Do you want to increase visitors to your site organically? Of course you do, everyone does. But as your trusted marketing consultants know, there is much more to search engine optimization than just “getting found”. Getting found is just the first step in SEO, creating relevant content and building a logical path are steps two and three.
Step 1: Getting Found
As we’ve said before, if you build a website, they won’t come. At least not at first. You can have the most beautiful website with the best user interface but it doesn’t mean anything if no one is seeing it. This is the “getting found” part of SEO. Start by doing some keyword research. Determine what long tail keywords you can feasibly rank for and if these keywords and the content created around them will appeal to your buyer personas.
Long tail keywords are longer, more specific keywords. They are typically less common which is why they tend to be easier to rank for and account for a majority of search traffic.
Ideally, you should be choosing long tail keywords that are:
- Relevant to your buyer persona
- Have a high number of monthly searches
- Have a low difficult score (below 60 is usually good)
Once you choose your targeted keywords, you have to optimize your content for these long tail keywords in order for your content to be relevant to your audience. If you continue to create fresh, helpful and relevant content, Google will index your site pages more frequently and give your site a higher ranking organically. Don’t get scared, your marketing consultants can help you determine the best strategy for choosing keywords and creating/optimizing content for keywords.
Step 2: Relevant Content
Creating relevant content actually goes hand in hand with Step 1 but we have separated it out as its own step because it is a continued effort. Search engine optimization and inbound marketing don’t stop once the visitor finds your site. It’s not enough to just put a keyword in your page title and meta descriptions. You also need to optimize your content. How do you optimize your content for keywords? By using that keyword logically and naturally throughout the page to ensure that the content on that page is relevant to your visitors. If you don’t, you may be attracting visitors to your site but they may not be the right kind of visitors. Your website traffic may increase but your bounce rate will probably increase right alongside.
Step 3: Creating a Path
The final step to search engine optimization is ensuring that once visitors have found your site through relevant, keyword optimized content they also have a logical conversion path to follow. Driving the right visitors to your site is great but you also want a lead nurturing and conversion strategy that will turn those visitors into a qualified lead. The relevant content optimized for keywords has gotten them to your site and interested in you. Now, you, or your marketing consultants, need to create offers, calls to action, landing pages and workflows to nurture your leads through the sales funnel. Make sure to continue to use those long tail keywords in your inbound assets (i.e. landing pages, calls to action, emails, workflows, etc.). Creating a logical path for your visitors to follow can make the difference between a visitor and a qualified lead.
