Believe it or not, 2017 is right around the corner. What better time than now to reflect on 2016 SEO performance and set the stage for better results in the year ahead? Here are 10 resolutions we guarantee will put more SEO leads in your pipeline in 2017.
Embrace CRO. Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a broad set of techniques used on websites to turn visitors into prospects. Since our extensive data shows that almost 85 percent of visitors convert on the first visit, CRO is critical for SEO success.
Refresh keyword research. Putting target-keyword focus on autopilot for a year: no good! Keyword volumes change, competitor strategies change, your business priorities change. Get a fresh start with a fresh keyword strategy in 2017.
Embrace mobile. Google recently announced mobile-first indexing. We’ve reached the point where even if your website doesn’t have a single mobile visitor (highly unlikely!), you still need a mobile-friendly, responsive website design to stay in the SEO game.
Go local. Even if you serve a national or global market, local SEO should be part of your strategy. Local focus cuts out a lot of competition, giving you a better chance to improve organic visibility where you need it most — in strategically important local markets.
Cut out the fat. A common mistake in SEO strategy is targeting too many keywords. Cut the excess and zero in on the keywords that really matter — you’ll get much more bang for your invested buck.
Improve your link profile. Contrary to what you may have heard, inbound links to your website still matter — and matter A LOT. Do you have a rock-solid plan to acquire high-quality, diverse links? If not, prioritizing this will boost your SEO significantly.
Create quarterly content calendars. Generating topics for on-site and off-site SEO campaigns is a common bottleneck. Make life easier and SEO more effective by mapping out an editorial calendar one quarter in advance in 2017. This gives your agency plenty of time to focus on fine tuning and creating great content — that is, content that Google crawlers love as much as human readers.
Tune up your website. Websites need plenty of TLC to stay in peak SEO condition. Now is the time to look for and fix SEO-inhibiting flaws such as slow page loading, broken links, unwieldy internal navigation, poorly optimized title tags, duplicate content and more.
Put a dash of SEO into your other marketing campaigns. Content for social media, public relations, branding, email and other initiatives will perform better and help SEO perform better when they employ SEO techniques. For instance, adding keywords to press releases will help them be seen by your target prospects searching on Google.
Get off the ranking train and on the lead train. SEO campaigns derail when the focus is on rankings instead of what really counts — lead generation. Since rankings vary wildly depending on user search engine behavior, geographic location and many other factors, lead production is the one true and important KPI for SEO.
Would you like an expert review for your SEO campaign to start 2017 on the right foot? Please contact us now!