How To Build A Long-Term Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy

Let's learn how to benefit from the moderns technology and big data to build the best long-term search engine optimization (SEO) strategy

By Claudio Pires
SEO
Updated on October 5, 2022
How To Build A Long-Term Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy

Websites and social media are essential marketing tools that many people and businesses use in today’s digitally driven society. Because there’s a large potential audience with Internet of Things (IoT) access, extending your reach to prospective customers through online channels only makes sense. Let’s learn how to benefit from the moderns technology and build the best long-term search engine optimization (SEO) strategy

However, because there’s so much content available online, you must optimize your pages for search to increase the visibility of your content. Pages with a high ranking come first in user feeds, which increases your site’s chances of being preferred by online users. This is where an effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategy comes in. 

When ranking webpages, search engine algorithms use a variety of variables. The role of your SEO strategy is to establish how your website can provide a great search experience for an audience and enhance search engine rankings. Creating a winning SEO strategy focuses on long-term game planning rather than immediate deliverables. So, there are numerous factors to consider when building your strategy. 

Since websites and social media accounts are an extension of an organization, effective search engine optimization strategies should be personalized to their specific needs and aligned with the overall corporate objectives. That said, below is a guide on how to build a long-term SEO strategy.  

1. Set Goals and Determine KPIs For Long-Term Search Engine Optimization

Before starting a substantial SEO effort, you must outline your goals. Defining your goals ensures that the project has a clear direction and purpose. It also aids in ensuring that your entire team is on the same page. 

Once your objectives are set, you have something to aim for. This allows you to identify the relevant metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) that will assist you in determining whether your strategy is working as intended. Your objectives will also influence your decision-making process, ensuring you base your decisions on facts and evidence.  

2. Determine Your Most Valuable Pages 

It is critical that you also identify your website’s most valuable pages. These are the pages that garner the most traffic and have the highest engagement or conversion rates, such as high-converting landing pages.  

Not all products will function the same way, nor will all your content be received the same way. For instance, there may be pages that do not generate as much attention, while there are those that account for a large portion of your website’s traffic. Hence, you’d want to ensure that these valuable pages stand out and are optimized for search engines. You could also focus on improving the keywords to boost your site’s visibility further. SO, a good option on how to build your SEO strategy.

3. Conduct A Competitive Analysis 

Performing a competitive analysis allows you to identify gaps that you can exploit to develop a better strategy than your competitors. You can evaluate as many criteria as possible, including your competitor’s SEO strategy, rankings, online reviews, content strategy, social media, unique selling points, strengths, weaknesses, and backlink profiles.  

In this analysis, you must define your primary competitors. Customers have many options in today’s marketplace, which is increasingly competitive. So, it’s critical to keep up with what’s happening in your industry, but more crucially, your competitors. The objective is to devise a plan that will result in higher overall rankings than other well-performing companies in your niche, allowing you to generate more traffic and, eventually, more revenue.

Ultimately, competitive analysis helps you to identify and capitalize on opportunities to improve your search engine optimization campaigns.

4. On-Page SEO 

Optimizing the elements of your website can also help improve its rankings and have more consumers find you and your content. In such a case, you must leverage the right keywords, titles, headings, and anchors. It makes no difference how good your content is, as organic traffic is unlikely to increase if your page isn’t correctly optimized.   

Hence, as you build your web pages, consider factors like search intent, meta tags, and internal links. Remember, your page title tags and subheads play a massive role in determining SEO ranking signals. So, make sure that you choose the right ones. 

On-page SEO is typically complicated and may necessitate the services of a professional to ensure its success. You may not require outside assistance if you have an in-house IT team. Nevertheless, you can always outsource local SEO services to assist you with on-page SEO strategies. 

5. Conduct Keyword Research to Build a Long-Term Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy

Keyword research may be the most crucial aspect of developing a successful SEO strategy. Targeting the wrong keywords may not yield the desired results. However, picking the right ones can increase the chances of positive outcomes, especially since search engines utilize keywords to determine rankings. 

Comprehensive keyword research can help ensure that you use the right keywords for the highest return on investment. Hence, here are some things to consider in your research: 

  • Search Intent – When selecting keywords, use keywords that your target audience is likely to search for when looking for your product or website. 
  • Relevant Keywords – Once you’ve analyzed your target market, you need to find the keywords that are relevant to them. Make an effort to be specific in your keyword selections.  
  • Long Tail Keywords – These are longer phrases that people type into search engines when they want to find something specific. Ensure that you optimize your page for these long tail keywords so that your content pops up first in searches.   
  • Keyword Phrases – These are brief phrases that individuals use to search for information in search engines. For example, when browsing for a Thai restaurant, a person could enter ‘Thai restaurants near me.’ 
  • Funnel Keywords – The consumer funnel is generally divided into stages. And so, different keywords will entice users at different stages of the funnel. Throughout the entire customer journey – from awareness to post-purchase – you can use relevant keywords on the funnel stage you want to attract for better results. This is how you’ll build your best long-term SEO strategy.

6. Off-Page SEO 

Off-page SEO refers to the measures you take to improve your SEO outside your website. Because search engines consider how users perceive your website, on-page SEO alone is unlikely to make your brand more discoverable or authoritative online.  

