It can be hard to know where to begin when you want to achieve organic growth over the long term. After all, a quick Google search will yield a wealth of information. How do you decide what is worth listening to, though? What are the best things to spend your energy and time on?
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a crucial part of any strategy that aims to help you grow organically. While everyone claims to be an SEO expert in 2019, you can still see steady growth if you follow the basics and give your project a lot of attention.
1. Start with Keywords
If you select the wrong keywords, everything else will fall apart. If you share articles with as many people as possible, they will disappear in the void if no one is searching for those terms.
If you run a garage in Glasgow, for example, ask yourself what your customers might type into Google. If you own a garage in Glasgow, for example, ask yourself what keywords your customers may be searching on Google.
Use free tools such as Google's Keyword Planner and Serums, to find out how popular these searches are. You want to find the perfect balance between large search terms and low levels of competition, particularly when you are just starting out or have a new online presence.
2. Produce good content.
Search engines aren’t stupid. Search engines can rank your content based on the keywords that you use. They also consider other factors, like how authoritative your site is or how strong your link profile is.
Content marketing is an effective technique to grow your business. Take our own CareerAddict project, where we combined keyword research and high-quality content to significantly increase our traffic over the past two years. Remember that the more you improve your blog posts, graphics and videos, the easier it will be to grow.
3. Get External Links
The higher your domain authority, or DA, the more Google will give you preference when ranking your website. The top sites, such as YouTube and Facebook, have DAs that are in the 90s. You will start out in the lower 10s. What's the best way to begin climbing?
It is much easier and safer to get links from other websites by simply producing good content. Take, for example, that blog on changing your tires. This page is useful and informative, and other sites will link to it. Google will see this as an authoritative link.
You can't just sit around and wait for a site with a high DA to come by and provide you a link. You have to be proactive. You'll need to share the article on social networks, contact influencers, or even directly approach other websites. Do your research to find out who to contact, how to reach them, and what to offer them in exchange for a link.
4. Please remember internal links.
Internal linking is just as important as external links. Remember the crawler software we discussed earlier? You can only get them to navigate your website if they have a path to follow.
Let's say, for example, that you want to revisit the article about when you should replace your tires. We'll assume it is performing well now and has authority because of all the backlinks. We could decide to go into greater detail about certain points, like "how to spot tire damage" or "what to look for if you have a puncture." This is a good example of how you can build on the success of the branch article to create a cluster around it.
5. Fine-tune Your On-Page SEO
On-page optimization is a quick and easy part of the SEO process. However, it is extremely important. This involves optimizing your title, meta descriptions, alt tags, and any other elements that appear on the page.
The main keyword should appear in your main title and the first few words of your meta description. (The small amount of text under your title in Google's search results.) If you are not sure how to do this, there are many free online tools that can help you.
6. Take advantage of data
We live in a data-driven age. Everything is collected, analyzed and collated to help drive strategy and make decisions. Guess what? It's the same with your growth strategy.
You can access information using a wide range of resources. However, we've found that the following are some of our most tried-and-tested and basic tools.
Google Analytics (free of charge)
Google Search Console is free.
Keyword Planner (free).
Moz Link Explorer (paid)
AHREFs
Screaming Frog (paid)
Search Console and Analytics will give you all the information you need, such as how many people visit your site, from where, at what time, and what platform they are using. This information can be used to fine-tune your marketing strategy. If you get a lot of traffic from a certain area, consider boosting your advertising there. You can maximize your traffic if you find that it comes from a specific source.
7. Recycle and repurpose content
You'll quickly discover that some of your content isn't performing well. You might also have several articles on the same subject and wish to combine them into one guide. Don't hesitate to make some changes in these cases. For example, if your articles are all being found using the same keywords (or similar ones), you are basically competing with yourself.
It's also a good idea to repurpose content that performs well. Google will give preference to pages that are current, so make sure you review and update your content as necessary. You might have written an article last year on the best tires available, but newer and better ones may have been released since then. If you don't mention this in your article, but someone else does, they will be given preference on the search engine results.
8. Keep up with the latest developments.
SEO, and tactics for online growth in general are constantly evolving. Although the techniques and tips discussed in this article remain the best practices, you should also keep in mind that Google, Facebook, and other platforms upon which your strategy is based regularly update their algorithms.
You need to be aware of any changes or developments that may affect your strategy. Take the time to browse through some of the best SEO blogs, including Moz, Search Engine Journal, and SEMrush.
Many "experts" and commentators can complicate SEO by claiming they know "tricks." They claim to have insider knowledge that will give you an edge. If you do things correctly and properly, you will not need to resort to tricks. Digital growth requires patience and outreach. Your site won't attract millions of users and six-figure advertising revenue over night. But it could in the future, if you create a solid foundation.
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