Module 1 – SEO Strategy
Most small business owners know that SEO is critical to their digital marketing success. They understand the value of improving organic search engine ranking for specific keyword phrases related to their products and services. They also know that optimizing pages with relevant keyword phrases that are popular, but not too competitive, will help them rank higher on Google, ideally getting high up on the first page.
But small business owners are also very busy.
SEO strategies often end up on a to-do list, neglected. Or it was something they did years ago, when their website first launched, and they haven't touched it since.
An SEO strategy contains 'nuts and bolts' SEO, but it should also touch on a content strategy, on-page SEO, link building, and page usability. Putting together all these elements, the primary objective of any SEO strategy is delivering value and relevance to searchers.
⦁ Lesson 1: Set SMART Goals for Your SEO
⦁ Lesson 2: Choose Metrics to Track
Lesson 1: Set SMART Goals for Your SEO
Before you can create an SEO strategy, you need to set some SMART goals – what you want SEO to achieve for your business. You will have a number of micro goals, but right now focus on some specific overall business goals that SEO will help you accomplish: The 'why' behind your SEO strategy.
Without clearly defined goals, you won't be able to measure your success. Setting SMART goals removes any guesswork or vague plans and keeps you accountable and on schedule.
Improving SEO helps you rank higher in Google during organic searches. The better your placement, the more likely that the people searching your keyword phrase will find you.
Think about why you want people to find you in the first place. Why do you want them to visit your landing page? Click that link? Navigate to that page?
What do you want SEO to achieve for you?
⦁ Generate sales of a product or service
⦁ Boost website traffic
⦁ Drive conversions through lead generation
These are a good start, but to be valuable, your SEO goals need to be SMART.
SMART is an acronym for:
S Specific
What exactly will you do? How? Who is responsible for completing it? Provide as much detail as possible.
M Measurable
Establish the metrics that will prove that you've achieve your goal.
A Achievable
Is your goal realistic?
R Relevant
Do your SEO goals line up with your long-term business goals?
T Time-Bound
When will you achieve your goal?
Revisiting the goals above, let's make them SMART.
⦁ Generate sales of a product or service
'Sell 200 units of x product by the end of the quarter'
⦁ Boost website traffic
'Increase web traffic to blog by 20% by the end of the year'
⦁ Drive conversions through lead generation
'Get 200 sign-ups for free 5-day challenge'
As you work your way through this course, you will continue to add SMART goals related to specific SEO tactics. But for now, focus on your overall business goals and how SEO will help you achieve them.
Key Takeaways:
⦁ An SEO strategy contains 'nuts and bolts' SEO, but it should also touch upon a content strategy, on-page SEO, link building, and page usability.
⦁ Before you create your SEO strategy, set SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound goals) that you want SEO to achieve for your business.
Action Steps:
⦁ Think about the 'whys' behind improving your website SEO – what do you hope it will accomplish? Write down SMART business goals for your SEO strategy.
⦁ Choose three of your 'whys' and create SMART goals. Think about how you can make each one more specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
Lesson 2: Choose Metrics to Track
You have created SEO SMART goals related to your overall business performance. Now it's time to put more thought into how you will measure your SEO success.
At a minimum, the key metrics that are always tracked in SEO are:
⦁ Organic traffic
⦁ Keyword ranking
Organic Traffic
When people type in a question, phrase, or string of words into a search engine, they get a list of results, including ads and pages related to their search.
Pages that come up in organic search results appear due to SEO efforts and because they are relevant to the search terms, not because of paid search engine marketing.
Organic search traffic is valuable and targeted. The searcher was looking for something very specific (product, solution to their problem, answer to their question) and your page (usually a blog post if the query is informational) provided the solution. People will spend time on that page, possibly opt-in to a related lead magnet (providing their email address in return), or navigate to other pages.
Organic traffic is the number of people who visit your site as a result of finding your webpage on a search engine result and clicking. Tracking organic traffic is a reliable way to measure the overall effectiveness of your SEO strategy.
