We’re not talking about tricks or hacks. We’re talking about the three SEO strategies that form the backbone of every successful organic growth program we’ve built. These are the same approaches we’d prioritize if we were starting from scratch tomorrow.

Why most SEO strategies fail before they start

Before we get into what works, it’s worth understanding why so many SEO efforts stall. The most common pattern we see when onboarding new clients: they’ve been publishing content consistently but haven’t seen meaningful traffic growth in months (sometimes years).

The root cause is almost always the same — they’re executing tactics without a cohesive strategy. They’re writing blog posts without keyword research, building backlinks without considering relevance, or ignoring technical issues that prevent Google from indexing their content in the first place.

A real SEO strategy isn’t a list of tasks. It’s a prioritized plan that connects technical health, content quality, and authority building to specific business outcomes. Here are the three strategies that make that connection.

Strategy 1: Build a technical foundation that Google trusts

This is the strategy most teams skip or underinvest in, and it’s the one that creates the biggest leverage. Technical SEO is the infrastructure layer that determines whether Google can efficiently crawl, render, and index your content.

We’ve had clients come to us with 500+ published articles and declining traffic. When we dug in, the problem wasn’t their content — it was that hundreds of pages were sitting in Google’s “crawled but not indexed” queue because of technical debt nobody was monitoring.

What a technical SEO strategy looks like in practice

Crawl budget optimization: Google allocates a finite crawl budget to every site. If your site is bloated with thin pages, redirect chains, or duplicate content, Google wastes its budget on low-value pages and may never get to your best content. We audit crawl efficiency as the first step of every engagement and typically find 20-30% of pages that should be consolidated, redirected, or removed entirely.

Core Web Vitals performance: Page speed isn’t a vanity metric — it’s a confirmed ranking factor. We benchmark every client site against Google’s Core Web Vitals thresholds and prioritize fixes based on traffic impact. The most common wins: lazy-loading images, deferring non-critical JavaScript, and eliminating render-blocking resources. For one ecommerce client, optimizing LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) from 4.2s to 1.8s correlated with a 23% increase in organic sessions within two months.

Indexation management: Not every page on your site should be indexed. We use a combination of Google Search Console data, Ahrefs crawl reports, and manual audits to identify pages that are diluting your site’s quality signals. Thin tag pages, empty author archives, and outdated campaign landing pages are common culprits. Strategically noindexing or removing these pages concentrates Google’s attention on your strongest content.

Structured data implementation: Schema markup gives Google explicit context about your content. We implement Article, FAQ, HowTo, and Organization schema across client sites as standard practice. When done right, structured data unlocks rich results in the SERP that dramatically improve click-through rates — we’ve measured CTR improvements of 15-25% on pages with rich snippets compared to standard blue links.

Strategy 2: Create content that earns its ranking through genuine expertise

Content strategy is where most teams spend the majority of their SEO effort, and rightfully so. But the bar for what constitutes “good enough” content has risen dramatically, especially since Google’s Helpful Content updates.

The shift we’ve observed over the past two years: generic, information-aggregation content is getting crushed, while content that demonstrates real expertise and firsthand experience is being rewarded. This isn’t speculation — we’ve watched it happen across our client portfolio and documented the results.

How we build content strategies that work

Intent-first keyword research: We don’t start with a keyword list. We start with the customer journey. What questions do your ideal customers ask at each stage of their buying process? What problems are they trying to solve? We map these questions to search queries, then prioritize based on a combination of search volume, keyword difficulty, and business value.

For a B2B SaaS client, this approach led us to deprioritize high-volume head terms (where they had no realistic chance of ranking) and instead build a content cluster around mid-funnel comparison and evaluation queries. Within six months, those pages were generating more qualified leads than the homepage.

Topical authority through content clusters: Google rewards sites that demonstrate comprehensive knowledge of a subject. Rather than publishing isolated articles on random topics, we build interconnected content clusters around core themes.

A cluster starts with a pillar page — a comprehensive guide on a broad topic (like our content marketing strategy guide). Supporting articles then go deeper on specific subtopics, all linked back to the pillar. This structure signals to Google that your site has depth and authority on the subject.

E-E-A-T as a content requirement, not an afterthought: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness aren’t abstract concepts — they’re the framework Google uses to evaluate content quality. Every piece of content we produce must answer: Who wrote this and why should anyone trust them? What firsthand experience informs this advice? What makes this more authoritative than the other 50 articles on the same topic?

This is exactly why we write from our agency’s practitioner perspective. When we publish an article about search engine optimization techniques, it’s grounded in what we’ve actually tested and measured across client engagements — not generic advice repackaged from other sources.

Content optimization and refresh cycles: Publishing is just the beginning. We run quarterly content audits across client sites, identifying underperforming articles that need updating, consolidating thin posts that cannibalize each other, and expanding articles that are ranking on page two (the “striking distance” opportunity). A systematic refresh program is often the fastest path to traffic growth because you’re improving assets Google already knows about rather than waiting for new content to be discovered.

Strategy 3: Build authority through strategic link acquisition and digital PR

Backlinks remain one of Google’s strongest ranking signals. Every quality backlink from a relevant, authoritative site tells Google that your content is worth referencing. But the approach matters enormously — we’ve cleaned up more bad backlink profiles than we can count.

