14 min Read

Your SEO Strategy Is Critical To Online Visibility—But Where Do You Begin?

The world that we live in today is increasingly dominated by the internet. From shopping to entertainment to education, consumers find themselves turning to the web for nearly every aspect of their daily lives.

As a small business, carving out a space for yourself in your industry means developing a website where these consumers can find you. The problem? Driving the traffic, engagement, and sales that you seek hinges on your SEO strategy.

But what exactly is an SEO strategy, and how can you develop one that provides you with the best possible results? If you want to skyrocket your pages to the top of search engine result pages (SERPs) and optimise the user experience for your audience, dive into the many components and tips below that comprise a well-built SEO strategy.

What Is An SEO Strategy?

Digital marketers and business owners who are new to the concept of SEO may find this crucial component of digital marketing somewhat complex. Before we dive into what an SEO strategy is, we first have to understand what SEO is.

Aptly named, search engine optimisation is the practice of optimising your website and its contents to rank higher on search engine results pages or SERPs. Why? Think about your own search activity. When you enter a search query into your search engine of choice, you likely visit the first few results at the top of the page.

The further down the results are, the lower the authority they have and the less likely individuals are to click on them. Implementing SEO best practices means the difference between potentially ranking at the top of these SERPs and showing up in later pages or not showing up at all.

When consumers are looking for a specific product, service, or answer, they’re going to put more trust into the top results rather than digging into each and every SERP to try to find what they’re looking for. This is only human nature.

A search engine optimisation strategy helps you leverage current SEO best practices in order to boost online visibility and improve the likelihood that your website ranks higher on search engines. But is it necessary?

Why Do You Need An SEO Strategy In 2022?

To some, an SEO strategy can seem like an aspect of running a business that only further complicates things. They may take an “if you build it, they will come” approach to creating a website. Is an SEO strategy really that important?

Marketing is one of the most critical aspects of owning a business, and in an online world, you have to pay attention to SEO if you want to compete with other businesses in your industry. That being said, current data can better illustrate the need for an SEO strategy.

Let’s take a look at a few statistics that will demonstrate the need for a strong SEO strategy in today’s online world.

Approximately 71 percent of businesses have websites. If you fall into the 28 per cent that doesn’t, you’re at a disadvantage in competing with these businesses (online or physical) that have an online presence.
By the year 2040, it’s estimated that approximately 95 per cent of purchases will be through eCommerce. In 2021, there are currently 2.14 billion digital buyers in the world. That’s a massive market to miss out on if you don’t have a website or one that’s generating enough leads and traffic.
Around 50 per cent of consumers who conduct a local search on their smartphones will visit the physical store within a day, with 34 per cent of those on computers or tablets following suit. If you have a brick-and-mortar business, your local SEO strategy is critical to driving sales.
Businesses that blog receive about 67 per cent more leads per month than businesses without a blog, demonstrating the importance of SEO and content marketing for businesses with a website.

And this only barely scratches the surface of why SEO is so important for modern businesses. As was mentioned above, there are some businesses that have zero visibility online.

When your website isn’t being indexed by Google at all, all the hard work that you’re putting into it will fail to attract your audience because nothing is showing up when they’re looking for relevant search terms.

While you can still turn to social media and other marketing strategies to build brand awareness, having your website show up on search engines is still critical to your business’ success.

Now that we have a better understanding of why you should develop an SEO strategy, we need an SEO strategy example that maps out some of the different focuses you should have. What are the most important aspects?

Keyword Research

If you ask anyone with a basic understanding of SEO what SEO is really about, chances are that you’re going to hear one word: keywords. While this is a very watered down take on what SEO actually is and what it achieves, keyword research does play a major role in your overall SEO strategy.

As you’re likely already aware, people leverage search engines as a means to find relevant information, products, and services online. Given that there are only so many ways to phrase searches, there are certain terms that are going to have a certain amount of traffic attached to them.

Those who are focused on optimising their website for greater traffic conduct keyword research to find these terms and implement them into their content so as to rank for those specific terms on SERPs.

The keywords that you choose will often be dependent upon your domain authority (how authoritative your website is perceived to be in relation to other websites), the volume that these search terms have to offer, and whether or not the search terms are relevant to your industry.

This is why you often see smaller businesses focusing on long-tail keywords that are hyper-specific and have far less competition, making them easier to rank for. You can then further optimise content with secondary keywords that are relevant to the topic at hand.

