8 Steps to Getting Started with an Effective SEO Strategy

How to get started with an SEO strategy

1. Find out who your target audience is
2. Map the user journey
3. How do you and your competitors rank today?
4. Do a keyword analysis
5. Prioritize your keywords
6. Get started with the optimization itself
7. Measure results of the work you do
8. Long-term plan and low-hanging fruits

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To make a good SEO strategy, you need to figure out how people actually search online. What kind of information do they want and what words do they use? Between two words that mean exactly the same thing, there can be a significant difference in how many people search for each of the two words.

For example; fracture slabs and slate slabs - two words that mean the same thing. One word has 110 searches a month, the other has 2400 searches a month. If you rank in the top 3 on these two words, it will make a significant difference in how much traffic each of those words brings you.

Before you start figuring out which words you should work with to become visible in search, you should also map out who your users are today, and what other audiences you want to reach. What kind of knowledge do they have about the products, services or information you offer? How do they even know they need what you have to offer? Talk to people close to users (such as customer service or store staff), or collect information directly from users themselves - either through surveys, feedback or in-depth interviews.

A user journey always starts much further behind than you first think. We continue with the example of one who ends up buying slate. Immediately one might think that the user journey of someone who is going to have slate slabs starts with laying an outdoor floor. But before the user has chosen to go for slate, there have been a number of questions and issues that one has been through.

Let me visualize that purchase funnel starting with one of our clients, Minera Shale.

‍Phase 1 - Problem and Needs: The user wants to make better use of the garden, and seeks inspiration for solutions. They don't know what to make or what materials to use. So they use keywords in Google like; zones in the garden, create patio in the garden, garden inspiration.

After looking for inspiration, the user finds out that it would have been nice to have a partitioned area in the garden for the dining area, with the slabing in an indeterminate material.

Stage 2 - inspiration: looking for inspiration to create your own pleting. How have others solved it in their garden? Searching for words like; plading in the garden, dining area in the garden, materials for outdoor use, how to lay the plading?

Stage 3 - research: the user is environmentally conscious and concerned with sustainability. Want to find suitable suppliers who supply short-stay materials that are of good quality and last a long time. Searching for words like sustainable materials, maintenance-free plading, platting of reused materials.

Stage 4 - acquire more knowledge: I am familiar with slate, but would like to learn more before buying it, as it is an expensive material. Seeking information such as; is slate maintenance-free? When does the slate need to be replaced? Does the slate withstand frost?

Stage 5 - conversion: Became well acquainted with the slate and its qualities, and would like to find a supplier who can supply slate for their garden project. Here, the target audience has come at the bottom of the buying funnel. They have decided to buy slate, and just have to find the right supplier. Searching for words like Oppdal slate, outdoor slate, fracture slates, slate to slabing.

Stage 6 - loyalty: Once the slate is in place and put into use, new questions arise such as; how do you wash slate? does the slate tolerate green soap? how to get rid of greenery on slate? With good answers and information that the user wonders, one ensures a good customer experience that makes the user feel safe and want to come back again.

Through SEO tools like Google Search Console (free), Semrush, and Ahrefs, you can map which keywords you're visible with today. Semrush and Ahrefs are more advanced SEO tools that also allow you to check visibility in Google for your competitors — ergo which keywords they get traffic from. That way, you can consciously look at which keywords you should work a little extra with to avoid a wider gap in traffic between you and your competitors.

4th. Do a keyword analysis

Once you've mapped out the user journey of your customers, you can start working on your keyword analysis to determine which words you should work with for the different phases. Start by collecting as many keywords as possible in a list, before you put them all in Google Ads and pull out statistics on search volume (number of searches per month).

How to find keyword ideas

Google Search Console

In Search Console, you can find an overview of keywords with which you already have some visibility. Download the statistics and you can search and filter the words in excel/spreadsheet.

Semrush, Ahrefs or other SEO tools

Here you can see which keywords you rank with yourself and which keywords your competitors rank with. In the major SEO tools you will also find tools for both content and relevant keywords and phrases for a given topic.

Google it

Start by typing a keyword into the search bar and see which search phrases you come up with as suggestions. In the search result itself you will also see “People also ask about this” and at the bottom of the search result you can see several related searches. This is how you can find many great suggestions for longtail keywords and theme for content articles.

Longtail keywords are search phrases that are 3 or more words. These have much less search volume than a single, specific word, but they are also much more concrete and targeted to the user's intention. For example; garden inspiration can be anything from flower beds and planting, to creating tabling. While “garden inspiration plading” is clearly someone who seeks inspiration around it to create the plading in the garden.