Our off-page strategy is built on digital PR and genuine value creation, not transactional link exchanges.

Our link building playbook

Create linkable assets first: Before any outreach, we make sure the client has content worth linking to. Original research, proprietary data, comprehensive guides, and interactive tools naturally attract links because they provide unique value. The best backlink strategy starts with the best content strategy.

Data-driven digital PR: We help clients extract newsworthy stories from their data and pitch them to journalists and industry publications. A well-placed data story can earn dozens of high-authority backlinks from a single campaign. For a client in the growth marketing space, one original research piece earned 47 referring domains in its first three months — more than the previous year’s entire link building effort combined.

Relationship-based outreach: Mass email outreach with generic templates doesn’t work anymore (and arguably never did). We build genuine relationships with editors and writers in our clients’ industries. When we pitch a link opportunity, it’s because we’ve identified a specific piece of their content where a link to our client adds real value for their readers.

Competitive backlink analysis: Using tools like Ahrefs, we analyze where competitors are earning their backlinks and identify gaps. If a competitor has links from 10 industry publications and our client has links from 3, those other 7 publications become priority outreach targets. This ensures the link building effort is focused on the domains that matter most for competitive rankings.

Avoiding tactics that backfire: We won’t participate in link schemes, PBNs (private blog networks), or paid link placements that violate Google’s guidelines. We’ve inherited sites that were penalized by these tactics, and the recovery process is painful and slow. Building authority the right way takes longer but creates a durable competitive advantage.

How these three strategies work together

The real power of this framework isn’t in any single strategy — it’s in how they reinforce each other. Strong technical SEO means Google can efficiently crawl and index your content. Quality content gives other sites a reason to link to you. And a healthy backlink profile amplifies the ranking potential of every page on your site.

When we onboard a new client, we typically sequence the work like this:

Weeks 1-4: Technical audit and critical fixes. Ensure Google can properly access and index the site.

Weeks 2-6: Content audit and strategy development. Assess existing content, identify gaps, and build the editorial calendar.

Weeks 4-8: Begin content production and optimization of existing high-potential pages.

Weeks 6+: Launch link building and digital PR campaigns, amplifying the new and refreshed content.

All three strategies overlap intentionally. By month three, they should be running in parallel, each feeding into the others. The compounding effect is what separates teams that see steady organic growth from those whose traffic flatlines.

What to do next

If your organic traffic has plateaued or declined, the answer is almost never “publish more content.” It’s usually “fix the strategy behind the content.”

Start by answering three questions: Can Google efficiently crawl and index your site? Is your content demonstrably better and more authoritative than what’s currently ranking? And is your backlink profile growing with quality, relevant links?

If the answer to any of those is no, you’ve found your starting point. We’ve helped companies across industries work through exactly this process — explore our case studies to see the approach in action, or get in touch to talk about your specific situation.

The post 3 SEO Strategies We Use to Drive Organic Growth for Every Client appeared first on Relevance.

After running SEO programs across B2B SaaS, healthcare, ecommerce, and professional services, we’ve found that the most reliable path to organic growth comes down to three core search engine optimization techniques: technical SEO, on-page optimization, and off-page authority building. Here’s how we approach each one — and what we’ve learned the hard way about getting them right.

The three search engine optimization techniques

Every SEO engagement we run at Relevance starts with the same framework. We break the work into three buckets:

1. Technical SEO — making sure search engines can crawl, render, and index your site efficiently
2. On-page SEO — creating and optimizing content that matches search intent and demonstrates expertise
3. Off-page SEO — building the external signals (primarily backlinks) that establish your site’s authority

These aren’t sequential steps you check off and move past. They’re ongoing, overlapping workstreams. A holistic SEO strategy keeps all three in motion simultaneously.

1. Technical SEO: the foundation everything else sits on

We always start here. It doesn’t matter how good your content is if Google can’t properly crawl and index it. We’ve seen sites with genuinely excellent articles sitting in Google’s “crawled — currently not indexed” bucket simply because of technical debt nobody was monitoring.

Here’s what a technical SEO audit looks like in practice at our agency:

Crawlability and indexation

The first thing we check is whether Google can actually find and process your pages. That means reviewing your XML sitemap, robots.txt directives, canonical tags, and internal linking structure. On a recent engagement with a B2B SaaS client, we discovered that a misconfigured canonical tag was pointing 40+ blog posts to the homepage — effectively telling Google to ignore all of that content. Fixing that single issue recovered indexation for pages that had been invisible for months.

Site speed and Core Web Vitals

Google’s Core Web Vitals (Largest Contentful Paint, Interaction to Next Paint, and Cumulative Layout Shift) are confirmed ranking factors. We use a combination of Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, and Ahrefs site audit tools to benchmark performance.

The most common speed killers we see across client sites: unoptimized images, render-blocking JavaScript, excessive third-party scripts (especially chat widgets and analytics tags stacked on top of each other), and bloated CSS. Fixing these typically requires collaboration with a dev team, which is why we build technical SEO into project timelines rather than treating it as an afterthought.

Mobile experience and accessibility

Google uses mobile-first indexing, meaning it primarily evaluates the mobile version of your site for ranking decisions. We test every client site across device sizes and flag issues like tap targets that are too small, horizontal scrolling, and text that requires zooming. These aren’t just SEO issues — they directly impact conversion rates.

