Reading time: 24 minutes
Search Engine Optimization (SEO ) is a widespread term nowadays. Any company that works with digital marketing strategies has at least heard of this term.
As it is in common use, it was necessary to create practices for the elaboration of SEO strategies, that is, the ideas that will differentiate your brand from the others and help it to beat the competition, becoming the most ranked in the search engines, as Google.
Being a new term or already known by you, in this article, we will explain everything about search optimization practices: why your company needs it so much, how it works, what you should keep an eye on and of course, the 10 SEO strategies indispensable for the growth of your business .
So that you can create quality content not only for Google, but also for your lead.
Come on?!
What is SEO?
Surely you've used Google in your life, right? Well, have you noticed that when you search for a term in the search engine , it creates a list of sites as an answer? This list, while it may seem natural, is highly strategic.
That's because there are few people who go to the second page to find what they are looking for, and who will say it on the third or fourth and even worse on the next pages.
Thus, the goal of all businesses is to have your website on the first page of Google , as it will be the most visited. But do you know how to stay on top of the polls?
That's where SEO comes in. The optimization practices are some actions, strategies and tools that your site puts so that Google can classify it on this longed for first page.
The goal of SEO is to prioritize the highest quality content for those looking for a particular subject. This is done through search engines, which have several evaluation criteria.
The exact number of these criteria is not known for certain, but it is estimated that there are more than 200 SEO practices , and that they tend to change frequently, with some changes at least once a year.
In this way, Google makes use of these nearly 200 evaluation methods to rank your site. Those best rated are those on the front page.
History of SEO
Excite (formerly Architext) can be considered as the first Internet search engine. Thanks to it, other search engines, such as Yahoo and Google emerged in the years 1994 and 1997, respectively.
Since then, Google has become the main name in the search engine market, thanks to its efficiency and this is directly linked to SEO practices.
Right at the beginning, he had the objective of “organizing the internet” according to the relevance of the site to users.
So, right from the start, one of the main SEO practices was whether the site received many visitors or mentions through links. These actions made Google one of the largest companies in the world.
Curiosity moment: Google or Google?
"Google" is used when we mention the company or the Google brand.
"Google" is used when referring to search the site.
Why your company needs to work SEO
A survey conducted by NZN revealed that 74% of Brazilian consumers prefer to make purchases online, rather than having to leave the house to buy the product.
In addition, a report produced by Google itself reveals that about 63% of purchases made in the last year, were made after a first contact with the product online.
That is, if we look closely at these two surveys, we can conclude that online presence is very important for sales. And this is where SEO strategies come in as very important for any business.
If applied correctly, SEO strategies will make your company's website among the top positions on Google's search pages, and consequently, it will be one of the most sought after, with the largest number of visitors and will generate more sales .
So, if your brand's website still doesn't use SEO optimization techniques, it's past time .
How does Google work?
We already explained how Google's logic is: he evaluates your site, according to SEO practices and then he qualifies your site, to know which search page he should be on.
In this way, the search giant creates a balance of quality: companies will create quality content to be in the best results; people will trust Google, since it is always showing the best results; and Google will always be updating its SEO practices.
In doing so, Google ensures that the content produced is focused on the best user experience. That is, whenever someone searches the search engine, they know that the first results are the best.
To understand a little more about these SEO practices that are constantly evolving, check out:
However, there are some practices that are considered negative. They are called “ Black Hat SEO ” and are famous for bringing quick results. But companies that adopt these practices are eventually punished .
For better results and in a correct way, there is the “ White Hat SEO ”, which are the ones that we will focus on throughout this content.
If you want to know a little more about Google's guidelines, go to the search engine guide , there he recommends all SEO strategies that are in accordance with your guidelines.
To help you understand more about SEO strategies, here are the main ranking factors:
6 main ranking factors
Although the exact number of ranking factors is not known for certain by Google, the estimated value is 200 . Of these, there are those that are generally known, and that are usually the most important.
Therefore, to prepare your ranking practices, we have separated six practices that you need to focus on:
1. Authority in what you do
Being an authority on the subject is considered to be the main ranking factor . This authority can be understood as a reference to the subject.
