How To Get Search Engine Optimization To Work For You

Search engine optimization (SEO) remains an extremely integral part of any digital marketing strategy – and it’s important to know not just how it works, but how you can make it work for your needs. This isn’t easy, though, especially you can’t “control” search engine companies. You can, however, try to make sure the kind of content you release out there, and the kind of impression you want your brand to make, are in line with good SEO. This seems difficult at first, but it can get easy once you get the hang of the process. After all, all good SEO really is lies at the bottom of the kind of habits your brand exhibits online. In this article are some of the ways we can show you just how you can pull this off.

Start Strong, And Continue The Momentum

When you plan a digital marketing strategy, especially with a huge focus on SEO, don’t just plan for the short term. Have a long-term goal in mind with your branding at the center, and form a series of smaller campaigns that slowly lead up to your long-term goal. This allows you to gather all the necessary resources you need for both a strong long-term push, and at the same time get yourself enough flexibility to explore short-term concepts. This might seem overwhelming at the start – but if you focus on a long-term goal and build smaller goals around that, you might be surprised that your SEO focus will be more centralized and focused.

• Make your branding clear wherever. When we say you should “make your branding clear,” we don’t just mean in your content. It should be a top-down process. You need to be clear with what you want your branding to achieve, what your website wants to do with your audience, and how you present it. Make sure your primary keywords – and especially your brand name – are present in major areas in your site and your other platforms. These can be in the website URL, your social media names, and other relevant areas.
• Know the competition. You’re not alone in your field, but you don’t have to “fight” with all your competition as well. Try to make sure you know just which of your competitions have good traction with their audiences, and check just what kind of content they release and other strategies they might be doing. Ask yourself what you’re lacking in terms of content, or what features they have that give them an edge over competition such as yourself.
• Planning your site always helps. It’s fun to just say you want to “make a website” and plan as far as the appearance. Don’t stop there, though. Assess what other components you need such as chatbots, mobile compatibility, and other features your audiences might find useful in the long run.

Local SEO Can Work For Targeted Audiences

When you have a specific demographic you want to tackle in terms of SEO, you can actually rely on translating your SEO strategies on a local level. Instead of banking on tactics that require work fitting for a large-scale application, try to make work simpler and more efficient by focusing on a specific location or a simpler kind of demographic. If you want to target young professionals in Hong Kong, you can get better viewership in Hong Kong with a local push.

• Get your keywords in order. When you’re sure with the kind of branding approach you want, make sure you study the right kinds of keywords you want. You likely know your industry’s jargon, but audiences that get to your website and pages might not. Try to assess what sorts of things your audiences might look for that can lead to your brand. This might seem “basic” to some, but finding the kinds of keywords that you can use in your pages to get traction can be difficult.
• Build your website for the target local audience. If you’re pushing to create a website for a particular demographic – like in our example, Hong Kong – then be sure to cater to their specific needs. Try to use the local language, use pictures and photos of local landmarks, and even feature their own demographic in the images.
• Go beyond the website – look into the audience themselves. Try to find out what your audiences actually like. This isn’t just in a way of having people answer a survey, but rather actually get to know them. Look into trending topics, popular websites and personalities, and look into just what makes the local area “tick.”

Spread Meaningful Content In Meaningful Media

It doesn’t just matter to have meaningful content, you’ve got to make sure to spread your content in the best media possible. When you’re more graphics-intensive, don’t rely on sharing your content in media not optimized for graphics. Pictures and photos can be presented best on Instagram, and professionally-geared content can be disseminated more efficiently in LinkedIn. Knowing precisely where to share content can give you the edge you need to make your SEO strategies work.

• Use  your keywords when it’s relevant. While it does help to “spread” your keywords as far and wide as possible, try to plot out which of your keywords are best used in particular media. For instance, you might find out that certain combinations of keywords trend in certain social media networks – use those keywords instead of pushing to get your own trending. Ride the wave of trending keywords when possible, and from there you can start to attempt to branch out into your own keywords.
• Build your network in social media. While you produce regular content, always remember that there are a ton of social media networks you can join to improve your traction with your audience. Understand the kind of people that view certain social media networks, and try to curate your content to attract these kinds of audiences back to your website and your own content.

Focus On Evaluating What Numbers Mean

Numbers are important in SEO, because they typically dictate how successful your campaigns and strategies are. You need tools to give you numbers of page views, interactions, and engagements to check if stuff in your marketing plans actually work or not. However, marketers often commit the fatal mistake of focusing on getting numbers but not what they imply. Remember, getting all your numbers is one thing, but knowing what they mean and why they matter are other things entirely. Don’t focus on getting numbers and data you won’t even get to use, because that might stray you from your actual goals.

• Learn how exactly your tools work. There are a lot of tools out there that can help you with your SEO needs. Ahrefs, Google Analytics, and SEMRush are just some you can use to gather and assess your data. Try to study your tools properly, and you can at least understand just what sorts of impact some of your statistics have over your performance.
• Use your numbers to your advantage. A lot of marketers tend to forget that not all numbers you see in statistics websites actually matter all the time. Granted, a lot of these data can be combined together to get you what you need, but you need to identify what you need first. Get your numbers in order, identify how these numbers affect your overall performance, and see how you can use these numbers can boost your performance.

SEO: You Can Make It Work For Your Needs

At first glance, SEO can be an extremely overwhelming thing to factor in your digital marketing strategies. After all, this is the very concept that can either make or break your entire digital marketing plans. Good SEO can make sure you thrive in a world with many companies, and many websites clamoring to get their voices heard. And if you have bad SEO, you’ll likely suffer in terms of attracting a digital audience. With the above in mind, you can hopefully get the right tools you need to have a better shot in penetrating the SEO scene, regardless if you’re going for an international or local approach. Remember, it takes different SEO strategies to tackle an international audience, and a different approach to tackle audiences in local areas such as Hong Kong. Understanding the difference, and applying the SEO techniques above, can make your SEO stand out – regardless if it’s SEO for businesses or not.