How to set up a winning SEO strategy? | The USA Print

In this guide, discover the 3 pillars of a successful SEO strategy .

Pillar n°1: Definition of your SEO strategy

Like a top athlete, you must first prepare your strategy well to hope to achieve the desired results.

Determine the objectives of your SEO strategy

To carry out your SEO strategy (natural referencing), you should not focus only on your objectives in terms of SEO. You should make sure that these align well with your overall business goals as well as your marketing goals .

To see this more clearly, let’s take an example:

You own a real estate agency in France. You already offer your service in several cities in France, in particular Bordeaux, Clermont and Toulouse. And you want to serve a new city, namely Marseille.

Suppose you have formulated your overall business objectives as follows:

• Develop 15% of turnover (CA) via the service offered in the city of Marseille in 2023
• Increase the company’s overall turnover by 5% in 2023
• Reduce the cost of customer acquisition by 25%

As for your marketing objectives, you formulated them as follows:

• Improve the visibility of my agency in the city of Marseille
• Increase the turnover generated via digital marketing by 30% in 2023
• Increase the number of leads generated through inbound marketing by 40%

Finally come the SEO objectives. The golden rule: Avoid setting a goal that is too broad (for example: to generate more traffic on my site). For an effective SEO strategy, bet instead on SMART objectives (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely defined).

Let’s take our example on the real estate agency in Marseille. In this case, you can formulate your objectives as follows:

• Display the page containing the new service in Marseille in the top 3 of local search results in 6 months
• Increase site traffic by 20% over the next 10 months
• Position yourself on the first page of Google with the keywords “real estate agency marseille” in 5 months

Do a keyword study

To search for information or products on the Internet, Internet users use keywords . These are therefore a reflection of their needs.

This is why search engine algorithms take into account the relevance of the keywords used in the sites . This allows them in particular to achieve their ranking in the SERPs (search engine results pages).

Thus, as part of your SEO strategy, you should not overlook a study of keywords . Here are the steps to do this:

• Research keywords related to your business: there are many tools that can help you find keywords, to name but a few Ahrefs, Answer The Public and Keyword Generator.
• Rank your keywords according to their search volume per month, their level of competitiveness and their relevance
• Select the most relevant keywords

Favor long tail keywords (formed by 3 or more words). Indeed, the competition on this kind of words is generally weaker. This can help you position your site more easily.

Also, search intent with long-tail keywords is more accurate. Reason why this type of keywords can generate qualified traffic . And who says qualified traffic often says better conversion rate.

Perform a technical audit of your website

If you want your SEO strategy to bear fruit, be sure to do a technical audit . This is a general diagnosis of your internet. This helps you identify areas for improvement.

As part of the technical audit of a site , the SEO expert or the SEO SEO agency checks the elements that could harm your SEO. Among the parameters to check, here are some examples:

• Any errors (error 404, error 500, etc.)
• Indexing of web pages by Google robots
• Log files
• The architecture of the site
• The loading time of the pages of the site
• The compatibility of the site with mobile support

Good to know  : Speaking of SEO, you can also check out our guide on which Mac SEO software to choose. This guide offers you the best Mac software that are used especially as SEO tools.

Optimize the structure of your site

Although the design of your website is impeccable, your visitors will not hesitate to look elsewhere if navigation on your site proves difficult (see how to have a successful design on your e-commerce site). Hence the importance of building a good tree . This term refers to the way you organize the content of your site and the links between the different pages.

The structure of your site has an impact on the journey of your visitors. However, the user experience is one of the criteria for ranking sites by Google.

You will understand: a well-constructed tree structure can help you go up in search engine results . It is therefore an element not to be forgotten in an SEO strategy.

How to optimize the structure of your site for SEO? Here are a few tips :

• Organize your site by category  : consider grouping similar pages together to help your visitors navigate your site more easily and thus reduce the bounce rate. This also allows search engines to index your site and understand your theme.
• Create clear page titles that perfectly reflect the content of each page
• Create a relevant internal linking strategy  : this consists of linking your web pages together by integrating internal links

Good to know  : Speaking of SEO, you can also check out our guide on which Mac SEO software to choose. This guide offers you the best Mac software that are used especially as SEO tools.

Develop a content strategy

At this point, you already know the keywords you are going to rank for. You have checked the health of your site. In addition, the structure of your site is optimized for SEO. Now on to the last step of the first pillar of your SEO strategy: plan content creation .

To facilitate the creation of your plan, simply ask yourself the right questions:

• What page are you planning to use your keywords on? On the homepage, category page, service page, or dedicated blog post pages?
• Is your content persuasive, informative or transactional?
• Is your content aimed at people who already know what they want or those who want to learn about a new topic?
• What is the purpose of your content? Encourage visitors to fill out a contact form, subscribe to your newsletter, press the buy now button or request a quote?

Pillar 2: Use of the best SEO tools

To implement your SEO strategy, you must use powerful SEO tools . Indeed, they provide you with several data to help you understand and measure the impact of your SEO techniques.

With these tools, you will be able to accurately identify what works and what doesn’t. This helps you determine where you should focus your efforts to get the best results .

Here are some tools that will certainly be useful for analyzing and monitoring the progress of your SEO strategy:

Google Analytics et Google Search Console

These are free tools offered by Google to web marketing professionals and SEOs. What are these tools for? These allow you to analyze the performance of traffic on your company’s website or on your e-commerce store.

Here are some data you can use on Google Analytics and Google Search Console:

• The demographics of your audience (age, gender, location, etc.)
• The devices used by your visitors to access your site (desktop or mobile device)
• The keywords used by Internet users to land on your site
• Traffic acquisition channels ( organic search, social media, email, external links, etc.)
• The number of visitors
• The average duration of sessions

Google Tag Manager

Another tool to use in an SEO strategy: Google Tag Manager (GTM). This is another free tool offered by the web giant. This allows you to more easily collect SEO data on the activities on your web pages. This tool makes it easier to manage tracking tags (Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, LinkedIn Pixel, etc.).