Structured data

Schema markup helps search engines understand what your content is about and can unlock rich results (FAQ dropdowns, review stars, how-to steps) that dramatically improve click-through rates. We implement structured data as a standard part of every technical audit. For one client in the healthcare space, adding FAQ schema to their top 20 pages increased organic CTR by 18% within six weeks.

2. On-page SEO: where content quality meets search intent

On-page SEO is about creating content that earns its ranking. This is where most teams focus their energy, and for good reason — content is what users actually interact with. But there’s a massive difference between “content that exists” and “content that ranks.”

Keyword research that goes beyond volume

We don’t chase high-volume keywords for the sake of it. Our keyword research process starts with understanding the client’s actual business goals and customer journey, then works backward to identify the search queries that map to each stage.

For example, a marketing automation platform doesn’t just need to rank for “marketing automation” (impossibly competitive for most companies). They need content targeting queries like “how to set up lead scoring workflows” or “email drip campaign best practices” — terms with clear intent that attract people who are actually in-market.

We use tools like Ahrefs and Google Search Console to identify keyword opportunities, but the real skill is in understanding search intent. Is the searcher looking for a definition, a comparison, a tutorial, or a product? Matching your content format to intent is the single biggest lever in on-page SEO.

Content that demonstrates E-E-A-T

Google’s E-E-A-T framework (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) isn’t just a set of guidelines — it’s the lens through which Google’s quality raters evaluate content. After working through multiple Google algorithm updates, including the Helpful Content updates that devastated sites relying on generic, AI-generated content, we’ve seen firsthand how critical genuine expertise is.

What does E-E-A-T look like in practice? At Relevance, it means:

Experience: Writing from actual practitioner experience. We don’t publish theoretical SEO advice — we write about techniques we’ve tested across real client engagements. When we say a tactic works, it’s because we’ve measured the results.

Expertise: Having qualified authors with real credentials. Every article we publish has a named author with relevant professional experience, not a generic brand byline.

Authoritativeness: Building topical depth. We don’t publish one article on a topic and move on. We build comprehensive content hubs — like our content marketing strategy guide — that demonstrate deep knowledge across the subject.

Trustworthiness: Citing sources, being transparent about limitations, and keeping content updated. Outdated statistics and broken links erode trust with both users and search engines.

On-page optimization fundamentals

Beyond content quality, the mechanical aspects of on-page SEO still matter. For every piece of content we publish, we optimize:

Title tags and meta descriptions — written to include the target keyword naturally while compelling clicks from the SERP. We A/B test title formats across client sites and consistently find that titles with specific numbers or clear value propositions outperform generic alternatives.

Header structure — using H2s and H3s to create a logical hierarchy that both users and search engines can follow. This also improves your chances of appearing in featured snippets.

Internal linking — connecting related content to distribute page authority and help users navigate deeper into your site. We typically aim for 10-15 contextual internal links per long-form article, pointing both to pillar pages and to related supporting content.

Image optimization — descriptive alt text, compressed file sizes, and modern formats like WebP. This is one of the most commonly overlooked on-page factors we encounter in audits.

3. Off-page SEO: building authority through backlinks and digital PR

Off-page SEO is the discipline most companies either ignore entirely or approach with outdated tactics that can actually hurt their rankings. At Relevance, we’ve built our off-page strategy around digital PR and genuine relationship building rather than transactional link exchanges.

Why backlinks still matter

Backlinks remain one of Google’s strongest ranking signals. Each quality backlink acts as a vote of confidence from another site, telling Google your content is worth referencing. But the operative word is quality. A single link from an authoritative, relevant publication is worth more than hundreds of links from low-quality directories or link farms.

We track backlink profiles using Ahrefs and focus on Domain Rating (DR) and topical relevance as our primary quality indicators. For clients in competitive verticals, building a strong backlink profile is often the differentiator between ranking on page one and being stuck on page two.

How we build backlinks at Relevance

Our link building approach is grounded in creating content that naturally attracts links and then amplifying it through targeted outreach. Here’s what that looks like:

Original research and data: Content that contains proprietary data, original surveys, or unique analysis earns links because it gives other writers something to cite. We help clients develop data-driven content assets specifically designed for link acquisition.

Digital PR campaigns: We identify newsworthy angles from client data and pitch them to journalists and industry publications. This earns high-authority backlinks while also building brand awareness — a win on two fronts.

Strategic guest contributions: We place expert bylines in relevant industry publications. These aren’t generic guest posts — they’re substantive pieces that demonstrate the client’s expertise and include contextual links back to their site.

Broken link reclamation: We find broken links on relevant sites that previously pointed to content similar to what our client offers, then reach out with a replacement suggestion. It’s a value-add for the linking site and a quality backlink for our client.

What to avoid in off-page SEO

We’ve cleaned up the damage from bad link building more times than we can count. Tactics to steer clear of: paid link schemes, private blog networks (PBNs), mass directory submissions, and any service promising hundreds of backlinks for a flat fee. Google’s spam detection has gotten remarkably sophisticated, and the short-term gains from manipulative link building almost always result in penalties down the road.

How to prioritize these three techniques

When a new client comes to us, we don’t try to do everything at once. Here’s the general sequencing we follow:

Month 1-2: Technical foundation. Audit the site, fix critical crawl and indexation issues, optimize page speed, and implement structured data. This ensures everything you build afterward has the best chance of being discovered and indexed.

