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Winning SEO Strategy Template [10 Step SEO Strategy Plan]

SEO Strategy Template

In this post about SEO Strategy I want to provide you with some context; to go with your SEO marketing plan. So that you can develop a well structured SEO Strategy Template that will work on any website in any niche.

Page Contents

Why is SEO Strategy Important?

Although most people understand how important SEO is in 2020; they will often just randomly throw links and content at a website and wonder why it doesn’t get them the results they expect. By creating a sound, fully structured SEO strategy plan and taking a more holistic, yet data driven approach to your SEO; not only will you get more organic traffic, you will also get more leads, more conversions and more sales.

By creating a sound, fully structured SEO strategy plan... get more organic traffic, you will also get more leads, more conversions and more sales. Share on X

SEO Strategy Plan for 2020 and onward

I have probably heard it a million or more times from Search Engine optimisers; and I confess to saying it myself once or twice in the past. That the SEO industry is always changing and hard to keep up with; because it changes so rapidly and so frequently. In particular the Google Algorithm Updates that we have all grown to love (or hate).

However, more recently Google and the SEO landscape itself has settled down considerably. It is now far more easy to understand the really important SEO tasks; and the aspects of your SEO plan that have a real impact in 2020.

The BIG SEO STRATEGY SECRET!

The BIG SEO SECRET that isn’t really that big of a secret; is that, what is REALLY driving rankings in organic search today, is largely the same things as it has been for the last ten or so years: Links and Content.

As I say this is not much of a secret to some of us; although the view has been a little blurred by SEO agencies and self titled SEO Experts. Bringing a million different SEO ranking factors into play and assigning them the title of “Most Important SEO Ranking Factors For This Year“.

There are indeed many SEO ranking factors to consider when developing your SEO strategy. Yet focusing on these two main organic ranking factors for SEO, besides speed and security; will save you a whole lot of time, money and energy in the long run.

Organic SEO Strategy Ranking Factors

Here is a neat infographic showing the results of a study done by ahrefs in 2019; that shows the ranking factors of high search engine results. It is clear to see that back links are still the number one driving factor behind rankings.

Although some recent in house research has shown that in some cases; content may be tipping the balance to outrank links as the most important ranking factor in 2020.

Organic Ranking Factors

SEO Strategy Plan Changes from 2020

So for all the talk about how SEO strategy is always changing. It turns out the basics are still where it has always been at. There is data to prove it, we don’t like to rely on theory here. White Rabbit looks at what is really going on in the SEO realm; and what is actually having an effect on Google search results.

Prepare For The Future With SEO Plans

As keen search optimisers, we want to prepare for the future and what might change in SEO Strategy. Over the last few years, we have seen Google put a big focus on trying to understand content, search intent, and topics. With their algorithm Hummingbird, they tried to get to grips with the connections between; entities, topics, sub topics, and synonyms.

You might have heard many SEO experts talk about moving away from using keywords and just use LSI; because of Hummingbird and RankBrain algorithm updates. But you need to help Google to understand what the page is about in the first place. Google does this by looking at the on page optimisation signals that contain your target keyword.

The goal of Google’s algorithms is to match a user query to the best answer it can find. So if Google can rate a web page based on the likelihood that it will answer the user query better than any other; then they have a new way of ranking documents and web pages. That is why there is no longer just a focus on the “voting mechanism” (links) any more. But also on the actual content and formatting within the page itself.

Semantics & LSI in SEO Strategies

Search engines are getting smarter and better at understanding semantics than ever before. They are no longer looking at searches on a keyword by keyword basis. They are looking at the intent behind the user’s search and understanding that some searches (using other keywords) have the same intent.

That is why you no longer need to build out new pages for each keyword variation; but focus on building high quality web pages based on higher level topics.

Semantics For SEO Strategy

The two main areas in semantics are logical semantics, concerned with matters such as sense, reference and presupposition, implication; and lexical semantics, concerned with the analysis of word meanings and relations between them.

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)

LSI or Latent semantic indexing is an index and retrieval method, that uses a mathematical technique called Singular Value Decomposition (SVD); to identify patterns in relationships between the terms and concepts contained in an unstructured body of text.

How to use LSI for SEO Strategy

A synonym is a word (or phrase) that means exactly the same or almost the same as another word. For instance, when you look at old school search engine optimisation; that used to build out pages for each keyword: e.g. guest post service, guest post packages, guest blog post, etc.

Now days Google understands those phrases all mean near enough the same thing. So you can just create one very good quality and well optimised page, using plenty of semantics and synonyms around the subject matter; and you will rank for a ton of these type of keyword and key phrase variations.

UPDATE: Our most recent research has shown that this fact is very relevant right now! We are seeing more top spot sites, across more industries, displaying this approach and strategy to their SEO.

