A Guide To SEO Strategy For Beginners

Your SEO strategy plays a key role in the success of your business.

This is because your ability to use SEO best practices to your advantage impacts the amount of web traffic you receive, which in turn impacts conversions and sales.

As such, now is the perfect time to develop your SEO strategy, especially in regards to your use and implementation of keywords.

What is SEO?

SEO is a practice through which business owners can improve the amount of traffic their website receives by ensuring their content is search engine optimized.

There are various ways in which business owners can create SEO-driven content, such as by adding keywords to their web pages, adding alt text to images, and compressing files.

When applied correctly, SEO content can help websites rank higher on different search engines, such as Google.

This means that you are likely to receive higher volumes of web traffic, especially when you consider that “the second page of Google search results only receives a collective 6% of all search traffic.”

What is an SEO Strategy?

An SEO strategy is, quite simply, your plan of action for incorporating SEO best practices into your web copy, whether that be a blog post or landing page.

It will detail the different methodologies and tools you will use to put this strategy in place, such as using a keyword research tool to identify your keywords or keyword phrases.

The Benefits of having an SEO strategy.

There are many benefits associated with having an SEO strategy in place, namely when it comes to driving web traffic.

After all, this can increase the number of users who visit your website on a daily basis, which in turn can increase your sales.

As such, it can be an incredibly effective way to ensure you stay ahead of your competition, which could be the key to keeping your business afloat.

How to Develop an SEO Strategy.

There are many ways through which you can develop an effective SEO strategy in-house, many of which are centered around using keywords for SEO.

Identify your keywords.

The first step toward optimizing your content for search engines is identifying your keywords or keywords phrases.

Typically, keywords are divided into three categories, primary, secondary and additional.=

Primary keywords are those that you will build your copy around, and tend to be the exact phrases your target audience are searching for.

Secondary keywords are variations of this keyword, or phrases that share the same meaning.

Finally, additional key words are related words or phrases, or alternative spellings.

By using a combination of the above keywords, you create a keyword cluster, which search engines often look out for when promoting content.

When carrying out keyword research, you may also hear the phrases short-tail and long-tail keywords come up quite frequently.

Short-tail keywords are words that appear in high-volumes in more general online queries/searches, whereas long-tails are more specific and therefore are not searched as often.

Identifying both groups of these words can come in handy when generating content.

You can use a keyword planner or keyword research tools to identify specific keywords that will increase your ranking on your chosen search engine results page.

Alternatively, you can read reports on trending words and data to identify keywords manually.

Incorporate keywords into your digital content.

The next step toward using SEO to improve search results is to incorporate them into your digital content.

While it may be tempting to include as many keywords as possible onto every page of your site, this is not always the most effective strategy.

This practice is known as keyword stuffing, and can make your text hard to read or understand.

Instead, be purposeful about the words you choose, especially when it comes to long tail keywords.

After all, as there is less competition for these long tail keywords, it’s easier to use them to climb search engine rankings.

It also can help you capitalize upon your USP.

Fortunately, there are various ways in which you can incorporate seo keywords into your website.

For example, you could include them in your:

• Title Tag
• Anchor text
• Meta Descriptions
• Headings, Subheadings
• Web page copy
• Blog
• Page url, alt tags or meta tags
• Image descriptions

When it comes to knowing how to use keywords in SEO, you must also know how many keywords you should use on the same page or within your site as a whole.

As discussed above, this helps you to avoid keyword stuffing and ensures your content remains accessible and easy to read.

According to various studies, you should:

• Use your primary keyword (sometimes referred to as main keyword) once per page.
• Use 1-3 secondary keywords
• Use 1-3 additional keywords.

However, you should also avoid repetition if possible, meaning that you should not include the same keywords more than once in a paragraph, for example.

Assess your performance.

Once you have a keyword strategy in place, it’s crucial that you assess its effectiveness.

After all, it could be that you need to generate more keyword ideas or work to discover popular keywords in order to achieve your desired results.

Fortunately, you can assess your keyword usage by studying your search engine ranking on google analytics.

Have you risen on google search results, or are you still struggling to get listed on the first page of results?

You can repeat this questioning for other search engines, such as Bing.

If your answer is the latter, you may need to make some changes in order to obtain the kind of organic traffic you are looking for.

There are many ways in which you could achieve that goal, such as by using AI software, like Optimo, to identify keywords or create content that features seo-friendly keywords.

How to use keywords in SEO with Optimo

There are many ways in which Optimio seo software can help boost your seo efforts.

