SEO is one of the most important strategies for boosting your brand, no matter how large or small your company is. If you don’t have a dedicated SEO specialist on your team, however, you may not be able to allocate enough time to outdo your competition in search results. But don’t worry. We’re going to walk you through some of the most important strategies for beginning SEO. These are things you can do in just a few hours per month to give your pages a fighting chance.
Technical SEO
First, make sure you don’t have any technical issues that Google will dock you for. To find out what these issues might be, use the free Google Search Console tool, which will show you most of the biggest problem areas.
The items to tackle first are:
- Issues with 404 or 500 pages
- Duplicate Content
- Broken Links
- Bad or missing titles
- Areas where you have thin or no content
Once you’ve identified these issues, you can spend just an hour or two per month knocking them out. For smaller websites, you’ll be able to finish up within a few months; then you can shift your focus to better content creation, guided by keyword planning.
Keyword Planning
Even with a limited time budget you can still have a decent keyword action plan. Spend a few hours creating a spreadsheet with the most valuable keywords for your brand. You can use the Google Keyword tool, but the best keyword research will come from paid tools and services. For each keyword on your list of top 50-100, include:
- Your current rank
- Any SERP features that show up, such as videos or snippets
- The URL that targets the keyword
If you don’t yet have a URL for certain keywords yet, then make note of that in the spreadsheet so you can create it later.
SEO Content
With your spreadsheet filled out, you’ll be able to see where you’re performing well and areas that need attention. Now you can spend more of your time improving or writing content that fits the bill.
Before you hit publish on a fresh post, spend a few minutes ensuring all new content:
- Targets a keyword from your list
- Refers to 2-3 additional keywords related to your target
- Has the targeted keyword in the title and compelling meta description
- Delivers what searchers are looking for when typing in that keyword
- Discusses topics related to the keywords used
Boost It Up
If you’re on track with all that and have a few extra minutes to spare each week, add one of the following to your schedule:
- Reach out to a potential high-quality link source
- Update or improve content with a rank of 5-20 to launch it ahead of the competition
- Discover off-site content opportunities, such as guest blogging.
Want to improve your SEO even more? Consider teaming up with cThru Media. We offer a wide range of SEO packages to suit your needs, so contact us today to get started!