How to Rank High on Google

Overall, the best way to rank high up in Google search results for 2020 and the future; is to become an authority and source for knowledge in your niche. When you do this, Google will basically unlock the floodgates of traffic to your website. Slotting your website in to just about any Featured Snippet your page can relate well to.

SEO Strategy Template: Authority Trinity

So what is an authority website in Google’s eyes? You need to align certain aspects of your SEO strategy, we call the “Authority Trinity”:

  • Topical Depth

Build long articles that fully answers any of the questions a user would have about that subject or niche area.

  • Topical Breadth

Build out lots of articles on your website, answers to all the trending topics and types of questions your customers have.

  • Authority Links

Links are still the biggest ranking factor, but quality is much more important than it used to be. SEO Strategy is always a long term game; so we always recommend focusing on getting long lasting, high quality links to your site.

By combining these three things, you will definitely see massive increases in your ranking and traffic. Just like White Rabbit clients do with our Managed SEO Services.

What are the Best SEO Strategies?

The best SEO strategies are always the ones that are well thought through; incorporating business needs, user search intent and a commercial focus. Taking all these factors in to account when you are developing your SEO strategy will ensure success; inline with your needs and those of your customers.

How to create an SEO Strategy?

To start developing your SEO strategy, we always like to start with a quick SEO audit on your website; to see if there are any underlying issues and gremlins. There isn’t much point in building your castle on the sand, is there. If your website has dropped organic ranking and slipped down in the past; check and see if you have any penalties. Using apps like Webmaster Tools and look for sudden drops in traffic on Google Analytics, etc.

Marketing Plan: SEO Strategy Template

Now with that all being said, here is the SEO strategy template we’ve been banging on about; to get you started with your SEO strategy for 2020 and into the near future.

  1. Check for Penalties
  2. Define Target Audience
  3. Competitor & Keyword Research
  4. On-Page SEO Strategy
  5. Optimise Existing Content
  6. User Experience Signals
  7. Link Building Strategy
  8. Link Building Mistakes
  9. Internal Link Building
  10. Local SEO Strategy

Read on for a breakdown of each point and get the best SEO plan template for any website.

1. SEO Strategy: Check For Penalties

The most recent BERT algorithm update from Google has seen some significant changes in search results. One cool tool we like to use is this Google penalty checker which will match up a SEMRush graph of your traffic to all the major Google updates. You can easily see if there have been any big drops in traffic at the same time as an update roll out, this can help to signal what you might need to fix.

Some penalties are much harder to recover from than others. Don’t spend a lot of time trying to recover a doomed website, as some just won’t recover regardless of what you do. Check the Google penalty checker, compare your dates and check out these tools and guides on penalty recovery for Penguin or Panda. If your website is in big trouble, follow these instructions, start a new site in the meantime, or maybe do both!

2. SEO Strategy: Define Target Audience

Before any form of digital marketing campaign kicks off, you have to define the target audience. With most industries you have some dream customers that spend a ton of money with you, don’t ask for much, and are generally really easy to deal with. There are other customers that are a right pain in the ***, asking a million questions and demand a million things; they want everything at a discount and generally make your life miserable.

You can of course sell to and service both of types of customer, but do you really want to? Probably not. I expect you would rather take one of the good customers over 10 or even more bad customers.

Audience + Keywords + Content = SEO Strategy

So defining your specific audience and who you want to target, will ultimately define and help to determine what keywords you want to rank for and what kind of content you should create. Understanding your audience better will help you to generate tons of ideas of what you want to rank for. Listen to your customers, look at the search statistics and listen to your market.

By understanding your target market, you can answer their questions and help them solve their problems. Which in turn makes you more money. Once you understand who you’re going to target, then it’s time to find some keywords to target!

3. Competitor & Keyword Research

Keyword research doesn’t have to be hard, it is actually really easy as long as you keep it simple! You can divide your keywords into two main groups:

#1 Keywords that you are targeting
#2 Keywords that you are not targeting

Once you have those two keyword groups established, you can move on to the real deal of keyword research in your SEO Strategy Template.

Easy Win Keywords For Quick Gains

To get some easy wins in the early days of your SEO strategy, you can use research tools to find keywords with good search volume; that you are already ranking for on spot 4 or below (and as far down as page 2 of the search results). Google already sees you as fairly relevant for these search terms, you just don’t rank in the top 3 for them… YET.

By optimising these web pages and sending more links and SEO authority to them; you can increase your organic ranking a lot faster than with a new keyword that you’re not ranking for already.

Find Competitor’s Keywords Using Gap Analysis

After the quick wins, you need to find out keywords you are not targeting yet, and you can do that with something called a competitive gap analysis. Basically, you want to go out and find all your competitor’s website URLs. Once you have a list of your competitors, establish a list of all the keywords THEY rank for and then filter out the ones that YOU already rank for.

