Over the past year, Google has pushed out an astounding number of updates. From the Link Spam Update to the Page Experience Update, Google’s on a mission to weed out black hat SEO tactics and improve the SERPs by emphasizing quality content, optimal page speeds, and mobile SEO. What does this mean in terms of your SEO strategy in 2023? Stick to best practices and ensure your SEO foundation remains strong.

If you’re planning to prioritize increasing your site’s search visibility, we’ve put together a plan that will get you through 2023 and have your site sailing through the SERPs for time to come:

2023: Quarter 1

Begin the year with a focus on gaining a clear understanding of where your metrics are at now and where you want to go.

1. Know Your Numbers & Set Goals

When it comes to planning out your SEO strategy for the year, spending time with your metrics is vital. What metrics should you be mindful of going into 2023? 

A great place to start studying your SEO metrics is with your

• Overall organic traffic: the number of people that land on your website via a search engine
• Organic click-through-rate (CTR): the number of times searchers click on links to your page in the SERPs divided by your impressions.
• Keyword rankings: Where your pages appear in the SERPs for keywords you rank for 

Once you feel comfortable with where these numbers are, you will want to examine your domain rating (DR) and page speed analytics.

What SEO Goals Should You Set for 2023?

Not all websites have the same SEO needs. We recommend you aim for a robust and well-rounded balance between all pillars of good SEO for the best results. 

However, if you’re looking for specific numbers to achieve in 2023, consider:

• Increasing your organic traffic by a set percentage: examine last year’s MoM growth and increase the percentage by 5%-10% MoM this year.
• Setting a goal for your Total Keywords or Keyword Positions.
• Increasing your DR and earning high marks in PageSpeed Insights. This is always a great way to boost your rankings, too.

2. Keep Your Competitors’ Metrics in Mind

Ultimately, you want to have a higher DR than your competitors. But knowing where to aim is part of the battle. Use the Bulk DA Checker to compare your domain authority or DR to your competitors’. 

While you’re looking into your competitors’ sites, take note of what keywords they rank for and if they have any keyword gaps.

3. Create a SERP-Winning Blog Content Calendar

Google continues to strive to uphold its core values in order to provide the best results for its users. In regards to your content, this means providing thorough, long-form blogs that demonstrate quality information and increase your site’s topical breadth and relevance.

To establish your content calendar for 2023:

1. Set up pillar topics that relate to your site.
2. Then use the Keyword Researcher to find long-tail keywords that you can potentially rank for. Keep in mind that quality matters when deciding how many blogs to produce each month. Don’t bite off more than you handle.
3. Use the SEO Content Assistant tool to ensure you maximize your blog’s ranking potential with the right keywords, length, and other quality indicators.

4. Audit Your Site Speed

As we saw in 2022, Google will continue to reward sites with fast loading times, stable pages, and responsive design. We anticipate these signals will continue to play a major role in how Google ranks its results. However, it’s important to keep in mind that these also benefit your users, reduce your bounce rate, and can increase your conversion rates.

So, perform a site speed audit and use that information to make a plan to tackle any issues that arise. First, identify your slowest pages. Then focus your efforts on optimizing images and elements above the fold. Finally, work your way through any other content shift issues and loading delays.

2023: Quarter 2

Build on your SEO fundamentals and diversify your approach as the year progresses.

5. Stay Active on Social Media

Voice Search continues to trend upward. What does that have to do with your social media profiles? While Google has never formally released how heavily social media weighs into their PageRank (if at all), Bing factors social signals into their rankings. And the majority of voice searches are performed on Alexa smart speakers… And Alexa uses Bing’s search results. This means that optimizing slightly more for Bing can give your site a bump in traffic.

6. Update or Create a Google Business Profile

Mobile searches continue to outnumber desktop searches, averaging 60% of all searches throughout 2022. And when it comes to finding local businesses, mobile search far surpasses desktop.

If you haven’t created your Google Business Profile, now is the time. Without a business profile, you’re missing out on local search traffic and the opportunity for better reputation management.

For those that already have a Google Business Profile, check your photos, reviews, and questions. Take the time to answer questions potential customers may ask, reply to positive and negative reviews, and update photos of your business.

7. Spring Clean Your Links

Broken internal and external links can disrupt a Google crawl resulting in a negative effect on your SEO.

Perform a Site Audit using the Page Explorer tool. 

1. Using the Inaccessible and Orphaned report to identify broken links and pages that are not loading. 
2. Fix the pages with the highest Search Impressions and Organic Traffic first. 
3. Replace or redirect internal links and replace outbound links with relevant newer links.

8. Increase Backlink Outreach

Backlinks have a direct effect on your site’s domain rating. Poor quality inbound links can have a negative impact on your DR while high-quality links can strengthen your DR. Gaining backlinks can be a time-consuming process, but it pays off.

Begin a link outreach program or use a service to streamline the link building process, targeting websites with high DR scores. Offering quality guest posts can increase the quality of your backlink profile.

2023: Quarter 3

Don’t lose your momentum and keep your eye on the prize of increasing organic traffic.

9. Revise Tired Content

Once your content strategy is running smoothly, you can begin to update your existing content. This signals to Google that your content is still relevant and gives you the opportunity to add depth to your blogs. Use the Top Pages tool in GSC Insights to identify pages that aren’t reaching their SEO Potential.

As you update blogs and landing pages, remember to update meta tags, especially for pages with high impressions and low CTRs.

Adding rich media is another great way to liven up your pages. And don’t forget to make your pages accessible.

10. Check Your SEO Progress

Throughout your SEO journey, it’s important to reflect on what’s working and where you should pivot. The SearchAtlas’s GSC Insights tool makes it easy to compare the most telling metrics like Keyword Rankings. Use these analytics to begin forming an ongoing plan for 2023.

Don’t forget to celebrate your successes.

11. Respond to Google Algorithm Updates

There is no doubt that Google will release several updates in 2023. By focusing on best practices, you’re in a great place to respond to any new updates Google rolls out. However, you will want to tailor your approach to the specifics of the changes. 

If you’re a SearchAtlas user, you will stay in the know throughout the year with our “What’s New in Search” emails. Additionally, our suite of SEO software reflects the latest changes to Google’s PageRank.

2023: Quarter 4

Finish off the year strong. Cut ties from toxic backlinks and prune any pages that don’t reflect the strength of your new content.

12. Remove Toxic Backlinks

Toxic backlinks can wreak havoc on how Google views your site. Eliminating low-quality backlinks is like cutting an anchor when your pages are sinking the SERPs. Gather your backlink information with the Backlink Analyzer. Then, submit disavow files using Google’s disavow tool.

13. Prune Under-Performing Pages

In the spirit of preparing for the new year, prune your pages that don’t perform to your standards or pages that present keyword cannibalization issues. The SearchAtlas Page Pruning tool allows you to easily identify low-performing pages that can bog down the quality of your content and overall site.

14. Set SEO Goals for 2024

As 2023 comes to an end, begin projecting new goals into the upcoming year. Stay current with changes to algorithms and audit how your target audience’s search and what your site’s strengths are.

And enter the new year with confidence by building on your successes in 2024.

Innovative SEO Software, Unbeatable SEO Experts

Planning for record-beating organic traffic in 2023? With SearchAtlas and the LinkGraph team, you can ring in the new year with SEO insight that will make this year the best yet when it comes to your site’s performance. Contact us today to learn more about our SEO services or SEO software.

