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A lot of the business owners I talk to know that SEO is important, but they’re not sure what it looks like to actually implement. Since it’s such an important piece of any great marketing strategy and a complicated topic, there's a lot of scams to be on the lookout for. It can be hard to identify the scams as well as the actionable steps to implement a great SEO strategy. I spent a year and half learning and implementing an SEO strategy for one of my web design clients and totally fell in love with the results. Not just because I enjoyed the work, but because I saw it truly impacted her business for the better.
In this blog post, I’m sharing a few of the fundamentals behind developing an SEO strategy, how to look out for the scammers, and I'll share actionable steps to implement on your own website. I’ll be covering:
Developing an SEO Strategy for Beginners
Keyword Research
Outranking Your Competition
Avoiding the Scammers
Steps to Implement on Your Website
If SEO hasn't been a priority in your marketing strategy and you're ready to try something new, keep reading. Or are you here to see what I actually do when it comes to SEO implementation? Cheers to doing the research before throwing money at marketing, I commend that!
Developing an SEO Strategy for Beginners
Understanding who your target audience is and what they are searching for to find a business like yours is the first step. Remember, Google doesn't rank websites, it ranks pages within a website. Of course everyone wants their home page to rank, but if you've just launched a new website it's going to be a bit of a challenge. Brand new websites will take some time to rank, since they haven't built up a solid domain rating yet. (We'll talk about domain rating or 'DR', in the Outranking Your Competition section.) For now, focus on understanding what content your target audience is searching for and start developing content that matches their search intent to the best of your ability. Think about the type of questions they would search on google to find a business like yours. This exercise will help generate some great content ideas. As you type something into Google, it will automatically show you what other people have searched related.
If you really want a plethora of content ideas check out the book Contagious by Jonah Berger. It dives deep into why certain products and ideas actually become popular. If you're really into psychology like I am, it just might fascinate you enough to spend a whole afternoon reading it. Whenever I pick it up, I have to have paper and a pen handy because it inspires so many new ideas for my business and my client's businesses.
Keyword Research
Once you start typing different search queries into Google, you'll find some that you'd want your website to rank for. (When I say 'rank for' I mean when someone types in a specific phrase into a search bar and clicks enter, your website would 'rank' or show up within the search results page. Also known as the SERP.) The higher your website ranks on the page for a given keyword or search query, the higher the chance of someone clicking on it. When it comes to researching keywords, in the beginning just focus on finding terms that have high search volume and low difficulty. Check out Google Keywords Planner to find monthly search volumes, competition, as well as how those search terms have changed in the last 3 months and YoY. (Year over year.) I've put a few of the keywords that showed up in our Google search, into Google Keywords planner so you can see all the info it provides. (Using Google Keywords Planner does require an active Google Ads Campaign. If you don't have one active, keep reading for another tool you can utilize.)
Another great tool to check out is ahrefs Free Keyword Generator. Here you can quickly search keywords to check out their search volume and difficulty levels. Keep in mind their tool is still just an estimation. For some of the lower searched keywords, ahrefs may not show any search volume at all, but Google Keywords Planner may. When working with keywords that aren't as popular it's always good to cross reference them within Google Keyword Planner. Ahrefs is also a great place to dive deeper if you're really wanting to learn more about SEO. I've thoroughly enjoyed ahref's academy and highly recommend it to anyone wanting to get better at SEO.
Bonus Tip: When looking for keywords, make sure to note whether they are commercial intention keywords or not. A commercial intention keyword means the searcher isn't just browsing the web, they're looking for a solution. Once you start looking for them, they become fairly obvious. If I typed in 'Web Designer Portfolio' I could be looking for inspiration from another web designer, but if I typed in 'Web Designer for Hire' that means I'm actively looking to find someone to work with. Getting your website to rank for high volume keywords that have commercial intention is the most ideal scenario, but this will of course take time. Look at the search query below, it's very obvious which ones are the highest commercial intention keywords:
Keep in mind that website's also don't rank for just one keyword, they rank for hundreds, even thousands of keywords. Putting the same keyword all over your website will just make Google think your spam. Identify the main keyword you want to rank for then find other relevant content to continue adding, and this will make it a lot easier for Google to understand the type of content you want your website to be ranking for.
Understanding Keyword Difficulty
I'm referencing ahref's academy again because they do such a great job explaining such a complicated topic. If you type a keyword into the ahref's Free Keyword Generator it lists the difficulty level of each: easy, medium, hard, super hard. Below is their difficulty scale that gives you an estimate of how many backlinks or 'referring domains' that page will need to even have a chance of ranking up their with the other big websites! (KD stands for Keyword Difficulty) Keep reading to find out what a backlink/referring domain is.
