Is your SEO strategy working for you in 2016?

The SEO strategy that your business should be following is dependent on the nature and goals of the business, from businesses that only serve the Northampton area, to business that are located in Northampton that serve a wider area, perhaps even nationally.

All to often the understanding of SEO is limited to, I want to rank for XYZ. Whilst ranking for a perceived term is great for business vanity, it will not produce the results you believe it will.

Example:
Based on this outdated understanding of SEO, you would assume that Online Ownership would be hell bent on ranking for Northampton SEO, but why? This would only be worth around 260 potential search queries per month, assuming I was position 1.

In reality I provide content specific to my consumers intent which in turn generates around 5,500 visits per month and growing at 3% month on month.

SEO has evolved into something very different to “ranking” for a keyword, SEO is about structuring your site and business so that it satisfies a searchers intent in the moment they need it. Google has also evolved into returning returning results based on the users intent.

So even if you did rank position 1 for your xyz vanity keyword, is that in:

• Google.com
• Google.co.uk
• What IP address
• Logged in or Logged out
• Mobile and Geo Location

The results returned differ based on the user and their intent.

Your SEO strategy for 2016 should be focused on improving your site for the user, on link earning rather then link building and creating a brand that will sustain the business for the future.

“Focus on collaboration with content creators. Leads come from traffic. Traffic comes from rank. Rank comes from links. Links come from relationships. Relationships come from collaboration”

Google insights provide some sobering figures:

• Only 9% of visitors will stay on your site if it’s not satisfying their needs. That means you’re losing 91% of potential customers if your content is below the mark. As much as 40% will be less likely to return to your website and 28% will be less likely to buy something from your brand in the future.

So even if you rank number 1 for your vanity search term, you may not make a sale, if your sites content and structure is sub optimal.

For a Northampton based business, focus your efforts specifically on local SEO:

For businesses with a larger geographic footprint, focus your efforts on:

• Site structure, get a site audit done.
• User focused content

Start by asking these questions:

• What do consumers want to learn about your category, products, or services? Do you have snackable content on mobile that answers their questions?
• Do consumers want to visit your business? Are you helping them find nearby locations and highlighting in-stock inventory on your mobile site/app and in mobile search results?
• What are consumers doing with your product or service (for example, baking cookies, buying a home, recovering from an injury)? Do you have how-to video content to support their efforts
• Where are consumers buying your product? How can you support consumers who are buying from you in-store or while on the go?
• Are you empowering consumers to check out in whatever way suits their need?

Read: Actionable SEO Guide for Northamptonshire Business

Currently, 82% of consumers use local businesses on a regular basis. Within the next year, almost half (48%) intend to increase their local business use; less than 1% plan to decrease their use.

Overall, it’s clear that quality matters to consumers more than price. Reliability and trustworthiness are also factors that affect whether or not a customer uses a local business. Make sure that you’re reaching them the right way online in 2016.