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According to BrightEdge research, approximately 51% of traffic to a website comes from organic search, meaning that position on the search results page affects website traffic more than paid search and direct visitors combined.
Content experiential marketing has become an important channel for business growth today, and despite the sheer volume of content, brands still need to find ways to stand out, and SEO is an important part of the equation.
However, SEO still creates problems for many markets and their sectors. First of all, it can be a challenge to convince those who are not involved in SEO, especially senior management to get the required budget.
The industry itself is constantly changing as algorithms and customer expectations evolve. However, understanding the four pillars of SEO management will allow you to target your audience appropriately, see success and grow your organization.
Four Pillars of SEO Strategy and Management
1. Identify needs
The first step in creating an SEO management plan is identifying needs, which means understanding which topics your audience is interested in, so you can better engage them with your brand and gradually convert them down the funnel.
Check out the existing content on your site to see which content correlates with traffic, conversions, and revenue. Look at the links between content to see if the content is effective in moving people from the current stage of the journey to the next.
The more you know about your content's current performance, the easier it will be to identify your strengths and weaknesses, and you'll be able to clearly see what your audience likes and build on that.
Make sure you have a solid understanding of your target market, including a budget, pain points, and motivation. Since you're able to understand what potential customers want to see at each stage of the buying journey, you'll be able to start creating content that meets those needs.
Then, you can further attract customers. Once buyers are targeted and you know what they want to see, use keyword research to find topics of interest in your industry.
A high search rate can help you discover topics that people want to read about, check the keywords and look at the existing top-ranking sites for that topic, then choose the keywords that you will be able to fully develop and rank for on the search results.
2. Benchmarks of the competition
It’s important to remember that in SEO, not only are you trying to rank your content, but to be successful, you must also outperform your competitors.
For this reason, it's important to understand what other brands are doing, where they're succeeding, and where they're falling short.
As you discover methods that work for others, such as topics, social strategies, and content types, you can incorporate some of these ideas into your own digital strategy.
For example, competitor sites can help you discover new keywords that are important to your customers.
For example, if they're missing content for a specific buyer persona, you can optimize this content on your site to attract a larger percentage of customers who match those criteria, and it's also helpful to see the top-ranking sites for this keyword.
See what types of content are ranking well and how your content is optimized, using this option ensures your material is fully prepared to compete in search engines.
3. Create and optimize content
Once you've gathered information through keyword research, buyer journeys for your key figures, and your competitors, you now need to create the high-end material that customers expect to see from you.
It is important to provide material that shows depth, rather than generating condensed content just to check a keyword list. Offer something meaningful that will entice people to share and come back to your page in the future.
Remember, you want to see your brand as a leader, so don't become a follower, just repost what others have said, look for ideas you want to explore, and add your own unique insights as an industry professional.
After you create your content, you need to optimize it.
This includes:
- Use keywords naturally throughout the article
- Use keywords in areas like title tags, headings, alt tags, etc.
- Link the page to the rest of the website via inbound and outbound internal linking
- Include the page in the sitemap
- Improve website speed
- Include local keywords whenever possible
- Make sure the site is mobile-ready and consider configuring pages for AMP if applicable.
4. Measure Results
When you use this SEO management system, don't ignore the measurement results.
The analysis will influence the entire SEO plan and it will provide you with an effective approach for your future campaigns.
It will also directly affect how well your advocacy and reports are received by your organization's leaders, which in turn affects your budget and resources.
You want to monitor every step of the campaign, being able to tell your senior management what happened, why, and how SEO directly impacts positive results.
SEO presents a unique challenge because it requires waiting and results in few immediate results. Create a story that shows your quantifiable progress over time and where you can expect to see progress.
You need to have a clear understanding of how your campaigns impact your brand goals, such as increasing awareness, conversions, and revenue.
With technology and expectations constantly changing, SEO management remains a challenge for marketers.
However, by implementing an SEO strategy, brands can effectively reach their target audience, engage them and drive business results.