Imagine that you want to know, for example, about your football team. If you type in Google about your team, it is very likely that the team's own website will appear, as well as some football news website, such as Globo Esporte.
The first two results are examples of authority, one for being the team's own website and the other for being the site with the largest flow of visitors who like football in the country.
To gain this authority, your website must follow several SEO rules, such as: having a large volume of visitors, being shared several times, having your name cited in various places, volume of interesting content, links and backlinks.
Links
An excellent way to be well ranked, and also to build authority on the subject, is to build an important web of links within your page.
There are several linking strategies that can be used in different ways, such as: linking a content on your blog, to another content, still within your domain; link content outside of your blog, but that has to do with what you cited; as well as having your site linked to other sites.
If your article has well-embedded links, both internal and external, Google identifies that your content is delivering quality content, and therefore, improves your positioning.
It is worth mentioning that there are different forms of ranking and have their respective values for Google.
To make the link structure even clearer, check out some examples:
Excellent and own content
If you’re thinking about starting your Google ranking strategies, know that starting by copying someone’s content is not ethical , much less strategic .
Google is able to identify content that has been duplicated from another location and thus will make it irrelevant in searches.
In addition, the construction of the content must be well produced and attractive , and taking into account the issues of meaning and coherence of our language.
Remember that the content must be of quality for the user , and not only built to go well in SEO strategies.
Still on the issue of content excellence, it is necessary to take into account the size of the text. Google has already identified that: well-written and larger content is better accepted by people (ie: no stuffing sausage! ).
SEO can identify this by the time that people are reading the texts. So, if you produce relevant content, but with lower quality than that produced by your competitors, it is likely that you will not be ranked very well.
Keywords
Keywords are fundamental to all SEO strategies. They are the ones who guide the content and deserve a topic just for them, and for that reason, we will talk about them soon.
To summarize now the importance of keywords for SEO strategies and Google ranking, I can explain that they will be the words that will be searched on Google, when a person is looking for something.
Imagine, for example, that you are looking for the Surfe Digital website. To search for it on Google, just search for the name of the company, in which case, it will be the keyword. Surfe, being an authority on this keyword, should be among the first results.
In addition, there are keywords that have greater competition (there are many people talking about the same content) and there are those that are easier to rank, but attract fewer people.
But don't worry about it now, we will talk about it in keyword research in SEO strategies.
Light sites
According to a survey conducted by Aberdeen Group , for every 1s that passes when a page is loaded, 11% of people are less interested in waiting until the end of the load.
Aware that people are increasingly looking for immediacy , Google has as one of the main ranking factors the speed of loading of sites, as one of the SEO strategies.
For Google, the acceptable time to load a website completely is 2 seconds . Do you think your site is respecting this time?
Responsive sites
Last but not least, one of the SEO strategies are the so-called responsive sites, that is, those that work normally, both for mobile phones and for computers or tablets .
Responsive sites are not just sites that can open on a smaller screen, it is worth mentioning that to be considered responsive, the entire design and structure of the content needs to be adapted to other screens.
To understand the importance of responsive websites, imagine that your business is geared towards pets and your customer is needing to buy cat food.
He searches through a smartphone for "cat food" on Google, and finds his website, which has quality products and a great price, however, low usability.
Because of this, the customer will need to keep zooming and spend much more time looking for the purchase options, read the description of the feed, directions and everything.
It is possible that the customer will give up that purchase that should be simple and quick.
Because of this, Google penalizes sites that are not responsive, as they are not focused on delivering the best user experience.
Thus, by not having a responsive website, in addition to losing customers, it also loses ranking in search engines.
How to develop SEO strategies
SEO strategies are not practical that are applied overnight. You need to use them strategically , using smart practices and be data driven .
So it takes patience.
When focusing your business on devising SEO strategies it is important to have very well planned, so as not to get lost, especially when everything starts to become functional.
Check out how to develop your company's SEO strategies below:
Planning
As we pointed out earlier, the first step in developing your business’s SEO strategies is to do good planning .
Planning will guide your business at various times, defining objectives, metrics, KPIs, decision-making moments and giving direction whenever necessary.