Outranking Your Competition - Backlinks
We've talked a lot about sticking with lower competition keywords, but depending on your industry this can feel limiting for sure. To use those highly searched and highly difficult keywords, you'll need to get a large amount of quality backlinks to the pages on your site that you want to rank in the SERP. What's a backlink? It's when someone links a page on your site, within their website with a follow link back to you. Getting backlinks to your home page or product pages are usually more difficult than getting links to helpful content. Let's say you sell greenhouses. Getting a link to your product page within someone else's website mostly only benefits your business. However, if you start creating content that's helpful and interesting to others you may start getting backlinks without even asking for them.
Content Ideas with Backlink Potential
Pinterest is a great place to get content ideas! When I searched 'greenhouse' into Pinterest and hit enter so many ideas come up. Of course the sponsored shop links come up first, but if I'm not ready to seal the deal yet, I may just want to browse and 'window shop'. The first pin about boosting potential yields within a small greenhouse sounds really helpful. Not to mention the '30 Amazing Greenhouse Designs to Transform Your Backyard'. This is the type of content I would enjoy browsing through, then sending to my friends who also love plants. Unless I know someone looking to buy a greenhouse, I'm not sending the product links, I'm sending the helpful content because it's about more than just the sale!
Domain Ranking - Building Authority
Every new website's domain ranking starts at a score of 0 out of 100. There are a number of things that impact your domain's rating like: backlinks, user experience, content quality, technical SEO, domain age, and more. One of the biggest factors in terms of ranking above your competition in search results will be the number of backlinks your page has. This is why utilizing lower competition keywords in the beginning is a great way to start. If your website's domain ranking is at a 0 and you don't have any backlinks yet, you'll never rank above other website's that have a higher domain ranking, hundreds of backlinks, and many relevant keywords.
Avoiding Scams
Now that you know the importance of backlinks the scammers will be easier to recognize too. I call them scammers, but really they're just sending the same spam email to thousands of people asking to get a link back to their site. This approach rarely works because it's impersonal and always comes from someone you've never talked to before. I don't know about you, but when someone I've never met or even had a conversation with reaches out to me for a favor, I'm hesitant to say the least. Although, not everyone who reaches out to you asking for a link back to their website will be a spammer. Check out ahrefs Link Building Tactics No One is Talking About over on Youtube to hear great examples of appropriate ways to reach out for links. Even if you're not ready to start building backlinks to your site, watching this video will make it very clear what's an appropriate way to reach out and what isn't.
Steps to Implement on Your Website
Learning is great, but implementing what you learned is the only way to start seeing success. Start by identifying who your target audience is, then start researching some of the key phrases they're using to find a business like yours, find at least one main low competition keyword for each of the pages on your website you want to rank, and then start thinking about more relevant keywords that you can develop more content around. Add more content to your current pages or start coming up with new page ideas or blog posts ideas that would have the ability to rank and start generating backlinks.
Step 1: Identify your ideal target audience/target customer
Step 2: Research what your target audience is searching to find a business like yours
Step 3: Identify one hero keyword that you'd love your home page to show up for when someone searches it on Google. (Make sure you put this keyword and other relevant keywords in your page title, header tags, meta description, alt text, and url slug.)
Step 4: Research a few more topics that people are searching for that relate to what your business offers. Determine 3-5 more pages or blog posts you could create to generate website traffic, surrounding relevant content your target audience is already looking for.
Tips for Implementation:
For example: Let's say you own a bakery that specializes in selling cookies. I'm going to assume that 'Cookies for sale' is most likely, extremely competitive. If you're local, you could add 'cookies for sale in Nashville', but based on the size of Nashville, this could also be extremely competitive. Optimizing your home page to rank for 'cookies for sale in Nashville' is a great start, but creating additional content that focuses on less competitive keywords could give you the competitive edge you're looking for. What about writing a blog post on 'best gluten free cookie recipes'. This could be a less competitive option to start generating some traffic. Not only that, but you could even include a link to your home page within the post along with a link to your gluten free chocolate chip cookies, if they'd rather just order them from you. (*Keep in mind, each page needs it's own focus keyword. Don't use the same focus keyword for multiple pages. If you optimize multiple pages for the same keyword, they will compete against each other in the search results.)
When to Outsource
If you enjoy strategy, SEO may be something you also start to enjoy doing yourself for your business! If strategy isn't your thing or any of this seems overwhelming, it may be something you want to hire out. I've always loved at least attempting to DIY something before I hire it out. This satisfies my curiosity and shows me if continuing to DIY is going to be a smart use of my time or not. As an entrepreneur, it's vitally important to recognize the value of our time. I love the quote "You're not paid by the hour, you're paid by the value you bring to the hour". If you can learn something, implement it, and add value to your business by spending time on it, go for it! If you're spending hours, weeks, or even months trying to learn something that you could hire out, it may be time to increase the marketing budget and hire someone.
