How To Create SEO Strategy For Beginners
Welcome to your step-by-step guide on creating an SEO strategy! If you’re a small business owner looking to increase your online visibility and attract more customers, you’ve come to the right place. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) might sound like a big term, but at its core, it’s all about helping the right people find your business online. In this guide, we’ll break down the basics—from choosing the right keywords to optimizing your website’s structure—in clear, actionable steps. By the end, you’ll be ready to create an SEO strategy that drives real results, even if you’re starting from scratch. Let’s get started!
What is an SEO strategy?
SEO strategy is a long-term strategy, it consists of what you need to do to get a higher ranking in SERP’s (search engine result pages). It is about optimizing your website content by topic to attract quality and quantity traffic. When doing SEO as a beginner or on your own. You will be overwhelmed because creating an SEO strategy is not easy. before diving in let’s see why creating an SEO strategy is important
Why creating an SEO strategy is important?
According to BrightEdge Digital Marketing Report:
Organic search remains the primary source of website traffic, accounting for 53.5% of all visits.
68% of online experiences begin with a search engine.
This means Creating SEO strategy is still crucial for a business’s success in increasing website visibility and conversion rates. But if you do it wrong, your results will suffer even if you create the best content. What you should do is to create a long-term SEO strategy.
After this article, you will be able to establish your own SEO strategy
TABLE OF CONTENTS
2. Keyword research
3. Analyze your competitor’s website
4. Create compelling and helpful content
5. Optimize your on-page SEO
6. Build links to your page
7. Don’t forget about your content
#1 Choose a topic
The first step to create your own SEO strategy is to choose a topic you want to rank for. For example, one of the topics BACKLINKO is focusing on is SEO strategy. They published a large blog (skyscraper content) covers all you need to know to create an effective SEO strategy, and They created clusters of content around that topic. But why choosing a topic and not start immediately with keyword research? Google changed its algorithm from keywords-focused to topic-focused. The update was called Hummingbird Update in 2013.
Google now sees the context and meaning behind the words. That’s why focusing on a topic and building authority and relevance around it is crucial. Don’t get me wrong, keywords are still important, in fact according to Google the most basic signal information is relevant is that contains the same keywords as your search query.
How to choose a topic for your business?
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Know the people you want to attract aka your buyer persona’s. Check out this guide from HubSpot on how to create your buyer persona.
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Make a list of topics your business and buyer persona are interested in
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Choose one or two topics to focus on.
#2 Keyword research
A keyword is a word or phrase people type in search engine. Keyword research Is the process of finding keywords or key phrases that people search in Google and deciding which of the keywords you want to rank for.
Why keyword research?
Find which topics people care about through their search terms.
Get more traffic because if no one is searching for your chosen keywords, then you will not have any traffic.
Help you answer questions like what your target is searching for? /How many people search for certain keywords?/How difficult to rank for search queries? / What format do people like to consume?
Understand better your buyer’s persona.
What is a good keyword?
A good keyword is :
high search volume
Low competition
Relevant
Has a clear search intent
High search volume
It is preferable to choose keywords with decent or high search volume. If no one is searching for what you’re targeting, you will get 0 traffic.
Low competition
Choose a keyword with low difficulty to rank for, especially if your website is new. You can be aware of competition on keywords by typing the search query on Google and see who’s ranking for it at SERP’s. Let’s say I’m an SEO agency and I want to rank for the keyword “SEO strategy”, It will be hard, Why? Because I will be competing with companies with high authority and have been in the game for so long like BACKLINKO, HubSpot, and SEMrush. The point is ti find and choose a long-tail keyword that you have a chance to rank for on Google first page.
Relevance
is it useful to target keywords unrelated to your business or industry?.
The answer is NO.
The keywords you choose to target must be relevant to your business.
Let’s say you are an SEO agency, the keywords you choose must be related to SEO.
Search intent
Search intent is what lies behind the words, it is what they are trying to accomplish when typing a certain keyword. Search intent is important because you need to attract quality traffic, people who will likely convert.
Let’s go back to the SEO agency example, Let’s say you are targeting small businesses who want to get quality Google traffic. You don’t want to target the keyword “SEO” Why? First, the search intent isn’t clear, maybe searchers are looking for a job or maybe they are looking to learn SEO. The second reason is that it will likely be too competitive. A good keyword might be “SEO agency for dentists” or “SEO agency for restaurants in Chicago(if you are in Chicago)”.
In a nutshell, the search intent of the keyword must be obvious.
#3 Analyze your competitor's website content
Now that you know which topics and relevant keywords. It’s time to analyze the keywords of your competitors on those keywords.
Why analyze your competitors?
Differentiate yourself.
Create something better.
Identify a gap in their content.
know which content format to use.
How to analyze your competitor’s
To properly analyze your competitors, you need a spreadsheet that includes:
Competitor name
Topic
Keywords relevant to the topic
Content Format
After finishing creating the competitor analysis spreadsheet, follow the steps below :
1. go to Google and type your topic into the search.
2. pick out 3 to 5 websites from the first page about the relevant topic you’ve chosen and write their names in the spreadsheet.
3. Enter their website one by one and identify their content format, website structure, and keywords they use. Then write them down in the spreadsheet.