You can use Google Analytics to track traffic sources. Using the 'Acquisition' panel, you can see the number of people who came from organic searches and what percentage of total visitors they represent. Compare these numbers to past months' numbers, pre-SEO strategy.
If you haven't already, set up a Google Analytics account and add the Analytics tag to your website. Google provides Analytics Help or get your web designer to take care of this. If you have a WordPress site, there are a number of Google Analytics plugins, including RankMath, MonsterInsights and ExactMetrics.
Keyword Ranking
As you work through your SEO strategy, you will be creating keyword phrases you want to rank for and them optimizing specific pages with these phrases. The phrases will be based on questions you think your audience will ask, specific products or services you offer, and more.
To see if your SEO strategy is making an impact, simply do a Google search on the terms you are trying to rank for and see if your search position has improved. Your goal is to get onto page 1, as close to the top as possible.
There are other metrics that you may find valuable based on the SMART goals you came up with in the previous lesson. For example, if your goal is to increase sales, track revenue from each optimized page.
Or, if your goal is to increase leads, track conversions. For example, you might choose to optimize a blog post and include an opt-in to a lead magnet (e.g., a checklist, eBook, or free webinar). You can then track how many sign-ups you received from that blog post.
As you dig deeper into the course, there will be more metrics you'll want to track as you learn about new strategies. But right now, keep it simple and focus on key metrics outlined in this lesson.
Key Takeaways:
⦁ The most used metrics to track SEO success are increases in organic traffic and keyword ranking.
⦁ Use Google Analytics to track traffic sources and numbers. Do a Google search to see if your keyword ranking has improved.
Action Steps:
⦁ If you haven't already, create a Google Analytics account and add the Analytics tag to your website. If you have a WordPress site, check out plugin options mentioned in this lesson.
⦁ Review your Google Analytics account, getting familiar with the most important panels like Acquisition. Make note of traffic sources and numbers to see where you currently stand, before you put your SEO strategy in place.
Go to Module 2
Most small business owners know that SEO is critical to their digital marketing success. They understand the value of improving organic search engine ranking for specific keyword phrases related to their products and services. They also know that optimizing pages with relevant keyword phrases that are popular, but not too competitive, will help them rank higher on Google, ideally getting high up on the first page.
But small business owners are also very busy.
SEO strategies often end up on a to-do list, neglected. Or it was something they did years ago, when their website first launched, and they haven't touched it since.
An SEO strategy contains 'nuts and bolts' SEO, but it should also touch on a content strategy, on-page SEO, link building, and page usability. Putting together all these elements, the primary objective of any SEO strategy is delivering value and relevance to searchers.
⦁ Lesson 1: Set SMART Goals for Your SEO
⦁ Lesson 2: Choose Metrics to Track
Lesson 1: Set SMART Goals for Your SEO
Before you can create an SEO strategy, you need to set some SMART goals – what you want SEO to achieve for your business. You will have a number of micro goals, but right now focus on some specific overall business goals that SEO will help you accomplish: The 'why' behind your SEO strategy.
Without clearly defined goals, you won't be able to measure your success. Setting SMART goals removes any guesswork or vague plans and keeps you accountable and on schedule.
Improving SEO helps you rank higher in Google during organic searches. The better your placement, the more likely that the people searching your keyword phrase will find you.
Think about why you want people to find you in the first place. Why do you want them to visit your landing page? Click that link? Navigate to that page?
What do you want SEO to achieve for you?
⦁ Generate sales of a product or service
⦁ Boost website traffic
⦁ Drive conversions through lead generation
These are a good start, but to be valuable, your SEO goals need to be SMART.
SMART is an acronym for:
S Specific
What exactly will you do? How? Who is responsible for completing it? Provide as much detail as possible.
M Measurable
Establish the metrics that will prove that you've achieve your goal.
A Achievable
Is your goal realistic?
R Relevant
Do your SEO goals line up with your long-term business goals?