As you scale, you can incorporate broader keywords into your content and rise to the top of SERPs with greater ease.

That’s all great, but many may not know what to do with their keywords once they have a few great keywords to build content around. Knowing how to create content effectively using your research is a big part of your SEO strategy.

SEO Content Strategy

Keyword research is the first step in something known as your SEO content strategy. Content marketing plays a prominent role in SEO, making up the majority of your on-page SEO efforts. As the name suggests, on-page SEO indicates that there’s more to SEO than just the content you produce.

Your SEO strategy can be broken down into three main components. These include:

On-Page SEO: On-page SEO is SEO that is primarily concerned with the content found on your website’s pages. This includes keyword optimisation as well as proper page formatting. Making sure that your on-page SEO is taken care of and continually optimised will be your primary focus when you execute your SEO strategy.
Off-Page SEO: On-page SEO is the most well-known, but there are other factors at play too. Off-page SEO is SEO that is concerned with how many backlinks your website has. The more backlinks from high-authority websites you have, the more of an authority your website appears to be to search engines, boosting your rankings.
Technical SEO: Technical SEO is focused on the backend architecture of your website as well as certain elements of the user experience. Catering to search engines like Google and to consumers helps you receive the best possible results.

Your content strategy allows you to develop high-value content that incorporates keywords to help you rank on Google while also providing your audience with content that they’ll love. There are several elements to content creation that will allow you to target on-page SEO effectively. But what exactly are these?

1. Always begin your content strategy by creating a list of potential blog topics for your audience (and any digital assets you might wish to create alongside them). This gives you a backlog of content to create as you build out your SEO strategy.
2. Conduct keyword research to find keywords related to these topics that you can incorporate into the content to rank on SERPs. You might want to switch these around if you find it easier to research keywords first and then build content ideas around them. With a low domain authority, it can be difficult to find all the keywords you need for certain content ideas.
3. Develop a content schedule that allows you to create your content within a reasonable timeframe, publish it regularly, and guarantee that it’s been properly optimised. As long as you can create and publish your content in a timely manner without stressing yourself or your team out along the way, you should be fine!
4. Look for ways to not only tackle on-page SEO but off-page SEO as well. For example, creating valuable digital assets like infographics might encourage others conducting research to link back to your blog as a resource. This will show search engines that you’re an authority to other sites in your industry.
5. Stay on top of analytics to improve engagement and traffic on your blog posts over time. The better you understand your performance and which factors are affecting your content, the better you’ll be able to make adjustments so that your future content does its job.
6. Continue to learn more about the latest SEO trends and changes to search engine algorithms to ensure that your content provides you with the traffic that you’re looking for. If you continue to use SEO best practices that are no longer relevant, your content will not help you hit your overall goals.

With all this in mind, it’s important to remember that your keywords shouldn’t be the sole focus of your SEO strategy. The quality of the content that you incorporate your keywords into will play a critical role in your success as well. After all, having highly-optimised content that no one wants to read will only be detrimental.

Let’s take a look at some content creation best practices that will allow you to guarantee your keyword research efforts produce the right results.

Create content that is engaging, actionable, and packed with value. When your audience reads your content, they should feel compelled to go through the entire article and confident enough to walk away with the answer to the question they had when they first clicked on your content.
Make sure that your content is properly formatted. This includes breaking up paragraphs to avoid walls of text, using numbers or bullet points to offer easily digestible information and help readers scan the article, and incorporating images into your article to enhance the visual appeal of your story.
Offer something new and original. There’s a lot of content out there on the internet, and readers don’t want something that’s been regurgitated time and time again. Add your own personal twist to give your readers the value and excitement that they’re looking for.
Don’t write yourself into a corner! Regardless of your niche, there are likely a ton of content ideas that you can pursue over time. However, if you try to jam massive topics into a heavily condensed blog post, you might feel as though you’ve run out of opportunities. Break down complex topics into their own individual posts so as to avoid running out of ideas too quickly.

Your SEO content strategy will be a bit more built-out when you finally sit down to go over each aspect and develop systems for content creation and publishing. If it’s too much to tackle on your own, don’t worry. You can easily find an SEO strategy agency that offers SEO strategy services for on-page SEO to get more out of your campaigns.

Mobile SEO Strategy

As we stated above, there’s a lot more that goes into your SEO strategy than meets the eye. While content marketing may be one component, how well your mobile website works is another aspect that will greatly impact your rankings and engagement.

