Which SEO Strategy is Best for the Long Run?
Which SEO strategy is best for the long run?
That’s exactly what I’ll be covering in this post. I’ll be revealing them strategies you need to implement in order to have long terms success.
I’ll also be going over some of the pitfalls of different strategies.
So, let’s get straight into this.
1. Technical SEO (the foundation of SEO)
First of all, the technical SEO needs to be set up correctly and maintained.
Technical SEO is all about improving the technical elements of your website. This includes the way your URL structure generates, crawlability, load speed, internal links not working, duplicate content, security, structured data and more.
The technical SEO needs to be set up from the beginning of your website’s creation and maintained. By subscribing to a tool like SEMrush, Ahreffs etc. these tools will send you alerts of what’s happening with your website along with technical SEO recommendations.
Of course, these tools won’t replace an experienced SEO professional on your team so keep that in mind.
2. Create your staple pages
Create the pages your business really wants to rank for, even if there’s no way you can rank for that term right now. As time goes by, your website will get strong and its rankings will keep climbing.
So if you’re a marketing agency in London, don’t be afraid to go for that head term. Create all of your service and category pages. Get them out there.
3. Know your keyword tiers
You won’t be able to rank for all the search terms you want. That’s why you need to analyse the competition first before committing to a keyword.
How do I analyse the competition?
- Type the keyword you want to rank for in Google.
- See if any websites are optimising for that keyword/topic.
- Check the domain authority using the MOZ extension. If the websites on the search results are optimising for your keyword and have a greater domain authority of at least 10, then you should skip that keyword as it’s too competitive.
If the search results do not answer the search query and you have a higher domain authority, then there’s a higher chance you’ll rank for that keyword.
Here are positive signs in the search results pages which show you can outrank the competition:
- The search results aren’t answering the search query
- Forums
- Social media posts
- Articles with small amounts of content on them
- Keyword/topic is not in the Google title
Make a list of the keywords you’ve analysed and can rank for. Then go ahead and create content for them.
We would recommend going for commercial intent keywords.
How many words should my page be?
Check how many words the top 10 results have and calculate the average word count, making your word count slightly above the average.
Here’s a good beginner video to keyword research:
4. Keep an on page SEO checklist
On page SEO is optimising the on page elements of your website. This will include elements such as the H1, meta title, subheadings, keywords etc.
There are a lot of things that go into optimising pages, however, there is an 80/20 principle to on page SEO. A minority that makes the biggest difference.
Here they are:
- Does the page answer the search query and satisfy the user?
- Have your target keyword in the meta title
- Have your target keyword in the H1 title
- Have your target keyword in the URL
- Have your target keyword in the content (ideally in the first 100 words)
Do the above and you’ve completed 70% of SEO. Keep the above in a swipe file on your desktop or in a cloud drive so you or your team can easily access it and check off the above points.
5. Backlinking (A no BS guide)
In this part, I’m going to debunk some of the misconceptions.
So you’ve heard a lot about backlinks and their importance. You’ve probably heard of different ways to get them as well and have likely stumbled upon some misconceptions.
First of all, what is a backlink?
A backlink is a link from one domain to another domain. For example, if website A links to website B, website B has received a backlink from website A. Look at backlinks as votes/points, the more you get, the better.
However, not all backlinks will help your site grow, more about that later.
Attaining free backlinks
Attaining free backlinks is extremely difficult nowadays. Nearly everyone that has a website knows the value of a backlink.
Chances are, you won’t be receiving any free backlinks.
The only time you will receive free backlinks is when someone is citing you as a source or you’ve carried out a successful digital PR campaign.
Backlinking is a pay to win game
If you want to build backlinks consistently, you WILL be paying for them.
The sites you want to be mentioned on know the value of a backlink and they will be charging you a fee.
Here’s how reaching out and acquiring backlinks used to look like:
Hi {{Name}},
I’m Bob from {{My Website}} and I saw your post on {{post name}} and really enjoyed it, especially the {{part you enjoyed}} part.
I wanted to know if you were open to me guest posting on {{Website}}. We’re trying to get our name out there and we thought creating an epic piece of content for you would help.
Here are some post ideas:
{{Idea 1}}
{{Idea 2}}
{{Idea 3}}
Or maybe you’ve got one.
Let me know if you’re interested.
Thanks,
Bob
You would send a lot of these emails out and get a handful of replies. Some would say they’re not interested and some would be happy to publish your post and link back to your site.
It was an exchange of value. You give them content and they’ll give you links. That was it.
Now, webmasters don’t care about that. They know you want a link and that’s all you’re interested in.
Here’s the response you’ll get from these types of emails:
Hi Bob,
Thanks for getting in touch. A guest post with a do-follow link will cost $200.
Let me know if you’re interested.
Thanks.
The only thing you can do is negotiate the price down. Make sure you’ve got a link building budget.
Not all backlinks are created equal
Getting backlinks from any random website will do you no good.
First of all, you must make sure the backlink is relevant. If you’re running a home improvement website, you don’t want a link from a video game blog. It doesn’t make sense.
You want the website to be getting traffic. Websites without traffic are dead and provide no value. So what’s the point of getting a backlink from a dead website? You can use a tool like SEMrush to see an estimation of traffic stats.
When you get a link from a website you want it to be contextual, that means within the content and not from a place such as the footer or the sidebar.
Last but not least, the link NEEDS to be a do-follow link. There is a do-follow link and a no-follow link. A do-follow link will help increase your rankings but a no-follow link will not.
You can right click and ‘inspect’ to see if the tool has been set to no-follow. You can also use the MOZ extension to see what type of link it is.