Do you have an SEO strategy?
If you want to become good at SEO, you should have an SEO strategy in place.
Strategy is often a somewhat vague term, because what exactly is an SEO strategy? An SEO strategy is an overall plan on how to optimize your website to rank high in the search engines. The SEO strategy should include what your keywords are, who your target audience is, what content will engage them and what channels you should use to reach them.
But first some basics, why should you spend time and money on SEO?
In short: you should spend time and money on SEO to make yourself visible to customers and potential customers. But SEO is by no means short or simple. The truth is that there is probably a sea of possibilities for how you can improve SEO on your website. But if I were to reveal all the tips, it wouldn't be much work for me. There will also be great variations in what will help each of you reading this article, but you should still get some basic tips that may be wise to consider when working with the website.
How do you create a good SEO strategy?
Map the target group
Who are the readers of your content? Who are your customers? I don't tell everything to everyone. Knut, aged 50, and Sara, aged 18, will (most likely) not engage in the same thing, fortunately. The more focused your content is on the target group you want to reach, the more successful you will be. This may result in fewer hits, but those hits will be more inclined to buy your product/service. Search engines will recognize if people spend time on your website and reward you for it. Think quality, not quantity.Remember that you know your customers best. Divide them into a number of target groups, depending on their interests, geography, age, knowledge, etc. Then you should define which target group needs your attention. Perhaps you're already easy to find for your main target group, and therefore it's a smaller target group that needs attention?
Focus on quality in content
What are you telling the reader? How do you tell the same message, but to different target groups? Perhaps you have a message that needs to reach everyone? Then you should spend time thinking of different ways to say the same thing, and tailor the content to the target group you want to reach. This is a trial and error process, and I can promise you that you probably won't hit the bull's eye on your first attempt and end up right at the top. Nevertheless, you've probably done more than you think, you're up and running and that's more than you were before you started. SEO isn't done in a day, it takes time. But after several years as a digital marketer, I can promise that even small adjustments can make a big difference. A small change in the file name of the image from, for example, IMG-999 to Gasta_SEO-Strategy (just to take a completely random example, we certainly don't want to be found on SEO strategy.), CAN cause search engines to consider your content to be a little more credible and maybe you jump up a place. What we do know is that content production over time, with the right keywords will yield results. Another thing we know is that creating engaging content is not necessarily easy. If you need help with your content, we have several people who can help with content production.
Well the smart keywords
Spend some time choosing your keywords, because it's actually one of the most important things you do. No matter how much content you manage to produce, on your own or with the help of AI, it won't help if you haven't chosen the right keywords. We're happy to help you find out what would be smart to focus on. Together, we can find combinations that ensure you are found for those that are actually relevant to you. A tip from me (since I promised you would get something out of this): Some general keywords are highly competitive and therefore difficult to find. If you combine the word with, for example, geography, it can be easier to be found.
An example of this is the word "physiotherapist" which (as of 16.04.24) has 880 searches per month, while the search term "physiotherapist Voss" has (as of 16.04.24) 110 searches per month. It may sound good to get almost 900 new customers per month, but one must keep in mind that the person searching for only physiotherapist may be sitting in Kautokeino, and in other words is not particularly relevant for someone who is a physiotherapist in Voss. There will also be more people searching for the keyword Fysioterapeut than Fysioterapaut Voss, simply because you are competing against the whole country.Read also: How to find the right keywords
Choice of channels
How do you get readers to read the content you've spent so much time on? Google is reticent with a lot of information, but one thing is certain: Content with a high readership and a long reading time yields results in search engine optimization. Therefore, you should use different channels (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, newsletters, advertising in Google/social media, programmatic advertising to name a few) to send people in to read your content. If you have content with a high number of visitors, you will be more visible in search engines for the keywords you want to be found on.
Then you need to create content that can be shared in different channels, and this is where a strategy is extremely wise. Don't just pour things into social media because "we need to get something out, no matter what". If the content is not of a certain quality, you won't gain anything. Work wasted. Produce quality content and make a plan for how your company will appear in the various channels. Do you want a professional tone or a more popular style? How do you want to be perceived? And yes, you can choose both. You can be personal on Instagram and a serious business on LinkedIn, for example. But one thing you should be aware of is that algorithms like personalities and faces.
Another important point is that you don't have to be everywhere. You don't have to be on Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok and LinkedIn. If you only have time to be active and maintain your Facebook page, it's better to do well there than to do it halfway on everything. I repeat: Quality over quantity. If there's one thing that already abounds online, it's poor quality content.
Mobile customization
I know you've heard this before, but here it comes again. If your website isn't good on mobile, then your website isn't good at anything (to put it bluntly). We know that 52% of the general population in the world primarily use their mobile phones to search according to Hubspot, in other words, I'm not saying this to nag. According to Statistics Norway, 95% of Norwegians use Google as their search engine, which means that we must meet Google's requirements. Google really requires that the website works on mobile. Especially if you have 7.1, it is important that you always check the mobile version.
Try your hand at it
If you're thinking "wow, this seems difficult", remember that it doesn't have to be exactly right from the start. Everyone has to learn to walk before they can run, or something like that... The advantage of the web is that you can change and adjust later - nothing is set in stone. If you have a well-thought-out strategy, then you have a plan to stick to. Until you realize that the plan was not good enough or no longer works. Then you adjust and see if it gets better. One last tip, since you're still here: if you don't make a lot of changes at once, how will you know what made the difference?
Once you've found some approaches that seem to work, then you know what you did to get there. Because it's in your strategy.
If you need help with one or more of the points I've mentioned, or are you just curious about the tips that weren't mentioned? Don't hesitate to get in touch for a chat about SEO and your website.