Recent statistics show that there were 211 million people conducting mobile phone searches in 2021, which is a massive number of people who are searching for things or buying things right from their smartphones. Of course, this doesn’t take into account those who are conducting searches from other mobile devices like tablets.

Mobile SEO focuses on ensuring that your website is accessible to mobile users, providing them with the same fast, functional experience that they would get on their desktop or laptop computer. This is essential as Google will index and rank pages for your website using the mobile version rather than the desktop version.

When tackling something like user experience, it’s important to consider things from the other side of the screen. Customers want to be able to navigate your website easily and feel excited about the experience that they receive. If there are any issues you notice, chances are that your customers notice too, which can impact SEO and user retention.

The good news? A lot of what goes into your SEO strategy is going to stay fairly consistent across both your desktop and your mobile experience. For example, you’re going to want to make sure that your desktop website loads quickly, has a responsive and easy-to-navigate design, and features high-quality content your audience will love.

In regards to the mobile experience and your mobile SEO strategy, you’re going to be focusing on these same aspects. No matter which device your audience is using, they should be receiving the same level of quality. This guarantees that your engagement remains strong across all devices.

Web Design For SEO

A part of your technical SEO strategy, web design is important for business owners who need a website that’s fully functional, easy to navigate, and visually appealing. As we’ll discuss more below, SEO is more than just keyword research. It’s critical that your website offers the best possible experience for your users. After all, a website that’s poorly designed and has inherent flaws will drive users away. This makes it difficult to tap into the organic traffic that you need with SEO best practices. However, technical SEO might be the most difficult type of SEO for today’s businesses, especially if they’re not equipped with the skills needed to craft the site or make changes where errors currently exist. With an agency that specialises in web design for SEO, you can bring your vision to life and provide your customers and audience with the high-quality website that they expect to see when a search query brings them to your website!

Why The Best SEO Strategy Is UX Driven

Those who seek to design a website that ranks high on SERPs often try to appeal solely to Google’s algorithm in order to satisfy its needs and get the best possible results. However, this is just one aspect of ranking on search engines. In order to not only be indexed by Google but get better traffic and engagement, you need to focus on user experience (UX).

The human element plays a major role in your rankings. In your SEO strategy, you should be making sure that your website is fast, mobile-friendly, and easy to navigate. Additionally, you should be focusing on the value that your website has to offer.

Are users getting all the information that they’re searching for? Are they enjoying your website and staying on it rather than leaving it for a site that offers better content or a better experience? Is your website safe to use? Remember, Google does care about UX. Technical aspects of SEO are important, but UX is too!

Local SEO

SEO is often discussed in regards to businesses that operate nationwide or eCommerce businesses that operate solely online. True, SEO is important for all businesses operating online. However, it’s especially important for businesses that have a brick and mortar location and rely on a local customer base to remain profitable.

Imagine this: you’re driving around town looking for a specific part that you need in your home improvement project. You jump online to look for a hardware store in your area, and you find multiple options with store contact information, customer reviews, and even in-depth information about what products they have in stock and at what prices.

Whereas brick and mortar businesses previously had to rely on marketing strategies like store displays and newspaper ads to bring in customers, local SEO has made them much easier to discover from a computer or a mobile device.

If you’re a business with a brick and mortar location, a major part of your SEO strategy will be local SEO. Whereas a broader SEO strategy will focus mainly on keywords within your industry, backlinks, and website optimisation, a local SEO strategy will focus more on:

Leveraging Google My Business to become visible to people in your area conducting searches that are relevant to your business and the products or services you provide.
Using relevant local keywords that will help you rank at the top of SERPs for queries that local customers might be searching for.
Designing and developing a website that is attractive, authoritative, and able to provide prospective customers with all the information they need to interact with your business, including location pages.
Working with local businesses or the community as a whole to help you receive more backlinks and improve your online visibility and overall brand awareness.
Ensuring that you continue to encourage customers to review your business so that future customers see what your business has to offer them.

Local SEO is a very different focus from general SEO, but it still incorporates very similar elements that will help you help you drive sales and generate awareness around your business.

If you run a physical business, make sure that you understand all of the aspects of a local SEO strategy and work with an agency that has search engine optimisation consulting experience for local SEO.