The post Celebrate the New Year with a New SEO Strategy for 2023 appeared first on LinkGraph.

Nonprofit marketing and development teams rely on a variety of digital marketing strategies. These include content marketing, email marketing, and social media to engage with their donor base.

Although these channels are important, they don’t necessarily get your content in front of the eyes of new users like search engine optimization can.

So if your nonprofit organization has not made SEO an integral part of your marketing efforts, this guide will help you get started. Here’s how to implement a nonprofit SEO strategy.

What is Nonprofit SEO?

Generally speaking, nonprofit SEO is the process of optimizing a nonprofit website or web page so that it appears as high as possible in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords.`

This can be done through a variety of methods, including optimizing the website’s content, structure, and on-page elements like titles, metatags, and anchor text; building backlinks from high-quality websites; and optimizing the website for mobile devices.

Although SEO can benefit any industry, it is particularly helpful for those like nonprofit organizations which may have limited marketing budgets and need to get the most value for their marketing spend.

Why is SEO Important for Nonprofits?

With 3.8 million Google searches happening every minute, it’s clear that Internet users turn to search engines on a daily basis to answer their questions or find information.

That is no different when it comes to finding organizations they want to donate to, volunteer for, or simply learn more about their specific issues or causes.

For example, there are 7000 searches every month for the keyword “cancer charities”

And that is just one of the hundreds (to thousands!) of different keywords users rely on when looking for information about cancer-related nonprofits.

So what does that mean for your charity? It means there are endless opportunities for your nonprofit website to rank in search engines, connect with wider audiences, and grow support and awareness for your organization.

Benefits of SEO for Nonprofits and Charities

Here are some of the tangible ways that ranking in search results can impact your nonprofit.

Increase Awareness for your Organization

How can users support your organization if they don’t know you exist? 

Search engines are a great way to help users discover your organization and learn about the great work you do with specific causes.

Gain More Financial Support

Nonprofit SEO is especially important for organizations that rely on financial support from the general public.

By appearing as high as possible in the SERPs, a nonprofit can attract more visitors to its website. This can result in more donations.

Often people want to donate, but they don’t necessarily know where. They turn to search engines to give them answers.

If your organization is not ranking on the first page of the SERPs for relevant keywords, your potential donors will turn to other organizations to give their time, resources, and money.

Educate People About your Causes

Maybe your organization is doing innovative work that you want to share with users, journalists, and other organizations alike.

Having optimized content on your website can help you share that work with a wider audience. In addition, it can help you get more people invested in your causes, research, or advocacy. 

Journalists often want to link to research reports or studies in their articles. If your nonprofit website has this content, it can be a part of your SEO strategy.

Getting Started with SEO for Nonprofit Organizations

SEO can feel complicated or intimidating for those who don’t understand it. Ultimately, it’s all about creating high-quality content for users and giving them a great website experience.

Keyword Research for Nonprofits

The foundation of SEO is keyword research. Keywords in SEO are the words and phrases that users type into search engines to find content like yours.

You can look at keywords as the roads and bridges that connect your nonprofit organization to your target audience. 

Ideally, your web pages should rank for keywords that have strong relevance to what services your nonprofit organization provides.

If you aren’t quite sure how to do keyword research, you can always order keyword research from our SEO experts in our builder. But if you want to do keyword research on your own, you can register for our SEO software and perform keyword research yourself. 

Here’s how to get started in finding the best keywords for your nonprofit.

1. Brainstorm Relevant Keywords and Subtopics

One of the best places to start is simply to brainstorm what users might be searching for in Google that has relevance to your nonprofit.

Here are some questions to ask during your brainstorming:

• What is the primary purpose of my organization?
• Who do we serve?
• What are common questions people ask about our organization?
• What questions do users ask about our primary cause or issues?
• Where is my target audience located? 
• What events does my organization regularly put on?
• What issues do our donors care about?
• What volunteer or service opportunities are available at my nonprofit?
• And others!

These are just a few examples to get you thinking about what searches might be relevant to your website content.

2. Make a Keyword List Using a Keyword Tool

Once you have some ideas to start with, you can use a keyword research tool to get more information on what people are actually searching for in Google.

For example, let’s say my charity puts on an annual 5k walk that raises awareness and money for my organization. By using a keyword tool, I can see what relevant keywords users search for in relation to these events.

If I have a landing page on my website about this event, I may want to optimize it for one of the above keywords. 

Here’s another example. Let’s say my organization is an animal shelter and we have the below landing page that describes our volunteer opportunities.

Ranking for relevant keywords below could mean more potential volunteers discovering this web page in search engines and submitting their information or signing up!

Once you find keywords that you know have relevance to your content, add them to a list in your keyword tool. You may want to make separate lists for each of the individual pages that you have on your website that you want to rank in search engines.

3. Choose Secondary Keywords

Once you have a keyword list, you will then want to move forward with choosing keyword targets.

Ideally, each rank worthy web page on your nonprofit website will target one primary keyword, along with some secondary keywords that have semantic and topical relevance. In the SEO world, this is referred to as a keyword cluster. 

What makes a keyword the right choice? Here are the most important metrics to remember.

• Search Volume: This is the number of times that users are searching this keyword in Google every month. You will want to choose keyword targets with higher search volume so you have more opportunities for your content to be seen by users.
• Cost-per-click: This is the price that advertisers pay to target this keyword in a Google Ads Campaign. If this number is high, it’s a good sign that this keyword must be valuable and bring qualified traffic
• Keyword Difficulty: This is a keyword metric that estimates how competitive it is to rank for a keyword. If you are a newer nonprofit, you may want to consider keywords that have lower KD scores. This will give you a better chance of getting on page one. 

Choosing keyword targets is arguably one of the more strategic parts of SEO, so if you’re not sure how to move forward with keyword targeting, you may want to consider working with an SEO strategist.

You can even book a free call with one of our SEO professionals to talk through your keyword goals.

Onpage Optimization for Nonprofits

The next stage of your nonprofit SEO strategy is optimizing your web pages for your target keywords.

On-page optimization means improving the content signals on your web pages so Google sees them as relevant to the target keyword and high-quality.  

You will do the process of on-page optimization for each web page that you want to rank in search results. I’ll model the process with this homepage from the Humane Society of Houston.

We want this page to rank for the below keywords related to animal shelters.

These keywords were chosen because they have high search volume, low Keyword Difficulty, and strong relevance to our website’s content.

1. Create High-Quality, In-Depth Content

The first step of the optimization process is making sure that your web page content is valuable, high-quality, and relevant to users’ search intent.

What is search intent? Well, it’s the intention behind the keyword.

For example, someone searching for “animal shelter houston,” may be wanting information about a variety of things. Maybe they want to adopt a pet. Maybe they want to volunteer. They might just be looking for a place to drop off a dog that they found in their backyard.

SEO strategists would classify this particular keyword as having “informational,” search intent. The users is simply trying to find more information. 

The Humane Society of Houston does a great job of including a broad picture of their various services on their homepage. This means users of all three intentions listed above can find what they are looking for.

2. Optimize your Meta Data

Meta tags are SEO HTML tags that exist on the HTML version of your web page. They tell search engines what your content is about.

They are also visible to the users in the SERPs, as they form the text of your search engine result.