T Time-Bound
When will you achieve your goal?
Revisiting the goals above, let's make them SMART.
⦁ Generate sales of a product or service
'Sell 200 units of x product by the end of the quarter'
⦁ Boost website traffic
'Increase web traffic to blog by 20% by the end of the year'
⦁ Drive conversions through lead generation
'Get 200 sign-ups for free 5-day challenge'
As you work your way through this course, you will continue to add SMART goals related to specific SEO tactics. But for now, focus on your overall business goals and how SEO will help you achieve them.
Key Takeaways:
⦁ An SEO strategy contains 'nuts and bolts' SEO, but it should also touch upon a content strategy, on-page SEO, link building, and page usability.
⦁ Before you create your SEO strategy, set SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound goals) that you want SEO to achieve for your business.
Action Steps:
⦁ Think about the 'whys' behind improving your website SEO – what do you hope it will accomplish? Write down SMART business goals for your SEO strategy.
⦁ Choose three of your 'whys' and create SMART goals. Think about how you can make each one more specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
Lesson 2: Choose Metrics to Track
You have created SEO SMART goals related to your overall business performance. Now it's time to put more thought into how you will measure your SEO success.
At a minimum, the key metrics that are always tracked in SEO are:
⦁ Organic traffic
⦁ Keyword ranking
Organic Traffic
When people type in a question, phrase, or string of words into a search engine, they get a list of results, including ads and pages related to their search.
Pages that come up in organic search results appear due to SEO efforts and because they are relevant to the search terms, not because of paid search engine marketing.
Organic search traffic is valuable and targeted. The searcher was looking for something very specific (product, solution to their problem, answer to their question) and your page (usually a blog post if the query is informational) provided the solution. People will spend time on that page, possibly opt-in to a related lead magnet (providing their email address in return), or navigate to other pages.
Organic traffic is the number of people who visit your site as a result of finding your webpage on a search engine result and clicking. Tracking organic traffic is a reliable way to measure the overall effectiveness of your SEO strategy.
You can use Google Analytics to track traffic sources. Using the 'Acquisition' panel, you can see the number of people who came from organic searches and what percentage of total visitors they represent. Compare these numbers to past months' numbers, pre-SEO strategy.
If you haven't already, set up a Google Analytics account and add the Analytics tag to your website. Google provides Analytics Help or get your web designer to take care of this. If you have a WordPress site, there are a number of Google Analytics plugins, including RankMath, MonsterInsights and ExactMetrics.
Keyword Ranking
As you work through your SEO strategy, you will be creating keyword phrases you want to rank for and them optimizing specific pages with these phrases. The phrases will be based on questions you think your audience will ask, specific products or services you offer, and more.
To see if your SEO strategy is making an impact, simply do a Google search on the terms you are trying to rank for and see if your search position has improved. Your goal is to get onto page 1, as close to the top as possible.
There are other metrics that you may find valuable based on the SMART goals you came up with in the previous lesson. For example, if your goal is to increase sales, track revenue from each optimized page.
Or, if your goal is to increase leads, track conversions. For example, you might choose to optimize a blog post and include an opt-in to a lead magnet (e.g., a checklist, eBook, or free webinar). You can then track how many sign-ups you received from that blog post.
As you dig deeper into the course, there will be more metrics you'll want to track as you learn about new strategies. But right now, keep it simple and focus on key metrics outlined in this lesson.
Key Takeaways:
⦁ The most used metrics to track SEO success are increases in organic traffic and keyword ranking.
⦁ Use Google Analytics to track traffic sources and numbers. Do a Google search to see if your keyword ranking has improved.
Action Steps:
⦁ If you haven't already, create a Google Analytics account and add the Analytics tag to your website. If you have a WordPress site, check out plugin options mentioned in this lesson.
⦁ Review your Google Analytics account, getting familiar with the most important panels like Acquisition. Make note of traffic sources and numbers to see where you currently stand, before you put your SEO strategy in place.
Go to Module 2
