SEO – three letters that can change how your content appears on Google Page Rankings- yes, that’s how important SEO digital marketing is for any brand. According to the Search Engine Journal, 49% of marketers believe that organic search has the best ROI compared to any other marketing channel. According to the HubSpot State of Inbound, 75% of marketers feel that their SEO methods are quite successful at helping them achieve their marketing outcomes. According to Terakeet, SEO helps to cut down the cost of customer onboarding by 87.41 % compared to digital advertising. Don’t you think these stats are enough to confirm that SEO is a powerful strategy that can transform the visibility of your brand?
The COVID pandemic has transformed how we live our lives, and our dependence on the internet has increased like never before. The proliferation of smartphones and the internet at a fast clip has ensured that brands need to be visible online, and SEO helps to achieve that.
So what are the must-haves of an effective SEO strategy?
SEO is the practice of using certain techniques to enhance the traffic to your website and the rankings on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Both quantity and quality play an important role in your rankings over time. Writing more content and using an assortment of keywords combined with more links to other websites are good ways to boost your ranking.
Get your keywords right
Phrases that are usually searched for on search engines are called keywords. They are a critical part of measuring the ranking of your website. When your content is populated with the right number of keywords in the right places, you can see an improvement in your position.
The trick is to identify an assortment of keywords that are relevant to your topic and weave them naturally into your content. If you force-fit them, the Google algorithm will smell a rat and penalize you.
Use Metadata as your virtual shop front
Don’t we walk into a shop that has a great front-window display? Your Meta title and Meta description do the same job for you. The viewer will click only if they find this exciting or closest to what they are looking for.
Google uses crawlers to quickly check websites and match the search queries with the best fits. Including the keywords in your metadata makes it faster and simpler for Google to match your content, and you have a better chance of success.
Make Backlinks a good ally
When other websites link to yours in a piece of content, it is technically called acquiring a backlink, as visitors to that website have the potential of clicking on this link to visit yours. You can end up getting new organic traffic. This is the best way to gain domain authority, and it is prudent to give it a shot as part of the SEO strategy.
The best way to earn links is to write good quality content that matches the needs of search queries and can interest other websites enough to reference your site. Of course, you can follow a reciprocation process with other relevant sites, which will be a win-win proposition.
Brands can use guest blogging, answering queries on Quora, customer testimonials, and social media sharing to increase backlinks.
Offer a great UX
Everyone loves a website that has quick loading and smooth navigation. It should be easy to find important information on the website as nobody has the time to spare. Moreover, people are increasingly surfing the net on their smartphones which means websites have to be mobile-friendly. Quick loading, a clear site map, and a neat URL structure can help you move up several notches on the SERP rankings and get more traffic to your site.
Understand SEO Metrics
Unless you understand SEO Metrics, you cannot do justice to your SEO strategy or reap its full rewards. Make sure you have trained resources who understand SEO metrics so that you can monitor, analyze and course-correct your SEO strategy.
Try to land a featured snippet
If you make it to a featured snippet, your content will rocket to the top of SERP. These are the highlighted answer boxes at the top of the page when you search for information. Content that includes bullet points, numbered sub-headings, infographics, and question-based replies has a better chance of making it to a snippet. This will raise the awareness of your brand and improve your chances of leads and conversions.
Follow the Google algorithm updates
Google offers regular updates on algorithms that it uses to rank sites. Following the rules can benefit the sites and failure to do so can get them punished. These rankings depend on several factors, including access speed, excess promotion, fake content, etc. Businesses can subscribe to industry websites to stay abreast of the latest updates. Join the Google Search Console Community. Use Google Analytics to monitor the traffic to see the website, identify new updates, and course-correct if needed.
Keep refreshing existing content
When it comes to content, there is always scope for improvement. You can always upgrade your content by adding keywords, backlinks, adding subtopics, and infographics so that traffic is maintained or increased. You can do an extensive content audit using SEMrush and Yoast to keep tweaking the content and increasing traffic. Why does SEO score over PPC?
If you want a cricketing analogy, SEO is a test match, while PPC is a T20 clash. In Track and Field, SEO would be a marathon, while PPC is a 100-meter dash. SEO delivers great results over a longer time frame, while PPC provides instant gratification. SEO works out cheaper in the long run, and you can course-correct whenever the need arises. Over a long period, you can deploy multiple tools to extract maximum returns from your SEO strategy.
SEO is your best friend when it comes to improving your digital visibility. Getting the SEO strategy right is bound to yield positive outcomes. Ensure you follow the SEO guidelines and identify a good SEO company in India to get the best value for your efforts.
If you are looking for SEO services in India, you can check out Team Pumpkin. It is an integrated digital marketing agency that can provide excellent SEO services that can skyrocket your content marketing game.