Search engine optimisation is always changing, so staying up-to-date with the latest tactics is essential in making sure you’re getting the most from your investment. Here are the steps to creating an effective SEO strategy for 2022 and beyond.
1) Know Your Keywords
Whether creating a strategy for a current campaign or planning for future success, the first step is to make a list of the most relevant, high-traffic keywords. You can identify these by looking at your site’s analytics, understanding how your target audience searches, or doing keyword research.
Once you’ve identified keywords and phrases, you’ll want to include them in as many parts of your site as possible. This can include navigation menus and site maps, as well as in your content and metadata.
2) Do Competitive Analysis
When you’ve found your keywords and phrases, the next step is to find out the place they rank in the SERPs. There are a few ways of doing this:
First, you can do a Google search for your target keyword. Then, an extensive check of your site’s SERP placement based on your target keywords can be done by looking at your rivals’ sites. A simple Google search for your target keyword should show results that reveal your rivals’ sites. Underneath each site’s URL, there should be a link to the site’s “domain stats.” These allow you to see where the site ranks for a number of keywords.
Use this information to see what you will need to do to outrank your rivals. Then, create a strategy for doing that using a combination of on-site optimisation and off-site SEO.
3) Create Content Based on Research
Before you create more content, do more research. There are a number of great tools that can help with this.
Depending on the type of content you want to create, you could even try using a tool like Google Trends or Google Keyword Planner to see how your audience searches online.
4) Optimise On-Page SEO
If you want to rank for a certain keyword or phrase, you’ll need to make sure that your content includes it in the title, body copy and in the page’s metadata.
Optimising the page’s metadata properly is one of the easier ways of ranking for keywords and phrases. This is why you should make sure your page’s titles, headings and even alt-text are optimised for your chosen phrases.
Ranking for a given keyword or phrase can take a long time, so you’ll need to make sure that your content is optimised for this phrase in the long term. The best way to do that is to focus on long-tail keywords. These are phrases that include more than five words, so they’re easier to rank for and are generally less competitive.
5) Capitalise on Link Building
Links have always been a crucial part of SEO, but they’re even more important in the future. The most important thing to know about links is that they’re still very important.
This means that you’ll need to focus on growing your inbound links, as well as your outbound links. Additionally, you’ll need to make sure that you’re keeping track of the links you already have.
Conclusion
The SEO landscape is always changing, but that doesn’t mean that the game has to change for you. By following a few simple steps and staying up-to-date with the latest SEO trends, you can continue to optimise your site for top SERPs without breaking a sweat.
If you’re not sure that your strategies are working, consult your local SEO expert. The SEO Room is an SEO marketing agency in Perth that aims to help you find creative solutions to your SEO problems. Get in touch with us today!
