In the world of online presence & marketing, everyone wishes to see their websites rank higher in SERPs. The higher ranks and the higher ROI to your business, but to achieve higher ranks in search engine result pages what you need is a well-structured SEO strategy. In this article, we are going to give you a perfect 10 step SEO plan that will help you to make a concrete SEO strategy to fetch your website a higher rank in SERP(Search engine result page). Before proceeding further, let us understand what we mean by an SEO strategy.
In simple language, SEO strategy is a method to obtain higher ranks in Search engine result pages. We outline a process, step by step and implement them to get higher ranks in SERP. This complete process of designing the strategy is known as an SEO strategy or SEO plan.
By a concrete SEO strategy, we try to fetch more organic traffic to our websites. The process implemented to gain more organic traffic is known as SEO plan or search engine optimisation strategy.
After understanding the concept of SEO, let us dive deep into the SEO strategy. In this article, we will be discussing the 10 step SEO plan to fetch you higher search rankings.
Following are the 10 steps you must know to have a strong SEO strategy in place:
The first step of every SEO strategy is keyword research because the complete SEO process revolves around the keywords. First and the most important step is to pick the keywords which your target customers might be searching online. To get targeted keywords is not a tough job. Instead of typing random keywords in keyword search tools, you should use google suggest. Google suggestions are the best resource to find keywords because these keywords are directly coming through search engines, and these must be genuinely searched. To get keywords, start typing a keyword into Google search bar and look at the suggestions. Google will show lots of suggestions which will be great keywords. For example, look at the image below.
Another benefit of using Google suggestions is getting “Long tail keywords”. Although long-tail keywords have low search volumes, it’s easier to rank for them. Google suggests lots of long-tail keywords which are beneficial to rank for. You should keep typing different keywords until you get at least different 10 keywords. You can also check the competition and search volume of these keywords by using keyword tools such as SEMrushor Ubersuggest, etc. Once you get enough keywords, enlist them and move onto the second step.
Another benefit of using Google suggestions is getting “Long tail keywords”. Although long-tail keywords have low search volumes, it’s easier to rank for them. Google suggests lots of long-tail keywords which are beneficial to rank for. You should keep typing different keywords until you get at least different 10 keywords. You can also check the competition and search volume of these keywords by using keyword tools such as SEMrushor Ubersuggest, etc. Once you get enough keywords, enlist them and move onto the second step.
Once you have enough keywords, type each keyword in Google search bar and look at the top 10 websites which are ranking for them. Try to observe a pattern in those top websites for example when we searched one of the keywords “SEO strategy”, we found that most of the top ten websites which were ranking for it have listings such as 8-step SEO plan, 7 advanced SEO strategies, etc. See the image below.
From the analysis, you will get the idea of what kind of content you should create to rank higher. For example, we got an idea that we might write a listing article to rank higher.
Now we have an idea of what kind of content is required to get higher ranks. All we need to do is to create appropriate content which serves value to the readers. When it comes to creating content, we are left with two choices either to create different content or to create better than existing content. If you want to create different than existing content, and your content adds value to the readers, then you might leverage the benefit of standing out. These kinds of content might get lots of backlinks and social media shares.
But if you want to create better content than the existing one, we would suggest you to go for more comprehensive content that will cover almost all the existing information on the given topic. Such content also attracts more backlinks; thus, are beneficial in their own ways.
Google algorithm keeps changing with new updates but few things remain important components of the algorithm and backlinks are one of them. If you really wish to improve your rankings, you must obtain the backlinks. In a recent study conducted by Stone temple consulting, it has been proved that links are strongly correlated with the rankings. Because backlinks are still a crucial part of Google algorithm, you must focus on getting backlinks. Now comes the question, what works as a magnet for backlinking?
Content enriched with data or research study results often attracts more backlinks. If your content is valuable and enriched with facts, the chances are high that other bloggers will backlink to you and cite your data. Another magnet for backlinking is long-form comprehensively covered articles such as complete guides or “how-to” articles. When you comprehensively cover any topic, chances of getting backlinks increases.
Once you are done creating quality content, focus on optimising your content for On-Page SEO. There are no. of on-page SEO tactics but most important of all to focus in 2020 are the following:
The second method to get good LSI keywords is to search your main keyword in Google Image, and it will show you related LSI keywords. You can use these LSI keywords in your content and can potentially increase your rankings.
Always remember that ultimately everything you are putting in the form of content is for the consumption of your users and search engines are trying to rank your content to provide the best results for the users. Keep yourself in the shoes of users and assess how optimised is your content as per the search intent. If your content is fulfilling the user’s search intent, then Google will give you a higher ranking and vice versa. Always create search intent optimised content. Rewrite your old content to make it search intent optimised, in the user-friendly format.
Search engine optimisation always revolves around the user’s experience; that is why it is quite important to serve your content in an attractive and engaging manner. Of course, the quality of content matters most, but you can’t undermine the importance of design. Make your content look good and easily consumable for users. Use infographics, images, graphs, charts, etc. to simplify the information embedded in the text and make it look better and engaging.
Once your content is completely optimised and published, start building backlinks. You can build backlinks with the following methods:
After selecting competitors, search the domains that refer to the particular page, by using tools likeahref.
We found 627 unique domains linking to our competitor’s page. Now we need to figure out which of these domains have scope for the addition of our link to their pages. Once we find a suitable place to link our content, we should approach them one by one. This method is old but still works.
For example, we searched our keyword “SEO strategy” and found out creators in the same niche( look at the image below).
Once you find out the bloggers of the same niche, you need to reach out to them and tell them how you are publishing a blog post about a topic which might interest them and if they reply, send your link to them. By this method, if your content is worthy enough to share, these bloggers will share on a different platform, and here you get the backlink.
Go through your previously published content and revamp them with required updates so that they don’t cease to be relevant. You can add points or remove unnecessary or invalid information. You can also add new images and remove the old ones. Relaunching your old content with new updates can boost the organic traffic significantly.
Yes, after going through all the points, you are ready to prepare your SEO strategy, so don’t waste time and start now. Because results never appear magically, everything takes time, and it’s better to start early to harvest the result on time.
