4 Things to Keep in Mind when Launching your SEO Campaign

 

Search Engine Optimization is one of the most effective digital marketing platforms that can boost online presence. This, however, requires strategic solutions to ensure the success of your SEO campaigns. Take note that this strategy may also take time to see the progress. Don’t be deceived of false advertisements telling you that they can put your website on top of search engines as they could be using “Black Hat SEO approaches” or unethical SEO tactics.

If you’re really decided to start an SEO campaign for your business, it is advisable to know some of the most basic principles that Google along with other major search engines allow when optimizing your website. To help you get started, here are a few expert tips when launching your SEO campaigns:

1. Determine your Goals and Refine your Strategies

The first thing you need to do before going to the technicalities of SEO is to define your goals. What is your vision for your business? How do you see it in 5 or 10 years? How do you define the success of your campaigns? What is your approach for measuring your goals? These are the few things you need to address before jumping to your SEO strategies.

Of course, you want to put your website on top of prominent search engines. Take note however that there are other things you need to prepare other than understanding the metrics or data analysis for site traffic. For more clarity, here are some of the few things you should address:

• WHO– Who are you aiming to reach by ranking on major search engines? This question should predefine your target audience/market. From there, you can work on your brand persona. Be specific with your branding. What image do you want to portray for your audience? How do you want them to see your business? For example, if your business is an online software marketplace, you can focus on related industries such as cybersecurity and technological advancements. From there, you can create a persona as a cybersecurity expert or an authorized software dealer.
• WHY – Why do you want people to visit your website? What is your overall goal for this campaign? Again, dig deeper into your site’s metrics and engagement rates. Align your SEO campaign with your business goals and vision. Be specific with your goals—whether it’s for lead generation, sales, engagement, or list building.
• HOW – How do you intend to measure your progress? Take note that everything should be measurable; otherwise, it will be impossible for you to gauge your campaigns’ progress.

These steps may seem pretty basic, but a lot of newcomers in the digital arena are still overlooking the importance of pre-planning.

2. Evaluate your Current Website

Now that you have your goals in place, you can start evaluating your website. Make sure to check every page, icon, content, and overall functionality. There are two main categories when doing site audits: the technical aspect and crawling process. Here’s a more detailed breakdown:

Technical Audit

Technical site audit is the method used by SEO experts to improve overall functionality and ensure the website is SEO-ready. Any technical problem, page error, or broken link would make it difficult for your site to generate traffic or increase rankings. When launching an SEO campaign, you need to work on your website first. Refer to the guidelines below:

• XML sitemap: Search engines refer to the sitemap to sort out different earls. This is how search engines can see your website and one of the key factors for improving the overall performance of your site.
• Robots.txt: Just like sitemap, it’s not entirely for ranking factor, but will help a lot when it comes to crawling your website. Your focus here is to eliminate unnecessary and duplicate pages from being indexed. Doing so will allow search engines to crawl your site more efficiently.
• Page Speed: Whether for ranking purposes or not, page speed plays an important role. If your business website takes time to load, how can you expect your audience to go back to your website? Always check the website’s speed and make necessary fixes right away.

Site Crawler

For bigger and more complex websites containing several different pages, it is advisable to use a crawler for better audit results. This works by assessing every URL on a website. It collects various information about the URL to see if there are any errors or broken links.

Today, there are now different tools you can use for site crawlers. This allows you do the following:

• On-page SEO: The crawler tool can detect issues with HTML causing Google to see duplicate or empty pages. Take note that these can affect your ranking score across major search engines.
• HTTP Status: Webpages or sites that do not respond on servers will be impossible to get crawled on search engines. This problem also disrupts your site’s flow of link juice and gives site visitors a bad experience. With site crawler tools, you can resolve these issues including broken redirection links or redirect loops.
• Non-Index-able Pages: Just like incorporating written robot.txt file the right way, indexing certain URL plays a vital role. Site crawler tools allow you to detect URLs that are disallowed via robots.txt and meta bot tags.

Once you have resolved these problems on your website, you can proceed with more strategic stuff of Search Engine Optimization.

3. Perform Keyword Research

Performing in-depth keyword is vital to your SEO campaign. Make sure your keyword strategies are aligned to the latest search engine algorithms. When doing your keyword research, you need to consider search volume, competition, and relevance. In addition, keywords are crucial when it comes to on-page and off-page optimization strategies.

In the latest update, everything is about quality and relevance—whether for a content marketing strategy or link building. Gone are the days when you can build multiple links. It’s quality over quantity and revolves around search intent.

More importantly, make sure to have primary and secondary keywords for both on-page and off-page optimization. This method can help you rank for competitive keywords.

4. Develop a Solid Content Marketing Strategy

Content is still the bread and butter of every digital marketing campaign. Just like keyword research and link building, your content needs to be relevant to your products and services. Make sure everything you publish online is original, well-written, keyword-optimized, and engaging. Avoid keyword stuffing as Google along with other major search engines can flag you as spam.

Update your web content regularly. Setting up a blogsite may also help increase your site traffic and link value. Use content marketing tools such as Copyscape to avoid duplicate content. You may also explore BuzzSumo and Buffer to help you with topic selection.

These are some of the few things to keep in mind when launching an SEO campaign. Always do your research about the latest Google algorithm updates. Reach out to seasoned digital marketers for more information.