Month 2-4: Content strategy and on-page optimization. Develop a keyword strategy based on business goals, audit existing content for optimization opportunities, and begin creating new content that targets high-value keywords with clear search intent.

Month 3+: Off-page authority building. Once you have strong content assets in place, begin promoting them through digital PR, outreach, and strategic partnerships. Off-page efforts compound over time, so starting early and staying consistent is key.

This timeline overlaps intentionally. By month three, all three workstreams should be running in parallel. The clients who see the strongest results are the ones who maintain this cadence for 6-12 months without pulling back — SEO is a compounding investment, not a quick fix.

The bottom line

Search engine optimization isn’t a single technique — it’s three interconnected disciplines that need to work together. In our experience running SEO programs for companies across industries, the teams that invest in all three pillars — technical health, content quality, and off-page authority — consistently outperform those that focus on just one or two.

If you’re evaluating where your own SEO program stands, start with a technical audit. It will reveal the foundation-level issues that might be silently undermining everything else you’re doing. From there, assess whether your content genuinely demonstrates expertise and matches search intent, and whether your backlink profile reflects the authority you want to project.

Need help figuring out where to start? See how we’ve helped other companies build SEO programs that deliver measurable organic growth, or reach out to our team to discuss your situation.

The post 3 Search Engine Optimization Techniques That Actually Move the Needle appeared first on Relevance.

Companies that treat SEO like a checklist tend to plateau …fast. After running SEO campaigns for over 500 brands, our team at Relevance has learned that even in an AI era, the investing in AI matters. When you treat it like a portfolio of revenue plays, instead of a “to-do” item, it keeps generating returns for years. 

We’ve seen a single content refresh double demo requests in 90 days. We’ve also watched six-figure SEO investments stall. Not because the work was bad. It was just disconnected. There was no purpose, focus, or intent behind all the keywords, backlinks, and metadata. 

After working with so many brands, one of the most common problems I see is that a good team fails to achieve success with their SEO strategies because their marketing is siloed. A siloed strategy means no single piece gets to truly meet its potential. They can have great keywords, great backlinks, and a strong technical foundation, but if there is no strategy, that means we are missing the connective tissue of marketing that helps take solid ideas from the whiteboard to actual ROI in the boardroom.

The ultimate takeaway we’ve found over the years? Never let your SEO strategy exist in a vacuum. Blind execution leads to wasted resources and low ROI. If you want SEO marketing to work, you need to tie every SEO decision back to your larger business goals and KPIs.

I want to break down what modern SEO marketing looks like, why it still matters in an AI age, and how to build your own SEO marketing strategy. Generic advice isn’t enough in this area anymore, either. I’ll back up all of these concepts with over a dozen rock-solid examples of how major brands have used these SEO strategies to succeed (often with the help of our team at Relevance). 

Ready? Let’s dive in.

What is SEO marketing? 

SEO marketing is the practice of enhancing a website’s content, structure, and authority so search engines — and AI tools — connect the right audience to the right page at the right moment. It combines keyword research, link building, and technical optimization to attract, convert, and retain customers, turning organic search into a compounding revenue channel. 

The 4 types of SEO marketing

Optimizing your site’s content for search engines takes a multi-pronged approach that we tend to break into four different categories.

On-page SEO involves creating high-quality content centered on one keyword theme. You can optimize your content by including the keyword in your page’s title, URL, meta description, and headers.

To master off-page SEO, you must build your backlink strategy. Once you’ve created linkable content, identify external sites where your audience gathers. Then, ask for a backlink (be sure to clarify what’s in it for them and their audience).

Technical SEO might sound complicated, but it’s really as simple as providing a good user experience. You can do this by following web design best practices when it comes to things like your site structure, mobile-first design, load speed, and security.

If your business serves customers in a particular geographic area, local SEO is critical. Incorporating local keywords into your content and having an active social media presence can help your brand show up to in-market searchers nearby.

Why SEO marketing matters 

The average internet user now spends 6 hours and 38 minutes online each day. The younger a person is, the more likely it is that the number goes up. That means your target audience (and the people behind them, growing into the next generation of customers) are online a lot. 

What does this have to do with SEO marketing? As a digital marketer, one of your primary marketing goals is to get a segment of the billions of people online to spend a little piece of that time paying attention to you.

SEO helps you improve the visibility and ranking of your website, whether it’s in search results and traffic from a traditional search engine or social platform, or it comes from an AI-generated source list. When this happens organically, it means you didn’t pay for it with ads.

Paid vs. organic traffic

Both traffic sources have their place, but organic traffic is often considered more valuable for a few reasons. First, BrightEdge research has found that 68% of online experiences start with a search engine, which means ranking organically can put your brand in front of people at the moment they are already looking for answers, products, or services. 

You don’t have to pay for organic traffic directly. You earn it through branding and content strategy efforts. Those efforts do require investing resources, but that investment pays dividends over time.

Organic traffic also tends to have a higher conversion rate, because those visitors are actively seeking out your content, products or services. For these reasons, SEO marketing is seen as a long-term investment in your brand that increases in value as you keep putting in the work.

The AI angle with SEO

It’s important to point out that AI isn’t replacing SEO. If anything, as AI tools improve and come alongside traditional search in more meaningful ways, it is making SEO more important — good SEO, that is. 

