How to Launch a Successful SEO Campaign in Eight Easy Steps

An SEO campaign is one of the essential strategies for a reliable and authoritative online presence. A comprehensive strategy that follows industry best practices will surely get your site ranking on the first page of search engines. 

There are many moving parts to a successful search engine optimization campaign, and not leaving anything to chance is the best way to guarantee positive results. With this in mind, we met with our team of specialists and asked them to share their blueprint for successful SEO campaigns. 

In this blog, we’ll walk you through Olly Olly’s SEO campaign creation process. This is a long one, so grab a cup of coffee and enjoy as you scroll through our proven-to-work strategies. 

What Is an SEO Campaign?

Let’s start with the basics. An SEO campaign is a set of strategies that allows you to position your website on the first page of the search results. It includes optimizing your website’s user experience, content, and images. 

An SEO campaign also entails link building on blogs, listings such as Google My Business, Trustpilot, Yelp, or social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

SEO yields long-term results because Google is constantly changing its search algorithm and ranking system, setting new rules that websites need to abide by, which means that SEO requires constant monitoring and tweaking. 

Despite being a long-term strategy, SEO has gained popularity because it allows one to reach multiple long-term goals simultaneously, helping to keep key performance indicators (KPIs) such as website traffic, conversions, and leads high.

1. Create a Solid Keyword Strategy

Your keyword strategy is the foundation of your website content. Therefore, taking the time to cover all bases is critical for the success of your SEO marketing campaign. In our last post about local keyword research, we mentioned some of the tools you can use to choose your target keywords, such as Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or Answer the Public. 

As you preselect the keywords that align with your service offerings and target location, you’ll have to downsize your list. Try finding the sweet spot between terms with a low difficulty score and a high search volume. 

2. Research Your Competitors

Once you’ve chosen which terms you want to rank for, research your online competitors. To clarify, your real-life competitors may differ from your online competitors, as the last ones are all websites that are ranking for the exact keywords you plan to target with your SEO campaign.

We recommend analyzing which keywords your competitors are ranking for and which terms bring the most traffic to their website – you may need to do keyword analysis on these terms down the road.

3. Publish Relevant Content To Build Authority and Expertise

Google is well known for rewarding websites that share relevant, optimized content. They are committed to making the world’s information accessible and helpful, and you should too. The higher the value you provide through your website content, the higher your chances of ranking on the first page of the search results. 

Share content that helps you build authoritativeness around the topic you want to rank for. For example, try posting blogs that answer some of the most frequently asked questions about your product or service and turn client reviews and case studies into blogs. 

4. Optimize Your Content For Higher Visibility

When you publish a website or blog, Google’s bugs will analyze your site and look for signals that you’re sharing quality content. These bugs will also determine which search queries your page is most relevant to. For this reason, optimizing content for some of the best SEO practices is paramount for your campaign success. Some of the must-to include:

• Adding your primary keywords to the page meta tags, meta description, and permalink
• Linking to other pages of your website 
• Including your main keyword in the headline 1 of your content
• Using the primary keyword in the first paragraph of your blog
• Structuring your content with headlines 2 and 3
• Including an image every 300 or 400 words
• Downsizing your images, so they weigh less than 300KB 
• Adding alternative text to each image
• Using keywords related to your main keywords throughout the content
• Levering transition words within the content for easier understanding
• Repeating your primary keyword once every 100 or 200 words.

5. Use Google My Business To Get Found on the Map

Google My Business is Google’s local listing. It enables businesses to appear on Google Maps and above the local search results. 

Besides sharing your business pictures and NAP information (name, address, and phone number), linking to your website, and showcasing your business reviews and rating score, Google My Business allows you to share content and updates in the form of posts. Think of it as a mix of local listings and a Facebook page.

Leveraging each feature offered by Google My Business and keeping your business information, pictures, and posts up to date will help your local listing positioning on Google search. In addition, replying to your client reviews will also prove beneficial to your SEO campaign.

6. Create a Link Building Strategy

Despite being a time-consuming process, link building is critical for a successful SEO campaign. It consists of having other sites linking to your website for a more authoritative and reliable website presence. Depending on the scope of your SEO campaign, your link-building strategy will be nationwide or locally focused. 

If you own a local business, then the best way to go about link building is to get local, relevant businesses linking to your website. On the other hand, if your campaign is nationwide, you’ll need nationwide enterprises and websites linking to your site.

With the previously mentioned difference in mind, the rest of your link-building process shouldn’t change. Set a strong foundation for your local link-building strategy with our beginner’s guide!

7. Mimic Your Paid Search Keyword Strategy

Are you running a pay-per-click campaign? We recommend using your Google Ads search term report to give yourself an idea of how customers search for your services and products online. You can also include some of the keywords from your PPC campaign in your website, as long as they have a high search volume and are easy to rank for. 

Using some of the keywords from your Google Ads campaign on your services pages will help you kill two birds at once. One of Google Ads’ main requirements to appear above the organic results is ad relevance. A highly relevant ad should include the keywords used in the ads within the landing page. Thus, you’ll be able to get organic and paid traffic from your service pages without neglecting your PPC ads’ relevance.

8. Analyze Your Results and Tweak as You Go

Tracking your results and analyzing user behavior will help make informed decisions about your SEO campaign strategy. Even though your campaign results will likely prevail for the long term, it will still need tweaks as Google changes the search algorithm, user behavior changes, and new online competitors step in. 

You can use three leading platforms to get enough information about your campaign results and user behavior. These are Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Google My Business. Below we share some of the metrics you should keep an eye on:

• Google Analytics: Website monthly traffic; website impressions; average time spent on page; page conversion rate; page conversions and website traffic per page.
• Google Search Console: Total clicks; average position; average CTR; total impressions; queries’ average position, clicks, and impressions. 
• Google My Business: Calls; website clicks; discovery searches; total searches; total actions.

Conclusion

The road to a successful SEO campaign can feel lengthy for business owners looking for immediate results. However, the time SEO takes to work depends on how new your website is and how solid your previous SEO strategy was. 

If you’re working on the very first SEO campaign for your business, we highly recommend following SEO best practices and giving each of the steps and tips we shared a shot. Yes, you will have to invest time and patience until you achieve ROI, but the results are worth the wait.

On the other hand, if your business has an established presence already, we highly recommend auditing your website and fixing what’s not working before getting started with your new campaign. 

Do you need help auditing your website? Reach out to our friendly team at Olly Olly! Our experts will provide you with a free SEO audit and will be eager to answer any questions you may have. We also encourage you to subscribe to our monthly newsletter to receive tips and tricks on all things SEO straight to your inbox!

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