Effective SEO Strategy: Positioning in 11 steps

Positioning is important for any company that wants to expand its online visibility and effectively attract customers from this medium. I wrote about the specific exceptions when discussing the advantages and disadvantages of SEO. Without investing in SEO efforts, we have to reckon that we will not reach more than half of our online customers. Yes, SEO is a key marketing channel

I hope I have convinced you that SEO has great potential. Positioning, as well as the digital world, is constantly changing. New opportunities, tools, ways, and algorithm changes are coming in. An SEO strategy will help you move toward your goal by setting a roadmap, setting priorities, and making sure that the various tasks are consistent. An effective SEO strategy is based on 11 basic steps.

1. Prepare a list of keywords

The first step of an effective SEO strategy is to prepare a keyword list. You can develop a list of a few base keywords, research your competitors or use a tool. You can use Senuto, Semrush or Google Keyword Planner for keyword research.

These tools allow you to calculate search potential, which is how many times a phrase is searched for on average. Some of the tools will also show you the estimated competition, i.e., how much money you will have to invest to compete with your current competitors. Don’t give up on zero-volume phrases (i.e., those with zero searches) at this stage; they will come in handy later.

2. Group your keywords

After grouping your keywords, you can start writing articles or creating content around those topics. For example, if you sell shoes, you can group keywords into categories such as “women’s running shoes”, “men’s volleyball shoes”, etc..

3. Analyze the first page of Google searches

After identifying your target keywords and topics, it’s time to analyze the first page of Google results. Look at the top 10 results for the most important keywords in the group and verify what type of content is favoured in the ranking. This can be in the form of a list of 10 things, for example.

Also, pay attention to the search intent behind the keywords being analyzed. Are people looking for informational content or want to buy something? This will help you determine the type of content you need to create. Remember that there can be several intentions for a single phrase.

4. Add questions to keywords

Add potential questions that your users are interested in into individual groups. For example, if someone searches for “women’s running shoes,” they may also be interested in “What running shoes for a beginner runner?”

Including questions in the content of your articles can attract even more traffic because, naturally, most questions generate traffic, but more importantly, by answering them, you will gain topical authority. This will also give you further ideas for articles that people actually live by.

5. Create content-matched-to-search-intent-and-somehow-better

Once you understand what people are searching for and why they are searching, it’s time to start creating content that matches search intent. Try to make your content even better than what is currently high in the search engine index by enriching the content with unique perspectives and insights. If you add an opinion of your own, justify it. Also, try to make the article responsive. You can read more about content creation in the section on positioning a blog. There, I elaborate in detail on the topic of SEO copywriting. 

6. Prepare a content plan

After developing article ideas, it’s a good idea to formalize it more. A content plan is important because if you want your SEO strategy to be effective, you must be consistent.

I recommend planning at least 3 months in advance and even 6-12 months ahead. Of course, this depends on the number of copywriters or your SEO budget.

It’s a good idea to plan ahead.

7. Try to gain Topical Authority

Try now to cover all topics in one niche before moving on to another. Doing so will more quickly prove to Google that your site is an authoritative source of information in a particular field. A series of articles on a given topic demonstrates your knowledge of the subject from various perspectives and gives the presumption that you may be an expert on the subject.

For example, if you operate in the travel niche, don’t tend to write about different destinations, travel gear, packing tips, etc. Focus, for example, on a topic related to backpacking. The more comprehensively you cover a topic, the more likely people and the search engine will trust you as an authority.

8. Plan link building

One of the most important ranking factors in Google is lead links. If you are not convinced, you can watch a recent webinar from Linkhouse titled „How to create a link-building campaign in less than a minute?” in which Sebastian Heymann presents the results of link-building campaigns that have been conducted.

A link-building plan must be part of an adopted SEO strategy. The result of link-building activities is backlinks, i.e., links from other websites that direct to yours. The more high-quality leading links you have, the higher your position in Google will be. Of course, this is simplistic because there are many factors of SEO

You can read about ways to conduct link-building campaigns, such as guest blogging, building broken links and creating infographics in the post about link-building in SEO

9. Take care of your website’s technical SEO

Technical SEO involves improving the technical aspects of your website to make it more visible to the search engine robot and better display its content and assets. Technical SEO includes, for example, optimizing your site’s loading speed, setting up 301 redirects, adding a sitemap, optimizing images, using structured data, internal linking, meta tags or using correct headings like h1, h2, h3. The topic of technical SEO is overly broad, so we have a separate post about each of the issues mentioned on our company SEO blog.

10. Position monitoring and change testing

The penultimate step is to monitor your Google position, tracking changes in visibility and traffic, making changes to your sub-page content, and testing the impact of the modifications on your ranking position. Why do it? Content is the most important ranking factor. Nothing gives more substantive value than proven knowledge. Many guides rely more on logic than knowledge verified in practice. It is not always semantic SEO, and how search engines work must be logical from our point of view.

We should modify content even more if the SEO strategy currently adopted for content does not produce the expected results. Monitoring the position is the key, while for testing, you need an established position or at least existing on the web for a good few months. There is a sandbox theory into which new domains fall. This is the period during which Google can verify the site’s value.

You can read about tools for tracking changes in position in the article What you should know about SEO? in point 4 titled How can you track your site’s SEO?”

11: Improve content and keep content up-to-date

This has a lot to do with position monitoring. It may happen that a site loses traffic or positions due to competitors’ actions, content not being up-to-date, or simply a natural decline in the trend. In that case, it’s worth knowing about it and reacting accordingly—as far as we can. It’s even better, of course, if we take action ahead of time with the knowledge that an issue is becoming obsolete.

Conclusions

A strong SEO strategy is essential if you want your business to be visible online. Follow these 11 steps to create an effective SEO strategy that drives traffic and helps your business grow.

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