The biggest mistake I am seeing right now is companies trying to choose between SEO or AI, and seeing them as competing strategies. Across our clients, the brands I am seeing perform well in AI search are the ones that regularly and consistently invest in SEO efforts as well. It shouldn’t be a “one or the other” situation, but both strategies should be implemented and executed in tandem to truly see success and growth.

Simple SEO tactics and shortcut techniques are no longer good enough. A clean, comprehensive SEO strategy ensures that your content not only ranks high in the SERPs. It is also easy for AI tools to cite it when they use it to craft an answer. 

This is important in a world where the presence of an AI Overview summary drops clickthrough rate (CTR) from 15% to 8%, and 60% of Google searches end without a click. SEO lets you make sure people know it’s you talking, even if they never actually reach your site — and that has value in the form of brand awareness and trust-building, at the least.

SEO marketing for beginners

If you’re looking for an SEO for beginners approach, the SEO world might feel huge (and it is). The good news is that you don’t need to go far to take your first steps toward optimization. To reach SEO success, you need to take four steps:

1. Perform Keyword Research

There are SEO tools dedicated to keyword research. But as a beginner, don’t over-complicate this step. When optimizing your website content to keywords, go with what you know best – your business and your customers. Ask yourself:

• What do we sell?
• Who do we help?
• What would someone search for if they were looking for what we sell?

If you sell clothing for dogs, some keywords that might come to mind are:

• Dog clothing
• Dog sweaters
• Clothes for big dogs
• Winter coats for dogs

For more inspiration, use Google or an AI tool to search for other related keywords and see what’s suggested. If anything jumps out to you, add it to your list. It’s important to pick a relevant keyword based on the search intent. And don’t worry about including every keyword under the sun – four or five keywords might encompass your offering.

2. Work the keywords into your web content

Match each keyword to a web page on your site. If a keyword is on your list but doesn’t fit any of your content, that’s a sign that you might need a new page for that topic.

Once you’ve paired each relevant keyword with a page, make sure it appears in these key areas:

• Title tag
• Slug (URL)
• Meta description
• Headers
• Body

Incorporating your keyword shouldn’t be difficult or sound unnatural. If you have a hard time working it in, it might not be the best keyword for that page.

3. Create a content plan

Because search engine algorithms prioritize fresh content, you should consider starting a blog if you don’t have one already. Posting a high-quality blog post consistently is one of the most effective ways to build your credibility and start ranking higher for the keywords that are important to your business. 

Thanks to the keyword brainstorming you’ve already done, you should have some good ideas for topics. Keep your team on track by putting together a simple content calendar with each article’s topic, author, and target publish date.

Your SEO content plan should also include regular reviews of your static web pages. Depending on how dynamic your organization is, auditing your website content two to four times per year is usually enough.

4. Link building

One of the main signals search engines use to determine your authority is the number of backlinks. That is, how many times are other sites linking to your content? Link building is a great SEO tool to support your SEO efforts. If your content has a lot of backlinks, people likely find it helpful and reliable.

Once you’re consistently publishing high-quality content, you’ll collect some backlinks without trying. Look at you go! But to really take your SEO strategy to the next level, you’ll need a link-building plan. Earning a backlink can be a simple off-page SEO technique. Start with these steps:

• Identify your best SEO content. This could be an article, page, guide, or case study.
• Decide who to reach out to. Whose audience would be interested? If your content is a guide to dressing your dog for winter, you might identify dog associations (American Kennel Club), lifestyle publications, and veterinarians’ websites.
• Craft your pitch. Do your best to find the person responsible for your target’s content and reach out to them. Send a message detailing how your piece can help their audience. Make their life easier by suggesting where to insert the link and the anchor text (the words linked to your site).

How to build your SEO marketing strategy

As you get better at SEO, you’ll find SEO strategy can come in many shapes and sizes. We’ve narrowed them down to three key strategic approaches — here they are, with the examples that follow showing how each one looks when you use it in real life.

1. On-site technical optimization

Technical SEO is the foundation on which the rest of your SEO strategy is built. We’re talking about things like website speed, navigation, and accessibility. They aren’t sexy, but they hold up the rest of the metaphorical house. These optimizations might not be apparent in your content, but your readers will definitely notice them.

2. A keyword-driven content strategy

On-page SEO encompasses everything from your topic to keywords to embedded media. If technical SEO is the house’s foundation, on-page is everything inside it – from the furniture to the trendy wallpaper. And solid on-page SEO starts with a thoughtful, keyword-driven content strategy with an E-E-A-T focus.

3. Acquiring backlinks

Backlinks are part of an off-page SEO strategy that focuses on links from external domains that point to your content. Search engine algorithms view backlinks as an indicator that other users find your content helpful. Consider them the “A-list guests” whose testimonials prove your metaphorical house is worth visiting.

Now, let’s see what these look like when you encounter them in real-life SEO examples that have not just followed the concepts but proven them.

14 SEO marketing examples (by funnel stage)

Below are 15 SEO examples, organized in three groups: acquisition plays, authority plays, and retention plays. They follow the funnel from discovery through the customer journey. Each one includes a real brand executing an SEO tactic, why it works, and the metric we’d hold it accountable to.

