Semalt Advice On How To Launch A Successful SEO Campaign In 2022
Getting online customers requires more than a good website. To take maximum advantage of the internet, your website must not only exist but also be found by potential customers.
With a successful SEO campaign, your website can rank higher on Google. You attract more website visitors which will eventually generate more sales.
Would you like to know how to set up and launch a successful SEO campaign? Then read on, because, in this article, we explain the right strategy step by step.
What is an SEO campaign?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. With SEO, you can ensure that you are found better in search engines, such as Google.
An SEO campaign is a long-term project to improve the ranking of your website on Google. It is an initiative that you take to be found better by your target group, i.e. by potential customers.
SEO campaigns are part of the overarching SEO strategy. While an SEO strategy focuses on the bigger picture, an SEO campaign allows you to tackle one or a few pages.
The components of an SEO campaign are determining good keywords, writing good content and generating backlinks.
Benefits of an SEO campaign
Any business can benefit from SEO. It doesn't matter if you are a solo entrepreneur or do business internationally.
Better findability in Google ensures that you are found by potential customers and do not have to search for them yourself.
Other benefits of an SEO campaign include:
- A well-optimized website ensures a constant flow of visitors who are interested in your products or services.
- You can acquire more new customers with less effort.
- Higher chance of conversion if you are found through Google's organic search results.
- It contributes to the growth and development of your company.
The most important parts of an SEO campaign
To set up a good SEO campaign, you need to keep the three most important parts in mind. These are technology, content and link building.
- Technique. The technology forms the basis of your website. Improve your website with technical SEO, so that your website is fast, clear and responsive. This makes your website very user-friendly.
- Content. The content on your website is often the largest part. You can optimize content with on-page optimization so that it is found better in search engines like Google.
- Link building. Link building is the most important factor of off-page SEO. With link building, you gain backlinks. These are links that point to your website from another website.
Setting up an SEO campaign in 7 steps
Now that you know what an SEO campaign is and what it can bring to your business, it's time to set up a successful campaign following the 7 steps below.
Step 1: Perform an SEO analysis
Before you start a new campaign, it is wise to perform an analysis. You have a clear starting point and can gradually monitor what the campaign does for your website and your company.
Step 2: Optimize your website
To improve your organic findability, your current website must be in order. A good SEO campaign, therefore, focuses first on optimizing the technical side of your website, the structure and current content.
Technical optimizations
The technical side of your website is the foundation of SEO. Technical SEO focuses entirely on making your website accessible, both for visitors and crawlers.
A search engine uses crawlers to read all the content available on the Internet. The crawlers forward information to the database where it is compared with similar content. Your pages are then indexed for the most important search terms so that you can rank for them.
However, many more factors play a role in indexing and ranking content. The most important factor is the usability of your website. A user-friendly website is fast, well-arranged and easily accessible via a mobile phone.
So, make sure that your website is technically in order so that your content has some chance to rank.
To properly apply technical SEO, you need to know how search engines work. First, they crawl a page, index it and then they can rank this page.
Also, read our guide "Making a website mobile friendly - 8 points that can hurt your SEO ".
Structure
The structure of your website is important for accessibility. A well-constructed website is easy to navigate, both for visitors and crawlers.
Some points you can check to improve your site structure are:
- Do you only use internal links to articles that fall within the same category? By only linking internally to articles that fall within the same category, links are very relevant. Relevance is an important ranking factor.
- Are breadcrumbs implemented? Breadcrumbs clearly show users where they are on the website. They are also beneficial for navigation.
- Are there broken links on your website? Broken links are links that point to a page that no longer exists. Remove these links or replace them with working ones.
Optimize content
Finally, you can optimize the current content, but not all content needs to be fully optimized before you can continue with your SEO campaign. You can tackle this gradually. Especially when you already have a lot of content, this can be a time-consuming job.
Step 3: Do keyword research
Once you've defined the starting point of your SEO campaign and your site is optimized, you can get started with keyword research. Keywords are terms for which you want to be found. The best keywords have high search volume, but little competition.
It's best to find the right keywords with paid tools, such as the Dedicated SEO Dashboard. This paid tool gives you an overview of search volume, degree of competition, and search intent.
There are also some free SEO tools available that will give you insight into the search volume of new keywords.
It is usually best to look for long-tail keywords, which consist of several words. Not only is it often easier to rank for long-tail keywords, but they are also very specific. The search intent is clear, making it easier to write about the topic.
Once you have found some relevant and good long-tail keywords, you can discover more important keywords that will support the content and improve your authority.
Step 4: Publish valuable content
After conducting the keyword research, you can start writing content with the chosen keywords.
It is important that you first research the content that already ranks in Google. This way, you can find out the search intent and base your article on the information your target audience is looking for.
During the research, you can also determine what information is already available, but especially what information is still missing.
Writing good SEO texts mainly means that you fill in the gaps that competitors have left behind. Give the reader all the information they need to answer their questions about the keyword.
By providing the reader with complete information, they will stay longer on your website and will not go to another one for more information. These are two important ranking factors for Google.
Step 5: Get Backlinks
A backlink is a reference from another website or source to your website. When another website links to yours, it shows that your content is reliable and good.
Link building, or getting backlinks, is an important part of any SEO campaign and the most important part of off-page SEO. Backlinks are an important ranking factor on Google because they show that your website is reliable.
Link building is a slow and time-consuming process as you manually send the content to all sorts of external websites asking if they want to link to your article.
So initially focus on generating backlinks to articles for which you absolutely want to be found.
Also, pay attention to the number of backlinks that your competitors have. Sometimes it is not necessary to generate backlinks to rank for a keyword. Although it will always be beneficial if you do have backlinks.
By using SEO tools for finding good keywords, you can gain insight into the number of backlinks needed to rank for that keyword.
Step 6: Measure and further optimize the results
Simply publishing content and hoping it will rank is not the strategy for an effective SEO campaign. You need to measure the results and take action on them.
Google Analytics and Google Search Console are powerful tools to monitor your traffic or individual articles.
Keep in mind that SEO is a long-term strategy. Give a new website at least six months to start ranking. The longer your website exists and the more authority you have, the faster new articles can rank.
If you notice that an article is not ranking well, or is ranking lower than before, it is time to start optimizing. Millions of articles are posted every day and a new article can just appear about a keyword that you have already written about.
Find out what gaps you can fill to make the content better than your competitors. This way you ensure that it is possible to get to the top of Google and that you can also maintain that position once it has been reached.
Step 7: Expand content further
As soon as your content starts to rank, you know you are on the right track. You have understood the principles of SEO and applied the right strategies.
Now you can repeat steps 1-6 of your SEO campaign to create more content and rank for more articles.
By publishing more and more quality content, you show Google that you know your business. By generating more backlinks, you build your authority.
With a better authority score, you can try to write content for increasingly competitive keywords and rank for them.
The more content you publish, the greater the chance that you will rank for important search terms and the more visitors will end up on your website.
Then, the more website visitors you have, the more potential customers come into contact with your company and your products and services.
If you have your SEO in order, you can increase the number of conversions and thus acquire more and more customers via Google.
If you need to learn more about the subject of SEO and website promotion, we invite you to visit our Semalt blog.