To boost your authority, you must employ link building and let third-party websites publish your content. But note that you must use credible websites and influencers for this approach to succeed. Avoid choosing influencers or publishers at random. Instead, be strategic about it to create the best long-term SEO strategy.  

Also, the linking websites you use should be related to your brand. If you employ backlinks that are completely irrelevant to what your brand is about, the search engine may readily detect this, and you may get flagged for it. 

Another useful tip for off-page SEO is to use a variety of backlinks for your page. While there is nothing wrong with using the same websites, obtaining backlinks from other reputable domains can be more beneficial. You can broaden your audience reach by developing more unique backlinks from multiple domains.   

7. Video SEO to Build a Long-Term Search Engine Optimization Strategy

Videos are an influential communication tool marketers use to add context to marketing and advertising campaigns. And since some people do not have time to read long paragraphs, some prefer consuming their content via video format rather than text. Moreover, every day, people worldwide watch many videos online, resulting in billions of views on various social media and streaming sites. This presents a tremendous opportunity for businesses to reach a vast audience.

A good video SEO strategy can help boost your authority in your niche. Create videos using the information from your keyword research, and then SEO-optimize the tags, descriptions, and titles. Also, always incorporate a link to your website into the description.  

8. Utilize Your Resources 

SEO strategy development shouldn’t be left to the website development teams alone. Ideally, it’d be best to include other team members to help create a more robust SEO strategy. Instead of leaving it to the IT team, your company’s sales, marketing, operations, and other departments should also be involved.  

For example, you’d much rather confer with the sales team to determine which products are fan favorites and include them on your website’s featured products tab. Similarly, because they possess significant insights into what customers like, the marketing team may provide recommendations on how to fine-tune marketing campaigns. Ultimately, this collaboration can help your company get better leads faster.   

As you build your SEO strategy, consider the resources you have at your disposal. Start by looking at your existing workflows and then build from there. If the budget is currently tight, it may be better for you to stick with internal resources before considering outsourcing your SEO needs.

9. Set Realistic Expectations 

Part of the process of building a long-term SEO strategy is to generate and keep track of project reports to help you evaluate your overall progress. Examining and auditing reports regularly is the only way to see if your strategy is working. 

However, it’s important to note and understand that, much like any strategy, it may take some time before the results start showing up. Results could appear later, especially if you’re working with competitive keywords. It may take several days or even months before observing an actual increase in traffic and page visibility. Hence, it’s always best to set realistic expectations about your SEO goals from the beginning.

On the other hand, by keeping track of reports, you’ll be able to adjust your strategy, if necessary, along the way. 

10. Focus On Your Strengths 

The goal of search engine optimization is to improve your search engine rankings. But as you do this, ensure you establish a strategy that focuses more on the categories in which you perform well rather than attempting to obtain superior organic search results by using irrelevant high-volume search results.

For instance, with keywords. Search engines can recognize your level of expertise better if you concentrate on overlapping keywords instead of using unrelated keyword groups. Since the search engine may already regard you as being a leader in some categories, it’ll be much easier for it to associate you with greater expertise and may elevate your ranking.  

Gaining proficiency in a sport you aren’t talented at is challenging, but excelling in a discipline you’re proficient in is undoubtedly easier. Therefore, concentrate on the areas you’re already good at rather than devoting all of your efforts to SEO to improve your weaknesses. This approach will likely yield better results in the long run.  

11. Prioritize Content Design 

It’s crucial not to discount the significance of content design when developing your SEO strategy. You may have the most informative and relevant content to feed your audience with, but if it’s not correctly packaged or presented, it could impact user experience and raise bounce rates.

To keep your audience engaged, you must invest in producing excellent content structure and design. It’d be good to note that online users tend to have short attention spans. Hence, your page must establish a favorable first impression within the first few seconds that a user opens your link and arrives on your site.  

As you work on content design, consider factors such as visibility and content hierarchy, among others. For example, choose suitable visualizations that the average user can understand if you want to illustrate data with graphs or visualizations. A complicated chart may put some visitors off. Therefore, allowing yourself some time to develop your content would be wise.  

By producing great content, you can enhance their perception that your company or website is high quality. Remember, your website must add value to users who visit it and view your content. After all, people generally engage with content they find entertaining or helpful. And so, with an improved content marketing campaign, you can create a winning SEO strategy.

Long-Term Search Engine Optimization Conclusion 

Search engine optimization is not a simple task, and the best approach to dramatically increase your chances of success is to develop a personalized long-term strategy. After all, when it comes to SEO, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy. Each business will have different goals and objectives, and as a result, the SEO approach should be predicated on just that.

Nevertheless, if you undertake proper research, there is a higher probability you will develop a sustainable long-term strategy. You can use the above guidelines as a starting point, but you may wish to add your own to personalize your SEO strategy. 

Claudio Pires

Claudio Pires is the co-founder of Visualmodo, a renowned company in web development and design. With over 15 years of experience, Claudio has honed his skills in content creation, web development support, and senior web designer. A trilingual expert fluent in English, Portuguese, and Spanish, he brings a global perspective to his work. Beyond his professional endeavors, Claudio is an active YouTuber, sharing his insights and expertise with a broader audience. Based in Brazil, Claudio continues to push the boundaries of web design and digital content, making him a pivotal figure in the industry.