There are a variety of tags that you can optimize on your nonprofit website to increase your chances of ranking for your target keywords.

They can also make your content more engaging and clickable for users.

Title Tag

The title tag should give your users a good idea of what your web page is about. It should also include the primary keyword that you want your website to rank for. 

Here is what the title tag looks like in HTML:

Title tags should also not exceed 60 characters, as this is the maximum that Google will display in the SERPs.

Meta Description

The meta description gives more information to the user about your web page content.

However, Google sometimes will show its own meta description based on what it thinks the user is looking for. Still, you should make sure that your meta description includes your target keywords and meets character count best practices.

For meta descriptions that means 120-160 words!

Robots Tag

The robots tag tells search engine robots whether or not they should crawl the web page content and add it to their index.

If you want to search engines to promote a web page, then you will want to use the “index, follow” directive in your robots tag.

There may be pages on your website that you don’t want to rank in search engine results, like thank you or confirmation pages. On those pages, you may want to consider adding a “noindex, nofollow,” so Google knows not to add the page to its index.You can review the following article for more information on robots tags and directives.

Header Tags

Header tags are used to divide up the sections of your web page to make it more easy to navigate and find information they are looking for.

For a page like your homepage, your header tags can provide a scope of your nonprofit organizations services, events, or volunteer opportunities.

Nonprofit Content Strategy for SEO

Beyond optimizing your existing web page content, creating new content on a regular basis gives your nonprofit more opportunities to appear in the SERPs. 

Content like blogs, infographics, white papers, annual reports, and more can all rank in search engines and drive website traffic.

Here’s an example of an annual report from the Chron’s and Colitis Foundation that both provides valuable information to users and has strong ranking potential.

This type of content also can be used in your social media and email marketing efforts, because people will visit your website if you feature great content there.

So make sure that you are doing the work of creating a content calendar and investing in content development. You can use our content planner tool to help you identify relevant keywords and generate blog and article ideas.

Local SEO for Nonprofits

Google will show users local search results if it believes that the user is searching for service offerings in their specific area. 

Ranking for local searches is all about distance, prominence, and relevance. If your nonprofit organization serves your local area, local SEO strategies can help you appear in locations based searches like, “pet rescues near me,” and in the Google Map Pack.

To optimize for local searches, here are some strategies to consider:

• Include location information on every page of your website. This includes address, hours of operation, phone number, and essential contact information.
• Get listed in online directories. Google will look for consistent and accurate information about your charity across these directories when determining whether to rank pages from your website. You can get listed in hundreds of directories for only $20 a month.

Link Building for Nonprofits

Another major part of your nonprofit SEO strategy will be link building.

Link building is the process of getting other websites on the internet to link to yours.

Why do you need link building? Well backlinks are Google’s top ranking factor, as they signal to Google crawlers that your website is trusted and reputable in your industry. 

Here are a few ways to get started with link building for your nonprofit:

• Ask your nonprofit partners: Sometimes all you have to do is ask! If your nonprofit has partners in the space, see if they will include a link to your website from one of their own web pages!
• Reach out to bloggers journalists : Bloggers and journalists are often looking for high quality content and relevant stories for their own coverage.
• Order a link building campaign: You can order backlinks from agencies like LinkGraph that do white hat, Google compliant link building. We will create original content that includes links back to your website and pitch it to relevant websites that are looking to feature high-quality content.

Page Speed Optimization

Another important factor that will impact whether or not your non profit organization website ranks in searches is how fast and responsive your web pages are for users.

Nobody likes a slow website, which is why Google prioritizes web pages in the SERPs that are high-performing. To test out how your website measures up, you can use Google’s Pagespeed Insights tool.

If your web pages have low scores on mobile and desktop, it could mean that your users are leaving your website when items are not loading quickly enough.

Investing in page speed optimization can help you improve your search engine rankings and create a better experiences for users.

Next Steps for your Nonprofit Marketing Team

Now that you understand the positive impact that SEO can have on the growth and visibility of your organization, it’s time to get started with SEO.

Here are a few next steps if you want to start.

1. Create a Google Search Console Account: This free platform from Google will let you start tracking your keywords, organic traffic, and impressions. 
2. Reach out to one of our SEO Strategists: Our team of experts can help you get started by identifying keyword opportunities and where your website can see the most organic growth.
3. Sign up for a free trial of our SEO software: You’ll get access to a range of SEO tools that allow you to start DIYing your SEO. From keyword research to keyword tracking, you can do it all in our platform.

The post SEO for Nonprofits: How to Improve Online Visibility and Donations appeared first on LinkGraph.

Learning the ins and outs of what makes up SEO campaigns can mean more keyword rankings, more organic traffic, and more real people browsing the landing pages of your website.

Here’s how to do it.

What is an SEO Campaign?

AnSEO campaign is the coordination and execution of SEO strategies in order rank higher in search engine results pages. There may be a variety of people who are involved in executing an effective SEO campaign, from writers, to web developers, to anSEO agency, and more.

Parts of an Effective SEO Campaign

SEO is multi-disciplinary. As a result, there is no one-size-fits-all SEO campaign.

Some parts of SEO campaigns may include:

• On-Page SEO – On-Page SEO campaigns are focused primarily on improving the relevance and quality signals of web content so it is more likely to be promoted for relevant keywords.
• Off-site SEO – This includes strategies like link building, digital PR, guest posting, reputation management and more.
• Technical SEO – This involves optimizing the technical performance of your website as well as ensuring all of the HTML meta data is optimized for search engine crawlers
• Web Development – This involves working on the backend of a website to improve page load times and speeds as well as site architecture and more

The most successful SEO campaigns will be tailored to the website’s unique goals, industry competitors, budget, size, and its current technical strengths and weaknesses.

But one quality that all successful SEO campaigns share is that they take a holistic approach, combining the various parts of search engine optimization to drive qualified organic traffic to a website.

1. Define Campaign Goals and KPIs for Your SEO campaign

Before you can start any SEO campaign, you need to define your goals and objectives.

What do you want to achieve with your SEO? Do you want to increase traffic to your website? Increase leads and sales? Improve your Domain Authority score? Improve your website’s rankings for a specific keyword in the search engine results pages (SERPs)?

Your goals and objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Having clear goals is the only way to measure whether or not an SEO campaign was, indeed, successful.

Having clear Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is also essential to understand whether you actually achieve your campaign objectives. Some common SEO KPIs include

• Organic search traffic: The number of visitors who come to your website from search engines, and the percentage of that traffic that is organic (i.e. not paid for)
• Ranking Positions: Tracking the position of your website in search engine results pages (SERPs) for specific keywords is a good way to measure how well your SEO strategy is working.
• Keyword rankings: The total number of keywords your website ranks for in search engines, and whether you’re targeting the right keywords to reach your target audience
• Domain Authority: The overall site authority of your website as measured through backlinks and the total number of unique referring domains pointing to your web pages
• Bounce rate: The percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing only one page
• Impressions: The number of users who see your SERP result, even if they don’t click on it
• Conversion rate: The percentage of visitors who take a desired conversion action, such as filling out a contact form, subscribing to a email list, or making a purchase

2. Perform an SEO Audit of Your Website Before Campaign Launch

Before you start mapping our your SEO strategy, you need to have a solid understanding of where your website currently stands.