Acquisition plays (capturing new demand)

1. Building topic clusters around revenue keywords, not vanity terms

The Example: When HubSpot wanted to invest in SEO, we created a “marketing hub” cluster. This started with a pillar page on marketing automation. We supported it with over 40 supporting articles on lead scoring, email workflows, CRM integration, and attribution. Every page funneled back to the pillar and to a product CTA. Their cluster ranked for over 8,000 keywords tied directly to their ideal customer profile (ICP). 

The Lesson: Early on, we made the same mistake most SEO teams make: chasing volume. Big keyword numbers, impressive traffic charts, happy clients, until someone asked, “How many of those visitors became customers?”

I remember one client who came to us with a keyword they wanted to focus on. I had a call with them 12 months later when they said they wanted to leave because they weren’t seeing any leads from that keyword. That discussion led to a change in how I viewed SEO strategy. It was at that time that I realized we needed to take more of a lead on strategy. Since then, we’ve stopped focusing on the flashy keywords but on the ones that will actually lead to strong business outcomes. 

Every SEO engagement at Relevance now starts with revenue data, not keyword tools (though the right keyword research tools are still essential). We pull from things like CRM notes and sales-call transcripts. The phrases prospects use when they’re comparing vendors or justifying budget rarely have the highest search volume, but they convert at as much as five times the rate. From there, we build clusters around up to three “money terms” supported by comparison pages, use-case content, implementation guides, and objection-busters.

Metric: A pipeline influenced by cluster URLs, not sessions.

2. Ship a free, product-led SEO tool

Example: Ahrefs’ free Backlink Checker earns roughly 6,000 referring domains on its own and feeds the paid product. We modeled our own free GEO audit tool on the same idea: in competitive SERPs, utility outranks opinion every time.

Lesson: Free tools earn backlinks passively, generate branded searches, and capture leads exactly when someone is evaluating whether they need help. An ROI calculator, audit grader, pricing estimator, or template generator tied to a real pain point will outperform most blog content on a per-page basis. Start narrow. Solve one specific problem well. Iterate on it like a product, not a one-off marketing asset.

Metric: Referring domains earned per quarter and tool-to-trial conversion rate.

3. Programmatic SEO for templated, high-intent pages

Example: Zapier’s “[App A] integrations with [App B]” page generates tens of thousands of templated pages from a single schema. Each one targets a real long-tail query. The pattern works because each page solves a specific integration problem. It’s not thin content dressed up.

Lesson: If your product solves variations of the same problem across industries or use cases, programmatic SEO can be a cheat code. Define a strong page template, then generate pages targeting “[solution] for [industry]” or “[use case] software” queries.

The success variable is quality control, not volume. You need tight templates, real value on each page, guardrails against duplicate content, and a workflow for pruning what doesn’t perform. On one B2B SaaS rollout, we launched 600 programmatic pages and only kept the top 120 that drove assisted pipeline within six months.

Metric: Indexed-and-clicked ratio (pages that earn at least 1 click/month).

4. Turn customer questions into search-optimized “answer hubs”

Example: GoDaddy’s help-center articles routinely outrank third-party blogs for “how to” queries about domains, email, and hosting. They mined support tickets to build the content map.

Your customers have already written your SEO roadmap in your support tickets, chat logs, and sales objections. High-intent questions like “How do I migrate from [competitor]” or “What does implementation look like for [use case]” often have strong search demand and weak content in the SERPs.

Lesson: Pull a few months of support and sales conversations, cluster similar questions, and turn each cluster into a search-optimized answer hub. Include text, short video clips, screenshots, and templates your team already uses. 

Metric: Support deflection rate on hub pages combined with organic demo requests from hub URLs.

5. Refresh decaying content instead of only chasing new topics

Example: We’re in the middle of refreshing our own blog as this is written. Over 1,600 articles, most older than a year. We’re not doing it because it’s fun. We’re doing it because we’ve watched what decay does to a content library, both ours and our clients’.

Lesson: Run a quarterly refresh sprint. Update examples, add fresh data, improve internal links, tighten CTAs, and realign with current search intent. Dedicated content optimization tools make this faster. Don’t be afraid to consolidate thin or overlapping posts into a single stronger asset.

For one B2B client, we refreshed 18 mid-funnel articles and saw a 27% increase in organic demo form fills over 90 days. No new content. We were just being smarter with what already existed.

Metric: Percentage of refreshed URLs that improve position by at least 5 spots within 60 days.

6. Coordinate paid and organic to dominate the entire SERP

Example: NerdWallet’s piece on “best credit cards” runs paid sitelinks at the top of the SERP and holds the #1 spot for organic. The whole above-the-fold belongs to them.

Lesson: SEO and paid search often sit in separate silos, which wastes a lot of potential. Treat the SERP itself as your focus for both. Start with a short list of “make or break” queries. For those terms, align ad copy, sitelinks, and organic title tags so the whole SERP tells one coherent story. 

Use paid to test messaging. Then roll winning angles into your SEO titles and meta descriptions. Use organic search-term reports to find cheaper long-tail queries worth bidding on.

Teams that run search this way usually find better blended customer acquisition costs (CAC) across channels, even if individual return on ad spend (ROAS) metrics fluctuate.

Metric: Blended CAC on priority keyword cluster, not channel-isolated ROAS.

