Of all the tips for planning your SEO strategy, my number 1 is to decide what you want to be found for, and who you want to find you.
Then, build your content strategy around that.
Say you sell a boutique collections of accessories; sunglasses, gold-plated jewelry, charms, lip gloss, lashes, etc. You hire someone like to me to make your website and then you say “I want SEO.”
Okay, what does that mean to you?
Because what people who “make websites” know is that SEO planning is a specific, long-game strategy, that takes time, trial and error, data-tracking and some adjustments along the way.
When clients approach me about SEO, I let them know that it’s work and it will cost, and we’ll need to do the planning process together.
Additionally, it’s not my specialty. I can do it because I can do anything I set my mind to. I’m built for challenges. But I’m not giving away SEO planning tips all willy nilly for anyone that isn’t coughing up the bread and those are just facts.
I personally prefer to create websites for start-ups, and to give start-up advice and motivation. Do you know who doesn’t have SEO money? Start-ups. But regardless of cost, start-ups that want SEO need to commit to the planning process.
“I want SEO.”
It’s not a wave of a wand and then boom, “Shirley’s Fashion Accessories” is the 3rd result on Google.
3rd result for what?
Before you choose which search terms you want to rank for, you need to find the keywords in your field that drive traffic. There are LOTS of websites, one Google search away, from helping you research keywords.
Your planning begins with an arbitrary search of something related to your exact business/industry. Take a wild guess what your buyers care about. What would they be searching for? Don’t over complicate it. If you’ve done your business planning, and created a buyer profile then you already know what your future customers are looking for.
SEO is the process of matching your content with the way that customers search for what they want.
Or you could start with what you know the most about. What parts of your product/service do you know INSIDE out, what part is YOUR specialty. Cross that with things your buyers care about/are curious about.
Then you want to run a search for related keywords, and examine the top ranking sites. Don’t examine the design. Examine the copy. Don’t steal the copy. But study it. Does it fulfill the search need? Is it useful, informative? Is it SPOT-ON? How can you develop your content to be of equal quality?
YOUR SEO SUCCESS DEPENDS ON CONTENT.
Your site needs rich, useful, detailed content. Detail embedded into the code of every element on your page.
So how do you fill your site with detailed content? At the most basic level, you should start a blog.
Taking it further, you should include meta data and alternative text inside your images. You should name your images thoughtfully. Name each product photo according to that exact product. If you sell sunglasses, one image name could be square-frame-white-rimmed-sunglasses-with-brown-tinted-lens.jpeg.
If you’re a divorce attorney in San Diego, you could name your photos “your-name-divorce-attorney-san-diego.jpg.”
Using alternative text on images, and keyword-rich descriptions and captions on all your site media is a tried-and-true basic method for attracting search engine traffic.
But here’s the gag: you won’t rank over night. You’ll have to keep a consistent content strategy that drives traffic to your site through your social marketing and email marketing. You need to cultivate backlinks (when other websites link to your content).
You have to be COMMITTED to your SEO strategy.
Start with one longtail keyword that you can work into your content, naturally. Make the content is useful and engaging. Make sure there are easy ways to share your site content.
If you want SEO you can get SEO. But first you need to get serious.
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