This is where an SEO audit can be very helpful. Use the Site Auditor tool in SearchAtlas to get a high-level overview of the technical, content, speed, and crawling statistics of your website.

This high-level SEO audit report will give you a larger sense of whether your SEO campaign will need to include on-page content optimization, technical SEO, web development work, and more.

Then, look to the “Issues,” tab to determine what requires action. This more detailed list of recommendations will help you determine the specific tasks of your SEO campaign.

Before you get started planning out your SEO strategy, make sure you know the answers to the following questions:

• Are the pages of my website accessible to search engine crawlers? If not, use XML sitemaps and robots.txt files to control how and when pages are crawled and indexed.
• Do I have content on my website that is relevant to the keywords I want to rank for? If not, content creation will need to be a major focus of your SEO campaign.
• Does my backlink profile contain toxic links from spammy websites? If so, leverage the disavow tool or link building services to nullify the impact of those low-quality backlinks

These high-level issues are common among websites that are struggling to rank in search engines. Making sure that your website is not suffering from one of these larger indexing, content, or backlink issues is important before moving into a highly-targeted SEO campaign.

3. Research Your SEO Competition

To achieve your SEO goals, you need to know what your competition is doing. You need to know what keywords they are targeting, what techniques they are using to improve their rank in SERPs, and what content they are publishing.

There are a few different tools that you can use in your SearchAtlas dashboard to do your competitor research.

If you have a good idea of who your competitors are, enter a competitor’s homepage url in the Competitor Researcher tool to get a high-level overview of all of the keywords they are ranking for, their Domain Rating, and there current organic traffic.

If you don’t know who your competitors are yet, use the Content Researcher to discover your competitors via the keywords you want to rank for.

Enter your target keyword and the Content Researcher report will highlight the top 20 ranking urls, the quality of their content, the authority of their domain, as well as how likely your website is to compete based on your current site authority signals and the Keyword Difficulty of your target keyword.

4. Identify Your Keyword Targets

The foundation of any successful SEO campaign is keyword research.

Keyword research involves identifying the keywords and phrases that your target audience is most likely to use when searching for information or products related to your business.

Once you have identified these keywords, you can then focus your SEO efforts on optimizing your website and content for those terms.

You can use the Keyword Researcher tool in your dashboard to identify target keywords for your on-page SEO strategy. You can brainstorm a list of keywords that are relevant to your business and then do some research to find the ones that have the highest search volume and the lowest competition. Easily add keywords to lists with 1-click.

Tips for Keyword Selection for your SEO Campaigns

Data-driven target keyword selection is essential to a successful campaign. Some tips for choosing the best keyword targets include:

• Choose a realistic goal: Don’t make the mistake of targeting a keyword that is just too competitive. Use Keyword Difficulty to find keywords that are realistic goal for your website based on your current Domain Authority.
• Cluster Keywords into Groups: Optimizing for multiple keywords in the same semantic cluster can help you increase the total short-tail and long-tail variations of your keyword that your web pages rank for
• Consider long-tail keywords in your SEO campaigns: Long-tail keywords are keywords that are more specific than general keywords. They are often less competitive and easier to rank for than short-tail keywords. By targeting long-tail keywords in your SEO campaigns, you can improve your website’s search engine ranking while also driving more targeted traffic to your site.

5. Publish High-Quality Content on Your Website

One of the most important aspects of SEO is content. You need to publish high-quality content that is relevant to your target audience. This content should be well-written, keyword-rich, and engaging.

Having high-quality content on your website is essential for both on-page and off-site SEO success. It’s easier to acquire backlinks when your content is valuable, original, and insightful. Google crawlers are also more likely to rank content that is in-depth and explores a topic comprehensively.

What makes content high-quality? Google’s Quality Rater guidelines outline how they perceive quality.

• Original insight, analysis, or reporting
• Expert authorship and sourcing
• Reputation of the website and content creator
• Main Content Quality and Amount
• High levels of E.A.T

Google’s E.A.T. — which stands for expertise, authority, and trustworthiness — is one of the largest parts of their Quality Rater Guidelines. Google wants to show searchers the highest quality original content, and E.A.T. is a guiding principle for what quality means.

Creating high-quality content is easier said than done. It is arguably one of the most time and resource intensive parts of any SEO campaign. That’s why working with reputable content marketing professionals or a marketing agency that specializes in SEO content can be extremely integral to a SEO campaign’s success.

6. Optimize your Web Content for Your Keyword Targets

After you identify your target search queries, you then need to perform on-page optimization across your landing pages.

Google ranks web pages, not websites, and each page that you want to rank in the SERPs needs to follow SEO best practices.

1. Title tags, meta descriptions, h1s-h6s, and other HTML tags should be keyword-rich and meet best practices with length (50-60 characters for page titles, and 130-160 for meta descriptions)
2. Web pages should outlink to other relevant, authoritative websites that provide additional value to the user
3. Also, web pages should include relevant internal links that point to other important pages on your website
4. Any images should include optimized alt text for better accessibility and to rank in Google images
5. For local businesses, web pages should include key contact information like a phone number, address, and business name in a prominent place on the web page
6. Web pages should be fast loading and mobile-friendly

To speed up the content optimization process, use the SEO Content Assistant. You can use the tool to do on-page SEO from start to finish.

7. Earn as Many High-Quality Backlinks As You Can

Backlinks are still one of the most important factors in SEO. It is unlikely you will see success in your digital marketing strategy without building links to your website from other high-quality websites to improve your rankings in SERPs.

How do you get backlinks? There’s only one right way to earn backlinks, and that’s through original content.

Some ways to earn links the right way include:

• Guest blogging
• Partnership outreach
• Public relations
• Broken link building
• An SEO agency with publisher partnerships that does link building through original content

 Some backlink strategies you should avoid include:

• Buying backlinks from link farms or low-quality providers
• Strategies like “Niche edits” – adding links to existing content on other websites
• Dropping links in the comment sections of blog posts
• Questionable Link exchanges

When you get backlinks the right way through original content, keyword-rich anchor text will make the link even more valuable, but don’t overdo it. Most of your backlinks will be branded, and that is okay. Backlinks will tell search engines that your website is relevant to the keywords you’re targeting.

8. Prioritize Site Optimization for Mobile

In addition to optimizing your on-page elements, you also need to optimize your web pages for mobile SEO if you want to see campaign success.

This is because mobile-friendliness is one of Google’s ranking factors.

To optimize your website for mobile, you can review this guide to mobile seo, but in summary, your web pages need to be responsive and your content should be readable and easily navigated on mobile devices.

8. Leverage SEO Tools Throughout Your SEO Campaign

To really see SEO success, you should not only follow basic SEO best practices, you should also leverage the power of technology. This is particularly true for enterprise brands competing against incumbents for competitive keywords.

There are a number of SEO tools and digital PR tools available that can help you improve your search engine optimization campaign. These tools can help you research keywords, track your website’s rank in SERPs, and analyze your competitors.

