A digital marketing plan is a document sharing the details for all the planning for your digital marketing campaigns or actions (Penalver 2020). A successful digital marketing plan has to consider SEO, analytics and web positioning, strategies (Penalver 2020). The best sources of SEO knowledge include online sources, learning on the job, google training courses. Google, the search engine with the largest market share at 92% focuses more on user experience while giving suggestions and predicting future searches. When a question is typed, Google presents your existing content as a question and answer. Google is becoming more like an AI companion.
Goals and KPIs (Walsh 2020) are among the most important parts of SEO strategies, yet they are also the most overlooked. Kpi, quantifiable measurements used to gauge a company’s overall long term performance, stands for key performance indicator (klipfolio.com). This is used to measure performance against key business objectives. High-level KPIs may focus on the overall performance of the business, while low-level KPIs may focus on processes in departments such as sales, marketing, HR, support and others. KPIs specifically help determine a company’s strategic, financial, and operational achievements, especially compared to those of other businesses within the same sector (Twin 2020).
KPIs can be financial, including net profit or gross profit margin (investopedia.com), revenues minus certain expenses, or the current ratio (liquidity and cash availability). KPIs can also be more anecdotal (klipfolio.com), for example measuring the quality of customer experience, employee retention, repeat customers among many others. Below are the SEO KPIs that business owners need to keep track of (semrush.com):
ROI
Conversations (leads and sales)
Organic visibility
Branded vs Non-branded traffic
Keyword rankings
Keyword tracking
Backlinks
Organic CTR
Average Time on Page
The above aspects are generated by harnessing SEO friendly content. When a website contains SEO friendly content, the pieces of information show up within engine results when keyword searches are input. From businesses and practitioners of digital marketing, an important skill to build is creating SEO friendly content.
Below are 10 steps to creating SEO friendly content.
Begin with a keyword search
A piece of content should: 1. Target one primary keyword 2. Target 5-10 additional keywords. To identify your primary keyword, one should ask oneself: What is my audience looking for? What questions do they ask online? Afterwards, seed keywords with high search volume and low keyword difficulty should be orchestrated.
Determine search intent and identify the right format of content
Create a well optimized meta title
A well optimized title is unique. Corresponds to search intent Contains target keywords. Consists of 15–45 (max. 60) characters. Motivates users to go to the website. This may include a call to action.
Create a catchy H1
H1 introduces your content to the audience, is unique and may include “how”, “why”, “what”, etc. H1 may include numbers, for example “top 10”, “5 best”, “X things”. Describes what is discussed in the text body.
Optimise the meta- description
The meta-description encourages a user to click on the link on SERPs: The meta- description is unique. This should be made up of 1–2 sentences (140–160 characters). It should describe a specific page. The meta description should have keywords. This does not have to be a sentence, should target an emotion and calls to action.
Structure your content and make it readable
Great content is well structured and easy to scan. Use H2+H3 tags have to be used. One idea per paragraph and divided long sentences create for a better user experience. Highlight main ideas: bold, italic, change font size / style. Bullets and numbered lists can be added for a more straightforward approach
Add visual content and optimise it
Visual content, such as infographics, checklists, templates, videos and images deliver value to your audience faster and in a more catchy way: Visual content > Shares > Backlinks > Trustworthiness for Google > High Ranking (semrush.com)
Make your URL readable
The URL has to be descriptive, easy to read, there is a need to have keywords. Hyphens are to be used over underscores. Target keywords have to be used complimentary to lower case letters. It should be kept as short as possible.
Adjust interlinking.
Before new links are added, one needs to conduct an audit of existing content and answer the questions. The following questions have to be answered. What topics does your content cover and which ones does it not? What articles are relevant and worth referring to? A strategy has to be created regarding hub pages, finding relevant materials on the site and adding links pointing to new articles. Relevant anchor texts have to be created. Awareness content should link to consideration articles, and consideration articles should link to decision content.
References:
PENALVA, P., 2019. A step by step guide to structuring a digital marketing plan. [online] INBOUND MARKETING . [02/03/2021]. Available from: https://www.wearemarketing.com/blog/a-step-by-step-guide-to-structuring-a-digital-marketing-plan.html
KLIPFOLIO., 2019. What is a key performance indicator? [online]. KLIPFOLIO. [03/03/2021]. Available from:
SEMrush., 2020. How to create SEO friendly content. SEMRUSH
©Keren Obara Mar 2021