Digital presence is crucial for a business, both in terms of brand image and the sale of a product or service. A good SEO strategy will help you appear among the top search results and attract quality traffic to your business. Nowadays, people search for information online in different ways, through social media or other devices such as mobile phones, tablets, or PCs.
In a recent study, Capterra highlighted the fact that 54% of respondents search online only through search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing. Given the tremendous competition online, companies must rely on various strategies to appear among the first search results, which will allow them to attract visitors to their web page.
One of the critical actions to take to ensure that this conversion occurs is to attract quality visits, i.e., users looking for the products or services offered by the company. To this end, it is essential to know SEO techniques and tools. If we previously focused on improving a company’s digital presence, in this article, we will describe in detail the SEO strategies for small and medium-sized companies.
What Is Meaning Of SEO?
SEO (in English, search engine optimization) consists of the use of techniques aimed at improving the qualified traffic to web pages. An SEO strategy analyzes the nature and intent of searches to deliver highly relevant results and an improved user experience. One of the fundamental objectives of the SEO strategy is to position the web page of a product or service among the first results on a search platform. Good organic positioning represents a challenge made up of numerous factors, for example:
- Technical experience with SEO tools.
- Analysis of the buyer persona (buyer profile) and the customer journey to understand their behavior
- Marketing content to generate quality products focused on the business area.
- Interconnection of links to create quality traffic from other sites.
However, it is crucial to properly understand the basics of SEO strategies, i.e., understanding how they fit into the customer journey, defining appropriate SEO objectives, and integrating changes and the development of search behavior and channels into a single strategy.
How To Do SEO: 4 Ways To Define Your Strategy
Below, we present four ways to optimize your SEO strategy for small and medium-sized businesses. These are strategies focused on B2B activities that are nevertheless also applicable to B2C activities.
Define SEO Objectives Appropriate To Your Type Of Business
In order to develop a successful SEO strategy, it is necessary to set objectives based on the type of business and the results you want to achieve. Such an objective must be measurable, quantifiable over time, and focused on performance and results. For example:
- Get 5,000 extra conversions through organic search by the end of the year.
- Increase potential leads from organic search by 20% within the next quarter.
To align SEO objectives with business performance and results, it is essential also to analyze the marketing chain and understand how an SEO strategy allows for its improvement. You will then be able to quantify precise metrics for each objective based on buyer behavior.
Insert Your SEO Strategy Within The Digital Customer Journey
In the early stages of the purchasing process, also known as the upper funnel, the buyer usually analyzes their business needs and may use broad and generic keywords without specifying either the brand or the product. An example of a generic keyword is represented by “graphics programs.”
However, as the customer progresses through their purchasing process, they begin to become familiar with the options they are interested in, and their search becomes more and more precise (this phase is known as the lower funnel). The keywords used for searches conducted in this phase, also called long-tail keywords, are more specific to a specific product or brand. An example of a precise keyword is “Mac-compatible image editing software.”
By creating a customer journey map of customers and conducting keyword research, it is possible to identify those words that are used by buyers when they search for a product or service on the web. Marketers will then be able to align their SEO strategies with the purchasing process so that keywords and content marketing software integrate the buyer’s intentions and needs during their online search.
Adapt Your SEO Strategy To Changes In Search Behavior
Online searches are constantly evolving, and search engine algorithms can change dozens of times in a single year. This means that the ranking rules for a keyword or website can also change over time. For this reason, it is essential to constantly monitor these changes, reevaluate the current strategy, and, ultimately, reformulate it by aligning it with new algorithms and new user behaviors.
Evaluate The Strengths And Weaknesses Of Your SEO Strategy
Suppose your company already has an SEO strategy. In that case, you can ask the following questions in order to identify its weak points: Keep in mind that any changes made to the strategy will necessarily have to ensure that its strengths are preserved. However, if your company still needs an SEO strategy, we recommend that you answer the questions below in order to analyze its current state in terms of digital positioning.
- What percentage of your current website traffic is organic?
- What percentage of your organic website traffic converts into total customers?
- Is your company currently in a favorable or unfavorable position compared to the competition regarding the SERP of the keywords in your business area?
- What high-volume keywords does your business now rely on?
- How often are new keywords introduced into your SEO strategy?
The Following Steps To Implement An SEO Strategy
Having seen what it takes to implement a good SEO strategy, after completing the analysis of your website, you will be able to decide whether to redefine some aspects of your SEO strategy or whether to create one from scratch. Always keep in mind the advice described in this article and that the way you evaluate the success of your strategy is fundamental; it depends on the current situation of your company and its sector.
Also Read: How Do Companies Use Social Media To Find Candidates?
