What is the SEO strategy for growth, especially, long-term growth? It’s a trending question but does anyone have an answer for it? You’ve got a house, you know a contractor and someone who wants to buy a home but, how do you attract the person and stand out?
There’s an SEO strategy, used by most successful businesses, and, is kept a secret. But, we’ll reveal it to you so you can grow your website, increase its visibility, and eventually, increase the website traffic and conversion. We’ll give you the SEO strategy for long-term growth.
The SEO Strategy For Growth
SEO experts follow the same strategy – targeting low-competition topics with high business potential. But, what exactly do they do with it or after it? What should you do? We’ll show you what to do.
SEO experts aim for low-competition keywords that have a high business potential. They use those keywords in their content and website naturally to rank for those keywords. Ranking allows them to gain authority for your website and drive more conversions.
Now, as their website ranks and attracts more traffic regularly, they use this authority to start progressing and go after more competitive keywords to attract more audiences. Repeating this flow allows them to grow more and quicken the process.
But how do you find these keywords in real life? It’s simple!
The first step is to find the keywords. You pick up your niche and simply type it in an SEO tool – a huge database of keywords—for example, Ahrefs, SEmrush, and Google Keyword Planner. Find the keywords that have a decent search volume but low competition.
These types of keywords aren’t used by everyone but have a great effect on a website’s performance. Three simple steps you need to follow are –
- Find the keywords
- Match them- connect them.
- Go through your competitors’ websites to see what they’re doing and all the information that they have.
Note down those websites and target the ones that are in your niche. This will help you in knowing the long tail keywords and content they’re ranking for and driving in more traffic. Use it all to find the perfect keyword for your website and discover the feeling when you’re at the top!
The SEO Strategies To Grow Your Website
Every business aims for three things- organic traffic, more conversions, and sustainable growth. To fulfill this, a data-driven and user-centric approach is required. Let’s break it down into four key elements – understanding search intent, keyword research, Quality Content, and Technical SEO.
Understanding Search Intent
The most difficult task these days, that most website owners miss is that user intent is prioritized over keyword stuffing to attract users. Keyword stuffing can negatively affect the website. To serve the user intent, you need to understand why the user is searching.
Relevantity takes the lead in fulfilling the search intent. The relevant content addresses the users’ needs directly which results in higher engagement and lower bounce rates. According to the Search Engine Journal, websites that are optimized for user intent have a 56% increase in conversion rates.
The co-lead of relevance is the search engine algorithm. Google prioritizes user experience, and in 2024, it released an update where all that mattered was user experience. One can aim to align with the search intent and increase their ranks by just fulfilling the search intent.
An approach toward mastering the user intent can look like this-
- Keyword Research
Focusing on long tail keywords and not just the high volume keywords which are shorter and more competitive.
Using SEO tools and platforms like Ahrefs and AnswerThePublic can help website owners and SEO experts find the informational queries and trending topics in their niche and give them an edge over other website owners. These platforms provide valuable insights for user search intent.
- Content Mapping
Keyword research helps you reach the targetted audience. To find what keywords you should use, it’s important to analyze your target audience and their pain points.
In this case, content mapping helps. That is, outlining the topics that address the specific needs of users and fulfill various user search intent. This lets you cover all of what your audience is looking for.
Search Engines like Google have been considering user experience as an important factor for a long time. But this year, they made it a priority. Their main goal is to provide a wonderful experience to its users as the internet is becoming a more competitive place.
Similarly, its internet is getting competitive for you as well, so, fulfill the user intent to fulfill your dreams!
Keyword Research: Targeted Approach
As we saw how user intent is the supreme player, let’s not forget that keyword plays a part in making it supreme. The right keywords are important for the searchers to find what they want and, on the other side, the right keywords are important for the websites to fulfill what the user wants. It goes both ways.
For now, stick this one thing in your mind, “one-size-doesn’t-fit-all”. Not all websites whether they are large, small, old or just starting can aim for the same keywords- short, high volume, and high competition. To grow the website, one needs to aim for long-tail keywords.
The two big benefits of long-tail keywords are that they are
- Low competition
They’re less competitive when compared to short keywords. According to SEMrush, the competitive score of long-term keywords is 36%. On the other hand, the short-tail keywords have a competition score of 82%.
Low competition gives you a chance to stand out whenever someone searches for it.
- Higher Conversion Rates
With being less competitive, long tail keywords also serve higher purchase intent. Generally, the purchase intent is 2 – 3% higher than the short tail keywords purchase intent.
So, long tail keywords are easy to rank for with having higher conversion rates. The dream team of every website owner.
To find long tail keywords, one can use keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, which has always been the first choice if someone wants to get real-time data and keywords. Tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush can be used for more advanced long-tail keywords.
The other way of finding some perfect keywords for your website’s growth is to analyze the “People Also Ask” section. It has many long-tail keyword inspirations and topics and questions that users constantly and actively search for.
Long-tail keywords aren’t just some key to a lock, it’s a golden key that helps you unlock every possibility whether small or huge. So, using long-tail keywords not only helps you convert but also increases website traffic as well as authority in the niche you work on.