You can start a free trial with SearchAtlas and get access to the below SEO tools to supercharge your SEO campaigns:

1. Content Optimizer – Produce rank-worthy, quality content in a shorter period of time. Our AI content generator can help you produce more website content
2. Keyword Research tool – Find hundreds to thousands of keywords that will connect you with potential customers
3. Content plan tool – Generate blog topics and titles for new content with automated topic clusters
4. Rank Tracker – Track keyword rankings and organic search KPIs with comprehensive data straight from Google Search Console
5. Backlink Analyzer – See if you have high spam links, diverse anchor text distribution, and more
6. Site Audit tool – Identify technical issues on your website, see your page speed, identify content or keyword gaps
7. Site Authority checker – Check your Domain Authority score for your website and your competitors

9. Supplement Your SEO Techniques with Paid Search Advertising

Paid search advertising can be a valuable tool for SEO campaigns. By targeting your ads to users who are searching for your target keywords, you can help to increase your website’s exposure and improve your search engine rankings.

You can also us Google Ads campaigns to prospect traffic quality for SEO. When combined with SEO techniques, PPC can jumpstart traffic to your website so you can start testing and iterating on your website design, user experience and conversion funnel.

However, paid media is expensive, so make sure your PPC campaigns are optimized and don’t get comfortable over relying on Adwords traffic. Once your budget runs out, so will all those clicks, but SEO can drive clicks to your website to perpetuity.

10. Monitor the Results of Your SEO Campaigns

You need to track the results of your SEO campaign to ensure that you are achieving your goals. Use analytics tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and< GSC Insights to track website traffic, leads, sales, or new customers that you earn through search engines.

Carefully tracking the performance of your SEO campaigns is essential to running more successful campaigns in the future. The best SEO campaigns leverage as much data and analytics as possible to drive brand awareness, SERP rankings, and web traffic more quickly.

 Final Thoughts on the Best SEO Campaigns

The best, most successful campaigns will be tailored to your website’s unique goals.

That means there will be no one-size-fits-all approach. But at LinkGraph, we make it easy to create  customized campaigns with our self-checkout SEO campaign products.

Check out our order builder and see how easy it is to build your perfect SEO campaign.

The post 10 Steps to Launching a Successful SEO Campaign appeared first on LinkGraph.

If your business goal this year is to increase your website’s traffic, your best bet is to start with search engine optimization (SEO). However, the broad and complex field of SEO can feel overwhelming, especially if you try to implement everything you can all at once. To make the process easier, we’ve created this 2022 SEO checklist. 

As you go through the SEO process this year, use this checklist as a resource to help you multi-task the differing aspects of SEO, schedule items in a logical order, and prioritize more impactful actions. We hope you will also take advantage of the downloadable SEO Checklist, Downloadable SEO Checklist for Presentations or Google Doc SEO Checklist to track your SEO progress as you work. 

Are you ready to check off some tasks and watch your organic traffic climb? Let’s get started.

How to Use this SEO Checklist

There’s no denying that SEO is a dynamic art and science. This means that you will need to revisit some tasks over time while others are one-and-done. In the printable or editable version of this checklist, you will find that the * indicates a task that is best revisited quarterly.

Additionally, to prevent you from getting overwhelmed, we’ve listed each task in order of importance.

Begin with the Basics: SEO Foundational Setup

While you can dive right into adding schema markup to every page on your site, you may want to hold off on a task like that. Beginning with SEO best practices and being able to start tracking your site’s organic traffic metrics is a bit more important. 

So, if you’re starting from scratch, start here:

1. Become Familiar with SEO Terminology

Plunging into the world of search engine optimization requires learning a lot of new terms. Arming yourself with an SEO glossary can help you build your confidence and propel you beyond the learning curve.

Suggested resource to learn more: LinkGraph’s Complete SEO Glossary

2. Create Your Google Search Console Account

Google Search Console is like an EKG for your website’s SEO health. This free SEO tool provides you with a great depth of insight into how Google views your websites, how you’re performing on their search engine results pages (SERPs), and your site’s Core Web Vitals.

While Google Search Console can be confusing at first, we recommend you spend some time over the next month becoming familiar with the reports this tool provides.

With GSC, you can:

• Learn which keywords your site ranks for
• See which of your URLs performance the best in search results
• Submit your sitemap to Google
• Find crawler errors

Suggested resource to learn more: How to Use Google Search Console for SEO

3. Set Up an Account with Bing Webmaster Tools

While Google receives about 92% of the global search share, Bing does receive almost 3% of searches–many of which are via Amazon’s Alexa. This means if you’re a locally-based business, you want to make optimizing for voice search a priority. Furthermore, Bing’s Webmaster Tools are easy to use.

Suggested resource to learn more: Voice Search Optimization: An Updated & Comprehensive Guide

4. Begin Using Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the perfect complement to Google Search Console. While GSC provides you with a wealth of data regarding your site’s organic traffic and search engine crawlability, GA gives you data about all site visitors.

Setting up your Google Analytics account is similar to setting up Search Console. In fact, you can even link the two, so you can find all of your site visitor metrics in one place.

Suggested resource to learn more: Get Started with Analytics

5. Sign Up for SearchAtlas

SEO is a multi-faceted discipline. Using SEO software that helps to make tracking your SEO campaigns and create the best content can give you a headstart in improving your site’s SERP rankings. 

SearchAtlas is a full suite of SEO tools to tackle every aspect of SEO, including:

• Metrics tracking and deep data analysis
• Content creation
• Keyword research
• Competitor research
• Backlink strategy data
• SEO site audit reports

Suggested resource to learn more: Learn more about SearchAtlas

SEO Content Creation Checklist

When it comes to rankability–your site needs quality content that follows keyword best practices. Building a library of SEO-optimized content takes time and skill, but is well worth the investment.

1. Find Your Best Keywords

Your keywords are key to getting Google’s attention–this is why choosing the best keywords for your site is a vital step in becoming discoverable on Google and other search engines.

However, knowing where to begin can be a monumental task. We recommend beginning with Google Suggest. Then use the Keyword Researcher and competitor research to learn more about the keywords you want to target and have a higher probability of ranking for.

Keep in mind that you will want to target long-tail keywords during the keyword research process. 15% of all Google searches have never been searched before–This leaves plenty of opportunities to capture searchers.

Suggested resource to learn more: Unlock the SEO Potential of Low Competition and Long-Tail Keywords

2. Plan Your Content Calendar

Once you’ve strategically targeted the keywords your site has the potential to rank for, you will want to establish a content plan. This should include primary keywords along with a cluster of related keywords that are relevant to the content topic.

Most sites schedule their content on a quarterly basis, prioritizing keywords that have the most potential SEO value. 

Content creation is a time-consuming process. If you’re pressed for time–or you don’t have a knack for writing–hiring an SEO agency can be a wise choice. The Content Planner lets you create a keyword plan then you can export the brief using the SEO Content Assistant.

Suggested resource to learn more: Content Development: Improve Your Content Strategy for SEO

3. Create Fully-Optimized Content

As you work through your content strategy, live by the mantra: every piece matters. If you approach every blog post, landing page, and product page with an eye for quality and SEO, you will save yourself time, money, and SEO grief.

Using a content optimizer makes creating SEO-friendly content easier. Using a tool like the SEO Content Assistant allows you to produce rankable content without needing to understand every intricacy of the process. 

Suggested resource to learn more: The Beginner’s Guide to Writing Web Content for SEO

4. Promote Your Content

To maximize the power of your new, fresh content, you will want to promote it on social media and in emails. This will increase referral traffic to your website. It will also increase brand visibility and support your brand’s reputation within your industry. This can result in organic backlinks–which can boost your domain authority and domain rating.