4. Analyze the spreadsheet and try to find out opportunities to create different content or a better one.
#4 Creating compelling and quality content
The first step to create your own SEO strategy is to choose a topic you want to rank for. For example, one of the topics BACKLINKO is focusing on is SEO strategy. They published a large blog (skyscraper content) covers all you need to know to create an effective SEO strategy, and They created clusters of content around that topic. But why choosing a topic and not start immediately with keyword research? Google changed its algorithm from keywords-focused to topic-focused. The update was called Hummingbird Update in 2013.
Google now sees the context and meaning behind the words. That’s why focusing on a topic and building authority and relevance around it is crucial. Don’t get me wrong, keywords are still important, in fact according to Google the most basic signal information is relevant is that contains the same keywords as your search query.
#5 Optimize your on-page SEO
On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing your website front end elements. there a lot to do when it comes to optimizing your content. but it is all about putting keywords inside your page :
· Title tag
Heading tag
URL
Internal links
Title Tag :
The title tag is the link you see in search engine result pages. It has an essential role in organic traffic.
Best practices for title tag:
preview your title before publishing (moz title tag preview tool)
Include the primary keyword in the title tag
Keep your title tag under 60 characters if possible
This step is for the user, you want to keep it under 60 characters so the reader can read the entire Title.
Make sure your title answers the searcher’s primary question
Heading tag:
Heading tags are the Heading inside a web page ( H1, H2, H3, …)
Best practices for Heading tags:
Use the primary keyword in your page title
Your page title should have H1 tag
The subsequent headings should have h2 and h3 tag and so on
Best practices for writing URL’s:
Use hyphens (-) between words
Describe page content
Use primary keyword
Keep it short and simple
Internal links
Do you know internal links helps low authority pages rank better? You just need to link an authoritative page to one with low authority.
Also, make sure all the pages related to certain topic are linked to each other. This way Google can higher your ranking for the topic you have chosen.
#6 Build links to your page
According to Google “If other prominent websites on the subject link to your page, that’s a good sign that the information is of high quality“. Search engine like Google use backlinks to help rank a web page.
What are backlinks?
Link building is the process of building relationships with relevant website owners who want and will link to your content because it enhances theirs (definition by Ahrefs).
Most people struggle to get backlinks because they are focused on getting links. Focus on the process instead. Which, for the most part, by building relationships with other blogs or website owners, so they link to your content.
How to get backlinks?
You can get links in 3 ways:
Create: Manually add links to your website through your social media profile, comment on blogpost, or sign yourself in a directory. This method is not useful, It has low difficulty to execute and low to gain.
Buy: It means paying webmasters or authors for a backlink. this method is expensive and can result in a Google penalty (Link scheme).
Earn: Sending e-mails to website owners. we are going to focus on getting backlinks through email outreach. this method is the most efficient and the hardest to perform.
What makes a link good?
Relevance
The link must be relevant to your business
Authoritativeness
Authority in term of Link building is “the Link power” a web page has. The more quality links the page has, the more rank it earns.
To get backlinks you need to be :
Content creative
You need to be creative when it comes to your content. So, consider this 3 Key attributes of linkable content. First, Non-commercial. People rarely links to commercial page like product page for example because no one wants to contribute to your bank account without compensation. another key attribute is helpful content. People want to link to helpful content that is valuable to their audience. Lastly, use stats or facts. Many research shows that stats and facts are a great source of backlinks.
Pitch creative
this is the part when you reach out. Firstly, have a good reason to contact people.
Answer this question:
what value are you bringing to the table?
And Make sure the pitch is personalized and don’t forget about the value of exchange ( a great example is to offer to create free content for them)
Link building strategy
Now, you have a good understanding of what backlinking is, what makes a good link, and how optimize your content to be more linkable. It’s time to get to know the strategy for link building.
1. Guest blogging
2. Resource page
3. Broken link building
1. Guest blogging:
This strategy consists of creating a blog post on other websites than yours. First, find a blog in your industry. Next, pitch and agree on a relevant topic. And lastly write a post for them.
2. Resource page
A resource page is a page that links to useful industry resources.
step by step guide to execute this strategy:
1) find out an industry resource pages
2) reach out to them
3) Suggest your resource page for inclusion
3. Broken link building
Broken link building is a tactic that takes advantage of broken pages on the web.
Follow these steps:
Find out a dead link in a webpage.
Create your own page on that topic.
Ask everyone linking to the dead resource to link to your page instead.
#7 Don’t forget about your content
Many website owners publish content and then forget about it. What you should do instead is to go back and add value to your previous content every once in a while. This will increase your page rank. let’s say You previously created a blog about SEO tools. adding more examples, and replacing old images and screenshots will skyrocket traffic to your page. This strategy is proven to get high results, so it is essential to apply it.
Creating an SEO strategy isn’t easy. Search engine algorithms and consumer behavior change. As someone who’s responsible for doing SEO in your company, You must be up to date with these changes. There are so much more you can learn about SEO and SEO strategies. This blog is for beginners who are overwhelmed with the quantity of information out there and they want an easy strategy to follow.
There you have it. An SEO strategy for beginners in 2024. I hope you find this Blog post helpful.
Anas Mami
Digital Marketer
Welcome to my Blog, If you love reading and learning about marketing then you are in the right place. You’ll find everything you need from best practices in different Marketing domains to strategies that works. I hope you find this Blog helpful.
ABOUT ME
Anas Mami
Digital Marketer
Welcome to my Blog, If you love reading and learning about marketing then you are in the right place. You’ll find everything you need from best practices in different Marketing domains to strategies that works. I hope you find this Blog helpful.