This is because our seo tools have been specifically designed to identify keywords, phrases and more on your behalf.

As such, you can use Optimo to:

• Identify keyword intent
• Carry out keyword research
• Generate SEO Titles & Meta descriptions
• Create keyword clusters
• Identify long-tail keywords
• Link Building

Keyword Intent.

Keyword intent (sometimes referred to as search intent) is a process through which we try to tap into the mind of the user, to try and figure out why people search for certain words or phrases.

For example, their search intent could be to make a purchase (transactional intent) or to simply find out more information about a topic (informational intent).

Understanding the user’s intent will help with keyword optimization and placement.

By inputting up to 100 keywords into our Intent generator, we can help you to identify your target audience’s intent.

For example, if you were running a bakery that specializes in cinnamon buns, your intent results could look like this:

Keyword research.

You can use Optimo to carry out keyword research by providing the tool with seed keywords.

A seed keyword is a term or phrase that is directly associated with your brand, business or the product you are trying to sell.

Optimio will then provide you with a list of related secondary and additional keywords that often appear in searches related to this word.

SEO Titles & Meta Descriptions.

Optimo can also be used to generate SEO optimized titles for web pages and blogs, alongside effective meta descriptions.

If you are unfamiliar with the phrase, meta descriptions refer to the small body of text that appears under a web page’s title on a search engine – typically providing some insight into the content.

 

To use this tool, simply write a short sentence describing what kind of content you are going to write, and Optimio will write an SEO-friendly title and meta description on your behalf.

Keyword clusters.

Optimo can also save you a great deal of time when it comes to identifying keywords by creating keyword clusters on your behalf.

This can help you decide where to place specific keywords on your web page, whether that is in the body of the text or as a title.

Long-tail keywords.

Optimo can also help you to identify or hone in on long-tail keywords that you can then incorporate into your content.

To identify these words, simply provide Optimo with a short description of the subject or topic you are working on.

Link Building.

Link Building is also another excellent strategy to deploy when trying to improve your digital rankings.

This is a practice through which you link back to other, relevant websites within your content.

When this is done well, and you link to websites that search engines consider to be of a high-quality, your content will become automatically grouped with there’s, which pushes your own rankings higher.

Simply let Optimio know what websites you are trying to build links for (i.e., send them the link for your website), and it will generate 10 link building ideas that you can try out.

For example, it may help you to connect with other local businesses, or find content that your target audience already enjoys/interact with – both of which can be useful when it comes to growing your business.

Furthermore, these strategies tend to be a little more refined than if you were to try link building on your own, as it’s harder to identify high-authority sites without access to the relevant data.

Top Tips For Curating the Perfect SEO Strategy.

In short, while it may seem complex, the process of curating an SEO strategy for your brand is relatively straightforward.

After all, it is mostly focused around creating content that incorporates search terms and search queries sent out by your target audience.

This way, your website will be shown to them directly, as you’ll appear higher on search engine rankings.

To create the perfect SEO strategy, you should:

• Identify your keywords, keyword phrases that will help you rank higher on google’s search results.
• Use these keywords when generating content, especially when it comes to primary or target keywords.
• Ensure that you do not overuse keywords or use the same keyword over and over again.
• Use tools to analyze your current strategy to see if it is bringing forward great results.
• Use SEO software, a keyword planner or similar tools, such as Optimo to streamline or speed up the process of identifying your key words.

Final Thoughts.

In the digital age, companies without a proper seo strategy in place are limiting their success quite considerably.

After all, it means you are mainly relying on PPC advertising to generate web traffic, and this is not always the most effective method.

As such, now is the perfect time to read up on SEO tips or the SEO industry as a whole, so that you are better able to understand its role in the world of business.

This insight will enable you to create content that drives results, whether you’re trying to bring in more viewers to your blog or increase your sales conversions.

If you need help when it comes to developing an effective SEO strategy, Optimio’s keyword planner could be the answer you are looking for.

After all, Optimo uses a wealth of data, such as google trends and other analytics to identify keywords for your content within seconds.

This means you no longer have to spend hours pouring over complicated and sometimes confusing data, as all the hard work is done on your behalf.

Furthermore, you don’t have to stop there.

With your keywords identified, you can also use Optimo to create unique content for your web pages, whether that be product descriptions or blogs that your customers will love.

Either way, learning more about the world of SEO, and incorporating seo best practices into your daily operations ensures your business stays ahead of the curve, and also puts you in the best possible position to navigate any oncoming challenges that present themselves.

To find out more, please do not hesitate to get in touch today.