SEO For E-Commerce

The e-commerce industry has exploded in recent years, with statistics estimating that there are approximately 12 to 24 million stores operating globally in 2022. Given the immense competition as well as the repetition (speaking to the products being sold), e-commerce store owners need to do what they can to stand out and attract customers.

One strategy that may be heavily overlooked by e-commerce store owners is SEO for e-commerce websites. SEO for e-commerce stores functions the same way as other SEO strategies; you leverage relevant keywords and build copy and content around those keywords to boost organic traffic.

An SEO strategy for e-commerce websites will revolve around building a content creation strategy that informs readers and drives conversions as well as targeting product-specific keywords to incorporate in product listings and metadata that will drive new customers to some of the top-selling items.

As your store becomes more popular, you might also find yourself building a backlink profile from authoritative websites that have tested and enjoyed your store’s products, giving you a DA boost that will allow you to tackle broader keywords and improve your positioning on SERPs.

While paid ads and other marketing strategies will certainly play a role in your digital marketing campaign, making sure that you employ the right SEO strategies to save money and take advantage of free marketing can be extremely helpful. The good news? You can find plenty of support to get started in this guide!

Competitive Analysis

Trying to develop an SEO strategy or a comprehensive marketing strategy can be difficult without fully understanding your market and your competitors. Regardless of whether you’re an e-commerce website selling physical goods or a blogger looking to leave a mark on the world, you need to learn how to do conduct a competitive analysis.

As the name suggests, a competitive analysis will help you…

Identify the various strategies that your competitors are employing to succeed in their business endeavours (whether this refers to SEO or beyond) so that you can leverage these strategies yourself.
Discover weaknesses and gaps in the market so that you can develop a unique value proposition that helps you stand out from your competitors.
See where you might be able to enhance your products or services by reading through customer reviews on your competitors’ similar offerings.
Provide you with benchmarks that you can use to measure your business’ growth over time.
Market your business and the products or services you offer more effectively.

With a strong understanding of the market your business is operating in and how others have managed to find success, you can enhance your own business model and discover new marketing strategies that will take your business the extra mile.

SEO Process

Much like a business plan is the foundation of your business, an SEO strategy gives you all the tools and the roadmap that you need to get started on improving your rankings. Over time, you need to assess your progress and make changes where necessary. As SEO evolves, so too must your website.

To keep everything properly optimised on your website, you should:

Regularly review older content to identify and address any potential mistakes that are affecting your SERPs. SEO best practices will change along with search engine algorithms, but you may have overlooked simple things as well. Establish a regular schedule for checking in on these pieces that may not be performing as you expected.
Consider recycling old content as your domain authority (DA) grows. In some cases, you may have a better keyword you can rank for that will bring you more traffic. You can use that new keyword alongside the new SEO strategies you’ve discovered to create better content and boost your rankings.
Refresh content with more relevant information. In business, you learn more as your business continues to grow. Chances are that you can apply this knowledge to existing content to provide even more value for your readers.
Assess your current progress to see where you can improve outside of just on-page SEO. For example, if you’ve developed new relationships with high-authority organisations, you can leverage these to increase your backlinks and your DA. There’s always room for improvement!
Look for ways to streamline your current SEO strategies and operations. Whether this means looking for a new CRM or finding a content-based platform that helps you better store and execute content ideas, improving your operations can make it easier to get the results you’re looking for.
Constantly check your progress to see whether or not your efforts fall in line with your business goals. If you’re reaching your goals, how might you improve? If you’re falling behind, where do the problems lie and how can you address these in the future?

Growth can only be achieved when you’re focused on using your knowledge to achieve better results over time. Once you have a strong SEO strategy, you’ll need an SEO review process and schedule to make sure that you stay on track as you apply SEO best practices to your website.

Create A Strategy That Supports Your Business Goals

As a business owner, you now have a solid understanding of what an SEO strategy is, why it’s so important to your business, and what it looks like to implement an SEO strategy into your overall digital marketing strategy. However, there’s a major difference between knowing what it is and applying SEO best practices yourself.

If you want to ensure that you’re ranking at the top of SERPs and increasing your leads and conversions, you should reach out for help from an SEO agency in Sydney like Sydney Digital Marketing.

We here at Sydney Digital Marketing understand the importance of SEO and all of the components that go into a strong SEO strategy. With our SEO agency Sydney support, we can help you see each of the components above through to provide you with the results your business needs to thrive. Are you ready to take the next steps? If so, contact us at Sydney Digital Marketing today!