In planning you should have:
Persona
Before choosing keywords, you need to know who your main customers are, what they expect from you, what they are looking for, how they are attracted and what they need, but they still don't know.
After defining your persona , only then can you take the next step.
Goals
Aware of the people you consider your ideal client, you need to set goals.
It is very important to emphasize that: objectives are very unique things in each business. That is, there is no use copying or finding ready on the internet. The objectives demonstrate how the digital maturity of your business is and what the next step should be.
If your business is starting , a goal may be , for example, to build a website that specializes in attracting customers .
If your business already has a website , the goal may be to increase the number of traffic.
Or if your business already works with a high volume of organic traffic , the next step may be to reduce the Cost per Customer Acquisition (CAC) .
Keyword search
Remember I talked about the keywords up there? It's time to fold the sleeves and focus on getting your hands dirty.
Keyword, as was pointed out earlier, is the north for a business, and one of the main SEO strategies. They can be used in different ways, such as on websites , but generally, they have a potential better used in blogs , in the so-called blogposts.
If we look at it from the customer's point of view , the keyword is the word (or phrase) that he will type in Google, when searching for something on the internet.
From the company's point of view , the keyword must be distributed throughout texts and phrases on the website and blog, which corresponds to the customer's question.
And from the point of view of Google , it will look at the search done by the client and will look for that site that has the keyword that most closely matches what the client wants, taking into account, of course, the ranking SEO strategies , as we mentioned earlier.
The keywords can be divided into two groups: head tail and long tail , in addition, there are tools that will help you identify whether a keyword is good or not, but let's take it easy.
Head tail
Head tails are some SEO strategies known for having a high search volume (but there are always exceptions!) And are generally well contested by many businesses.
Imagine that you are looking to learn about digital marketing to help your business grow, but you have no idea where to start. On Google, you could search for words like: digital marketing, marketing or business marketing.
From the way you searched, Google will understand that you want to know a little more about digital marketing for your company, and should target the highest ranked content on that subject.
Long tail
If head tail is too broad, long tail are very specific keywords. Now, the number of searches on Google is usually less , however, remember: people are after more specific things.
Following the previous example, imagine that you now know what digital marketing is and are after a company that will help your business to grow.
At Google, your search would look something like: " digital marketing company " or " digital marketing consultancy ".
Keyword Tools
And how do you know if the chosen keyword matches the content of my blog, my website and has a good search volume? There are tools for that.
Some of them are: Google Ads , SEMrush , Ubersuggest and Google Trends .
Reviews
Whether you are a beginner or for those already in the market, it is very important to be aware of what the competition is doing.
But remember: no copying!
The idea of doing competitor analysis is to help you not walk in the dark. With a good survey, you can see what has been working for your competitor and do something better , or see what goes wrong for them and avoid doing the same .
Your competitors will always be those who are competing for the same keywords as you and are on the first page of Google (remember that is where you want to be).
But for this analysis to be reliable, it is necessary to make use of tools, such as SEMrush and Google Trends, which we mentioned earlier.
10 SEO strategies for your brand growth
Feeling like an SEO expert already? After knowing how it came about, the importance of SEO for your company, how search engines work and even how to find keywords, it's time to get to know our main SEO strategies.
These strategies are quite different from each other, and can be categorized into two groups, SEO on page and SEO off page .
SEO strategies on page
In a simple way, we can define that SEO on page are those actions that were optimized by you, and aimed to improve the customer experience on your website .
SEO strategies on page are usually developed in partnership with content marketing strategies. Some examples are:
Quality content
Remember when I said that being an authority on the subject was one of the main SEO strategies? For this to happen, it is very important that the content produced by you is of quality .
Before leaving writing, check with the tools we mentioned earlier, if that content is of interest to your persona, if it is written with quality and also if it is well constructed, that is, he answers what you propose.
Scanability
Have you noticed how much reading those academic articles tires your eyes? Often 15 or more pages of heavy text, separated only by paragraphs
To ensure that the best content is in the first place, Google also analyzes scanning practices in texts.
