You Can’t Spell Awesome Without SEO

The digital space continues to be immensely competitive with a never-ending supply of new brands looking to make an impact online. In order to ensure success with your digital efforts, there are a lot of elements that go into an effective digital strategy.

One of those elements is SEO, the art of ranking at the top of Google search results. If you don’t already know; SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and much like its name suggests, it ensures that your website will show up when people search for a product or service that your brand would offer.

Here are some things to consider when building your SEO strategy:

• Compile your keywords.

Before you can start properly optimizing your website, you first need to compile a list of keywords related to your business. In order to do this first ask yourself – if you had to search for your business on Google, what words would you need to type in order to find it. These should be the keywords you should be using in your SEO strategy.

• Weave your keywords into your web copy.

Now that you are equipped with your keyword list of 5-10 keywords to start, you need to use this keyword in all the relevant areas of your website. The most important being any page titles, meta descriptions and within the first 100 words of each page found on the site. If you are unsure where to find these sections you can use an SEO plug-in/tool or speak with your web developer depending on how your website was built. 

The more you can implement appropriate keywords across your site, the more Google believes your site is relevant to anyone searching for those keywords. This ideally means your website will show up higher on the list over time.

• Content is still king.

Adding keywords to your web copy is an important part of SEO but the content you have on your site is found to be just as impactful in terms of letting Google know to rank your site higher. In addition to keywords, having content on your site in the form of images, graphics, videos, etc. that is related to your keywords should not be ignored. The more evidence you can provide Google that your website offers relevant information pertaining to your keywords, the higher your website will rank on Google.

• It’s a slow burn.

The most challenging part of a successful SEO strategy is that it is going to take time to have your website listed on the coveted first page of Google search results. Often times your efforts will take months to land your website on the first page and require ongoing optimizations to keep it there. The most important part of effective SEO is tracking month over month the progress you are making, and having a solid plan in the form of content and optimizing your digital strategy to keep you progressing forward. 

SEO is not something you can set up once and forget about. Other brands are constantly releasing new content across channels to keep building the strength of their brand online and in order to succeed you need to be doing the same.

Kevin Perkin, Digital Coordinator