4 Actionable Tips for SEO Performance

Have you noticed that your search traffic and user engagement numbers have tapered off a bit recently? Don’t panic — — SEO marketing performance issues happen to all of us from time to time. We’ve even been there ourselves!

It’s time to take action to get your SEO marketing back in top form and your KPIs (key performance indicators) going back in the right direction once again. Here are four action steps you can take to push your numbers back up.

SEO Tip #1: Keywords are a Must

The start of any online marketing effort should be keywords. The reason keywords are important is that they are how your potential customers will find your small business or foundation.

When trying to determine if you have the right words to focus your digital marketing efforts on, make sure you can say ‘yes’ to the following questions:

• Are the people searching for this keyword going to want to buy what you’re selling?
• Is there a clear way to convert traffic from this keyword into leads?
• Is there enough search volume to make targeting this keyword worthwhile from a business perspective?

If you’re trying to develop your keyword list on your own, it’s worth checking out the Google Keyword Planner. After you have pulled keywords from Google, take some time to check out what the competition is using. While you might not want to incorporate all of the same words your competition is using, you will most likely want to include a handful to stay competitive.

Now that you have established your keyword strategy, it’s time to put those keywords to work for you! Follow these best practice steps:

• Tag and optimize your strongest keywords in blog posts
• Use hashtags in social media that support your keyword strategy
• Ensure that each page of your website is targeting ‘one’ of your keywords

SEO Tip #2: Linking Building for Better SEO

Now that you know your keywords, it’s time to focus on link building. While link building is a bit of an art form, there is still a great deal a small business or start-up can handle for themselves.

Here are a few actionable steps you can take to creating a link building strategy:

• Fix all broken backlinks
• Build a backlink army from other websites your target audience hangs out at
• While ‘do follow’ links are always better, it’s okay to accept a few ‘no follow’ links while you’re building your SEO rankings
• Add internal links to pages within your website that support the page or blog content

SEO Tip #3: Make Content Work for You

Content is still The King when it comes to SEO rankings. While quality far outweighs quantity, you still have to put forth the effort to create new content on a consistent basis.

Ready to make The King work for you? Incorporate these elements into your content strategy:

• Repurpose old content that performed well — — take a super popular blog and turn it into an infographic or a video
• Incorporate your keyword into your catchy blog title and H2 and H3 section tags
• Make your content super easy to scroll and read
• Incorporate links to definitions or supporting reports within your blog posts
• If you’re using a website builder tool such as Wix or WordPress, take advantage of the platform’s SEO tools
• Tag all images you use on your website and in blog postings with your keywords
• Respond to blog comments and incorporate the appropriate keywords and hashtags in your responses
• Post content on a consistent schedule…believe it or not, frequency has a huge impact on developing a long-term, organic digital marketing strategy

SEO Tip #4: Outsource SEO Marketing

There is a lot that goes into creating a successful SEO strategy. While we gave you three tips that will surely help to get your SEO moving in the right direction, it takes a lot of dedicated effort to really outshine your competition.

If you’re a small business or start-up, research outsourcing options. A great SEO agency will offer a team of SEO experts who can work on your campaigns while you’re free to run your business.

Plus, when you hire the right agency, you’ll discover they’ll become part of your team and will do whatever it takes to get you the rankings your business needs to be successful!