5 Easy Steps to Run a Great SEO Campaign (Like an Expert)

Business today is being done like never before, with the expansion into the digital world. Today it is simply unthinkable for a business to survive without a robust online presence to speak of. The reality is, companies today pay more attention to their online stores rather than their physical ones. It is common to see stores that have a substantial virtual presence and their physical counterparts no more than warehouses to store their goods.

Needless to day, businesses are now spending more money to market their products and services online. Among the most popular and effective digital marketing strategy is executing an SEO campaign. 

SEO is a long-term commitment and it is one of the most effective ways of driving traffic to any business website out there. Unlike before, SEO means so much more than just cramming keywords into your content. You have to know which of these keywords to include to get your website pages ranking in SERP. Adding the right keywords into the content ensures that the website is visible to people who are looking for the services and products that businesses sell. 

Here are 5 of the most manageable steps a business owner can take to boost their SEO campaign to success:

Get the answer to the who, the how, and the why of your campaign

Search Engine Optimization for most people is simply positioning a business website at the very top of SERP. However, doing that is not that simple. If you want your business to stand out, you have to have the right answers to these questions:

• Who – This answers the target audience for your SEO campaigns. Merely saying that your campaign is targeting gamers will not cut, because it is a broad and diverse category of potential customers. Narrow this down and be as specific as possible because this will serve as the very framework for your SEO campaign. A specifically targeted campaign from the start reduces the guesswork and the trial and errors, allowing you to focus on other more productive tasks for your business.
• How – This covers the execution and, in particular, how you are going to benchmark or measure your milestones. Quantifying your data means that you can easily adjust your campaign metrics by knowing what works or not. This question will also define the parameters you will be using to measure your success. Without this, you will not even know if you are already looking at the success or not, and that is just a lousy way to run any business.
• Why – It is quite easy to lull yourself into complacency when you focus on just the website traffic or the number of clicks and visits instead of the big picture. Answering this question solidifies your goal as a business for even engaging in SEO. From the answers, you will be able to steer your business into a firm and stable standpoint more accurately. You have to have very specific goals in mind, whether you want ranking, sales, or leads.

Keyword Research

When you have honestly answered the questions above, true keyword research can finally happen. You can either use an organic search of primary keywords or use online tools that can be very helpful in getting the right keywords suited to your campaign. The best approach would be to use both of these methods in your search. Organic research will provide community-level understanding while the use of tools will give you an in-depth and tactical data of the keyword engagement.

Content creation is key

How would Google know what keywords are associated with your business and how can you influence this giant to rank your pages? The answer is content creation. Content creation is putting the keywords into your content in a creative way. Before, the name of the game is spamming these keywords onto the body of the content. Now, the game has changed and advanced algorithms mean that Google can understand your content and it has the ability to vet different pages and websites to choose which page actually gives more value to the reader.

Keyword consistency, value to the reader (does your content satisfy their intent?), internal linking, and the use of images will help spice up your content. Keywords can now be well distributed not just on the body of the content but on the headers as well as the subheadings too. The addition of internal and external linking to and from authority pages also helps SEO rankings, especially when done appropriately. 

Perform audits

This involves your website, and this needs to be done before and during the campaign period. The ‘before’ phase will allow you to check whether your URL, Website structure, and your XML sitemap are optimized SEO. This will basically gauge the readiness and compatibility of your website to SEO metrics. Doing this before starting a campaign will save you a ton of headaches when executing your campaign.

Mark your milestones

Data analytics are indispensable to a successful SEO campaign, and consistency in checking will allow you to catch anything before they become disastrously wrong. Analyzing how the campaign is doing will give you a handle on how to steer things in the correct direction or whether you need to change directions completely. 

You can get this straight from Google Analytics or by using third party applications that specialize in these reports. It takes a long time to see the results, especially in an SEO campaign, which is precisely why you need accurate data to quantify the results. 

Based on the results you’re getting month per month, you would have enough data for you to make some changes to the campaign because you know exactly what works and what does not. 

Takeaway

Targeted SEO campaigns can deliver amazing results and the above list is the most effective way to execute your campaigns. Identification of your goals and target at the beginning can be crucial to the outcome of the whole campaign itself. Promote your content to reach a wider audience and make sure to monitor the results of your campaign consistently. Keeping track of the performance of your campaigns will allow you to make the necessary adjustments as needed to ensure success.