Mastering an SEO campaign isn’t as easy as it sounds. Search engine optimization is a very broad category under digital marketing and thus deserves its own unique campaign. There are many components that go into building the right kind of campaign. But most importantly, all of these must work together to bring a harmonious change in your SEO ranking. Lucky for you, we’ve broken down a campaign into five simple steps. These steps are the basics of any SEO campaign. Nailing them means you’re equipped to create and launch more complex campaigns.
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What Is an SEO Campaign?
An SEO campaign is a well-thought-out plan to improve the SEO ranking of a website. It’s just one cog in the wheel that is your digital marketing strategy. Increasing your website’s ranking on SERPs is the goal of an SEO campaign. These are the search engine results pages consumers see when they type in anything on Google.
An SEO campaign is very important for businesses that have a website. After all, the higher they rank in the SERPs, the more people will come across their website. This increased visibility is critical for improving a business’ bottom line. As more people find your website, the chances of sales increase. And isn’t that what all businesses want?
A good SEO campaign has many elements, all of which work together to improve rankings. These would include keyword research, content optimization, link building, tracking metrics, and more. But how do you launch and run an SEO campaign? Read ahead!
How to Launch an SEO Campaign?
Step 1: Research Relevant Keywords
The first step in any SEO campaign is always keyword research. This is because keywords are the most important ranking factor for Google’s search engine algorithm. The algorithm takes keywords from the user’s query and matches them with relevant websites. It crawls through its indexed sites and finds those that are most relevant to the user’s query. Hence, websites must focus on keyword research to cater to the algorithm.
It’s important to understand that keyword research is a constant process. Since customer preferences are always changing, so are keywords. The process consists of analyzing what words and language people use when they search for content in your niche. When you know what keywords they’re going to use, you can target them more effectively. This ensures that Google will select your website when that keyword is entered in its search bar.
To find relevant keywords for your niche, you need a powerful SEO tool like Ahrefs. This tool has amazing features that not only find keywords for Google but also for YouTube, Bing, and Amazon. It will also provide you with keyword difficulty, which tells how hard it is to rank for a certain keyword.
Step 2: Publish Content
After keyword research, it’s time to use those keywords in your content. You need to create high-quality content that resonates with your target audience. The keywords you discovered in the previous step will serve as your guide in creating content that is appealing to your target audience. This content must cater to the algorithms once more. Every search engine algorithm has its own set of ranking factors. But some factors are common all over.
The first is value. Your content must provide valuable information to users. This means identifying problems and providing solutions. For example, if your product is a customer service SaaS tool, your content must talk about why businesses need such a tool. A favorable keyword might be “Best Customer Service Tool 2023.” Obviously, it would make sense to promote your own tool for such a keyword. But you must also provide valuable reasons why your product is the best one and what it can do for them.
Other factors include content length and type. Most search engines today focus on lengthy content because it gives a more in-depth answer to queries. The ideal length for SEO-optimized content is about 2,500 words. Moreover, what kind of content are you publishing? Recently, there has been a lot of focus on visual content. These include images, infographics, videos, and more. These are easy to understand and consume for viewers. As a result, algorithms favor them as well.
Step 3: On-page SEO
You now have high-quality content on your website. But how do you tell this to Google? You do this by giving Google certain signals. This is your on-page SEO. This is a type of SEO strategy that involves optimizing your website to rank better on SERPs and gain organic traffic. Every element on your website must shout to Google that you are the website and that they should choose you.
On-page SEO has numerous techniques you can employ. It can be difficult to know where to start. But there are certain basic things you can do to get started. The first is your URL. Your URL must be short and rich with keywords. Do not add fluff or arbitrary words. It’s best to have your keyword in the URL only. The second is using your keyword in the first 150 words of your content. Essentially, Google crawls through websites in order. As a result, it will read your HTML line by line. If it identifies your keyword at the start, it’ll know your content is important.
Title tags are an important part of on-page SEO that you should focus on. This is an HTML code tag that gives your website a title. Your title tag must contain your keyword, preferably at the very beginning. This is important to show the algorithm that your website is relevant to search queries. Lastly, optimize your visuals. Any images you use must be optimized for SEO factors. Use the right format and size so it loads faster. Also, make sure they are mobile friendly.
Step 4: Build Backlinks
Links are one factor that can make or break your SEO campaign. The reason being that links are a critical part of Google’s search engine algorithm. The signaling factor here is credibility. Google will always favor sites that seem credible and provide authentic information. If a well-established website such as Forbes or Yahoo links to you in their content, Google will know that you are a credible site. And it’s safe to give you a higher ranking.
So how do you get sites such as Forbes to give you a backlink? You simply reach out to them with an email. Email outreach is the primary method to build backlinks. If you have high-quality content, other websites will want to share it with their followers. Create an engaging email that shows the purpose and worth of your content and reach out to major publishers. Ensure that your email doesn’t sound too spammy. Give it an interesting subject line and let your content do the rest. If publishers like your content, they will link to it.
