A good website, what is that actually in this day and age? It has to do with a series of factors whether your website is good but an unmistakable factor in that everything is how you are found on the internet
That is where things like SEA and SEO come into play. Since I myself have a huge preference to improve a website with the help of targeted SEO, let’s see how I would tackle that.
Why SEO and not SEA?
Look at it as following; a website that is actually very badly put together with an eye on SEO, conversion etc. can be found with the help of SEA. But as soon as you close the money tap, the chance that you (completely) disappears from the rankings is not very unrealistic.
Even though SEA can be an indirect boost for your SEO.
A website that is well optimised in the field of SEO always has competitors that will use SEA. But over time, Google will find the content of a well-optimized website much more valuable than that of a website where no attention has been paid to SEO.
That does not detract from the fact that Google itself is also a company … a fact that many people still do not seem to understand extremely well. If you give Google money that helps your rankings. But that is not an organic effect. In fact, it distorts reality. Pay to win as as gamers would say.
Of course, targeted SEO also comes with it’s own costs, but there it is much more invest to win. Personally I would always recommend to focus on SEO where SEA should have a supporting but never leading role.
Getting found by using targeted SEO
Let’s be realistic; everyone is now aware of the fact that SEO is a factor that you have to use. But there are also a lot of misconceptions about SEO.
In addition, you have getting found and getting found.
How are you actually found in a good way, which will really mean something in the long run?
SEO, there is no golden standard
Before I make an outline of the steps for a targeted SEO action plan, it is important to help you get rid of a myth from the world; there is no golden standard that you can apply for each and every possible product, branch, company or niche when it comes to SEO.
If you handle SEO well, that’s obvious because you act on the intention of the website / the platform, the visitors / the product and they can differ enormously from company A and company B.
Parties that claim that they have thought about it without having to think about it in detail with you will mainly focus on keywords (keywords). And that may surely form part of your SEO approach, but the intention is where it all starts.
Always choose a party that looks at what your goal is, then looks at what is already there, evaluates / mappes it out and can convey concrete actions / steps TOGETHER with you.
Only then do you have a truly targeted approach.
Steps for targeted SEO
But you can name a few steps when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO) that can be applied to almost everything, so you have somewhat of a clear guideline.
Step 1 – Get to know each other
Without you knowing the product, the branch, the niche etc. you can start optimizing. But what exactly are you optimizing for? No, go into conversation with the party, discover what they want to do, determine the intention (sales, information, education, etc.)
Only with that information do you know where they want to go for and what will be expected of you as an SEO partner.
Step 2 – Evaluate the existing
Without looking at what one has, you may be doing things that are totally unnecessary. If parties get started with someone for SEO, that does not necessarily mean that everything they have done is worth absolutely nothing.
Evaluate what exists so that you have a baseline measurement from which you will work.
The big advantage is that if you do this the customer has a good idea of where they stand. But also that you can indicate what is possible with SEO as much as possible. You make things much more tangible and that’s what customers love, because SEO is often only an ‘term’ for them,
Step 3 – Look at the current traffic
Often, when optimizing for the search engines, they look at sending traffic to a website. That in itself is a good thing. But sometimes you want to reach a certain target group / demography with your website and then focusing only on attracting traffic is not the most ideal goal you can have.
Targeted traffic
You want to attract targeted traffic in such a case. Usually the reason is that this target group / demography is what you want to address on your website. They will then also be most inclined to go towards the goal of your website (the conversion).
They want “more traffic”
If your website / platform is still (relatively) new, brand / name recognition is often the most important primary goal. People need to become familiar with you, talk about you and it is important in this first stage to simply reach as many people as possible.
This can be done by properly dealing with your search engine optimization (SEO), but also in this period advertising in the search engines (SEA) can be added value. SEA precisely because you can quickly show your name on keywords.
Costs of SEA
It is true that SEA naturally has direct costs and you want to keep your SEA process as limited as possible. Because everyone can pay to be found, but what do you ultimately end up with (I did intentionally phrase it like that because for some companies, that just works)
Step 4 – Grow the traffic
Once the traffic is building, it is advisable to find the appropriate balance so that you get traffic that is more focused on the intention. By this I mean that at this stage you should approach the specifically desired target group. Because if all goes well, your website and content have been arranged with them in mind.
It is very important that you also get a good picture of whether you reach the desired target group or a different target group. And also asking yourself the question whether you should focus on this target group on your desired target group or on the target group you are now reaching.
With that in mind you can focus more specifically on the desired goal.
Step 5 – Stimulate focused traffic
If you have followed the other steps, it is now time to stimulate your target group in regard to the conversion. This can go in all sorts of ways; but make it even more interesting for your target group to go for your ‘product’. This can be done through an advertisement/promotion, but it may also be that you are actually investing in sustainability or other facets of society.
Step 6 – Evaluate / report
Very important for SEO is the evaluation / reporting. Here you get to see whether the steps you have taken have actually contributed to achieving your goal, or at least you have come closer to your goal than you were before.
Without the aforementioned evaluation / reporting, working on SEO might simply not make sense. This is because you never get a good picture of the progress you make. You can not make the steps outside the conversions tangible to your customer.
With that information in your pocket you can draw conclusions and improve the cycle and go back again. Because SEO is a so-called ongoing process. It is something that, just like with technology, you can not stand still in, because otherwise you are getting behind.
In closing
Of course this is all just a reak quick sketch, but the most important thing you should get out of this is probably the following;
Targeted SEO optimization that you really benefit from can only be done through a good dialogue about intentions. Where the intention / purpose of your website / platform is the very first step in determining what actions to take!
If you want to talk about it with me, please feel free to let me know!
