For many, SEO is the mystical creature of the digital marketing era. It offers so much and yet is so often misunderstood. To get the most out of search engine optimization it needs to be integrated throughout your entire website. In our last SEO post, we provided an overview of integrated SEO. In this post we will take a deeper dive, providing some specific steps on how to achieve search marketing integration (SMI).
Before creating an integrated SEO plan it’s vital that the concept is understood and demystified. Let go of any old preconceptions that remain, pushing the thought of keyword stuffing and link farming out of your head entirely. Instead, simply think of a good SEO plan as a way to reach your target audience more effectively and in greater numbers. SEO can also offer a way to review your results and effectiveness.
Once you’re ready to embrace what integrated SEO can do for your website, take a look at these five steps to SEO integration.
Establish Your Identity
Branding is often a little nebulous, even to established companies. But overall, it’s what your website stands for and the impression it creates. Your company brand is what sets you apart from the competition. If, through your SEO research, you discover that your key audience has a certain set of beliefs, attitudes, values etc. then you can incorporate this data into your brand and be the company or the website that they actually want you to be.
The key to successful branding, much like integrated SEO, is to keep this identity top of mind in everything you do.
SEO Bones
Like a great home, the key lies in the bones or the structure. Establishing your website bones and then integrating them across the site gives you that structure.
This process includes discovering the keywords and key phrases that best define what you offer and what your target audience searches. This will prove vital throughout the integration process, so spend some time really creating the right reach. Once this data has been created it’s time to integrate it into the front and back end of your website:
- Create meta data
- Write meta descriptions
- Incorporate H1 and title tags
- Add alt attribute tags
Content Integration
Once you have laid your foundation, it’s time to start building. This is where integrated SEO really begins.
The key is to remember to speak to your audience while using your keywords and key phrases rather than stuffing them in nonsensically. This is an area that Filament has always strongly emphasized as a great way to reach and engage your target audience. The keywords your audience uses need to be woven throughout the content in a clever, effective, conversational and informative manner. The primary objective is to speak to the audience and build your rapport and authority. The other objective is to signal the web crawling spiders and let them know what your website is all about.
Social Media
Content integration goes beyond just the content on your site. Ignoring the social media influence can be deadly to a website. On the flip side, creating a great rapport that is shared on social media can reap untold rewards.
There is no recipe for a viral social reach but content (including images, video and quality copy) that the target group reacts and relates to should be the goal of everything you do. Think enhanced experience.
In addition to establishing a relationship with your social marketing, you should also be weaving in SEO and making sure there is a tie back to your company, products, website etc.
Measure Results/Analytics
The feedback that is gathered in the form of analytics can often be confusing, mainly because there’s just so much of it. But if you pull out the data that is essential to your marketing efforts you will quickly see how vital this SEO integration can be. Marketing is a good place to integrate SEO because the results are quantifiable through analytics. You can track how successful one campaign is in terms of pulling in visitors and then compare that to another campaign to constantly fine tune your approach.
SEO is not the “end all” of website success, but it is a valuable tool in reaching across many channels and building an integrated strategy. The overarching message that shines through all integrated SEO efforts is to understand your audience. The real goal of search engine optimization is to reach that coveted target group. You do this by creating a plan of attack that not only reaches that group but also understands and engages, delivering a valuable experience that, in turn, creates loyalty. With the deeper understanding and the results-based data, SEO integration gives you that vital connection that will boost your web appeal.
Search Marketing Integration doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s well worth the effort. Check back over the next several weeks as we go deeper into each step, providing examples of what works and what doesn’t.
Need some help developing an SEO plan for your business? Let Filament show you the way.
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