Why and how to create a good SEO strategy for your website?

To understand the usefulness of  SEO and to create a good SEO strategy for a website, you must first understand how the internet works. It is a gigantic web of content linked together, a bit like the threads of a spider’s web. At the end of 2022, there are more than 1.8 billion sites worldwide. That makes it content!

In this article, we will explain why doing SEO  is so important and what are the essential methods to apply. We will then talk to you about a very good way to support your SEO over the long term:  the corporate blog.

How do users navigate through all this content?

Users are divided. Some want to be able to find their own site in the blink of an eye while others want to find the site that meets their request/need.

The only solution: search engines!

In 2022, five search engines dominate according to Net Applications:

Google , which remains the undisputed world leader with more than 88% of the desktop market share, followed by  Bing with 4.15% and  Yahoo with 3.55%. As for  Baidu and Yandex, the leaders in their respective markets (China and Russia) have not yet reached 1% market share. In Belgium and France, it is therefore particularly important to optimize your website specifically for Google.

As you read on, you will learn how to:

• How to do SEO?
• Optimizing your site for indexing in Google
• 5 essential tips to improve your SEO

How does a search engine work?

You regularly use a search engine, such as Google, Bing or Yahoo, to find information on the web. But do you really know how it works?

The search engine is a tool that allows you to find various items online (web pages, videos, images, etc.) using keywords.

It consists of robots that roam the web to find new addresses and new content that they then index in a database. It is this same database that is consulted by Internet users.

The objective of the search engine is therefore to offer the most relevant result to the queries it receives. In the case of Google, it ranks its searches in order of match thanks to a complex algorithm comprising more than 200 factors: Penguin.

The consequence of this hierarchy is the emergence of an endless battle for website managers. The goal? Obtain a good positioning on Google, Bing or Yahoo. Because if it appears there, it will attract many more visits.

How to appear on the first page of search engine results?

There are several ways for a website to appear on the first page of results. The most important are the methods of paid and organic SEO.

• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)  
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 

The latter is a set of techniques that aim to optimize the visibility of a website in the results of a search engine such as Google. We distinguish two categories of SEO:

• so-called ”   on-site   ” referencing, which includes factors inherent to the site: its structure, its performance, its content, the use of meta descriptions and keywords, the use of specific files (sitemap.xml, robot.txt ), regular content updates, etc.
• SEO says “   off site   ” which therefore includes factors external to the site such as presence on social networks, net linking (the number of links on other sites that refer to yours), etc. If these practices occur most of the time without your participation, they nevertheless improve your SEO.

Why use SEO in your business?

Here are a few reasons why using  SEO for your business is a smart choice.

SEO must occupy a key place in the online marketing strategy, especially if you do not have the necessary budget to invest in AdWords-type campaigns. Why? Because a  website that has worked on its SEO will appear among the first links on the results page of a search engine. This will generate not only more traffic, but above all optimized and targeted traffic, in other words, the presence on your site of Internet users interested in your services. Without a proper SEO strategy, your site won’t be crawled by search engines, you’ll rank poorly on the results page, and you’ll get fewer visitors to your pages.

All of this becomes even more important if you operate in a competitive industry. Internet users rarely read beyond the first 10 proposals or even the first 5. If optimizing your SEO requires an investment of time and money, it will quickly bring you independence and cost you less than acquisition channels like  Google AdWords, plus a better return on investment.

Also Read: Best Tips to Rank Your Brand New Website On Google

How to set up a relevant SEO strategy?

After having clarified the stakes of  SEO for a website, we can now analyze the practical aspect of the method. Putting together a relevant SEO strategy is not as simple as it seems. In general, it consists of 5 primordial points.

1. Choose your keywords well

A good SEO strategy starts with the targeted choice of keywords for the pages that are to be referenced. It is a long job that requires time and precision. You have to choose each keyword intelligently so that it hits the mark and brings Internet users to your site. Here are the questions to ask:

• What product/service should be highlighted on each page of the site?
• Which keyword to choose for each page?
• What keywords are encoded by Internet users to carry out their online searches?
• How much traffic will it drive to my site?
• Are the Internet users who introduce these keywords part of my target?
• What are the sources?

It is advisable to only offer one product/service per page to avoid ending up with too different keywords on the same page.

2. The content of the pages of your site

Google and other search engines analyze the text on your pages. This is a very important variable for your SEO because it tells robots what your page is about. The concern when writing your website is that you can forget that you don’t write content just for the Google robot that analyzes the pages, but also for the public.

You have to find the right balance to meet the requirements of SEO, but also the expectations of your target audience. You have to know how to be relevant, precise and complete and respond to the requests of Internet users. Keep in mind that the goal is to generate targeted, quality traffic  !

