SEO Strategy for 2018

Create a list of topics

Keywords are the heart of SEO, but they’re no longer your first step towards organic growth. Your first step is to make a list of topics you want to cover from one month to the next.

To get started, make a list of about 10 short words and terms related to your product or service. Use Google’s keyword tool to identify their search volume and create variants that make sense for your business.

Short keywords are usually more prevalent in use, and therefore they are more competitive and it is much more difficult to optimize content that will fight for a good organic position in search engines. Long-tail keywords are what you need to look out for and focus on as keywords.

We’ll walk you through how to use these words in just one minute.

By using search volume and competition as a measure, narrow down your list to 10-15 keywords that are important to you. Then, rank this list in order of priority or relevance to your business.

Each of these keywords is called a “pillar” and serves as the primary support for a larger “cluster” of long-tail keywords, which brings us to our next step…

Create a list of long key phrases

This is where you will start optimizing your pages for specific keywords. For each pillar you’ve identified, use the Keyword Tool to identify 5 to 10 longer-tail keywords that are related to the original keyword.

Use subtopics to come up with blog post or website ideas that explain a specific concept within each larger topic you identified in step 1. Plug these subtopics into the Keyword Planner to identify the longer keywords on which each blog post will be based.

Together, these subtopics create a cluster. So, if you have 10-pillar topics, they should be willing to support one cluster of five to 10 subtopics. This SEO model is called a “topic cluster,” and modern search engine algorithms depend on them to connect users with the information they’re looking for.

Here’s a short video about the concept:

Build pages for each topic

When it comes to websites and search engine rankings, trying to rank for a few keywords on a single page can be nearly impossible. But there is a stumbling block that is on the way:

Take the topics of the 10 pillars you chose in step 1 and create a website for each of them that explains the topic at a high level – using the longer keywords you were given for each cluster in step 2. A pillar page on SEO, for example, can describe SEO in short sections that introduce keyword research, image optimization, SEO strategy, and other subtopics as identified. Think of each pillar page as a table of contents, where you introduce your readers to the subtopics you’ll elaborate on in your blog posts.

Set up a blog

As you write each blog post and populate your clusters, there are three things you need to do:

1. First, don’t include long-tail keywords more than three or four times in the entire page. Google doesn’t take into account exact keyword matches as often as it used to. In fact, too many instances of your keywords can be a warning to search engines that you are “manipulating keywords”. This can penalize your website and lower its ranking.
2. Secondly, link to the pillar page you created on this topic. You can do this in the form of tags in your content management system (CMS) or as the body text of the article.
3. When you publish each blog post, link it to a pillar page that supports this underlay. Find the point on your pillar page that introduces the topic of this blog and link to it here.

By linking both the pillar and the cluster in this way, you’re telling Google that there’s a connection between long-tail keywords and the overarching topic you’re trying to rank for.

Write a blog on a regular basis.

With that in mind, post a blog post at least once a week. Remember, you’re blogging primarily for your audience, not search engines. Write about things that your audience is interested in, make sure to include relevant keywords where appropriate, and your audience will slowly notice and start clicking.

Keep in mind that not every topic will be equally important, and as your clusters go down, you need to prioritize based on your company’s needs. So, create a list of all the different websites that you would like to create and rank them. Then, create a layout and create a plan to build these pages.

Update your list and prioritize those websites that will help you achieve your business goals in the best way.

Create a Link-Building Plan

The theme cluster model is your way forward in SEO this year, but it’s not the only way to get your website content to rank higher once it’s created.

Our first five steps are dedicated to on-site SEO tactics. Link building is the primary goal of off-page SEO, and it’s also a huge factor in how search engines rank your website. What is link-building? I’m glad you asked.

Link building is the process of attracting links (also called “backlinks”) to your website from elsewhere on the web. As a general rule, the more authority a page has on the homepage, the more impact it has on the ranking of the website it links to.

Take some time to find different ways you can attract inbound links to your website. Start small – maybe share your links with other local businesses in exchange for links on their sites. Write a few blogs and share them on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn. Consider approaching other bloggers for guest blogging opportunities through which you can link to your website.

Another great way to attract inbound links is to use your blog to publish articles related to current events or news. This way, you have the opportunity to connect with influencers or other bloggers in your industry.

Follow SEO News Trends

Like the overall marketing space, the search engine space is always evolving. Staying on top of current trends and best practices is a difficult task, but there are more online resources that can make it easier for you to stay on top of the news and changes that can affect your website and your SEO strategy.

Some of the sites to look at:

1. SEOmoz
2. SEObook
3. Squamous cervical cancer.
4. Squamous cervical cancer.
5. Hubspot

Measure and track your SEO success

SEO can take a lot of time and effort. Why waste all this time and effort if you don’t see the fruits of your labor? There are plenty of metrics that you can track daily, weekly, or monthly to keep your SEO plan on track and measure your success.

Since the metric you’re looking after is organic traffic (traffic that comes from a given search engine), look for a tool that allows you to track your total traffic and how your pages rank under each keyword that your pages target. SEMrush is a great reporting tool for this purpose alone.

Create a monthly dashboard using Excel, Google Sheets, or a web analytics suite so you can track how much traffic is coming to your website from organic search.

Also, tracking indexed pages, leads, ROI, inbound links, keywords, and your actual ranking on SERPs (search engine results page) can help you recognize your success, as well as identify areas of opportunity for improvement.