Quality Content
High-quality content is the foundation of your robust SEO strategy. But have you ever thought about what high-quality content means? High-quality content delivers three things, data-driven insights, visual storytelling, and E-E-A-T.
Data-Driven Insights
People need facts and evidence to trust. To make the content high quality, it should be backed with claims like relevant studies, research findings, and industry reports. According to Moz, content that’s backed by data has a 20% higher average time rate that the user stays on the page.
Visual Storytelling
Visuals have always been the show stopper, they’ve the power to stop your audience and captivate them. To make your readers stop by and understand you, break the texts with images, infographics, and videos. Altogether, it results in enhanced understanding and improved user experience.
E-E-A-T
E-E-A-T, which means, Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness are some important factors in tagging your content as a high-quality piece. It helps you establish yourself as a thought leader in the industry.
Creating content that shows the expertise of the creator in the niche increases the trust of the user as well as the search engine on the website and the individual behind it. A strong E-E-A-T website can rank higher for competitive keywords as well.
Even after knowing the three main factors that announce your content as high quality, there’s a question in our hearts- how to do it? Because without the “how”, it’s all just words and sentences.
Create Content Clusters
Rather than creating a long isolated piece that has all the information and value but becomes boring due to its length, aim for creating shorter pieces covering different parts of a topic deeply, also called content clusters.
Creating shorter pieces with in-depth information and interlinking them can help you stand out as an expert at what you do and also get strong topical authority through search engines.
Keep Your Content Fresh
User needs and search engine algorithms are changing continuously. So, do you think that outdated and old content will get engagement? Maybe yes if it’s an evergreen niche like plants but, what about the other niches like digital marketing, SEO, and even just lifestyle?
The user will shut it down.
To prevent this from happening, keeping the content fresh is the best action one can take. Being aware of the latest trends and user needs and keeping the content updated with all the new information, insights, and industry updates can boost relevance and user engagement.
Why lose all of that and not just update the website content? Researched by Search Metrics, an updated website has 2x organic growth compared to a website that has outdated content.
Search engines also prioritize fresh and updated content as it adds value to the user’s satisfaction. The freshness of the content sends signals to the search engine how well the content is and boosts the website’s ranking.
Maintain The Content On The Website
As you take action to keep the content fresh and updated, don’t forget to maintain it. Regularly conducting content audits to know the outdated and underperforming content does great help in refreshing it with new information, data as well as visuals.
Now, it must be understood that just taking action isn’t enough but maintaining it is important as well. Be updated with the seasonal and hot topics that capture the user’s intent and satisfy them.
Technical SEO
Compelling content, user intent, keywords – they’re all good but incomplete. Incomplete without what? Technical SEO. How can you show off what you own in the house when one can’t even open the door of the house or enter?
Technical SEO keeps you away from these basic struggles that can be solved by just putting some oil in the locks. It is the powerhouse for the great SEO strategy – it’s a fuel to it. Some main elements to optimize to keep your website running smoothly are:
Mobile-First Indexing
Since 2018, Google has been prioritizing the mobile versions to index. If your website is mobile-friendly, congratulations! You’ve won half of the race. If not, use a responsive design for the website that makes your website fit all the screen sizes and prevents you from falling behind.
A mobile-friendly website provides an exceptional user experience because it is easy to navigate and has a fast loading speed. Websites with a loading speed of less than 3 seconds and mobile-friendly design elements satisfy the user as well as the search engines.
Structured Data Markup
Structured Data Markup lets the search engine get more rich information about the content that you post – the category, intent, and solutions. Then, the search engines show up your website with snippets of information as well as ratings and reviews you’ve got. This eventually increases the click-through rates.
Website Security
Never take the security of your website lightly. You might know that all your user information is secure but does your user know that? Implement HTTPS encryption to enhance the trust among your users and search engines.
It’s a fact that a website without HTTPS encryption might not even get opened even if the snippet is high-quality and informative. Studies by the Baymard Institute have revealed that 85% of online shoppers abandon a website just because it doesn’t have HTTPS encryption.
After optimizing your website for mobiles, structured data markup, and ensuring that your website is secure, move on to the next part, the audits, to see if everything is working well.
SEO audit tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush can be used to identify the technical errors that our website has and get recommendations based on the errors your website is facing to improve it and grow.
For more complex technical issues, considering collaborating with a web developer is the best decision. The web developer can easily enhance the website’s performance and the user experience making your website grow and attract more traffic.
Conclusion
This blog revealed the secret of a successful SEO Strategy that can help you aim for long-term growth. We’ve moved ahead of the quick fixes and discussed how continuous efforts and actions can build a strong foundation and help you succeed.
Always remember, that the key to a robust SEO strategy is to prioritize user intent over keyword stuffing. Creating high-quality content enriched with the right keywords that deliver value helps you establish yourself as a leader and make your website authoritative.
By putting in consistent efforts and keeping yourself updated with the latest trends, you can build a website that ranks higher and attracts a genuine audience that stays loyal. Embrace all of it – from keyword research to technical SEO- and keep the website fresh and user-friendly.
Dedication and a data-driven approach can help you unlock all the possibilities and potential of SEO and achieve sustainable growth for your website.
