Top Secrets for Successful SEO Growth

Before you proceed, it is recommended that you watch the full webinar. You can view the video on our Thought Leadership page.

Acquiring organic traffic to your website is one goal many businesses have in common. However, you may be wondering exactly how you can go about generating successful SEO growth. At SmartSites, we make use of the formula: Onsite Pages multiplied by Onsite Links, deducted by Technical Errors. From this formula, we are able to derive four actionable strategies to drive organic traffic and deliver sustainable growth.

Optimize Product Pages with Keyword Research

The first and most important thing is to perfect your product pages and in order to do that, you will need to carry out comprehensive keyword research. To this end, Ahrefs is a tool that will give you many of the answers you are looking for.

You can choose to search for keywords that your direct and indirect competitors are ranking for, as well as find out how keywords are performing. Ahref’s Keyword Explorer Tool also allows you to discover long-tail keywords and questions that users commonly search for. In addition, exported reports can be generated that give you insights into the keywords you currently rank for. The best part is that these keywords can be pulled from the exact landing pages they are on.

With your keyword research done, you can begin the process of optimizing your product pages to acquire more organic traffic. You will also want to pay attention to meta descriptions, product descriptions, resource pages, and more. Make sure you disperse your keywords throughout these blocks of text, and you are all set to go!

Conduct a Content Audit

When conducting a content audit, there are three aspects to keep in mind:

• Onsite SEO, which is the content on your website
• Offsite SEO, to determine if you have any backlinks
• Your SEO strategy, which includes how you will utilize keyword research and the metrics derived from site performance to drive organic traffic

A must-do during a content audit is to remove poor quality content, such as those with an undesirable word count as well as those are no longer relevant to the products or services you offer. After you have decided which pages must go, it’s time to focus on those with low traffic and backlink counts with the help of Ahrefs. If a piece of content is useable but has not been optimized for SEO, it’s time to rework or repurpose it where possible.

For content you would like to keep, it helps to go over them and see if they need keyword optimization, both within the content itself and the meta descriptions. Then, take a closer look at this content and decide if they need to be refreshed, or if you can keep them without heavy editing. Keep in mind that the optimal word count for written SEO content is between 1,000 to 2,000 words.

Build Linkable Assets

The natural next step after conducting a content audit is to ensure that your pages are enticing enough for third-party sites to link back to your blog or online store. Again, you can make use of Ahrefs to determine if any page you expected to be an asset is performing poorly. From these insights, start optimizing your pages to serve as useful content for your visitors. For instance, if you run an e-commerce store, which many of us do, you can create useful buying guides for your customers, conduct case studies, carry out interviews, and many more. The more linkable assets you have on your website, the easier it is to expand your outreach and build up your log of high-quality backlinks.

Get on Google Free Listings

Google Free Listings is a relatively new tool that all e-commerce businesses should be making use of. Simply opt for Free Listings through your Google Merchant Account to get started. You can easily connect your Shopify, Magento or WooCommerce shop to Merchant with integrated plugins. In fact, WooCommerce users will be able to view metrics from Google Free Listings without leaving their dashboards!

One benefit of using Google Free Listings is that it offers a completely free way of getting your products optimized on Google. You will not have to pay anything unless you opt to do so through paid ads. You can also benefit from a generated report of the clicks and impressions your products are getting. As Google Free Listings is relatively new, your competitors may not be on it yet, giving you an edge when you choose to enroll!

As the search engine with the latest market share, Google’s goal is to show customers the most relevant results for what they are searching for. To drive successful SEO growth, ensure that your product pages are optimized when a prospective customer lands on your website!

There are no shortcuts when it comes to achieving SEO growth. Be prepared to invest several months before you can see results from your efforts. In addition, new and current competitors will be gunning to take your spot, so you will need to adapt on an ongoing basis.