A website is your online storefront, your primary point of contact, and a source to generate online traffic and increase leads.
But, unlike physical property, its location isn’t permanent. Rather, you can move closer or further away from the internet’s main street—Google’s first search engine results page (SERP)—depending on the actions you take. Here, search engine optimization (SEO) is the primary factor that determines your spot in the ranking, and thus your online visibility.
So, how do you lay the foundations of an SEO strategy for a new website?
Today, we’ll review the crucial initial steps of website optimization.
Step 1: Set Up Google Search Console for Actionable Insights
Let’s assume that you already have a domain name that’s aligned with your company and brand name as well as a high-speed website hosting service. From there, you’ll want to set up Google’s Search Console Insights.
Once engaged, this analytics hub will start gathering troves of data that you can leverage to gauge the success of your SEO strategies. It provides access to a plethora of actionable metrics, including:
- Page performance
- Pageviews
- Clicks
- Average page view duration
- Top search queries (clicks and positions)
- Click-through rates
- Index errors
- Page speed issues
The ability to continually analyze your data and then adjust your strategies accordingly will ensure that your SEO efforts don’t stagnate.
Step 2: Research and Map Keywords
SEO is driven by keywords. They’re the fuel that makes the search engine run.
The goal of keyword research and mapping is to identify the most likely and relevant words consumers will use to search for your type of product or service. These keywords may also revolve around the relevant pain points that your brand solves.
For example, if you’re a skincare company that sells a collection of aloe-infused, anti-aging serums, you’ll want to focus on keywords like “aloe benefits” and “aloe vera gel” as well as “best anti-aging products” and “does aloe vera help with wrinkles.”
Once you’ve mapped out the top keywords, you can help your site rank for them by incorporating them throughout your website’s pages or structuring blog content around them.
The better your SEO efforts, the higher you’ll rank for those keywords on the Google SERP. That means better visibility and more clicks, seeing the top five websites on Google account for 70.4% of all clicks. In other words, the first organic result has an average click-through rate of 28.5%, and the next four are as follows:
- Second result – 15.7%
- Third result – 11%
- Fourth result – 8%
- Fifth result – 7.2%
Step 3: Produce an Array of Interesting Content
Your blog is the primary channel for all of your SEO efforts. But its uses go beyond just keywords. Each new post represents an opportunity to connect with your audience and establish your authority by providing helpful, relevant, and accurate answers to user queries.
Want to ensure that your content stays fresh and interesting? Diversify the content you create and produce an array of article types with assorted formats like:
- How-to guides
- Journalistic articles
- Listicles
- Checklists
- Infographics
- Interviews
- Ebooks
- Whitepapers
- Case studies
- Industry news and commentary
- Interviews
- Product reviews
Over time, Google will begin to index and then rank you for the keywords your content is structured around.
Step 4: Perform On-Page Optimization
After a web page or blog post has been built, it needs to be refined to better
communicate with the Google algorithm, which relies on myriad technical on-page and off-page factors to interpret a website’s content and then rank it for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
There are several aspects of on-page optimization you must address on each page, such as:
- Title tags
- Keywords
- Meta descriptions
- Headlines
- Header tags
- Alt-image text
- Internal and external link building
Making these little tweaks can help improve your rankings, traffic, and conversions.
SEO NJ Expertise
SEO remains one of the most effective customer acquisition strategies available, especially for budding startups. Done properly, it ensures that your target audience discovers your website in a relevant search.
And while the SEO strategies discussed today are important, they’re but the first salvo in a fully-fleshed SEO campaign strategy—the opening gambit. From there, to rank highly, you’ll need to also focus on more advanced methods, including technical SEO, voice search, strategic link building, local SEO, and more.
Need help with that?
Semgeeks can act as your digital marketing guide, devising a content and SEO strategy that appeals to both the search algorithm and your target audience.
If you want to create content that ranks, partner with Semgeeks.
Sources
Google Search Central. Learn how to improve your content with Search Console Insights. https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2021/06/search-console-insights
Search Engine Journal. Over 25% of People Click the First Google Search Result. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-first-page-clicks/374516/#close
