If you’ve ever wondered how HubSpot sells, prospects and what tips you can take from them, this is...
Looking to set up a winning SEO strategy in 2022? You’re in luck. Our very own Senior SEO Specialist, Anthony Biggs, revealed all you need to know at December’s virtual Manchester HUG event.
To watch his talk in full, hit play on the video below.
Before we get started, what even is an SEO strategy?
An SEO strategy is a process of organising your website content by topic to increase the likelihood of it appearing high up in the search results. So, you want to use an SEO strategy to maximise the opportunity to gain traffic from search engines.
Most businesses are familiar with SEO, but they often fall foul of a few things.
Here’s where businesses go wrong:
- They have no real strategy behind them
- They go off what they think people are searching for rather than what they’re actually searching for
- They use irrelevant keywords
Where do you start?
Compile a list of around 10 words and terms associated with your business. Then, identify a list of keywords you can rank for —you can use SEMrush, Google’s Keyword tool or Ahrefs to research them.
These tools will let you know how many links you’ll need to rank for the keywords. You can even use tools such as Google Suggest. Anthony uses the example of ‘inbound marketing’, which you can enter into Google Suggest and it’ll give you a whole load of other suggestions as well as longtail keywords.
What the heck is a longtail keyword?
Longtail keywords are less popular with lower search volumes and have a pretty high variation. The beauty of these keywords is that they’re high converting, although they’re low volume.
Here’s a great template to help you perform keyword research.
How are you ranking for your keywords? Use something better or different. Enter the search term you want to rank for and note down any patterns. Use 10x content — something better or more complete than the competition. What unique value can you add to their pages?
Check out our free guide on premium content here.
Speaking of content, here are some tips to help you rank for those keywords
- Write content that appeals to your target market
- Create headlines that make an impression
- Use keyword-rich phrases
- Incorporate images, videos, tables and downloads
- Promote your content on social media
- Promote natural link building
One top tip to keep in mind is to avoid overstuffing your content with keywords. It’s best to focus on the user to make the best content possible and then make the fine tweaks to drop in those relevant keyword-rich phrases!
On top of this, the search engines will penalise you for keyword stuffing. If anything feels unnatural, remove it!
Optimising your on-page content
Once you’ve created your content, it’s essential you then optimise it. To help you do that, Anthony went deep into optimal on-page SEO tactics. He covered everything from meta titles and keywords to internal pages and page speed.
But we don’t want to spoil too much for you, so make sure you watch the full presentation here.
What is the Manchester HUG?
HUG stands for HubSpot User Group and is a recurring event hosted by Digital 22 throughout the year to help like-minded people share their skills and tactics to improve their inbound marketing efforts.
It’s an excellent opportunity for marketers to grow, learn and enjoy. Together. We’re big on this.
At the Manchester HUG, you’ll discover what does and doesn’t work for other companies, as well as have the opportunity to ask experts questions. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to learn and grow with like-minded individuals.