Expanding SEO Strategies
Adwords are a vital aspect of a successful digital advertising strategy but they aren’t the only way forward. As you would have seen, last week we spoke about the importance of using Adwords in your campaign. This week, we will discuss alternative ways to expanding SEO strategies through the use of efficient and affordable techniques.
What other plans of action can your business implement to work on expanding SEO strategies? Glad you asked! Below are five of our top suggestions.
Number 1: Ensure Headlines Are SEO Rich
Despite the old adage of not judging a book by its cover, the disappointing truth is that many people will choose to read or ignore your ads – or content headlines – based on the title alone. You want to make sure your headlines not only include your keywords but also draw in your readers.
If you struggle with writing headlines for blog content titles, try using a free online tool such as ‘Headline Analyzer.’ This will give you great feedback on how your headline rates for ‘power’ and ‘emotional’ words, as well as structure and grammar.
Number 2: Implement Creative Content Marketing
It’s been said that content marketing and SEO work hand in hand, and it’s definitely an accurate sentiment. The simple reason for this is that the better quality your content, the more links and shares you will attract – thus increasing your SEO ranking. On top of this, it’s also crucial that your content is properly optimised for both mobile and desktop.
One way to really boost your content marketing – and therefore your SEO – is to create a story around your product. Despite what you might think, storytelling isn’t just for kids! Just take a look at some of the most successful and engaging advertisements around. One that comes to mind is that of ‘Mortein,’ who have proven that just because your service isn’t as exciting as others (in their case- bug spray), doesn’t mean you can’t create engaging content. Over the years they’ve become well known for their ‘Louie The Fly’ campaigns, an instantly recognisable character who you instantly associate with their brand. With this clever marketing, Mortein has created an SEO rich campaign which combines engaging video content, with well-known characters and slogans that are more likely to stick in customers minds when they are searching online.
It also helps to find ways to make people ‘want’ to invest in your brand, by making them feel included. One Australian company that does this particularly well, is Gold Coast based clothing brand ‘Gretty Rose The Label.’ Started only a few years ago, Founder Gretty Rose once struggled to sell her designs and was scraping by as a young single mum. Everything changed when she took to Instagram and decided to do something unique. Instead of spending on marketing, she encouraged customers to share selfies online in their new gear, with specific hashtags created for each piece. Each week, they would choose a selection of their favourite submissions and share them online. This soon grew into a phenomenon, as customers uploaded their best selfies in the hopes of being republished to an audience of well over 100,000 fans.
This was a clever move, because not only did it save her a lot of money in marketing, but it also created a loyal following and increased her brand visibility on both social media and online. This was specifically through branded hashtags and thousands of comments/likes on each photo.
Number 3: Avoid Black Hat SEO At All Costs
By now, most marketers are aware that Black Hat SEO isn’t a good thing, and yet still, every year Google takes action against thousands – if not millions – of people following this dodgy practice. When you’re desperate to increase your search engine rankings it can seem tempting, but all you’ll achieve are heavy penalties from Google that can last for years!
Black Hat SEO includes practices such as keyword stuffing, paid links, link farms, ‘scraping’ (where you steal content or data from a competitor’s website to repost on your own), invisible/hidden text (making the background and font text the same colour, in order to hide extra or irrelevant keywords), doorway pages, and many others. All of these are big red flags to stay away from and can result in your website ranking being dropped to zero, seeing your business fail to rank for its own name and even thousands of lost traffic.
Alternatively, you should be aiming to increase your SEO and rankings through legitimate optimisation strategies, tactics and techniques that focus on real human engagement. This is something that SponsoredLinX can assist you with.
Number 4: Ensure Your Website is User-Friendly!
When you’re looking to convert a customer, it is very important for you to ensure your website is user-friendly. Every week we work with hundreds of customers, and it’s interesting how many neglect the visual appeal of their sites. For example, having an informative website is great – but if a user jumps on and sees row upon row of tiny text, they’re unlikely to stay. To get your customers to convert, you need to make sure your website is not only user-friendly but visually appealing and informative.
To encourage faster conversions, I recommend you include images and videos at the top of your blog pages. This will ensure that potential customers understand your product or service, without having to read through lengthy blogs. The truth is, many people are just too busy to do so these days!
Number 5: Keep Up To Speed With Google Updates
Although Google doesn’t often release updates regularly, when they do they can have either a significant, or minimal, impact on your SEO rankings. If you do notice a sudden drop, I recommend having a look through blogs such as MOZ or Search Engine Land, just in case there is mention of an algorithm update or speculation of one. If you don’t find anything, you can then use Google Search Console to see if you have received a penalty or manual action by Google – along with advice on how to fix this.
While there’s nothing big on the horizon just yet, there has been talk that Google Places MIGHT become part of the paid clicks. Google Places is what you see in the maps section of a search for relevant search terms. Currently, there is no set algorithm to choose which maps listings or Google places rank where, and it only allows for 3 listings.
So, with all of this information, the most important next step is to ensure you’re working alongside the right SEO specialist. According to Google themselves, the top way to do so is to choose a specialist who:
- Will recommends best practices for a search friendly site (such as basic page titles or language markups).
- Ensures you’re serving a good SEO service, and that your site is helpful no matter whether it’s being viewed on mobile or desktop
- You feel you can work with, who cares about your business and educating their clients about SEO.
- Has great references and case studies online that you can view.
Bear in mind that even with a good SEO specialist onboard, it will take around 4 – 12 months for them to help you implement improvements, and then begin seeing the benefits, however, it’s an investment that’s definitely worthwhile!
By following these simple tips on investing in an SEO specialist, along with our top tips for keywords and SEO strategies, you’ll be sure to see a difference in the success of your SEO. If you’re curious about how to start implementing these strategies into your business but aren’t sure confident with running them yourself, SponsoredLinX can easily set your business on the right path! We have several dedicated SEO experts who would love to help you with boosting your rankings for the year ahead.
Get in touch with SponsoredLinX today on 1300 859 600 to discuss expanding SEO strategies suitable to your business today!