Another excellent backlink technique is reverse engineering. In this method, you work your way through your competitor’s backlink profile. And identify websites and blogs you can leverage. An SEO tool like Ahrefs can help you figure out your competitors’ inbound links. Study their published content and language so you can pitch to those websites. Alternatively, you can also find out where your competitors are lacking and try to steal the link with superior content. The advantage of reverse engineering is that you can get inbound links from very relevant websites and one-up your competitors simultaneously.
Step 5: Track Results
The last step in your SEO campaign is to track its performance. As it goes with any strategy, you must keep a close eye on the results. Tracking results in real-time ensures that you can identify problems early on and make adjustments. The closer you watch your campaign, the more weaknesses and gaps you can identify. And the faster you can optimize the campaign for better performance,
The simplest way to check how your campaign is performing is to enter your keyword into Google. Then locate your website in the SERPs. Ideally, you want your website to appear on the first page. But that is easier said than done. You’re competing with hundreds of websites online, so it gets challenging to get a high ranking.
To get a more detailed understanding of your campaign’s performance, you can use analytics tools. Google offers two tools for exactly this. You can also choose any other tool, but Google’s own tools have a significant advantage. The benefit here is that these tools take in data directly from Google. So its results are much more accurate and paint a much better picture of your campaign. These tools are Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
Google Analytics gives you an overview of your organic traffic. These are the people who reached your website by searching a keyword on Google and clicked on your website in the SERPs. If your campaign is working well, your organic traffic should increase over time. If it isn’t, you’re doing something wrong and need to make adjustments. Google Search Console takes this one step further. It will also tell you what keyword users entered to reach your website and which of your webpages get the most clicks.
Best Tools For SEO Campaign
SEO isn’t an easy campaign to run. But with the help of a few tools, you can master the art of optimizing your website. You’ll find a variety of tools on the market. Each offers a unique set of features for a variety of prices. But how do you decide which one to choose? Don’t worry, we’ve compiled a list of the best SEO tools for your campaign.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is the most popular SEO tool right now. It’s an all-encompassing piece of software that has a multitude of features. With Ahrefs, you won’t need any supplementary tools because it just doesn’t lack anything. This tool has a very useful feature called Site Audit. It works like a website crawler that isn’t in any way inferior to Google. Site Audit goes through your website and highlights areas where you can make improvements. These suggestions are all based on how to make your website rank better.
Other notable features include Keywords Explorer, Backlink Checker, Batch Analysis, and more. The only con of this tool is that it’s a little pricey. Subscription plans start at $100 and go all the way up to $1,000. If you make full use of its handy features, Ahrefs is worth it.
SEMRush
Another excellent tool that offers a ton of features is SEMRush. Essentially, it’s a marketing and SEO tool, which is why it has more features than other SEO tools. On top of website analysis, SEMRush also offers competitor comparisons. Domain vs. Domain Analysis is a useful feature that compares your website with those of your competitors. This comparison is important to draw for companies that keep a close eye on the market and what others are doing. SEMRush’s best quality lies in its analytics capabilities. It provides in-depth insights into your site’s current SEO ranking. It then provides actionable steps you can take to improve your ranking. SEMRush has a very interactive dashboard that summarizes all the analytical information on one page. This makes navigation very easy. SEMRush is very user-friendly making it a great tool for SEO beginners. Unlike Ahrefs, SEMRush offers a free trial. And prices start from $120 to $450.
Answer The Public
Moving on to tools for specific functions, we have Answer The Public for you. This is a keyword research tool that will work wonders for your SEO game. All you have to do is enter your niche or a topic you think is relevant. Answer The Public will provide you with many different types of keywords. This would include short and long-tail keywords, related terms, and questions that are frequently searched. The results are comprehensive and give you a wide range of keywords to base your content on.
You might be thinking that other tools can do this too, so what’s different? Well, Answer The Public provides you with search volume and cost-per-click data for each keyword suggestion. Other tools that offer this important data only do so after you’ve paid for their subscription. Answer The Public gives all this data for free. But it also has a paid version that goes into even more depth. Pricing for Answer The Public ranges between $9 and $199.
Linkody
Last but not least, you need a tool for building your backlink profile. The world of backlinks has what we call the “Big Three” tools. These are Ahrefs, Moz, and Majestic. But these are highly technical tools that can cost a lot. Small businesses and brands just starting out in SEO can’t afford them. Hence, we recommend Linkody. It is a comprehensive link-building tool with many useful features. Linkody will give you an in-depth analysis of your current backlink profile. This would include numerous metrics like DA, Spam Score, Moz Rank, and Trust Flow, among others. Linkody also has a Top Pages feature that compiles a list of the best ranking websites and their links. This is a great feature for reverse engineering your competitors. Most of its useful features are available for free. But you can add more domains and users to your account by paying a small fee of $15 a month. Pricing plans can go up to $150.
Ready To Launch Your SEO Campaign?
SEO is an important part of a company’s marketing strategy. If you’re a business that has a website, you must invest in optimizing your site for Google’s search algorithm. It’ll give you a higher ranking and more visibility. Thus, more people will see your site, interact with it, and eventually buy from you. Invest in the right keywords, create interesting content, and track how your website performs. For this, you’ll need a set of tools in your arsenal, and we’ve provided you with the best ones for the job.
Have you launched an SEO campaign recently? Talk to us in the comments!
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