What is an SEO Strategy and How to Create One

on SEO September 25th, 2022

Creating exceptional search engine optimization or SEO strategy is a great way to get more traffic and ensure that you’re publishing valuable content.

While it’s true that this type of marketing can produce rankings on search results, you’ll need to track down relevant keywords, work on improving your page speed, and follow other best practices that help improve your ranking.

A strong SEO strategy lays out the blueprint for success not only for this particular approach but for your entire digital marketing plan. With that said, finding the best way to boost your organic search rankings can be challenging.

Fannit has extensive experience creating and implementing SEO strategies for a wide range of companies. In this article, we’ll share the definition of an SEO strategy plan. We’ll also provide tips to create a strategy that allows you to bring more organic traffic from search engines to your site.

Search Engine Optimization StrategyWhat Is an SEO Strategy?

In simple terms, an organic marketing search engine optimization strategy is a detailed plan that contains all the steps you’ll take to achieve SEO success.

There are many parts that make up a successful SEO marketing strategy. The best way to ensure that all of them work in unison is to document your approach and any adjustments to make to it.

It’s important to note that no company is the same. So, you’ll need a fully tailored organic search marketing plan that takes your audience, goals, and keyword requirements into consideration.

How to Create an SEO Plan for Your Company

Now that we’ve covered the basic definition, let’s go over the tips on how to create an SEO strategy for your business.

Avoid using a cookie-cutter strategy for SEO because your audience won’t respond well to content and ideas that are not original.

Rather than fully following a keyword strategy template, make sure to consider your budget and requirements to create a tailored plan that allows you to reach the highest rankings in search engine results pages or SERPs.

With the above in mind, here’s a brief summary of the steps you need to follow to get better rankings on Google search. Take the time to evaluate and adapt each tip for your business.

1. Study Your Audience and Competitors

The first step is to understand your audience and your competition. This will help you gain a better understanding of the ecosystem that your company is a part of.

Start by analyzing your current customers and identifying the different target audiences you need to create content for. At the same time, start thinking about the type of keyword targeting strategy you’ll use.

Next, take a look at your biggest competitors to see what they are doing. This is an ongoing process that will continue up until the optimization process. Yet, it’s important to start early on to collect content ideas and understand your competition’s SEO efforts.

2. Set Your Goals

Your goals are unique to your business. In addition to choosing the SEO metrics that will define success, also choose set values for each objective.

For example, instead of simply mentioning more website traffic, choose a minimum number of visitors you’d like to generate through SEO. Do the same for all measurable areas of your SEO campaign, including costs, sales, and even inbound links.

3. Incorporate SEO Into the Rest of Your Digital Plan

Having an SEO strategy checklist is a great start. But, SEO is probably now the only strategy you have in place, so you need to ensure that every blog post, paid ad, and email works in unison with your search-optimized content.

4. Build a List of Keywords

Keyword research is an essential part of the SEO process and it has been since the very beginning. Nonetheless, choosing the right terms can be hard, especially if you don’t take search intent and other complex elements into consideration.

A few things to remember while building your keyword list:

  • Include both short and long-tail keywords
  • Use Google Analytics to track the number of keywords you actually start ranking for
  • Find new search queries using Google’s predictive search feature
  • Only use reliable platforms like AHREFS to choose keywords

5. Ensure that Content and Search Intent Are Aligned

Besides the target keywords, you also need to keep intent in mind while crafting your content. In most cases, the best way to ensure this is to create a separate step where you evaluate the proposed title for your blogs and web pages.

Then, you should look at the keywords being targeted and make sure that the search engine results that currently appear contain similar content to the one you plan on creating.

6. Follow Technical SEO Best Practices

Content is essential, but you also have to look at technical elements on your own site. This includes the meta-description, loading speed, internal linking, and other variables on each individual site.

This is called on-page SEO or on-page optimization, the practice of adjusting elements that are on your site, in other words, directly under your control.

7. Work On Off-Page Variables

Off-page SEO variables are factors that are not directly located on your site, yet still influence your organic search performance. This is especially important for businesses that rely on local SEO.

Some of the off-page variables you need to look at include social media networks, review sites, local directories, and even the target keyword that’s being used as an anchor in external links.

8. Craft Original, Valuable SEO Content and Create an Optimization Calendar

Now, to the content creation phase. Keep in mind that SEO and content marketing are compatible, so you should be able to create great articles and similar pieces that produce a great performance on both fronts.

There are several techniques you can choose from, for example the creation of clusters. In this approach, every cluster contains a pillar page as well as supporting, shorter articles.

The best strategy will depend on your company. Just make sure to keep SEO tips in mind when picking the main target keyword and other elements of each individual piece.

Keywords, Rankings, KPIs, Link Building, and Other Concepts You Need to Learn

Whether you manage ecommerce sites or platforms that require mobile SEO, there are many basic concepts you need to familiarize yourself with before building a great SEO content strategy. This includes:

  • Keywords – the terms you use on each page to appear in certain searches
  • Keyword Optimization – the practice of adjusting the keywords you use based on their performance
  • SEO Tool – any tool that allows you to perform research or another necessary action
  • Rankings – another term for the positions you achieve in relevant SERPs
  • KPIs – key performance indicators, or the metrics you use to track the success of your campaign
  • Internal Links – links going from one page on your site to another page on your site
  • Link Building – the practice of building a better backlink profile

Why Work with Fannit for Your SEO Plan Creation

At Fannit, we stay updated with the latest Google algorithm updates, work on building quality backlinks, and publish a new blog post at least once per month, if not more regularly. These are just some of the measures we take to ensure that our clients have relevant content, detailed meta tags, and a solid SEO strategy that provides results.

To find out more about our ability to find keywords that generate results, optimize existing content, and map out your customer journey, get in touch with us today.

Neil Eneix

My brother Keith and I started Fannit in 2010 and have been very fortunate to work with a wonderful family of clients, watching their businesses grow through the power of digital marketing. At the office, I work with our clients on developing out their business strategy as well as nurturing our relationships. It’s amazing how much influence and power SEO and good content can have over a business’ health. Connect with me on LinkedIn >