Thanks to GTM, you can follow the actions carried out by your visitors. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the data you can collect with this Google tool:

• Clicks on the call to action button (CTA button)
• The products that generated the most sales
• The pages that generated the most conversions
• Newsletter subscriptions
• Cart abandonment

In short, this tool allows you to have an eye on the buying journey of your customers . If you have a blog, it helps you identify what content appeals to your readers the most.

In addition, by using Google Tag Manager , you will not need the intervention of a web developer to track the data. Indeed, it is not necessary to modify the source code of your pages.

Google Business Profile (anciennement Google My Business)

Google Business Profile is a tool that plays a key role in an SEO strategy. Indeed, this one allows you to optimize your local referencing .

By creating a Google Business Profile, you will be able to have your business appear on Google Maps and in the Local Pack (read our guide on Google Map SEO). The latter is the section that Google dedicates to the search results of Internet users making a query with local intent .

For example, let’s enter “barber in paris” in the Google search bar. In this case, this search engine will offer you 3 places (with mention of the name of each company) just above the classic natural results.

If you want to attract more customers to your establishment as part of your SEO strategy, consider creating and optimizing your Google Business listing. Here are the best practices:

• Include your keywords in your business description
• Indicate your opening hours
• Regularly post news about your company, tips or important upcoming events
• Add photos and videos illustrating what you offer your customers
• Activate customer reviews and respond to comments
• Update your information regularly
• Don’t forget to include your site’s URL in your listing to maximize your chances of generating traffic

Looker Studio (anciennement Google Data Studio)

By using a tracking tool like Looker Studio , you can easily visualize the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) of your SEO strategy.

This tool allows you to analyze:

• Visibility KPIs :  number of visitors, number of impressions
• Behavioral KPIs :  average session duration, click-through rate on links, number of views on each page, bounce rate (percentage of visitors who consult a page of a site, then leave the latter in stride without opening any others), etc
• Conversion KPIs :  conversion rate (prospects into customers)

Other useful tools as part of an SEO strategy

In addition to the tools mentioned above, here are other reliable solutions to optimize the effectiveness of your Google SEO strategy  :

• Yoast SEO  : this is a WordPress extension designed to facilitate the optimization of editorial content on this CMS (Content Management System or content management system)
• SEMRush  : to analyze the performance of your keywords and follow the evolution of the positioning of your site in real time
• SEMRush Writing Assistant (SWA): This SEO tool offered by SEMRush can be added as an add-on on Google Docs. You can also install it on WordPress in addition to Yoast SEO

Pillar 3: Strengthening your SEO strategy

If you want to build a solid SEO strategy, you shouldn’t stop here. Do you want to put your competitors down and position your site at the top of the SERPs for a long time  ? So, continue your efforts by implementing the following actions:

Make it easier for your site to be indexed by Google

Before making web pages appear in the SERPs , search engine robots must first crawl, analyze, list and rank them. This phase is called indexing. Here are some tips to speed up this process:

• Identify and fix indexing errors
• Upload a sitemap file to help Google robots find your web pages more easily
• Make an indexing request with the Google Search Console tool in the “URL inspection” section
• Improve your internal networking
• Regularly update your already published articles

Improve the loading speed of your site

A slow site is a factor that promotes an increase in the bounce rate . Note that this does not only affect the user experience. The slowness of a site could also harm its natural referencing.

This is why in your SEO strategy, you must put in place actions to reduce the loading time of your pages . Here are some examples:

• Optimize the weight of images
• Cache your files
• Use the Content Delivery Network (CDN)
• Optimize the display of your content on mobile with the AMP (Accelerated Mobile Page) tool
• Change web host (if your server is shared with too many websites)

Strengthen the security of your website

Search engines appreciate sites that offer a high level of security . This is also a factor to consider if you want to rank higher in the SERPs. In addition, a secure site strengthens the confidence of Internet users . This is why it is in your interest to strengthen the security of your site as part of your SEO strategy.

To improve the security of your site, you must set up an SSL certificate for it to be accessible. Also remember to update your CMS regularly.

Optimize your netlinking strategy

To succeed in your SEO strategy, do not fail to develop a netlinking strategy . This consists of multiplying the backlinks (see the definition). Also called backlinks or incoming links, backlinks are hypertext links that direct anyone who clicks on them from site A to site B.

For this to work, you must choose links from sites in the same theme as you (ideally a reputable site in your field).

What is the point of creating a netlinking strategy? Well, know that it has a positive impact on domain authority . This is a rating ranging from 0 to 100 that Google assigns to websites. The rule is simple: the higher your score, Google will trust your site. And the trust granted by this search engine will earn you places in the organic results.

Write articles optimized for SEO

If you want your SEO strategy to be effective, don’t neglect the quality of your content . These should not appeal only to Internet users. You should also write with search engines in mind. Here are our tips:

• Use short sentences that are easily understood by your target audience
• Adopt a consistent structure to help search engines understand the content of your page and make it easier for your visitors to read
• Insert images that reflect your content
• Include your main keyword in your URL , in the title and meta description tags, in the h1 title, in the first words of the article, in at least one h2 title

Conclusion

You now have all the cards in hand to carry out your SEO strategy and conquer the top ranks of search engines .

However, keep in mind that the results of an SEO strategy will not be visible overnight. Count on months or even years to see the fruits of your SEO work. This is why you must demonstrate regularity and above all endurance.

In addition, it is advisable to combine SEO strategy and the paid referencing campaign or SEA. The latter guarantees you almost immediate visibility in search engines .