Find more keywords in Google Ads

Knowing which keywords have high search volume makes it easier to find related keywords in Google Ads or other SEO tools. Higher volume keywords give you more variations than low volume keywords. In Google Ads, you can also see when in the year there are the most searches for your keyword. For garden inspiration, it is naturally April and May that are the months with the highest volume - then it is important to be early with the content, so that you have captured the top spot when April arrives. Preferably 2-3 months before the start of the season.

Now you have an overview of how you rank in searches, how your competitors rank, and which keywords have the most volume. Probably you also have a thought about which products or services are most important for your website to add value to your business. Then you have a good starting point to start prioritizing keywords.

Start by selecting the areas that can bring the most value to the company - perhaps there are specific category groups that you need to sell more of, a service that generates good profits or information or advice in a subject that can eventually become a larger project. Next, look at which keywords are most relevant and important to rank on for the different areas.

If you have low visibility and strong competitors, you may want to choose keywords that have little competition and volume — such as longtail keywords. These are often not hunted by larger competitors and allow you to rank faster, get more traffic and increase authority for your domain. Eventually, it will also become easier to rank on more competitive keywords.

Prioritize one main keyword and 2-3 supplemental keywords per landing page you want to optimize. Start by setting up a list of which pages you want to rank on, and relevant keywords. This makes it easier to see how you can distribute your keywords and focus for each landing page — ensuring visibility across multiple keywords. Then you just have to start optimizing. We have written a separate post about how to write SEO texts here.

Setting goals and measuring results does not have to be made so complicated. Use the overview of keywords and landing pages from the section above and add the position you have on those keywords today, your competitor's position — and what position you want to achieve. Then you can easily just plot new position as you measure progress on the work you've done. Semrush, Ahrefs and Google Search Console are good tools to see what position you have in search.

All the tools measure positions differently. Search Console has average rankings for a given period, while Semrush uses last measured rankings — so it pays to be consistent in using the same tool every time you measure to get as precise analysis as possible.

Working with search engine optimization requires a little patience and thinking long-term. If you optimize your landing pages today, it does not necessarily mean that you will rank No. 1 tomorrow. It often takes some time before you start seeing clear results in your search. Google wants to provide the best search results for the user's intention. Often, your page is tested in search results by ranking you high on certain keywords, to see how relevant your content becomes to the user by looking at user behavior. It also causes your ranking to vary greatly in the first period after change, before stabilizing over time.

Therefore, it would be advisable to measure the results only after 1-3 months. If the competition is low (smaller websites that do not have a strong brand), you will see results faster, while at high competition where well-known, authoritative websites rank in the top, it will take longer to overcome them.

How to create faster progress?

While it takes some time to position yourself on the biggest keywords with a lot of competition, there are also several measures and low-hanging fruits that you can grab to get a little faster progress.

Pages with high conversion rates but low organic traffic

For pages with less visibility but which already have a high conversion rate, you will easily be able to earn more from small improvements in visibility by, for example, using the keywords with the highest search volume.

Keywords in position 10-15 in the search result

Your position in the search results has a huge impact on how much traffic you get to your website. Especially if you manage to climb from the second result page to the first result page. Statistics show that only 25% of people who search on Google also go to page 2 in the results. So just by getting over to the front page, you will already be much more exposed to potential users.

The competition is also significantly lower below position 5, and then it does not take much to increase the ranking from position 15 to position 8.

The first results page contains 8-10 search results, so here it is a matter of getting up to position 7 or 8 first. Then you can work on getting higher up on the front page.

Longtail keywords - keywords with low competition

As described further up in the article, longtail keywords are the longer search phrases. They usually contain 3 or more words, are more specific and have a low search volume. Usually we are talking only 10, 20 or maybe 50 searches a month. But it is precisely because they are so concrete that one manages to hit so well - both the user's intention and the relevance in the search result.

Let's say a user searches for 'sneakers. ' It's really quite concrete, but at the same time not. There are quite a few varieties of sneakers nowadays. On the keyword “sneakers”, as a rule, rank the largest, most famous online stores such as XXL, Intersport, Zalando and other strong brands. If, on the other hand, you search for 'women's sneakers with good cushion', you will see that the search result is not as dominated by products and the strongest brands, but also content articles from smaller players.

If you write an article called “Women's sneakers with good cushioning” that has good content, and preferably with a more professional perspective, then I am sure that you will quickly win positions on the front page. This assumes that your website as a whole is also relevant to the topic.

Use the guide and get started with your optimization!

One last tip when you are going to start working on the SEO strategy goes back to point 5 - prioritization. Shoemaker's child is a well-used term for most people who work in internal marketing departments. Make sure not to gape over too much at once. Start with 15 pages and spend time working on them instead of optimizing the entire website at once. Then you can use the time to create really good quality content that actually creates results. After a 1-3 month period, you can look at user behavior and rankings to see what worked well with those pages and what you might want to do differently in the next round.