Search engine optimization (SEO) involves several elements that bring your target audience to your website.

Content marketing, aka digital marketing, keeps that audience there and converts them using engagement strategies on your web pages. In digital marketing SEO and content marketing are different skills with different results, but both are significant segments of your online marketing strateg

Keyword Research

SEO optimizes content to display your site and content marketing works to convert visitors into a client or subscribers.

To be successful in SEO, you are going to put some effort into finding the optimal keywords to build into your content. There are several methods to get this accomplished. One is reading my ebook which goes into detail on how and where to do that research.

Another method is to gather some marketing intelligence on your competition to see what they are using and perhaps make some modifications on that intel.

One more method is to purchase a service, like mine, to research the web and collect keywords from similar businesses in different geographic areas that will help you build a comprehensive strategy for your target audience.

If you are a DIY person, hone your skills with search operators to identify and collect information on your competitors and your target audience.

Keywords are basically what your potential customers use when using a search engine and looking for your product or services. Remember, they don’t know your business name; they just know what they want to have or buy, and that is what will drive what they input to make their search.

As a website owner and marketer, you want your website listed organically as often as possible to the correct target audience. For example, if you are selling window cleaners, then your target audience is going to be a national one. Another example is if you are an auto mechanic; your target audience is going to be in a specific area depending on where your shop is or if you are providing mobile mechanical services.

You dial in your website pages with SEO methods to inform the search bots, which crawl your web pages constantly, the specific geographical area you serve.

A decent and effective keyword strategy is simple. Use a conversational tone in your content. Don’t overstuff your keywords; put your keywords in different page locations. What you want to do is demonstrate in your content the EEAT model. We discussed that in a different article. EEAT are the guidelines that Google developers have articulated to help people publish effective content.

With your business, make sure you set up an account in Google Search Console, Google Business, and Bing Business. Those three places also allow you to define your marketing area. Use those as a starting point to explain your business and include photos or even customer testimonials.

Webpage Optimization

There are several methods for applying keywords to your web page content.

  1. Text optimization is about maximizing the number of keywords in a copy.

  2. Title tags and meta descriptions are two of the most important on-page SEO factors that affect how search engines index your page and whether users click on it in search results.

  3. Structured data is a code that you customize with your specific details and that is administered by Google crawlers, aka bots. The code is used to display snippets of information about your products and services in search results.

  4. Link building is a primary element used by search engines to decide who should rank first for a particular search query.

These four areas, along with your keywords, need your attention so they remain fresh and in tune with current SEO technology. Much like a car or truck needs a tune-up and oil change, so does your website's content need a tune-up in the form of content publishing so that it retains and forties its organic listings in search results. As an example, As an example, Google is always releasing new SEO tech guidelines; one of the latest is the helpful content update.

Summary

SEO work is not going to show you success overnight; it takes time and effort to get your pages dialed in and tuned in. Many marketing teams are looking for quicker wins and sometimes overlook how powerful it can be and use paid advertising for immediate results, but even that takes time to discover your niche.

Once a company sets up a blog and optimizes its webpages for search, it lays the foundation to significantly increase web traffic and inbound leads, which is the gold standard for website success as proven by numerous studies.