Waiting for returns on your SEO efforts can require a lot of patience. It can take weeks or months to identify if your strategy and execution is yielding the results that you anticipated, but you can take steps to ensure you see the results your business needs to stay competitive. Following these long term SEO guidelines will help position your business for ongoing future success.
Structure your strategy around your strongest assets
Be careful where you invest your time and money for SEO - you want a strategy that gives you the best possible chance for success by leaning into your strength to help your brand stand out. A robust SEO audit will show you any technical items that can help out right away, as well as the messaging that you should use for ongoing growth.
Start with an audit
If you haven’t done a full SEO audit in a while, this is a good time to start. When building a strategy for both immediate and long term growth, you want clear visibility into what you already have in place to know what you need to add. When we conduct an audit like this, we look at everything in this guide to find opportunities to maximize efficiency and ROI.
Set growth goals that won’t stress you out
Now that you’ve conducted your audit, use that knowledge to set marketing goals built around your proven areas of success, but take into account all the factors that may impact your results. What’s performing well that can benefit from added investment? Are there planned changes to your website that will impact your results? How will your competition respond to what’s happening in the market? Should you invest in SEO during an economic downturn? Considering the complete picture will help you develop a strategy built on reliable data, with checkpoints to ensure you stay on course.
Target the right KPIs
Hitting your goals is crucial to ensuring your business can grow, so identifying your target KPIs should never be a guessing game. We look at multiple factors when helping our clients determine their targets each year - you can find the basics in this guide to help inform your strategy and set the right goals for your business.
Be true to your brand
It’s tempting to start creating new content to match the topics and terms that your audience is using in search, but if those topics and terms don’t match up well with the value that your products or services offer, you could be hurting your website more than helping it. Know that your content may not pay off right away, but the long term benefits will help build a foundation of ongoing success.
Make your message count
Producing the right type of content that helps audiences understand and feel good about what you’re selling is always the right long term solution. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t jump on new opportunities when they arise - this article will help you understand the right balance, especially during an uncertain market.
Know the rules for success
Digital marketing in highly regulated industries like healthcare or financial services comes with added restrictions and extra layers of privacy that must be considered. Knowing how the ever-expanding search engine limitations apply to your website and your marketing campaigns will help your audiences find your message without worry.
Stay in compliance
If you are accustomed to adhering to industry regulations, you can apply those lessons and rules to developing a sound SEO plan. It can be as simple as making sure you follow all regulatory guidelines throughout all content creation. Here are a few more tips to help you stay visible while following compliance guidelines.
Align SEO with your customer acquisition strategy
The ultimate goal is to acquire the right type of customer, one that will benefit from the goods and services you offer and who will (hopefully) become an advocate for your business. A good marketing strategy should already have taken these goals into account, so make sure you are setting up your SEO targeting and strategy in a way that naturally fits into those existing customer acquisition plans.
Plan for the future
Now that you have the SEO-specific information you need, use your business’ marketing strategy to guide the development of your plan for growth. We’ve outlined our approach to this in a quick guide covering common SEO issues, content and keyword rankings, local SEO, and much more. There’s also an easy-to-use checklist that will help you determine how well your website meets search engine standards, and more importantly, caters to your target audience.
Get started today
You know where your SEO is strong, and what needs help. You’re setting attainable goals that will also help your business. Your content clearly and consistently conveys the value you offer your customers. You are compliant with industry and search engine regulations. You are targeting the right rate of growth for your marketing objectives. With these tools in hand, you should be able to create an SEO strategy that will help your business establish a strong voice in your market, and valuable connections with your customers. If you’d like to speak with our experts about how we can help with this process and much more, contact us today.
