SEO is a rigorous and consistent process that requires patience, discipline and perseverance. Search engine optimisation (SEO) allows your website to be more visible and have greater authority in search engines. Implementing a successful SEO plan will help you get more people to find your company's website and attract more potential customers. What is the purpose of SEO? The idea is for your website to appear in the top positions on the first page of search engines, as these are known to be the most likely to be viewed.
Create your buyer persona
If you want to get a clear picture of your prospects or potential customers, it is necessary to create your buyer persona, which is nothing more than the assumed and overall picture of the right customer. This profile helps you to relate to your customers as human beings. For example, you may know that most of your clients are women with an executive profile, but do you know their specific needs and interests? Do you know what their challenges and goals are, both personal and professional? Ready, but how do you create a buyer persona? You can use research, surveys and interviews with your target audience. As a recommendation, as a first step, rely on your current customers, as they have already bought your products or services in the past, and interview them, either in person or by phone. Some questions you can ask them are:
- Demographic information;
- What are your short, medium or long term aspirations? (Personal and professional)
- What are your challenges? (Personal and professional)
- What is your daily routine?
- What are your media for mass dissemination of information?
- What are your strengths and weaknesses?
You may ask: "What does this have to do with a referencing method? In reality, knowing who your buyer is is an important piece of information that you should consider at every stage of your plan. It's a task that few people give the priority it deserves and, without doubt, it can determine the success of your SEO strategy.
Key words
After creating your buyer persona, the next step in your plan will be to examine what kind of searches they do and what are the best words for you to get a better position on Google. There are many tools (Keyword Planner, Google Trends, ...) that will give you an overview of the most searched keywords on Google according to language and country. A good rule of thumb to speed up your work is to organise your keywords by category or service and by order of importance. Make sure you use your keywords in text, URLs, categories, tags and in your meta descriptions, the text that appears below the title or link in the search results (SERP). Similarly, you can include your keywords as topics in your articles, either in the title, in the headings, or in the text (it is important not to saturate them or force them). Another old but still valid technique is to highlight keywords by using bold, italic or underlined type.
Analyse your competition
Once you have identified the keywords you want to associate with your website, it is important to look at which companies are authorities in the searches you want to appear in. A good tool to use is Screaming Frog, which can help you find out what keywords your competitors are using and how their content is structured. If you want to start analysing your competition, it is recommended that you learn how to use Screaming Frog to make your life and your SEO strategy easier. On the other hand, you can also turn to MozBar, the free tool from Moz, considered the leading company in the SEO industry, to analyse relevant information about your competitors. This tool is a bar you can install in your browser that gives you instant metrics, such as page and domain authority, when you are on any website. Also not to be overlooked is Semrush, this tool not only does keyword ranking analysis, but also allows you to analyse your competitors SEM campaigns, make very detailed reports and research and analyse the possibilities of your featured keywords.
Your content
Writing is not an easy task for everyone, even professional writers themselves suffer from writer's block from time to time, a condition in which it is difficult for them to produce new and creative content. But it's important to understand that your audience comes first, before Google's algorithms. Your content must be useful, original and creative. Before selling your product or service, think about how you can help your buyer persona, then write a user-friendly, well-crafted article with examples and tips, and a tone that fits the brand. Ideally, it should be quite long (over 1000 words) as experience has shown that the best developed content very often has the best SEO results. Also check that your website has a responsive web design, i.e. that it adapts to any technological device, be it a smartphone, a tablet or a desktop computer. It is worth mentioning that since 2015, Google has been penalising any website that does not have this type of design.