elements.

Note: Google does not want to show the best search engine optimized page, but the best in terms of user experience.

Check The Performance Of Your Content

Now you put a lot of heart and soul into creating the content, but how is it received? Without a tool that allows you to measure how your users receive the text, an assessment is impossible. In Google Analytics (or another web analysis tool), you can understand how often the pages were viewed, how long users stayed on the page and the percentage of users who immediately returned to the search results (the so-called bounce rate ). From this, the users’ interest can be determined – as I said, you don’t want to write for Nirvana.

Pages on your website that are rarely accessed or articles with a specific half-life and are no longer up to date should be updated or redirected to more up-to-date pages. Deletion is also possible, but with the risk that any links that refer to it will no longer work. But “cleaning up” is often worthwhile because then the focus of your website becomes more transparent for the users and especially for Google.

Of course, key figures such as “page views,” “bounce rate,” or “length of stay” are only indications and should always be evaluated individually for each page. In addition, you can analyze the “page flow,” i.e. which other pages the user came from and where he went next on the website. Unfortunately, the evaluation takes time, and the interpretation is certainly not straightforward.

Conclusion

As you’ve seen, you don’t have to constantly publish new pages to appear in search results, but shine with the right content – quality over quantity. It’s better to think about the focus, which keywords might be relevant and which topics are still underrepresented on your website.

Also Read: CRM is the key to building a personalized relationship with the client