Authority plays (earning the right to rank)

7. Treat local SEO like a performance channel, not directory cleanup

Example: Domino’s Pizza store-locator pages. Every location has a unique, conversion-optimized landing page with hours, photos, reviews, and an order CTA. They treat it like an ad account, not a directory listing.

Lesson: If you have any physical presence or service area, local SEO is a performance channel. Many multi-location brands find that a handful of high-performing local profiles can drive a disproportionate share of high-intent customer actions, including calls, direction requests, and website clicks. SOCi research found that a one-star improvement in average Google rating was associated with a 44% increase in Google profile conversions, while every 10 new reviews improved profile conversion rate by 2.8%. Define your core Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) keywords, build location-specific landing pages that actually convert, and update profiles weekly, not annually. 

A practical stack includes consistent NAP (name, address, phone) data, location pages with real photos and social proof, localized offers in the copy, and reviews managed as a KPI with an owner and a playbook for asking customers. We break the four categories down in our guide to the 4 types of SEO, and our local SEO complete guide walks through implementation.

Metric: Calls and direction requests per profile, per month.

8. Use digital PR and data content to earn real authority links

Example: When Relevance worked with a telehealth brand, we paired anonymized client data with relevant news angles and earned over 700 media placements that contributed to a 6X lift in organic customer acquisition. That’s not link building in the traditional sense. It’s authority Google rewards.

Lesson: At some point, on-page optimization hits a ceiling. You need authority. This is where our PR and SEO teams at Relevance work together in a way most agencies can’t: both disciplines live under one roof. Digital PR turns your brand into a source journalists cite, not just another blog competing for the same keywords.

We pair original data, surveys, or anonymized client insights with compelling angles. Then we pitch to relevant publications. The goal isn’t vanity placements. It’s relevant, high-authority links to commercial pages. 

Metric: Referring root domains earned per quarter to commercial URLs.

9. Run technical SEO as an experiment backlog, not a one-time audit

Example: Most clients we inherit from other agencies arrive with the same artifact: a 60-page technical audit PDF that no one implemented. We rebuild it as a ranked, scored backlog tied to revenue impact.

Lesson: Treat technical SEO as a running experiment backlog tied to crawl efficiency, indexation, and page performance. Prioritize everything by revenue impact, not by how scary the issue looks in a crawl report. That might mean fixing Core Web Vitals on top revenue pages before cleaning up every 404. Agree on success metrics in advance, such as organic revenue for affected templates and time to first byte on key URLs. 

When growth, product, and engineering align on a ranked backlog, technical SEO shifts from a scary black box into a series of manageable sprints.

Metric: Revenue-weighted issues resolved per sprint.

10. International SEO as a deliberate expansion lever

Example: Canva’s localized landing pages. They don’t just translate; they re-shoot photos, swap testimonials, adjust pricing, and rewrite headlines for each region. Their international organic share is one of the highest in SaaS.

Lesson: If you’re already seeing traffic and trial signups from other countries, international SEO might be your cheapest expansion path. The mistake is adding hreflang tags and calling it a day. Pick one or two markets, commit to localized content, and align everything from pricing pages to testimonials with that region.

Start with existing “pull” as your guide. Which countries already show strong usage or revenue per user? For those markets, build localized versions of your highest-converting pages, not just your home page. Work with native speakers so the copy reads native, not translated.

Metric: Organic-sourced trials per priority market, per month.

11. Optimize for AI Overviews and generative search (GEO)

Example: Investopedia and Healthline now show up inside AI Overviews far more often than competitors because their content structure (clear summary up top, scannable subheads, defined terms, citable stats) maps cleanly onto how generative engines extract answers.

Lesson: Generative engines like Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT Search, and Perplexity pull from sources that demonstrate clarity, citation-worthiness, and topical depth. According to Relevance’s AI visibility statistics, AI Overviews appeared on roughly 15% of US queries by late 2025, and click-through to traditional results dropped almost in half when an AI summary appeared.

What that means in practice: lead each article with a tight, factual summary. Structure the body with descriptive headings and short paragraphs. Cite original data. Write product and service pages so an LLM can confidently identify what you do and who you serve. The best AI SEO tools we’ve tested help operationalize this without inventing fake “GEO hacks.”

Metric: Share of voice in AI Overviews and traffic from AI assistants in your analytics.

Retention plays (Compounding gains)

12. On-page SEO that actually gets a response

Example: Beehiiv’s onboarding articles (“How to monetize your newsletter”) rank for high-intent queries because the on-page work is meticulous. They include a descriptive H1 that matches the searcher’s exact phrase, internal links to the product, schema for how-to steps, and one clear primary keyword per page.

Lesson: On-page basics still work well. They create synergy when they work together, too. Write a title that matches the searcher’s actual phrase. Use one primary keyword and two to three supporting variants per URL. Add internal links with descriptive anchor text. Use H2s to answer the questions a reader would Google next. 

Metric: Average position improvement on optimized URLs in 30 days.

13. Use SEO to power lifecycle and retention content

Example: Beehiiv (again) wins on retention because their “how to grow your newsletter” and “how to monetize” guides double as activation playbooks for new users. The SEO content and the in-product onboarding reinforce each other.

