How to create an effective SEO strategy in 2022
If you’re just getting to grips with SEO or want improved visibility, creating an SEO marketing strategy is a good place to start.
Below, we’ve put together a guide to building your own SEO strategy for 2022 and where your priorities should lie.What is an SEO strategy?
SEO – or search engine optimisation – is all about making a variety of improvements to your website so more potentially interested visitors see it. In essence, an SEO strategy is a detailed plan of action to improve a website’s visibility and to generate more organic (free) traffic from relevant search engine users.This traffic is generally of a higher quality and, to an extent, prequalified. Getting in front of the right people at the right time leads to more brand awareness, impressions, clicks, and conversions without having to rely so heavily on paid marketing methods to drive visits.
Whether the goal is simply to increase organic traffic or to generate revenue as part of a wider business plan, creating an SEO strategy is crucial for success.What does an SEO strategy include?
What should be included in an SEO strategy? First, it’s important to start with the main goal. If you don’t know what your main goal is, you’ll need to create one or speak with your senior management team to clarify. You may set targets as part of reaching this ultimate goal. For example, a goal of increasing revenue by 20% in 12 months may include the following steps along the way:- Making the checkout process easier
- Making the website faster, more responsive, and simple to navigate
- Increasing organic traffic by 40%
- Increasing purchases originating from organic traffic by 50%
- Improving brand visibility with backlinks and referrals from other websites
- Increasing domain authority from 50 to 60
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
- On-page SEO
- Technical SEO
- Off-page SEO
Let’s look at creating your own SEO strategy with this framework in mind.
How do I create an SEO strategy for 2022?
To build an effective SEO strategy, you should start by benchmarking your current performance. This gives you a starting position ahead of making any changes. Then you can monitor the impact of your SEO strategy. Initial benchmarking should include site metrics as well as an in-depth technical audit of your website. The following critical user metrics should be benchmarked, tracked, and reported:- Bounce rate
- Average time on page
- Average pages per session
- New vs returning users
- Total users and sessions
- Domain authority
- Page load speed across devices
- Mobile-only bounce rates, user metrics, and bottlenecks
- Largest contentful paint (LCP)
- First input delay (FID)
- Cumulative layout shift (CLS)
- Define your target audience and create a buyer persona
- Use a mixture of your current business data and competitor insights to find keyword and long-tail keyword opportunities for content
- Understand the search intent of the audience based on keywords and phrases used. Categorise by top-of-funnel, mid-funnel and bottom-of-funnel activity
- Build and prioritise topics based on your insights and competitor data
- Create a content calendar using these topics
- Consider updating and refreshing previous content (with good page metrics) ahead of creating new content. It may take a while for changes to register and be indexed
- Work with technical SEO and off-page SEO teams to build plans for new content: Consider navigation, site structure, topic structure, and a backlink strategy
Monitoring and refining on an ongoing basis is critical for an effective SEO strategy. Make sure there is robust and accurate data tracking in place, and be proactive and flexible in your approach.