3. HTML code and technical rules

You may not know it, but search engines don’t read content on a site like a person. It is the HTML code that helps them read and analyze the pages. You must therefore  optimize several elements  such as:

• URLs
• The title tag
• The meta description tag
• The use of H1, H2 or H3 headings
• Redirects
• Internal linking (the creation of links from one page to another on your site)

However, it must be kept in mind that these elements must always be in accordance with the predefined keywords according to the point

4. Strategic links

Also called linking, the establishment of links concerns the popularity of your site. Search engines crawl all sites and judge your popularity by what they say about you. They take into account:

• The number of sites that talk about you. However, favor the quality of the links over their quantity.
• The popularity of sites that talk about you. Just like you, their popularity is also analyzed.
• Do the contents of the sites that link to yours have a subject in common with you? If so, that’s a positive. Otherwise, it will not improve your popularity.

5. The SEO update

Some time after the implementation of an action plan, an analysis and a report must be carried out in order to identify the actions that have worked and those that need to be reviewed. This is very important in the context of SEO because the Google, Bing, and Yahoo… algorithms are constantly evolving by integrating new criteria.

Your SEO strategy must therefore always be up to date and readjusted from time to time.

This  analysis  is done on two axes:

• The first axis is technical. We check that there are no omissions, errors in the HTML coding, that no tags are missing, that the redirecting pages are activated, etc. Generally, this readjustment is done only once.
• The second axis is more diffuse and must be revised throughout the existence of the website. The points to review are:
  • The positioning of the keywords you are working with.
  • Keywords that bring traffic.
  • The number of sites that talk about you and their quality.
  • The number of pages or URLs that are referenced. The goal is to ensure that your entire site is accessible.
  • The progression of your traffic thanks to SEO.

If this last axis can require time and investment, it is necessary in order to guarantee a good SEO.

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Develop your long-term SEO strategy with a business blog

The business blog is an essential part of your digital marketing strategy. It helps you improve your SEO by justifying the regular addition of optimized content to your site. It also allows you to demonstrate your know-how, get closer to your customers and attract new prospects. With this observation, it is more than urgent to have a blog, but where to start? Find out how to create it in 10 steps.

Clearly define your future blog

Creating a blog requires material and human resources. Before embarking on this project, you must ask yourself several questions about it such as:

• What goals do you want to achieve with it?
• Who are the people who will intervene in his writing?
• What resources are available to you?
• What is the budget necessary for its creation and maintenance?
• What will be your rate of publication? How many articles do you want to post per month?

These questions will help you get a clearer picture of your blog.

Choose the form of your business blog

When creating the blog, there are three options to start it: a blog on the site, isolated or with a different domain name.

• The blog directly on the site is a page of your classic site. It, therefore, has the URL “www.techiens.com/blog”, for example. This is the simplest solution because it can be launched easily, does not require additional design services and works even with little content.
• The isolated blog avoids adding content to your site. It is a sub-domain of your site which looks like “www.blog.monsite.com”, for example. This option requires a designer to recreate the universe of your business but you must also have items at the time of opening. Otherwise, your site will be empty.
• The last solution,  the blog with a different domain name, is an expensive solution because you have to buy the domain name and pay the host. Moreover, this solution will not improve the SEO of your current site.

There is no one solution better than the other, it depends on your goals and needs.

Develop a strategic plan for your blog

It is essential to set specific objectives and the performance indicators you want to achieve. These indicators will allow you to check if you are on the right path. By building your strategy, you must also define the periodicity knowing that an article takes about 3 hours to be written. It all depends on how much time you want to devote or have available for your blog. It is better to be regular in your publications. This will create an appointment with your audience if they know the day and time of their broadcast. This strategy will allow you to organize yourself but also to more easily integrate other people into your blog.

Conclusion

In summary, existing on search engines such as Google have become a key issue for companies. SEO is capable of bringing you a  major return on investment compared to paid advertising. As a benefit, you will generate an increase in visits to your site, sales and turnover.

Good SEO should guarantee you a place in the top five search engine results. If you respect the different stages of SEO, that is to say, the choice of strategic keywords, the writing of the relevant text, the use of HTML codes and tags, and the creation of links (linking ) to your site,  your site should benefit from a good positioning. However, remember that if robots are indexing you, your website must remain pleasant for users to read. One of the essential tools for SEO optimization is the corporate blog. An essential element of content marketing, it creates sharing, improves your visibility and your notoriety, and generates visits to your site. But be careful not to fall into its trap: it requires attention and time because it must be regularly updated. Using an agency specializing in SEO can ensure a very good return on investment.