Are you looking to get more traffic to your website, but not sure how?

Search engines are the number one driver of traffic to content sites. If you can enhance their power, the benefits to your site will be huge. But how do you do that? 

The answer is in SEO strategy. 

If you’re not an SEO professional, don’t worry. In this article, we’ll give you everything you need to build an SEO strategy like a pro. Read on for all the best tips, tools and tricks.

Tips for Strategizing Like an SEO Professional

Know Your Target Audience

Before you can come up with an SEO strategy, you need to understand your target audience. The first step towards that is clearly defining who they are.

Get a clear idea of the demographic you’re aiming for in terms of age, gender, location. Then, research what their interests, wants and needs are. If you can’t get this information through secondary research, consider conducting some yourself, perhaps via surveys. When you have all of this information, you can craft content specifically geared toward this group.

Plan Your Keywords

In order to make sure your content is seen by as much of your target audience as possible, you need to use keywords.

If you use them correctly, your search engine rankings will rise, and people will be much more likely to click on your site. However, if you don’t plan them out right, they’ll be ineffective and a waste of time.

Before you write a post, brainstorm some keywords to include. These should be words or phrases that your target audience are likely to type into a search engine. 

Search those keywords and see what comes up. That will be your competition. If you scroll to the bottom of the page on Google, it will show you related search terms. It’s worth using some of those as keywords in your content. If your business is specific to one area, use some geo keywords, too. That will improve your local SEO.

You can use our keyword ranking tool to see how effective your keywords will be. Google Trends is a must, too. It’ll show you what the most popular topics are in your area, so you can capitalize on those to get some of that traffic. 

For the best search results, place your keywords in titles and headers as well as the main content. Ideally, it should be in the URL of the post, too.

The key to effective keywords is using just the right amount, so don’t pepper your content with them expecting it to work out. Google will detect that and will rank your page unfavorably. Besides, it will come off as insincere to the reader.

Use Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a great free tool that allows you to see how your content is performing and is essential for any SEO professional. 

It not only shows you how much traffic you’re receiving but where it’s coming from. You can also see what times of the day they’re visiting, so you can plan your social media posts and site activity around that.

Best of all, it’s absolutely free!

Map Your SEO Strategy Out

To work like a true SEO professional, you need to map everything out before putting it into action.

A visual representation of your strategy will lay it out clearly, and also show any holes you might have. A great way to do this is to create a mind map. In your mind map, include every aspect of your SEO strategy you can think of, as well as timelines to put it all in perspective. 

For efficiency, use a platform that allows you to share your mind map with multiple people who can view and edit it simultaneously.

Use the Right Links

It doesn’t matter if you have the best content in the world. If it’s not being linked to, people won’t be able to find it. 

You need to use a mixture of internal and external links to achieve the best results. For internal ones, find ways to link to your own posts within your site. When you create a new post, find an existing post that’s relevant and include a link to it. 

External links are trickier. To get these, other websites need to create links to your content. You can get these by reaching out to other sites and doing some link building. Once you do that, Google will start paying attention and will rank you higher as a result.

Your readers know the difference between sponsored links and organic ones, and they’re much more likely to click the latter. So, instead of paying for sponsored links and advertisements that might not even work, focus on creating good-quality content that people will genuinely recommend and link to.

Manage Your Social Media

Social media and SEO go hand in hand, and you can master SEO strategy without upping your social media game. 

Social media allows you to build followers and direct content to them easily. When they share your content, it creates external inbound links, therefore driving more traffic back to your site.

There are plenty of other ways to use social media to boost SEO, including creating locally-optimized posts and increasing awareness of your brand.

The most efficient way to manage your social media is to use a tool that allows you post to all channels at the same time. Creating separate posts for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the rest just take too much time. Use a service like Hootsuite to manage all your social media in one place.

Need More Help with Your SEO?

If you follow the tips laid out above, you’ll be well on your way to achieving SEO professional status. 

If you feel as though you still need some help with it all, we’re here for you. See our SEO resources and training for lots more information on the tools, providers, and strategies that you can use to boost the performance of your website.