How To Target Chosen Keywords

Now you should have a huge list of keywords to target and build out quality content (like blog posts)! You will need to apply some filters to this list, like excluding very high difficulty and competition keywords (unless you have a very powerful domain). Making sure they all have good search volumes and weighting the CPC above 50p to exclude any useless keywords, that really aren’t worth investing in targeting.

Hey Presto, now you have some very valuable keywords that are well worth targeting! Next you need to either optimise your current content for those keywords, or create some new content!

Top Tip: Don’t be afraid of using long tail keywords here. They often have greater search intent and convert more frequently!

4. On-Site & On-Page SEO Strategy

Firstly you want to build great content and make sure your web pages are optimised with your keywords and to cover the topic in depth. You will need to optimise your meta tags: Title, Descriptions, URL, Header Tags (H1, H2, etc.), Image ALT Text and more.

Your focus here should be all about building out in depth content (that’s what Google likes to see), that answers your users’ questions. Focus on creating long content of 1000 words or more, this tends to rank better in organic search. You should have a huge list of target keywords from your earlier keyword research. Simply create content focused on those keywords and add internal links on your site to that content.

5. Optimise Existing Content for SEO

If you already have a lot of content in an existing blog or large product catalogue, you can re-optimise old blog posts and product pages to get the maximum value out of your existing assets! As a side note here, you can also promote this content through channels outside of SEO like email marketing, social media marketing, content syndication, paid ads etc. After you have built out your content, then you will need links to drive the search ranking.

6. User Experience SEO Signals

You will also want to make sure that your landing page is easy to navigate and get the user what they are looking for without much trouble. Take a look at what is ranking in the top spots and try to model that in terms of different types of content, layout, etc. If web users are landing on your page and immediately bouncing back to the search results, that is a negative “user experience signal”. You need to make sure people are staying around on your pages and continuing through your website.

7. Link Building SEO Strategy Template

Link building has been given a bit of a bad name, but if you look at the data that has been collected, it is basically what’s driving search rankings. One of the most common problems that most people face when embarking on a Link Building SEO Strategy for their site is quite simply, under estimating the number of links and trust they need to rank well.

The bad name has come from link building techniques that aren’t particularly White Hat SEO. On top of that, many sites can get penalised for over optimising their anchor text and creating an unnatural profile. There are a few link building pitfalls to avoid, so when you start on your first backlink campaign, this is the Link Building SEO Strategy Template we suggest:

7.1 Start with Branding & Link Diversity for SEO

Because the biggest issue we see is sites that get hit with over optimisation, we want to start with giving your website tons of backlink diversity. Use only natural anchor text on your links (yoursite.com or your brand name as the anchor or keyword) and don’t use any exact match keywords or commercial anchors (money phrases).

Build up your social portfolio: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc. This signifies you are an actual brand. Start with the ones that you will actively use as they are right for your business model; to find out which ones these are read our post on Which Social Media and Why. When you create content on your site, post it to the main social properties to keep natural links flowing and your social accounts active.

Then get as many more of these diversified social and branded links as you can. It’s important not to build exact match anchors here, just use your brand name or naked urls (https://www.yoursite.com).

Top Tip: One of the quickest, easiest and cheapest ways to get quality social profiles done for you, is our Brand Lockdown at just £1.50 per profile.

7.2 Get In Content Diversity Links for SEO Boost

The next stage is to get more powerful diversified links with some in-content links. You can build web 2.0 type properties for this, using a mix of branded, natural, low competitions keywords / long tail phrases and variations. A great source for these types of links are online form builders, some social platforms and free website builders like DoodleKit and Strikingly.

7.3 Now Get High Power Links to Win Big in SEO

After you have built a substantial base of low power diversity and stronger web 2.0 links; start adding in quality high powered links with close or exact match anchor text (here is where you can start using your money phrases). Don’t use the same anchor more than once, just switch it around to something slightly different each time. A good way to get these types of links is to do guest posts on high authority blogs and news articles.

7.4 Trusted Backlinks in your Link Building Strategy

Quite often we see sites that have a fair amount of links, but still aren’t ranking very well. A lot of the time that is because they don’t have the quality of links they need to be ‘trustworthy’ in regards to the search engines like Google. They haven’t got a lot of high trust links to their domain or pages. If this is the case with your site, you will need to focus on getting more links from high trust domains.

Top Tip: Continue adding these types of links month on month; while changing your anchor each time to different long tails / variations.

8. SEO Link Building Mistakes

You will also want to try and avoid these big link building mistakes we see a lot. It’s hard to get it really wrong, as Google tends to ignore most spammy or negative links; rather than actually punish your website rankings and site visibility in search results.

