If you’re trying to build an SEO plan for your small business, you may find it difficult to know where to get started. There’s so much information out there. When some of it starts to conflict with each other, knowing the right way to build an airtight SEO strategy can be hard.

That’s why we’ve created this guide to build an SEO plan for your business. Keep reading to find out more.

How SEO Works

SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s a strategy for digital marketing that changes the way your website works in search engines like google. When you know how to manipulate your website’s SEO, you can help increase your visibility for certain search parameters, or keywords.

You could choose to learn how to improve your SEO on your own or you could choose one of the many affordable SEO services for small business success. SEO is an evolving method of digital marketing. It takes a lot of time, focus, and energy to regularly put out content that ranks for your keywords.

If you have the budget to get help with your SEO, that’s the best route to take.

Build an SEO Plan

So, how do you go to build an SEO plan? If you aren’t careful about building the right strategy, you could be wasting time and money on methods that are outdated or simply don’t work.

It’s important to sit down and work out a game plan before you try to jump in on your own. Targeting your keywords, learning how to optimize, and correctly formatting your content are all important parts of an SEO strategy that will get your content seen by the people who need to see it.

Conduct an SEO Audit

Your first step is to conduct an SEO audit. To build an SEO plan, you have to know where you’re starting.

Doing an SEO audit in-house will save you money. But if you’re new to the world of SEO, you could be missing out on vital signs that you need help. There are free SEO audit tools out there that can give you a general idea of where you’re starting in your SEO journey.

Take advantage of these tools but also consider talking to a professional. When you work with an SEO expert, they can help you audit your on-page and off-page optimization so you know where you currently stand in search engine rankings.

Know Your Audience

Next, you have to research your target audience. A successful SEO strategy needs more than a compilation of buyer personas. You have to understand the way your target audience uses search features and interacts with things online.

Having an understanding of the way your target customer uses the internet will help you find keywords and create content that is relevant to their needs.

When doing your research, you’ll need to answer a few questions.

Who does my audience trust when they’re looking for answers about my industry? Where do they go or what platforms do they use to find these answers? What questions do they have about my industry or products?

What are their pain points? What do they expect from a provider in my industry?

Analyze Your Competitors

Next, you have to look at your competitors. Checking in on how your competitors are doing will help you spot your own weaknesses and opportunities. You’ll be able to spot their weaknesses and tailor your approach to being strong in those areas.

However, your online competitors aren’t always directly competing with you. The keywords you want to rank for will determine who you are competing with. You could be up against industry blogs or other companies as well.

You should try to find out:

• What searches and keywords do your competitors rank for
• What searches do they focus on
• If they follow SEO best practices
• How usable their website is
• How they promote their content
• What their backlink strategy looks like
• What online users say about their company

Lastly, try to determine what their SEO strategy is and how it compares to yours.

Find Your Keywords

Now you can decide what keywords you want to try to rank for. Use the information you collected during your internal audit, customer research, and competitor research to decide what keywords your customers use most often to search for things related to your brand.

Keyword research can be time-consuming. It’s not as simple as choosing the highest-ranking keywords and hoping for the best. In reality, you won’t be able to compete with the top brands in any industry, so you should find the keywords that are the easiest to rank for.

There are free tools available to help you decide on good keywords as well.

Create Your Content

Once you have your keywords, you can get started making content that caters to those keywords. Blogging is the best way to enhance your website’s SEO for specific keyword searches. Use your keyword lists and start to craft blogs around them.

Another good idea is to see what your competitors are creating, then try to recreate that same content but do it better. Make sure the content you put out is relevant, not a repeat, and make good use of links and backlinks.

Optimize Your Entire Website

Blog content isn’t the only way you can optimize your SEO strategy. Make sure all of your images, links, and other website content are up-to-date and functioning properly.

Another important factor in search engine optimization is having other websites link to yours. An SEO company can help you figure out how to get backlinks to improve your search engine rankings.

Master This Digital Marketing Strategy

Now that you know how to build an SEO plan, you can get started developing a strategy to help put your business where it belongs, which is in front of your ideal customers. Remember, SEO isn’t an overnight lead generator. It’s a long game that takes a lot of patience and the willingness to perfect your strategy.

For more top tips on how to crush your business goals this year, keep reading!