SEO Strategies: Why is SEO Important and How to Rank Higher in 2023

Marketing Advice - Published on Updated on

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You have a visually compelling website. Great! But with nearly 2 billion websites on the internet, how do you make yours stand out from the crowd and be seen by search engines? 🤔

The answer is SEO.

If your website is not optimised for search engines (😉) you might as well be adrift in the vast online ocean with no hope of being seen by your target audience.

Rescue helicopters might be searching to find you but without a reflective vest, the search is likely to end unsuccessfully. 

Think of SEO as your website's reflective vest. Having it will make the difference between failure and success. 

SEO matters and we're going to show you why it is essential to your marketing strategy.

How search engines rank your content

Search engines crawl, index and rank. Google sends crawlers (bots) to crawl web pages. The bots crawl your site, index the pages and rank your content based on how relevant your content is to users. 

Upon discovering your content the bot decides on its relevance based on the keywords in the content, and the value of your content to users. If your content has quality backlinks, for instance, crawlers will recognise this as authoritative content and deem it important ranking it highly. 

So what is an SEO strategy? 

First, let’s break down the basics of SEO and define the critical elements of SEO.

  • Keywords 

  • Meta tags 

  • Content 

  • Backlinks 

  • Social media 

  • Technical SEO 

  • On-page SEO 

  • Off-page SEO 

MOZ founder Rand Fishkin uses the inspiration of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in order to create an SEO pyramid of needs.

Maslow’s theory of human needs is based on ascending order of needs. At the bottom are physiological needs – food, air, water, shelter, etc… – the basics we need to survive. But the theory works that you cannot achieve the needs at the top of the pyramid without ensuring those fundamental needs are met first.

Mozlow’s Hierarchy of SEO Needs works in the same way by suggesting an order of priority to different SEO activities and strategies.

How Moslow's SEO hierarchy of needs works 

The needs at the bottom must be satisfied first before needs higher up as follows:

1. Crawl accessibility. If bots can’t access your website then it’s game over. 

2. Create compelling content that will be relevant to the searcher. 

3. Ensure your content is keyword-optimised to make it visible to search engines. 

4. A fast load speed and positive UX journey will improve your ranking. 

5. Earned links will boost your authority. 

6. Optimise your meta title & meta description to increase the clickthrough rate. 

7. Use Schema Markup and Rich Snippets to improve SEO. 

Schema markup is also referred to as structured data.  Read more at Schema.org. This type of code helps search engines understand the content of your web pages. Adding schema markup to your website makes it easier for search engines to crawl. 

So to increase your awareness and get more traffic to your site you need to implement a solid SEO strategy and this involves implementing the following key elements. 

1. Keywords

Keyword research is a key focus of your SEO strategy. Knowing what your customers are searching for will push your content creation in the right direction. 

Understanding the keywords users search for will help your content convert. For our agency, customers would most likely search terms such as ‘headless’,  ‘B2B’, or even ‘SEO’ so we publish content that will resonate with those audiences. It’s important not to stuff your content with keywords or Google might penalise you. Simply use keywords you feel your customers will be searching for. 

  • Short-tail keyword –  also known as a head keyword, short-tail keywords are made up of three words or less and have a high search volume. For example ‘SEO strategy’ could be a short-tail keyword. 

  • Long-tail keywords –  these types of keywords consist of more than 3 words and have a lower search volume than short-tail keywords. To give an example: ‘SEO strategy for B2B’ would be a long-tail keyword. 

To find keywords there are a number of keyword research tools on the market. Popular tools are 

2. On-page SEO 

This is the process of optimising parts of your web pages so that they rank higher on search engines. Follow best practices for page headings, title tags and external links. 

Your page title should have an H1 Tag, and subsequent headings should have an H2 or H3 tag etc…. Crawlers use these headings to crawl the importance of content; H1 being the most important and so on. Meanwhile, external links from authoritative websites will enhance SEO and cultivate trust with your audience. 

Include primary keywords in your title tag and make sure to keep your title under 60 characters if possible. When writing title tags write a title that will answer a searcher’s question. 

Do a content audit. Update and refresh old content by implementing keywords to be more relevant to your target audience and be seen by search engines. 

Create new content using relevant keywords and don’t forget to add CTAs to improve the UX journey. Video is also an excellent tool to boost SEO. Short explainer videos are an effective way to improve your SEO and users retain 95% of a video message compared to content in text format. 

Topic clusters are groups of related content linked together to make it easier for searchers to find your content. 

A topic cluster is when you link multiple pieces of content that share a common theme/topic so that when a visitor is searching they will be able to seamlessly link from one web page to another enhancing their search experience. 

3. Backlinks

So what are backlinks? Websites that link back to a piece of high value are what constitute a backlink. It’s using external content to enhance your content with anchor text like we are doing here: Moz explains what a backlink is and why it is important. 

If you want to build a highly effective SEO strategy use the Skyscraper Technique. This is where you find high-tanking content with lots of backlinks and create a far better piece of content so that users will link to your piece of content over the original. 

How to use the Skyscraper Technique. 

  • Discover a piece of high-quality content with lots of backlinks. Ahrefs Site Explorer is a valuable tool to help source content of value.  

  • Write the same content but way better. Think of the visual elements you could add to make it more impactful and use more in-depth details that would better inform the user. 

  • For the Skyscraper Technique to work you need to reach out to those who have already linked to the original content. See who they are, source their email and explain why your content will add more value to theirs should they link to it instead. The general idea is, why wouldn’t you link to the better piece of content? 

4. Technical SEO 

Technical SEO involves a process of checking technical elements of your website to ensure search engine spiders can crawl and index your site more efficiently. 

Elements that affect site performance and SEO include: 

  • Duplicate content 

  • Broken links 

  • Slow loading pages 

  • Site vulnerability  

  • Unstructured data 

  • Out-of-date XML sitemap  

  • Your website is not mobile friendly 

Regular website maintenance will fix all these issues ensuring you have a technically strong fast performing website. You can also register your site with Google Search Console, a free tool from Google, where you can submit your website to their search engine for indexing and easily monitor site performance. 

SEO Strategies take time 

We’ve explored what makes a powerful SEO strategy and outlined the tools and techniques required to succeed but honestly, it takes time. Persistence is key to the success of your SEO strategy.

Continually work on implementing your keywords. Optimise your content for search engines. Improve the technical elements of your website. This will ensure it is technically strong and delivers an exceptional user experience. And work on getting those all-important backlinks to boost your website authority.

But above all, focus on creating content that is of high value to your audience and that is also optimised for search engines. The two go hand-in-glove and will drive quality traffic to your site. 😉