SEO Strategy Tips From Semalt On How To Ensure Consistency Of Actions

To be successful in terms of increased page visibility and organic traffic from Google search results, you need to take various actions. You should focus on content, optimization and link building. The key is to adopt and consistently implement one common strategy for these activities, because it is this approach that will bring you the expected results. How to ensure consistency in your SEO strategy?

SEO consists of on-site and off-site activities. The former includes mainly optimization and content, while the latter refers especially to link building. The aim of SEO activities is to increase the visibility of the website and gain traffic on it, which will ultimately translate into customer inquiries and orders for products or services. In order to achieve such a result, the SEO agency prepares a strategy, i.e. a plan of actions that must be taken for the website to meet the requirements of the Google algorithm and build better and better visibility for the keywords that best describe your business.

It is crucial that the activities that make up the SEO strategy are well thought out and consistent. They should complement and support each other because after all, they all have the same goal. 

These elements affecting visibility can be broken down into specific actions that should be taken and within which consistency should be maintained.

This is one of the first steps in an SEO campaign. Before you start linking or working on content optimization, you should identify the keywords that best describe your business - the ones that can bring you organic traffic and customers. When choosing them, use tools such as the Dedicated SEO Dashboard. Take into account the number of searches, find phrases related to the main query and on this basis, build a database of the most important keywords.

At this stage, prepare a list of the most important phrases for the website, e.g., for offers or product descriptions, but in fact, you will come back to this step many times, for example by preparing new blog entries, adding new services to offers or category and product descriptions.

With your keyword list in place, you can move on to the stage of planning new content and expanding existing ones. It is worth using the approach called topic clusters, i.e. creating thematic clusters around a given page on the website.

Suppose you have a subpage with a description of the service you provide. In this case, you should optimize its content for keywords that best describe this service and are also queries sent by Google users. Then you should build thematically related content around this post. These can be, for example, blog entries about a given service. If, for example, you offer removal services, your potential clients may be interested in the blog entry "How to prepare for the move", in which he / she will find an internal link leading to the description of the offer.

A content plan should always be based on previously selected keywords. By creating random articles and ignoring the optimization of existing content, you cannot but waste. What will be created should support the website in gaining better and better visibility, organic traffic, which may ultimately translate into customer inquiries. That is why it is so important to rely on the data collected at the keyword search stage.

Use tools when creating a content plan. In addition to those already mentioned, it is worth checking the data from Semalt Dedicated SEO Dashboard which are based on the hints displayed by Google when entering a query. You can also have a look at "Related Searches", which show up in the SERPs at the bottom, below the results.

Optimization should be consistent with previous steps. You will use the established keywords, among others when creating titles, headers, image file names, alt tag content, as well as internal linking. 

Also optimize your subpages so as to increase the chances of your website appearing on the so-called position zero, i.e. as part of direct answers. 

Of course, optimization should also include technical issues. You may need to speed up page loading, install an SSL certificate, validate the use of canonical links, and more.

Part of the optimization is also refining internal linking. Are keywords used in it? Do related materials link with each other? It is very important that this is the case because it makes it easier for the Google search engine to understand the structure of the page, index the website and translate into better visibility in SERPs.

This piece of the puzzle is very important for local positioning. By adding a company to GMF, your business card can be displayed on Google Maps, as well as in the so-called three-pack in organic search results. These are the three results that appear on local queries, usually at the top of the results, underneath Google Ads.

When creating a profile, you should remember to use keywords - it is worth smuggling them in the company name and in the first 250 characters with spaces in the description. You can also use them by creating various entries as part of the business card - for example, informing customers about new products or services. Also, do not forget to link the site with GMF by placing a map with the company's location on it, e.g., in the contact tab. How to do it? Find your business card on Google Maps, then click "Share". Then you will be able to download the HTML code and insert it into the page.

Another essential element of SEO is link building, i.e. getting links leading to your website from external websites. At this stage, it's important to figure out what exactly you want to link.

If the current business goal is to build the visibility of products from a given category, it means that it should be linked, but it absolutely cannot be that all obtained links will lead to only one URL - Google may judge it as unnatural. Even if your main goal is to build the visibility of a given category, you should not forget about the links leading to the home page, blog and other subpages. At the same time, the largest number of links should ultimately lead to the subpage that you care about the most.

In the case of link building, remember to keep the appropriate proportion between dofollow and nofollow links. Optimally, this should be more or less 50-50 per cent. But that doesn't mean that a higher proportion of dofollow links will harm you (but! A significant advantage of dofollow links over nofollow links is not recognised by Google as a natural situation. So take care of the various profile links).

The quality of the links that lead to your site is of great importance. When choosing places where such links are to be placed, analyze the visibility of these pages as well as SEO parameters according to popular tools such as the DSD, and then the higher probability that they will positively affect the visibility of your website. Inconsiderate linking can end in problems - low-quality links can translate into a decrease in the website's position.

A possible problem while running an SEO campaign may be the lack of proper communication between the agency and the client. It happens that website owners introduce significant changes to their structure without consulting an SEO agency, which may, for example, cause cannibalization of key phrases or cause other difficulties on the way to increasing the visibility of the website. Both parties should be aware of who is responsible for what actions and what steps should be consulted in order to prevent negative consequences and wasting of the work done.

It is not always the case that an SEO agency implements all the activities included in the strategy. It may be, for example, that the client is responsible for creating the content, and the SEO Expert prepares post topics, guidelines for keywords, headline content and more.

The SEO company should inform you about them before implementing the modifications and expect your consent.

However, if the effect of the work is different than expected, absolutely do not restore the previous state of the page. Contact the agency, describe the problem, and you will certainly be able to work out a common position so that the changes have a positive effect on the visibility of the site.

What matters in SEO is the quality of links, not their quantity. Therefore, approach such offers with caution and under no circumstances choose such linking without consulting.

Subsequent elimination of the problems that will arise from these references can be very costly and time-consuming. Keep that in mind.