In this regard, are evaluated: lists, content in bold, italics, images and divided into topics and subtopics.
For example, the image below was taken from an article on our blog about lean methodology . Notice the construction of this topic and how we use bold and italic fonts to highlight some terms. In addition, we seek to develop a structure of the paragraphs of the content in order to generate a more fluid reading:
Keywords and synonyms
For Google or any other search engine to understand the content of your site, the keyword must be used throughout the content produced.
It is worth mentioning that there is no maximum number of keywords used. The minimum number, however, varies depending on the text size.
So, remember the black hat practices mentioned earlier? One of them is to repeat the keyword so that the objective is just to circumvent good SEO practices, without any practice of coherence and agreement, hindering the objective of providing quality information.
Google, however, can already identify when a keyword is being repeated in a negative way , so make good use of synonyms.
Title and description
Also called “ title ” and “ meta description ”. While the title will be the name of your produced content, the description will appear below, describing its content, when it appears in the search made by the search engine.
It is worth mentioning that the meta description is not a decisive SEO practice, but it interferes with the entrance fee to the website, which is one of the SEO strategies. This is because a well-done description can be the differential when your customer enters your website or the competitor's.
URLs
One of the SEO strategies that is widely used is called "friendly URLs". A URL is the address of the page.
Notice this content here on the Surf blog. His theme is "digital marketing planning".
The URL we use from him is: https://surfedigital.io/blog/planejamento-de-marketing-digital/
Some examples of URLs that we should not use:
Images
Image blogposts are also very welcome by Google. However, the big tip is in how you implement the image.
Before placing it in the content made, it is necessary to optimize it with: alternative text (alt tag), file name with the keyword, image caption and the image URL.
Internal links
What is the most important page on your site? Having an effective internal link helps Google understand how your site works and understand what content it should prioritize.
Therefore, it is very important to have the work of internal linking as one of the main SEO strategies of your website.
Off page SEO strategies
If on page SEO are actions done within your site, off page SEO are SEO strategies outside your domain, but which directly impact your business ranking.
Since both are important, here are some more tips for you to learn:
Link Building
I mentioned several times throughout the text, the importance of links for the construction of SEO content. Well, links from external sites are off-page SEO strategies that Google considers (and a lot!) When ranking the sites.
It is worth mentioning that your site being mentioned on other sites also depends on their quality . That is, if there was a quote from your brand on a site of little relevance to the search engine, you will gain little chance of ranking, now, if it is a very important site, you will earn many ranking points.
Guest Post
The guest post, in fact, is a particular link building strategy, but because it is so important, it deserves a topic just for him.
In the guest post strategy, you invite someone from another site to write for your blog, so someone from your content production team writes for their blog, generating an engagement between the two sites.
This strategy, however, should be used sparingly . If Google realizes that too many links have come to your site, very quickly, it can consider this as black hat, and render punishments for your site.
Social networks
A brand should never leave its social networks aside , even if the website is the biggest source of customer attraction.
One of the ways for you to create an off page strategy is to share links from your website on social networks, such as Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin.
Although it is not one of the SEO strategies that will most impact your website, on a large scale , it can make a lot of difference.
Brand presence
Brand presence is one of the most important off-page SEO strategies, and therefore, always pay attention to it.
In this action, it must be taken into account that this presence is built over time, bringing awareness to your brand. This authority can be built with:
-
Your brand quotes on websites and portals;
-
Build a consolidated YouTube channel (YouTube is from Google, so the relationship makes sense);
-
Positive rating score from users on Google;
-
Customers who engage in social networks.
Conclusion
Search Engine Optimization is a very important tool for your brand.
To be absent from SEO strategies nowadays, is to let your business remain anonymous and with that, always remain the same, and still running the risk of losing customers to your competitor, who is doing SEO strategies .
So be sure to make your business move towards growth. Always focus on: learning new concepts, optimization strategies, updating your persona and keywords and of course, don't forget that Google is always updating good SEO practices.
Now that you know the importance of optimization practices, check out our 30-step e-book for you to create the perfect content and bring authority to your brand. It will be fundamental to your good SEO practices, since content marketing is fundamental.