Suggested resource to learn more: 7 Contextual Link-Building Tips & Techniques

On-Page SEO Checklist

Every page on your site is one more opportunity to rank. This section is designed to be an on-page SEO checklist to ensure each of your URLs reaches its SEO potential. Most on-page SEO tasks should be enacted on an ongoing basis.

1. Optimize Your URLs

Google has an eye for detail. This detail comes down to a granular look at each of your website’s URLs as Google indexes your site. Optimizing your slugs can be one of the many details that promote your site in Google SERPs.

To optimize your URLs:

1. Include your target keyword in your slug
2. Separate words with hyphens
3. Use evergreen methods–omitting dates
4. Avoid redirect chains

Suggested resource to learn more: Campaign URL Builder

2. Optimize Your Title Tags

In addition to optimizing your slugs, you also want to ensure your title tags are also Google-worthy. This means that they include your target keyword in a natural way (at the beginning of the title if possible).

Your title tags can be the same as your page title, but they should also be:

• Between 40 and 60 characters
• Omit parentheses and brackets
• Interesting–click-worthy
• Straightforward

Suggested resource to learn more: A Guide to SEO HTML Tags

3. Create Meta Tags with SEO Best Practices

Whether your site has an existing blog or a long list of product pages, you want to be sure all of your meta tags reflect your keyword targets. So, in addition to your title tag, be sure your meta descriptions, headings (AKA H1 tags, etc.), and alt text follow meta tag best practices.

You will also want to be sure your site uses canonical tags (if you use WordPress or Shopify, these platforms automate this for you).

Robots tags are also important if your site has gated content, a chat forum, or user comments.

Suggested resource to learn more: What Are Canonical Tags and When to Use Them

4. Link to External Resources

Throughout your content, you will want to link to external sources using outbound links. This practice tells Google’s webcrawlers what your content is about in relation to other pages. Providing Google with these signals can increase your chances of appearing in the right Google searches and on other search engines.

To choose authority sites to link to, select sites that:

• Are not your direct competitors
• Not spammy
• Are respected in your industry
• Ideally are high DA sites with original research)

Suggested resource to learn more: Why Are Links Important for SEO?

5. Use Internal Links

Just as external links tell Google what your content is about through the indexing page process, internal links help Google’s crawlers find pages to crawl on your site and understand them better.

The more a page within your site is linked to, the more important Google sees it in the context of your site–and the more often Googlebots will crawl it. 

Through the use of anchor text, annotation text, and strategic internal linking, you can improve your site’s search engine crawlability.

Suggested resource to learn more: Internal Links as a Ranking Factor

6. Use Schema Markup

Schema markup allows you to signal to search engines that a page contains specific information. Search engines then use this information to better place your content in search results. 

Additionally, Schema Markup allows searchers to preview your content in the search results to ensure it fits their query intent. The result: a high click-through rate, a lower bounce rate, and happy searchers.

You can use the Yoast Plug-in on WordPress or Shopify to create and implement schema markup, or you can use Google’s free tool.

Suggested resource to learn more: Complete Guide to Schema Markup

Technical SEO Checklist

When it comes to implementing SEO best practices, Technical SEO can be the most intimidating. However, if you can use WordPress, SearchAtlas can simplify the technical SEO process.

1. Find and Fix Crawler Errors

As a site owner, your goal should always be to do it right the first time. However, this isn’t always possible–especially if you created your site before you learned about SEO. Luckily, a crawl audit can help you identify problems that can occur from page edits, site architecture problems, and more.

If Google cannot crawl your site, your pages will not appear in their search results. Finding and repairing these issues can improve the chances of your web pages being discovered by search engines and appearing in the SERPs.

As a webcrawler works its way through your website, it will travel from one link to another. If it hits a dead end or waits too long for a page retrieval, it can negatively affect your SEO. Fixing these issues is a must for indexing purposes and your visitors’ user experience.

What errors should you look for?

• Chain redirects (multiple 301s in a row)
• Broken links (4XX errors)
• Slow server speeds
• Duplicate content

Note: Some aspects of this task overlap with other tasks–so, don’t stress if it seems like a monumental hurdle. The most important part of this task is to see how Google views your site and what pages their crawlers cannot access.

Suggested resource to learn more: What Is Crawl Budget & How to Optimize for It

2. Learn How Google Indexes Your Pages

Having a preliminary understanding of how search engine crawlers work can work to your advantage as you continue to build out your content library and product or services pages. 

So, how goes Google index your pages?

(As you read through this explanation, keep in mind that it’s an abbreviated version of the process). A Googlebot will first look at your sitemap and robots.txt. Then move onto your homepage, from there, it will begin traveling and collecting information from pages linked to in your navigation menu or internal links. 

Googlebots can index more than one page at once, but they limit the amount of data pulled in order to not ‘clog’ your server and slow down speeds for your site visitors.

As the Googlebot arrives on a page, it will pull information from your page’s:

• Page load speed
• URL text
• Headers
• Alt text & image file names (for content comprehension and Google image searches)
• Links (both internal and external)
• Images & videos (using Google MUM)
• Schema markup
• Overall text
• Text structure

Suggested resource to learn more: How Google Search Algorithm Works

3. Fix Broken Links

One of the easiest tasks that can improve your technical SEO is fixing broken links. These can include internal and outbound links.

So, after you’ve identified the URLs that have broken links, you will want to identify why the link is broken. 

If the link is an internal page, determine if the linked URL has been 

• Redirected and the redirect isn’t working
• Needs a redirect set up
• Deleted and no longer exists

If the redirect isn’t working or needs to be set up, submit a ticket to your web developer to assess the issue or create the redirect.

For pages that no longer exist, remove the link or link to a new page on a similar topic.

For broken external links, you will want to remove the links and add another external link elsewhere within the content or replace the broken link with a fresh link to another page.

Suggested resource to learn more: 10 Bad Links That Can Get You Penalized by Google

4. Ensure Optimal Mobile Accessibility

Google uses a Mobile-First approach to indexing. This means that their crawlers will first revert to viewing the mobile version of a page. This means your site needs to be able to load quickly and correctly for mobile users and Google.

A simple site audit with SearchAtlas will provide you with your mobile page speed load time data. You can also access this info via PageSpeed Insights or your Google Search Console Account.

If your site’s mobile speed loading isn’t up to Core Web Vitals standards, you will want to work with your web developer to improve the issues. Using dynamic page layout and design can do wonders for your mobile loading times.

Suggested resource to learn more: Mobile SEO – The Complete Guide

5. Switch from HTTP to HTTPS

Google continues to emphasize the importance of safety and security for web users, and we anticipate that this trend will continue for years to come. As of now, Google promotes websites that take security precautions higher in the Google SERPs. So, how can your site become one that reflects Google’s security standards?

One of the easiest ways to keep your site visitors protected is to use the more secure HTTP–HTTPS. HTTPS encodes user data so it is less vulnerable to theft. To make the switch, you will need to obtain an SSL certificate or a TLS certificate.

Suggested resource to learn more: HTTPS vs HTTP Protocols and More

6. Check Your Site’s Speed Performance

In an effort to improve the overall search experience, Google uses page load speeds and time-to-interactivity as ranking factors. While the Core Web Vitals are relatively new, page load speed has always affected a site’s ranking. How? Google tracks individual pages’ bounce rate–which is a metric that reflects the number of searchers that ‘bounce back’ to the search engine’s results page. The longer a searcher has to wait for a page to load, the more likely they are to become impatient and abandon waiting.