Anchor Text Ratio For SEO Strategy Template

The main problem we keep seeing is people over optimising their link anchor text. The trick here again is KEEP IT SIMPLE! Stop worrying about planning and targeting specific anchor text ratios and just go all out on brand signals, naked URLs, etc. Get a load of natural links and only use a handful of exact match anchors.

You should be looking at around 95%+ brand / naked and less than 5% exact match. Google is never going to penalise a domain for having too diverse a link portfolio, but it will for having too many exact match anchors.

What anchor text should you use for Link Building? Anchor text should be kept very natural. Keep target keyword anchors to an absolute minimum. 20% is a safe maximum for keyword anchors (or “money” phrases).

  • When linking to your homepage use Brand and URL anchor text.
  • Links to your money pages should use a mix of partial match anchors and keyword anchors.
  • If linking to content assets use the title of the asset, but keep it mixed and natural.

Don’t Give Up Link Building Too Soon!

The other biggest problem we see is people giving up on their link building campaign too soon. Google can take quite some time to fully index and categories your site. It can take several weeks after building powerful links for you too see any movement, not forgetting that based on bounce / click rates and other factors, your site can jump around in the search results and keep moving up for months.

If it gets stuck, don’t stop and wonder why it’s not working. You will need to continue building more diversified links. Our best ranking clients have ongoing link campaigns, even when things are going well; as you never know when one of your links on third party sites might get de-indexed. Too many people fail in their backlink campaigns and strategies by building a couple of links here and there and then stopping.

9. Internal Link Building for SEO Strategy

Websites with good internal linking structure have seen some significant movement in their ranking for early 2020. Showing that controlling your websites link equity through your web pages; can be of real benefit in your SEO strategy for 2020 and beyond. Sites with high numbers of internal links that drive clicks and interaction, are the ones that will truly benefit; because that is sending a bunch of good user interaction signals back to Google.

10. Local SEO Strategy Template

Optimising your SEO strategy for local searches is the key to winning locally. Here are some tips on how you can be winning the local organic SEO battle:

Set Up Google Maps / My Business

First of all you want to set up your Google My Business page for each of your location, so you can rank in the top 3 of the local map pack. This can even be done if your business doesn’t have a physical address that customers can visit. If this is the case, add a Service Area to your listing when possible, this should help you to appear in the local pack for areas that may not be in your immediate vicinity.

Audit Your Local Citations For SEO

This is the number one thing that will hold you back in local search results. Make sure you always do a citation audit before doing anything else for local SEO Strategy. This will also help to tell you which important citations you are missing. Don’t forget to clean up, fix and update your existing local citations where and when needed. Make sure your current NAP (Name / Address / Phone) is correct, up to date and the same across all citation platforms.

Copy & Crush Competitor Citations

Try to emulate and reproduce the same local citations and links that your top ranking competitors have from your industry sites and directories. Keep on building these until you have crushed your competitors in the localised search results.

Localised Content For SEO Strategy

Creating web pages based on areas, counties or towns can really help when targeting local search traffic. Split down your main focus areas and find keywords that are related to it, that also relate to a specific location. Then build out a sub-page based around that location.

Winning Local SEO Battles

If you are a local business or have bricks and mortar locations and you want to increase web traffic and foot-fall, you’ll want to do a few extra things. As local search queries now bring up the map pack on most of the major search engines, you should make sure you rank well there too. Don’t forget that there are two maps you need to have your business listed on; to make sure you are available to both types of smartphone users searching locally.

SEO Marketing Plan Template

You can clearly see exactly how effective a well rounded and competitively structured SEO marketing plan and strategy template can be, if you take all of these things into consideration. By following this fail-safe SEO strategy template for 2020, you will soon set yourself up for massive search result success.

This detailed and thorough process is the exact same SEO planning template that we use for our fully managed SEO service; along with many other ways to amplify and maximise your content marketing and SEO strategy.

SEO Strategy Template for 2020

Hopefully this post has done something to guide you in the right direction for your SEO Plan Template in 2020. As usual, if you need help with anything to do with your SEO strategy please get in touch.

VIDEO: SEO Strategy Template Tips

Now watch our short video that wraps up a bunch of tips to go with your SEO Strategy Template.

Website SEO Strategy Win!

Did you spot the deliberate mistake somewhere in this post about SEO Strategy Template? Share the post on social media and leave a comment below, with a link to your share and what you think the mistake is; and you could be in with a chance to win a prize for your SEO Strategy.

SEO Strategy Template Post Reference:

  • Noob Friendly Guide To Link Building – https://ahrefs.com/blog/link-building/
  • Ultimate SEO Strategy Template For Getting More Website Traffic –  https://www.thehoth.com/blog/seo-strategy/
  • Mythbusting: LSI or Keywords? – https://pageoptimizer.pro/mythbusting-lsi-or-keywords/

 

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