Your SEO strategy determines whether or not you will benefit from the more than 60,000 Google searches made every second. The competition for clicks is very stiff and the competitors are unforgiving. Everyone wants to claim a top spot in the SERPs for certain focus and secondary keywords. Everyone wants to stand out from the crowd and convince internet searchers of their authority within their niche. One simple SEO miscalculation can throw you off balance and deny you the much-needed chance to make a sale or create new business leads. That is why every marketer needs a solid SEO strategy template.

A solid SEO strategy template means being proactive and chasing the clicks- not creating content and leaving it to find its own way to the top. Throwing in random links will not get you online traffic or any meaningful online engagement either. In this article, we explain how you can get great results and generate more traffic, leads, and engagements using our ultimate strategy on the basics of SEO.

Understanding SEO in 2020

Google algorithms have a reputation for changing randomly and fast. For that reason, many marketers and SEO experts focus on learning new algorithm changes and updating their strategies. But whereas you cannot avoid these changes, it is important that you also focus on the side of the SEO landscape that hasn’t been shifting for the last 5 years. A good example is the impact of authority links, loading speed, cybersecurity, and high-quality content on SEO rankings. These 4 factors haven’t changed for a long time now- they have remained to be the top organic drivers of online traffic. If you want your website to rank highly in organic search, perhaps it is time you settled down a bit and focused on these basic ranking factors. In 2020, spend more time improving on the 4 factors instead of chasing down hundreds of ranking factors. You will be surprised to know that some of these “factors” are nothing more than the creation of fake SEO consultants.

Your SEO Strategy Template to Top Rankings

Now that you know where the world stands in matters of SEO and web traffic, let’s delve deeper and look at 3 key ranking factors that have changed a bit for 2020 and beyond. The 3 factors align closely with the organic search drivers explained above, so you can bet that they will help boost your website traffic.

1. Focus on building pages based on topics, not keywords

In the past, search algorithms looked at web content on a keyword to keyword basis. This is no longer the case. The primary focus of search engines has shifted from keyword searches to the intent and usefulness of a keyword and by extension, the entire web content. If you are deeply invested in old school SEO tactics whereby you publish multiple pages with the same intent and almost identical keywords, you need to reimagine your SEO strategy template. Stuffing keywords that don’t fit in will only make your content look unnatural and nonsensical. Google is now too smart to be tricked that way.

2. Position your site as the most reliable source of knowledge in your industry

Search engines want to give their searchers the best content possible, so they will readily send knowledge seekers your way if they are convinced that your website is an authority site within your niche. How do you get Google’s approval as an authority site? First, you will need to stop posting short blogs on your site and instead start posting long and in-depth articles. The key is to provide all the knowledge needed for a given topic, not to write many short articles that should basically be subtopics within a more comprehensive topic. Secondly, instead of putting all your focus on short-tail keywords, you need to start researching on what questions that knowledge seekers in your niche want answered. People need well thought out and comprehensive answers to their questions. 

3. Invest in on-site SEO

On-site SEO is not new, except that you have to get it right in 2020 or your site gets demoted by Google. Your SEO strategy template going forward will need you to optimize your blog section, your web videos, your landing pages, and your site as a whole. Improving the user experience (UX) will not win the ranking game by itself. Your site should be easy to navigate but at the same time, it must contain all the trending keywords for your target audience to stick around. Your page titles could be attention-grabbing, but if the meta descriptions aren’t arousing the curiosity of the target audience, readers might feel like your page isn’t exactly what they are looking for. 

Conclusion

The bottom line here is that you need to tempt- not hoodwink- searchers to click through to your page. Old school and black-hat SEO tactics will not help your website to rank at the top. Strive to make your website as trustable as possible, measure your SEO progress as regularly as possible, and identify the areas that require improvement. However, don’t lose focus on the 4 basic ranking factors that we discussed.