The first step to this task is understanding your site’s speed metrics. You can find this data in Search Console, SearchAtlas, or by using PageSpeedInsights. 

The next step is to work with your web developer to improve your site’s performance.

Suggested resource to learn more: 30 Ways to Improve SEO Performance 

Backlink Building Checklist

One of the most important aspects of the success of a site’s SEO is its backlink profile. When a website has more backlinks, Google is better able to understand the site’s content, plus backlinks establish a site’s credibility and authority. To begin building your site’s backlink profile, you will need to begin checking items off this list.

1. Reach Out to Industry Peers

Backlink building takes time and effort. One of the most effective ways to begin the link-building process is to plan and implement an industry-rich link-building campaign.

To begin this process, you will need to identify potential sites to reach out to. You can do this with the Suggested Outreach report in SearchAtlas.

Once you have a list of sites, you will need to begin reaching out to their sites’ owners. As you do, be cordial and simply ask if they would be interested in a guest blog post, guest infographic, or original data. You can even include the great content you’re offering in your initial email, so site owners are able to assess the quality and fit for their website.

If a site agrees to publish guest content on their website, be sure to confirm that they’re also willing to include a link to your website either as credit or a contextual backlink.

Suggested resource to learn more: Link Exchanges: Do They Work & Are They Safe?

2. Target Your Competitors’ Backlinks

One way to build your site’s Domain Authority and Domain Rating is to acquire backlinks on sites that link to your competitors. By identifying which sites link to your competition, you gain access to a list of pre-qualified sites that will likely be happy to partner with you for guest posts. 

With SearchAtlas’s Free Backlink Analyzer report, you can easily identify which sites have the best backlink potential for your site. Screaming Frog also has a competitor backlink analysis tool that can be quite handy in obtaining a full list of your competitors’ backlinks.

Suggested resource to learn more: White Hat Link Building Methods

3. Attend Conferences & Become Active in Industry Conversations

One way to win organic backlinks is to become a recognized expert and leader in your field. You can achieve this by participating in shaping the future of your niche through forum discussions, conference presentations, and networking.

As you build your reputation and organization reputation, more sites will naturally want to link to yours.

Suggested resource to learn more: How to Find a Conference or Meeting

4. Speak Up: Get Invited to a Podcast

Podcasts are labor-intensive media assets. They’re also highly consumed by internet audiences and a great way to gain highly valuable backlinks. By connecting with podcast creators, you offer them a low-effort option for an episode that will result in high-quality content. In return, you can increase your brand awareness and site authority.

Suggested resource to learn more: Connecting podcasters with great guests

Local SEO Checklist

Whether you provide local services, local eats, or physical goods from a brick-and-mortar shop, local SEO is one of the most important SEO efforts you can implement in your SEO strategy.

1. Set up Your Google Business Profile Listing​

Google Business Profile (or Google My Business) is one of the most powerful tools for local SEO. This is one of the few ways to begin appearing on Google Maps and in local searches. Therefore, if your business (even e-commerce businesses) does not have a Google Business Profile, it is time to set it up.

As you begin the setup process, have images of your business and products available. Be prepared to write a thorough description of your business. And try to be as thorough as possible. The more work you put into your Google Business Profile, the more power it has to attract potential customers to your establishment.

Suggested resource to learn more: How To Set Up Your Google Business Profile Listing

2. Implement Local Business Schema Markup

Schema markup allows you to communicate to search engines information about your web pages and business. When you provide this information, search engines have a clearer idea of what searches your web pages should appear in and help you reach your target audience. Furthermore, schema data markup can help search engines highlight your business and business offerings in the SERPs.

This low-effort task can have a profound impact on your business’s search traffic and revenue. With schema, you will draw in more searches from mobile devices and more traffic to your landing pages.

Suggested resource to learn more: Local Busines by Google Search Central

3. Connect with Local Media Outlets 

Becoming a recognized organization in your community can increase your search visibility and sales. If your business participates in charitable activities and donations, you can highlight your efforts by providing local news outlets with pre-written press releases they can ‘plug and play.’

The result of this is backlinks from a local site to further verify your locale and brand exposure to a greater audience.

Suggested resource to learn more: How to Get a Story on the Local News

4. Respond to Reviews and Questions on GBP Weekly

Your Google Business Profile is a conduit of communication between the public and your business. Like other aspects of your brand reputation, you will want to devote time weekly to acknowledging, responding, and tending to users’ reviews and questions about your business.

Suggested resource to learn more: Tips to Elevate Your Online Reputation

Long-Term SEO Checklist

Search engine optimization is an ongoing process. The search landscape changes based on updates to search engine algorithms. Additionally, your search engine rankings can shift due to your competition’s SEO efforts. Furthermore, 15% of all search queries are 100% unique. To keep your site fully optimized, you and your team will want to plan for ongoing, proactive SEO maintenance.

1. Always Stay Current on Your Organic Traffic Metrics

This is likely the most important task you can do in this complete SEO checklist. By tracking your metrics, you can better understand how your SEO efforts are paying off. Knowing your numbers can also help you respond to an algorithm update that had a negative impact on your organic traffic.

SearchAtlas provide the most in-depth reports and insightful analyses of your Search Console data. 

Suggested resource to learn more: Metrics to Elevate & Measure SEO Success

2. Add Server Space to Maintain Speeds and Reduce Outages

As your site grows in size and traffic, you may find that your users’ site speeds slow. This can lead to a drop in your site’s SERP performance due to page speed loading delays. One way to remedy traffic-related speed issues is to invest in a server that is strictly devoted to your site. This will reduce outages while improving the user experience for your site visitors.

Increasing page load speeds can also improve your site’s crawlability. Run a site index coverage report to understand how Google is crawling your site.

Suggested resource to learn more: How Much Web Hosting Storage Do You Need for Your Site?

3. Reoptimize Meta-Descriptions for higher CTRs

As you track your URLs’ performances in Google rankings, you may find some of your pages garner high impressions and low click-throughs. This can indicate that your meta tags (your meta title and meta description) are not encouraging searchers to visit your pages. To improve your pages’ performance, you can re-optimize these meta tags.

Suggested resource to learn more: A Guide to SEO HTML Tags

4. Perform a Content Audit & Prune Under-Performing Content

One practice that can boost your site’s visibility in Google results is to perform a content audit. A content audit leads to the content pruning process. This task involves finding and fixing duplicate content issues by using canonical tags or removing unnecessary duplicates.

Through the content audit process, you also want to identify and eliminate under-performing blogs and landing pages. Additionally, you want to find outdated product pages or news pages.

After identifying these pages, you will want to create a list of backlinks and internal links to these pages. If the URL has backlinks or internal links, you will want to update the content or redirect the URL to similar content. Pages without any backlinks or internal links can be deleted.

Suggested resource to learn more: Why & How Content Pruning Helps Your SEO

5. Revise Outdated Content

For pages that have SEO potential, the revision process can inject new life into already existing pieces of content. This offers a time-saving strategy to pair with your new content creation process.

Updating content can also attract new attention to the content from search engines. To revise blogs and landing pages, use your target keyword and its search intent to guide your decisions. 

