HOW TO CREATE A HOLISTIC SEO STRATEGY (VIDEO)
In today’s video, let’s learn about how to create a holistic SEO strategy, including which digital marketing initiatives to focus on and how to break it down into manageable pieces.
A great search engine optimization (SEO) strategy includes many disciplines such as technical maintenance, content development, and brand marketing. Let’s learn what tactics are essential for SEO, how to prioritize and plan accordingly.
If you’d prefer to read instead, the full transcript is listed below. Enjoy!
Video Transcript
Hi everyone. Kristan here. Let’s talk about creating and prioritizing a holistic SEO strategy for your website. SEO is an extremely multi-faceted digital marketing discipline. It includes other marketing initiatives such as branding, social awareness, as well as content development. Web development and product development can also impact SEO as well.
When thinking about creating a holistic SEO strategy, I like to break it down into onsite factors that I can control, [00:00:30] as well as offsite factors that I might not be able to control but that I can seek to influence. Onsite factors that you can control might be things like content development, content relevancy, making sure you have proper site navigation and that your content’s discoverable. Offsite factors that you can influence might be things like your brand awareness, public relations, and if you’re a local business, online reviews.
Let’s talk about some of the most important factors for creating your SEO strategy. [00:01:00] Firstly, let’s talk about analytics. Making sure that you have proper analytics tagging and comprehensive analytics coverage across your site is essential before starting any SEO initiatives. How do you know what’s working if you can’t track before and after results? Google Analytics and Google Search console are free tools that will be essential for your analytics coverage.
Next, let’s make sure our content’s discoverable. This might be things like ensuring you have proper technical infrastructure. Insight architecture so that your content’s [00:01:30] prowlable and discoverable, not only for search-engines but for users as well. This might be things like creating an XML site map or monitoring your site health and crawlers. Let’s make sure it’s relevant. Understanding the queries your audience will be searching and understanding their needs is essential in crafting and creating that great content.
Let’s think about user behavior signals and user experience. User behavior signals such as time on site, and bounce rate have become increasingly important for SEO. Making sure you have a great user [00:02:00] experience is also great in retaining and keeping new users and existing users on your site. Particularly a mobile-friendly site and your mobile-friendliness these days is essential.
Now that we know the basics in SEO and what’s most important to prioritize for holistic SEO strategy, how do we work on this? How do we prioritize? If you’re a website owner with limited resources my advice would be to pick one channel and focus on that every month. Your first month maybe focus on analytics. Get your Google Analytics set up and your Google Search [00:02:30] console set up. Your second month, maybe you want to focus on your site health signals. Now that you have analytics set up you can monitor crawlers and understand your user experience. Maybe your third month will be focusing on that content development. Understanding the searches your audience is doing and creating great content to reach them will be essential.
Now that you know the basics in creating holistic SEO strategy, if you want more exclusive SEO tips and tricks, please sign up for my mailing list and I’ll be in touch.
Kristan is an independent consultant with 15 years of experience in the SEO industry. Kristan previously founded the award-winning SEO agency Conifr. She’s worked in agency and in-house SEO leadership positions, most notably as the SEO Director at Zillow Group, overseeing a channel that received over one billion web visitors a year. Kristan is a freelance SEO consultant who built and sold a seven-figure agency and now enjoys helping others develop their freelance business.