Deployment SEO strategies are about more than just ranking your website at the top of search engine results pages.
It is essential to create a plan that aligns with your business goals so you can generate leads, target potential customers and stay ahead of the competition. There is no one size fits all when it comes to deployment SEO, so this post will teach you how to develop an effective SEO strategy for your business. The SEO consulting experts will help you discover how to use keywords, identify your target audience and build links that get results.
Creating a deployment SEO strategy that works for you can be difficult. With so many things to consider, it can be hard to know where to start. This post will outline some of the strategies and checklists you need to create an effective deployment SEO strategy.
1. Know Your Competition
You can’t define your SEO strategy until you know what the competition is doing. It’s essential to understand your target market and develop a commercially viable idea that sets you apart from your competitors. Knowing what keywords the competitions are targeting will help inform your decision on which ones to target yourself. You can use a free tool like Google Adwords’ Keyword Planner to see how many people search for specific keywords. You can enter in 5 to 10 competitor’s website URLs in this tool to see the average monthly search range for each keyword they are targeting. The number of average monthly searches is shown on the left of the page and will give you an idea of the popularity of specific keywords.
2. Develop Keyword Lists and Target Long-Tail Keywords
The next step is to identify which keywords you want your website to rank for in Google searches. This can be done with a free tool such as Moz’s Keyword Explorer or SEMrush’s Keyword Difficulty Tool to find keywords with a low difficulty rating. Another great way to find long-tail keywords is by looking at your competitor’s top-performing content and reverse engineering the Google search terms they rank for on search engine result pages. Once you have a list of keyword ideas, use a keyword tool such as SEM Rush’ Keyword Difficulty Tool to find some additional keywords by giving it a seed keyword.
Long-tail keywords are phrases that use more than one word and contain the primary key terms you want your website to rank for, but with less competition than shorter, more generic search queries. The idea is to define long-tail key terms as part of your SEO strategy to improve your brand’s visibility, rankings and click-through rates. This can be done by creating helpful content that answers common questions related to a specific topic, as people tend to search for information on Google before making a purchase.
3. Develop an SEO Audit Plan
Now you have a list of keywords you want your website to rank for, it’s time to compile a comprehensive SEO audit plan. An effective strategy includes analysing your current website performance and competitor’s websites to determine how to improve search engine rankings in Google searches.
An SEO Audit is a process that is done to find out how search engine friendly your website currently is. It includes using free tools such as Moz’s Keyword Difficulty Tool and SEMrush’ Keyword Difficulty Tool to find keywords that are easier to rank for, providing you with an insight into the level of competition you are up against.
The SEO Consulting experts will then analyse your website content to determine how search engine friendly it is. This includes reviewing title tags, meta descriptions, HTML headers, and body copy containing keywords related to your services.
4. Build Links
Search engines use links as a ranking factor because they show how trustworthy and relevant websites are for certain topics. Google uses links to find out if other websites are talking about the same topic as you and how popular that page is. Links also help Google understand what your website is about by looking at all the other web content that links back to your site.
5. Create a Content Strategy
One of the best ways to build links is by creating helpful content that other websites will want to link back to. This includes using keywords you have identified as less competitive because it will be easier for your website to rank higher in Google search results.
6. Optimise Content for Mobile Users
Having a responsive website is essential when it comes to Google search rankings.
Mobile users are on-the-go searchers who tend to look for answers immediately without doing additional research. If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you can lose potential customers who otherwise purchased your product or service.
7. Use Google Search Console to Monitor Your Rankings
If you are serious about increasing your search engine rankings, it’s essential to use a free tool like Google Search Console. This provides additional insight into how people are searching for your services and can monitor how well your website is performing in Google searches.
8. Monitor Your Competitors’ Ranking
This is also known as competitive research. By monitoring your competitors, you can find ways to improve your own website ranking in Google searches.
Here are some things you can monitor:
- Which keywords they have ranked for in the past 12 months. Keyword ranking data can be found in Google Search Console.
- The number of quality links they have received. These are links coming from sites that Google considers authoritative. Data on links can be found in Ahrefs and Open Site Explorer.
- Competitors’ websites that are linking back to them.
- What their page speed score is. This is a metric that Google looks at to determine your website quality and how fast it loads up for mobile visitors. Find out more about page speed here.
- The number of social shares that their articles are receiving. Moz and Buzzsumo are great tools for this.
9. Use Microdata, Schema and Rich Snippets
Using Microdata, Schema, and Rich snippets help search engine crawlers understand what your content is about. This is particularly important for local searches where people are looking for specific services in their area.
10. Optimise For Local Search
When it comes to finding businesses, over 75% of online searchers use Google to see what they are looking for using keywords like ‘near me, ‘city’ or ‘state’. By optimising your website for local searches, you put yourself in front of potential customers close to your business.
The following is an essential list of SEO items to check in every deployment:
Create a checklist that includes the SEO items to check for your website. If you are working with an agency, ask them if they have their own checklist they work from.
- Domain age and registration date
- Page loading speed
- Competition analysis (keywords, PPC spend and SERP feature tracking)
- On-page SEO Audit: Headers, titles and meta tags; UGC; Internal links; Outbound/Incoming links; Social Sharing; Product Reviews; Mobile-Friendliness
- Backlinks: Who is linking to us? Are they reputable? Are we linking out enough? Do the links have a ‘no follow’? Have we checked for spammy backlinks?
- Site speed and mobile readiness
- Server uptime and downtime
- Domain authority/Page rank awareness
- Internal site search facility
- Ecommerce tracking and Analytics implementation
Conclusion:
SEO is a long-term strategy and needs to be implemented throughout the whole website deployment process. It’s not just something you add at the end or add-in when required. If you’re looking for an agency to help with your deployment, ask them if they follow Google’s guidelines on deploying websites to ensure that you are getting the best for your website. If they don’t know, look elsewhere! The more SEO touchpoints, the better.
