SeoAlchemist

Ranking higher in search engines is something that every business is trying to do (or at least they should be). If you search the web, there will be no end of advice on how this or that will get you to rank better. This sea of information can lead to decision paralysis when it comes to actually implementing a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. This post pulls all this together into a practical blueprint for ranking higher in search.

Step 1: Do Keyword Research

First, pick a set of keywords you want to target. Make a list of 15-30 keywords that are relevant to your business. Choose unbranded keywords that relate to your business or industry, as opposed to choosing your company name. List these keywords with their associated information in 4 columns titled Keyword, Relevance, Difficulty, and Volume. Pick your own relevance score on a scale of 1-5. Use the Google Keyword Tool to find information on difficulty and volume (the number of searches per month).

From this set of keywords, pick about 10 of them that have high volume relative to their difficulty, and are relevant to your business. These are the keywords you want to target.

Step 2: Set Ranking Goals

Now that you have basic information on your keywords, you should set ranking goals for them. These goals should be time-framed, For example, you can have a 6 month plan, and monitor your progress bi-weekly or monthly.

In the end SEO is a bit of a black box. Setting realistic ranking goals is not a pure science. The goals act as more of a motivator, and can be modified if your results are not what you thought they would be.

To make your goals as realistic as possible, see how well you are doing in SEO relative to your competitors using Website Grader, a free tool powered by HubSpot. If you’re score is below 50, chances are there are some easy things you can do to improve it.

Step 3: On-page Optimize

By now, you know what pages you want to rank higher, and what keywords you are targeting for them. Now, all you need to do is target them. I recently wrote a little guide on keyword targeting, which I hope you check out.

One warning I should put here – before you tailor your page to target a keyword, make sure your target page is not ranking for other other keywords. If you have one page targeting multiple unrelated keywords, you might consider creating multiple pages for each keyword.

Step 4: Build Internal Links

On-page optimization is only about 25% of search engine optimization. The other 75% is link-building. To gain SEO authority, you want to get links from relevant pages going into the page you want to rank higher for. The easiest way to do this is by leveraging your current online real estate. Here are two effective and overlooked strategies for internal link-building:

Put Links in Your Blog Posts

Blog posts are a probably the best opportunity to build internal links. Each post is a new page that search engines see. If you put a standard link bar or footer on your blog, then each new blog post will contain a link to the pages you’re targeting.

Put Links on Your Home Page

Your home page will usually be the page with the best authority on your website. Putting links to your target pages in your navigation bar or in a footer with keyword-driven anchor text can be an effective way to improve SEO.

Step 5: Build External Links

Finally we arrive at external link-building. Get links from relevant websites with high authority is the most effective way to raise the authority of your own site. Some people call this the ‘hard’ part of SEO. I wouldn’t say that, but I would say that it takes patience. If you follow the guidelines below consistently, you are sure to gain plenty of inbound links.

Blog

Link building is one of the many benefits of blogging. Blog posts can be great viral pieces of content that gain inbound links.

Promote Your Content in Social Media

If you want people to link to your content, they need to know about you. Get involved in Twitter, Digg, and Facebook. Connect with people in Google Groups or LinkedIn Groups. Whatever you need to do to connect with your audience in a way that’s engaging for them, do it. Become a valuable resource and they will be more likely to link to your content.

Make Your Content Shareable

Make sure to put links on your site so that people can tweet and share your content via facebook. Instead of spreading the word about yourself, let people take the initiative to spread the word about you. Not only is viral content more likely to gain inbound links, but links in social media now count as inbound links for search engines.

Submit to Directories

Submitting your website to legitimate directories such as Dmoz and Yahoo! Directory can help you get found, and gain inbound links. You can check out these free directories to instantly improve your search engine authority.

Step 6: Monitor Your Progress

Now that you’ve done all the basic steps, its time to monitor your progress. Create a basic SEO Dashboard with the columns Keyword, Target Site, Monthly Searches, Difficulty, Rank, and Rank Change. Monitor and update your rank on a regular basis – for example, every 2 weeks. Your rank change is the difference in your ranking since the last time you checked.

Above all, do not give up on SEO. Your rankings might rise and fall over the course of your process, but getting to higher rankings can take time. However, it is a necessary component of an effective online business strategy.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Making the Process Clear: Improve Your Search Engine Rankings in 6 Steps