How to plan an SEO strategy for a small business
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a critical component of any digital marketing strategy. Small businesses need to understand the importance of SEO and how it can help them win organic content in search results, which will lead to more traffic, leads and sales.
In this article we’ll explore why small businesses should invest in SEO, what they can do right now to improve their website’s performance on Google and other search engines, as well as some best practices for optimizing your site’s content so that it ranks higher in search results than competitors’ websites do.
Define Your Goals and Objectives
The first step in creating an effective SEO strategy is to define your goals and objectives. This will help you understand what you hope to achieve through your efforts, such as increasing traffic, improving search engine rankings or generating more leads and sales.
Once you’ve identified the goals of your website (and how they align with those of your business), it’s time to think about how they can be measured. For example: if one of your objectives is “increase organic traffic by 15% within six months,” then this might mean that each month there will be 10% more visits from Google searches than last month’s average visit count for keywords related directly or indirectly with our business model (e-commerce products).
Conduct Keyword Research
The first step in your SEO strategy is to conduct keyword research. Keywords are the words or phrases people use when they search for something on Google, Bing, or another search engine.
The most important part of keyword research is identifying relevant keywords and phrases that have high search volume but low competition–this will help you rank higher in the SERPs (search engine results pages).
Optimize Your Website
When it comes to optimizing your website, there are a number of things you can do. The first thing is to make sure that each page has relevant meta tags. These are the titles and descriptions that show up in search results and help users decide whether they want to click on your site or not.
Secondly, optimize all images on your site so that they’re high-quality and relevant–this will make them easier for search engines like Google (and people) to understand what’s going on in each image. Thirdly, ensure that all content on each page is high-quality and relevant as well; if someone lands on one of your pages from Google because they searched for something specific like “how do I grow tomatoes?” then make sure there isn’t any unrelated info elsewhere on the page!
Build Quality Backlinks
The next step is to build quality backlinks to your website from reputable sources. This will help Google understand that your site has value and is worth ranking in their search results.
To do this, you need to focus on building links that are relevant to the content on your site, as well as make sure they come from high-authority websites (i.e., sites with a lot of traffic).
Monitor and Analyze Your Results
After you’ve set up your site, it’s time to monitor and analyze your results. This is where tools like Google Analytics come in handy. With them, you can track the traffic that comes through each page on your site–and see how much of that traffic comes from search engines (and which keywords they’re using). You can also use this information to make decisions about what content should be placed where on your website so that it gets noticed by as many people as possible.
If there are specific keywords or phrases that bring in more traffic than others, then those are obviously important for SEO purposes; however, don’t forget about long-tail keywords either! These longer phrases tend not only have higher conversion rates but also tend to convert faster than shorter ones do because they provide more information about what someone wants before they even click on an ad or landing page link
Adapt and Refine Your Strategy
As you begin to implement your SEO strategy, it’s important to monitor the results and make adjustments as needed. If a particular channel is not working well for you, consider shifting resources into another channel or changing the way that particular channel is used.
If you find that one type of content performs better than another (for example: blog posts vs videos), then focus more time on creating more pieces like it in the future. If there is a specific keyword phrase that brings in traffic but doesn’t convert well into leads or sales, consider removing this term from your content strategy altogether–or at least lowering its importance relative to other terms.
Create Content
The next step in your SEO strategy is to create content. The goal of this step is to:
- Create high-quality content that is relevant to your keywords and optimize it for search engines.
- Make sure that the content you create has something new or different from what else is out there on the web.
Promote Your Content
Promote your content on social media and other channels to reach a larger audience.
- Promote your content on social media: Share your articles on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. You can also use paid advertising to promote specific pieces of content that you think will resonate with your target audience most effectively.
- Get in touch with bloggers who share similar interests as yours: Bloggers are often looking for new content to write about, so if you pitch them an idea or send them an article that fits their needs, they may be willing to feature it on their blog in exchange for a link back to yours (this is called “guest blogging”).
Keep Up with SEO Trends
Keep up with SEO trends and best practices to ensure that your strategy is effective.
In the world of digital marketing, it’s important to stay up-to-date with the latest strategies and tactics so that you can create a successful SEO strategy for your business. If you aren’t familiar with what’s happening in this industry, then it might be difficult for you to be competitive in today’s marketplace.
Measure Your Results
In order to measure your SEO results, you need to have a clear understanding of what you are trying to achieve. This is where the keyword research comes in handy: it will help you identify the keywords that are most relevant for your business and will enable you to set goals for each one.
Once you’ve identified a few key metrics that matter most for your company’s success, it’s time to start tracking them on a regular basis. You can use Google Analytics or other tools like Moz PRO (a premium tool) or Raven Tools (free) if they’re available in your industry; otherwise just keep track manually using spreadsheets or automated tools such as SEMrush (paid).