SEO is an ever-changing landscape of content, user experience and technical elements. However, many websites are only practicing SEO in one of these spaces instead of utilizing these tactics as one cohesive strategy.
SEO spending is projected to reach upwards of $80 billion by 2020, per Borrell Associates and Search Engine Land. With that much spending on SEO, your strategies must be solid in order to compete. That’s where the notion of intelligent SEO strategies come in to play.
Your digital strategies should be concepted in conjunction with SEO strategies from the beginning, instead of slapping on some “SEO” to your website at the last minute. Intelligent SEO strategies combine technical and non-technical SEO through content and user experience, working together to achieve the same goals.
Best Practices for Intelligent SEO
1. Understand what resources you have available
It is critical to have a strong understanding of who is on your team, and what role they play. Ideally, you’d like to have a technical SEO and a non-technical SEO, that can both collaborate with content strategists, UX designers and developers.
2. Utilize both the technical SEO and non-technical SEO to work together
Learning what each SEO’s skillsets are is important in sharing workflows, but a general balance in responsibilities between on-page SEO and off-page SEO is what you should strive for. Each of these SEOs can bring expertise from their respective areas to build upon your business goals.
3. Include SEO in your content strategies
Allowing both your technical SEO and non-technical SEO to work with your content strategists from the beginning will set a standard for your website content moving forward. Creating a documented guide as to how all new content is formed and published will build a technically sound strategy from the start.
4. Perform audience and behavior research regularly
Intelligent SEO strategies use and learn from audience behaviors on a consistent basis. Understanding what your audience wants, when they want it, and how they want it will help you to reach those audiences more easily. Identifying gaps within competition will give you a leg up in assisting your audience when they need it most.
5. Listen and learn from your data
The differentiator in practicing intelligent SEO strategies is to listen to and learn from your data. Understanding data and pulling insights from many different sources is the key to an intelligent strategy. Allow for website testing, and listen to what your audiences are telling you based on their actions. Then, adjust your strategy to further assist your audience’s journey.
An intelligent SEO strategy starts with understanding your business goals and what resources you have available to achieve those goals. Documenting and following through with your strategy across all departments will build a solid platform for success as your business continues to grow in the digital space.