In modern times, most businesses have the basic idea about SEO and why it is needed. But if you think that simply creating content for the keywords your end users search for is the ultimate strategy, you are far from being right. 

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An SEO strategy is the procedure of organising the content of a website by topic. This assists search engines, such as Bing and Google to get an insight into the intent of a user. When an SEO professional optimises a web page around topics and then moves on to optimising keywords in that topic, the website ends up gaining authority from a search engine’s point of view and ranks well for key phrases. 

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Here are some measures worth taking note of.

 

1. Create a list of topics - If you want to reach out to your audiences, keep a list of the topics that you want to cover from the start to the end of the month. Now, identify 10 words related to your offerings. The professional can identify their search volume and find out variations that are meaningful to your business. 

 

While these keywords are extremely competitive, you need to narrow down your list to 10 to 15 short-tail keywords crucial for your business.

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Next, based on monthly search volume and association with your business, make a priority list. For instance, if you own a door supplying business, you may want to rank for ‘security doors’, which is receiving a monthly search of over 1 lac. This particular short-tail keyword determines the topic of the content. 

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Your next step involves recognising a series of long-tail keywords that connect to the short-tail keyword and help to expand on the topic of security doors.

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Every keyword is a ‘pillar’ in SEO and it acts as the main support for a larger cluster of long-tail keywords. 

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2. Coming to long-tail keywords - Now that you have the topics, make a list of long-tail keywords. Use a tool to identify at least 5 long-tail keywords that get deeper into the actual topic keyword.

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For instance, if you write on ‘content writing’, it is difficult to rank on Google or other search engines on such a well-known topic. In fact, you might also unknowingly compete with your website’s content by coming up with multiple pages targeting the same keyword and the same search engine result pages.

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Using sub-topics to write blog posts or web pages highlight a specific concept within each large topic. A digital marketing expert can plug these subtopics into your keyword research tool for identifying long-tail keywords for your blog. Such subtopics form a cluster. So, if there are 10 main topics, each should support a cluster having a minimum of 5 subtopics. This structure is referred to as ‘topic cluster’ and search engine algorithms connect users with the information they need with the help of these ‘topic clusters’. 

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If your content is as specific as the requirements of the readers, they are more likely to turn into leads. 

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3. Blogging is important - An incredible way to rank for your keywords and attract users to your website is blogging. Set up a blog if your website already does not possess one, and elaborate on the subtopics, allowing you to rank on search engines. 
 
The thing is, the writer has to follow some rules as he writes the blog posts. 

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# These days, Google has changed. It does not consider exact keyword matches as frequently as it used to. So, it is better not to use long-tail keywords more than 3 to 4 times on a page. Also, search engines might think that you are trying to stuff keywords in the content. The result - a penalised website and drop in rank. 

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# Link to the pillar page you had created on this topic. Do this with the assistance of tags in your CMS (content management system).

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# When you publish each post, link it from the pillar page, supporting the subtopic. In the pillar page, detect the point introducing this blog’s subtopic and then link it here. 

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This way of connecting the cluster and the pillar shows search engines the relationship between the topic you are trying to rank for and the long-tail keyword. 

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Blog at least once a week and make sure that the keywords are relevant to the content. Additionally, publish content that interests your audience so that they notice and eventually click. 

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4. SEO practices and trends - Search engine space is dynamic. Hence, if you keep yourself at bay from the latest news and practices, you are sure to lag. But worry not! You will come across several online resources that can aid you in knowing about the current news and changes in the field, thus impacting your SEO strategy and ultimately, your website.

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5. Determine and follow the course of your content's success - SEO consumes a considerable amount of effort and time. Will it do any good if you cannot even track or measure your success? The answer is simple - No. 

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To make your life easier, track metrics on a monthly, weekly or daily basis.

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Since you want to know about organic traffic, look for a tool, which lets you track the total organic traffic and ranking for each long-tail keyword targeted by your page. 

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The digital marketing expert can create a monthly dashboard with the help of  Google Sheets, Excel or a web analytics package so that you evaluate the traffic coming to your website from an organic search. 

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Besides, you may also track leads, indexed pages, inbound links, ROI, keywords and actual ranking of your website on search engine result pages to recognise how much success you are gaining and then identify the development areas as well as the areas of opportunity. 

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There you have it!

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Our 5-step strategy for successful SEO. Will you opt for long-tail keyword, blog posting, keeping track of SEO practices or evaluate your content’s success?

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Which strategy from this post are you going to use?

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Let us know in the comments section below.

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