Nowadays it is impossible to enter the market and survive in it without strategy. The competition is vast, and it does everything possible to be on top. The process of outranking your competitors starts with good strategy. On the internet there is almost everything, so it’s especially hard to differentiate and stand out form the crowd. In fact, most of competing websites are trying to develop strategy that would not allow you to outrank them, that´s why you need a better one. If you are willing to focus on your tactic development and evaluation mora than anybody else, then you have what it takes to dominate the market.
From this article you will learn how to conduct the absolute basics of SEO strategy development – the research.
How to conduct detailed SEO strategic research in 5 simple steps?
This is the most basic and important step that needs to be taken into account in every SEO strategy. Without careful research you cannot go further with developing your business plan. The research in fact would determine every factor you need to think of and how are you going to use it.
Let’s assume that you already have a website but need a strategy to position it better and get more traffic. You would need to research several factors:
- Keywords:
- related to your business
- popular among your target audience
- used by your competitors
- any new keywords in your sector
- gaining popularity
… and much more
This is really crucial as competition is very big and keywords are important factor considered by Google while positioning. You can research your keywords with tolls such us Semrush, RankIQ or Moz KeyWord Explorer for example.
- Competition:
- Have a look at your competition best positioned websites, analyze their keywords, content, design and more to draw conclusions and use them to your advantage
- Think carefully if there is anything your competition is lacking, use it to your advantage and become unique in your sector.
- Look at their website what is the most clickable and popular content in your sector, write about similar topic but do it better.
- Analyze strengths and weaknesses of your and competitor’s website
- Can you become main source of featured snippets in the sector?
Careful analysis of the competition is crucial if you want to outrank them. Keep in mind that it should be done constantly to not give others advantage. Even if you are on top, there are sites below you, they will monitor your website and seek for any weaknesses that can be used to their advantage.
- Target audience:
While developing a strategy, one cannot ignore importance of the market we are targeting. If you research your competition and keywords, but don´t know what your customers wants, you just won’t sell anything. In order to analyze customer behavior, we can use for example Google trends. We should research:
- Our Buyer Persona
- What our audience is looking for on the internet
- which keywords are they using
- what type of content they read and share
… and much more.
- Trends:
- are there any changes in the industry?
- is there any new opportunity in the market?
- what do people want?
- are there any google updates?
- any new laws?
- Do people tend to use web differently? (increase in voice search)
Research of trends is crucial if you want your strategy to be successful over time, the market should be constantly monitored for new opportunities and threats. If there is anything, we can take advantage of we should do it as soon as possible and outrank the competitors.
- Content:
Content is one of the most powerful tools used in web positioning. It can improve the process of link building, generate more traffic and improve our brand image. Thereby the internet is filled with quality and informative content. Some articles became references to almost everybody in the sector so it would be almost impossible to outrank them. That’s why we need to conduct research of content. To find opportunity. We should find out:
- What type of content people like to read? (length, style, data, etc)
- Are there any topics in the industry that don’t have big content competition?
- What keywords are most useful?
- What type of content get most references?
Development of SEO strategy
When every single one of these 5 steps is researched, we can form our strategy from this crucial data we have gathered. Depending on data we have gathered about our sector, we can develop personalized strategy that would perfectly fit our company’s objectives and current situation. Research is just the beginning but nowadays, you need to focus properly on every step of planning in order to stand a chance against competition, which is doing everything possible to have strategy better than yours.