You also want to consider adding depth to your site web pages. This can be easily accomplished with Frequently Asked Questions sections.

Suggested resource to learn more: Content Development: Improve Your Content Strategy for SEO

6. Diversify Your Website’s Content

At some point, you will check all your target keywords off your content calendar. Once this happens, it’s time to revamp your content strategy to include more images, videos, and other media. By appearing in Google searches for images and videos, your site can gain a competitive edge in the SERPs. 

Furthermore, mixed content makes your web pages more engaging to contemporary audiences–keeping visitors on your page for longer periods of time and increasing your site’s time-on-page metrics.

Suggested resource to learn more: Tips for On-Page SEO

Begin Marking Off Tasks On Your SEO Checklist

You don’t have to be an SEO professional in order to begin optimize your page. As you work your way through this checklist, check your SEO metrics to measure your site’s SERP success. Over the next few months, your web pages should climb in rank, and your site’s overall search visibility will increase along with your organic traffic.

If you need assistance on your SEO journey, LinkGraph is happy to help. We offer SEO services for businesses of all sizes.

The post SEO Checklist for Growing Your Site’s Search Rankings appeared first on LinkGraph.

Growing a business is a resource-intensive endeavor. Knowing when, where, and how to outsource tasks can make or break a new business or startup–and SEO is no different. If you’ve considered SEO outsourcing, but want to learn more before you dive into contacting SEO agencies or signing a contract, this guide is for you. We will help you understand which tasks your in-house marketing team should perform and how they can work with an SEO agency to improve your site’s search engine visibility.

Unsure of what SEO outsourcing is? No problem. We will help you understand exactly what outsourcing your search engine optimization is and how it can benefit your business.

What is SEO Outsourcing?

SEO outsourcing is the process of using an SEO agency or SEO expert to take on all or part of your website’s SEO strategy. Most SEO companies provide their clients with a variety of SEO services to choose from to best fit their needs, budget, and in-house team of content marketing and web developers.

How Does Using an SEO Company Benefit a Business?

Search engine optimization can be a complicated, highly-involved, and long-term process–and most small businesses do not have the resources to have an employee or team dedicated to developing and implementing the full scope of SEO efforts needed to run a full SEO campaign. And very few medium or larger businesses want to devote the resources needed for in-house SEO.

When a business hires an SEO service, they receive an entire team of SEO professionals dedicated to their SEO success. What services can an outsourcing company’s team provide a growing business?

• An SEO site audit
• Keyword research in relation to your business goals
• Link building through backlink acquisition
• Local SEO strategy
• Digital PR Campaigns
• General SEO strategy
• International SEO strategy
• Content creation and blog posts
• Full on-page optimization
• Technical SEO support

Most importantly, using an experienced SEO firm or SEO consultant can get your business results. A successful SEO campaign results in increased:

• Productivity for your in-house team (freeing them up for other projects)
• Keyword rankings
• Search engine visibility
• Click-through rates
• Brand visibility
• Site usability
• Industry recognition
• Market share

Additionally, an SEO firm can achieve results sooner than trying to handle all aspects of SEO in-house or on your own. All these results often translate into sales at a lower cost. 

How to Decide If You Need an SEO Outsourcing Company

Almost every business can benefit from using an SEO Company. The reality is, if your website doesn’t appear in Google search engine results pages in a prominent position, you are losing out. However, there are some clear signs that you should outsource your SEO, including:

1. Your website doesn’t receive as much traffic as you would like
2. You hired a digital marketer or digital marketing agency but didn’t see the results you wanted in web traffic and conversions
3. Your digital marketing strategy includes SEO, but you do not have anyone working on it
4. Your site has loading speed issues
5. You do not have time for content writing
6. Your website’s Domain Authority (DA) and Domain Rating (DR) are low
7. You currently do not have any or very few backlinks

What SEO Work Can Your In-House Team Perform & Which Should You Outsource?

Which SEO services you invest in often depends on what the capabilities of your current and new employees possess. Additionally, you want to confirm which SEO efforts will consume too much of your team’s schedule. 

Assessing Your In-House Capabilities

The first step of deciding what SEO services you need is to assess your in-house resources. Ask your team to take an inventory of how much time their SEO projects take and what other efforts they forfeit to perform the hard work of SEO. Asking your marketing team what services they feel would benefit their efforts most will also provide you with priceless insight.

Most business owners agree that the best SEO services to invest in include:

• Technical SEO
• Content writing
• Page speed improvements

Connecting with & Comparing Potential SEO Companies

Once you have a list of SEO services that will benefit your business the most, you can begin contacting SEO service providers. Most importantly, never jump into a contract with an SEO company without a comparison. Because SEO is complicated and often considered mysterious to business owners, it’s important to know what to compare. 

Here are some guidelines for interviewing potential SEO Agencies:

1. As you talk with SEO firms, inquire if they provide a free website audit. If they do, they will likely use this audit as a talking point for which services they feel you need. Use this as a comparison tool between companies.
2. You will also want to ask if the SEO firm uses white hat SEO tactics only. A good SEO company will be transparent about their approach to SEO backlinking, including the DAs of where your links will be placed. Additionally, white hat tactics offer long-term results.
3. Always ask for prices for individual services versus packaged services. Keep in mind that effective SEO costs a bit more than low cost options, but is much safer. Low cost SEO service providers may use black hat tactics that could get your site banned from Google.

How Much Does It Cost to Outsource SEO?

Of course, this leads to the question of how much it does cost to outsource SEO. Unfortunately, there is rarely a cut-and-dry answer to this question since cost often depends on the size and current state of your site. Additionally, different industries can present more challenges to ranking.

Red Flags to Look for in SEO Firms

There are some signs that you should steer clear of an SEO service provider. The easiest to recognize include:

1. First, promising specific rankings: There is never a guarantee that a site will rank at any specific SERP position
2. Second, not providing reports: SEO firms should be transparent about the results of their SEO projects and campaigns
3. Using private blogging networks for backlinks: Always ask what the SEO company’s relationship to the linking sites is or if they use automatic backlink generators. If your site is caught participating in a Link Spam campaign, you can get expelled from the SERPs.
4. Finally, promising short-term results: SEO always takes time. Rarely will any website see noticeable results in under a month.

How Will an SEO Company Work with Your In-House Marketing Team?

SEO firms are pros at working with in-house digital marketers and marketing teams. Your outsourcing company will collaborate as an extension of your in-house team and align their goals with your marketing strategy KPIs. Additionally, many even make their SEO tools available to your writers, web developers, and marketing managers.

Depending on the services you choose, your SEO company can 

• Provide your writers with keyword briefs
• Work with your web developer and designers to improve your site speed and usability
• Work with your writers to re-optimize existing content

Add Outsourcing Your SEO to Your Marketing Strategy

If you’re considering outsourcing your SEO to an SEO firm or a qualified SEO freelancer, now is the time. An outsourcing company will turn your to-do list into a totally-done list. Furthermore, an effective SEO service provider will simplify your marketing workflow and put you on the path to ranking in the SERPs. 

The best digital marketers and digital marketing teams offer white hat SEO tactics that get results. LinkGraph has helped small businesses to enterprise-level companies achieve greater market share through expert SEO. Contact us today to receive a free SEO audit, including on-page optimization scores.

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