Lesson: SEO is usually framed as a top-of-funnel acquisition channel, but it’s also incredibly effective for activation and retention. Help docs, onboarding guides, and “how to get value from [product]” content all have search demand, often from customers who are struggling quietly. Meeting them in the SERP can reduce churn and unlock expansion. A small CTR uplift on these pages — from a sharper title tag, nothing more — adds up fast at scale. We have a full playbook on writing meta description tags that actually generate leads and a primer on broader SEO best practices if you want the foundation work.

Map your lifecycle emails (a solid email marketing platform and marketing automation tools are helpful here) and in-product education to search behavior. For every major activation milestone, ask “what would someone search for when they get stuck here?” Then build content for that query. In one PLG motion, weaving SEO-friendly activation guides into onboarding reduced time-to-first-value by 18% for organic cohorts.

Metric: Activation rate on cohorts that touched a retention SEO URL.

14. Document everything as a case study (and publish it)

Example: Relevance’s own case studies in content marketing and SEO. They’re not just sales collateral. They earn backlinks from journalists looking for original SEO data, and they rank for “[industry] SEO case study” queries.

“SEO case study” pulls roughly 1,900 monthly searches in the US with a relatively low keyword difficulty (KD) of 14. Most companies do the work, but never write it up. If you’re running real campaigns, documenting them publicly (with permission) earns links, builds authority, and ranks for searches your prospects are doing during vendor evaluation.

Metric: Referring domains and branded search lift after you publish each case study.

What ROI can SEO marketing deliver?

If you’re wondering how SEO can grow your revenue, let’s look at a hypothetical example. Say your website gets 1,500 visitors per month from a mix of organic and paid sources. Your conversion rate is 5%, and your average sale is $85.

1,500 x 3% = 45 sales x $85 = $3,825 per month

By implementing some simple SEO strategies, let’s say you spend $1000 on a blended SEO strategy. The result is that you increase your number of visitors to 2,800 per month. Your revenue is now:

2,800 x 3% = 84 sales x $85 = $7,140 per month

That’s a $3,315 boost. While the results aren’t always predictable, well-done SEO does boost organic search. And organic search conversion benchmarks are at 4.9% (nearly as high as paid, but without the ongoing cost). When done right, your SEO content will pay for itself — and then some — over time.

How long does each SEO tactic take to rank?

If you’re wondering how long SEO takes to kick in, here are some estimates from our team for different SEO approaches:

SEO tactic comparison chart

Build your SEO strategy as a portfolio, not a checklist

SEO isn’t a marketing “to-do” item. Nor is it a checklist. Make it an integral part of your marketing strategy. Invest in it as a way to establish a stronger brand presence and generate long-term visibility for your brand over time.

When I started at this agency 7 years ago, we were able to help secure clients backlinks and could see great movement in their keyword rankings and in turn, their organic traffic. Over time, that’s shifted as SEO has become more sophisticated and AI visibility has joined the scene. Because of that, we’ve moved into a more exciting stage of marketing. We can’t depend on isolated tactics like we used to, but instead have to build stronger brands, understand our audiences better, and honestly be stronger and more strategic marketers to see the wins we want to see. If you ask me, its a more exciting and challenging time in marketing.

Visibility engineering may be taking the place of traffic generation in the AI era, but SEO remains a driving focus behind both. Make sure it’s at the heart of your digital marketing plan in 2026 and beyond.

SEO Marketing FAQs

What is SEO in marketing?

SEO marketing uses search engine optimization to attract, engage, and convert visitors from organic search as part of a broader digital marketing strategy. 

What are the 4 types of SEO?

The four types of SEO are on-page, off-page, technical, and local. Each covers different areas, from content and backlinks to site performance and maps listings.

What are the 3 main SEO strategies?

Three core SEO strategies are technical optimization, keyword‑driven content, and authority building via backlinks and digital PR. Together, they form a repeatable SEO strategy example you can adapt into full seo campaign examples.

How do I start SEO as a beginner?

Start with simple keyword research, fix basic technical issues, and publish a few focused articles. If you’re asking how to do SEO or where to start, Use this guide to find an example of SEO before inventing your own.

Is SEO marketing worth it, and what’s the ROI?

Yes, SEO marketing is usually worth it when tied to revenue. A solid SEO marketing strategy compounds over time into steady traffic, leads, and sales as you learn how to build your strategy.

How long does SEO take to work?

Each SEO tactic takes a different amount of time to have an effect. A topical cluster might start showing results in three months, whereas on-page optimization can show results in 30 days. The key is to give all SEO time. Don’t rush the results. Do your research, set KPIs and benchmarks, and then measure results over time.

SEO vs. PPC — which is better?

This is a common question. In reality, SEO is a long-term strategy, while pay-per-click (PPC) is a tactic that gives an immediate advantage through paid traffic to a site. Both are valuable and they can create better results when used together as complementary parts of the same strategy. Read more here.

The post SEO Marketing Examples: 14 Real Strategies That Drive Revenue (2026) appeared first on Relevance.

SEO strategy remedies invisibility, and it’s critical for brands investing in growth marketing.

What is an SEO strategy?

A search engine optimization strategy is the practice of improving your website’s ranking and appearance on the search engine results page. It’s all about aligning the content you create with your ideal customers.

An SEO strategy will help you clarify and act on the following information:

• What are your target customers searching for online?
• How do they use that info to make decisions?
• At what point in their journey do they search for it?
• What experience do they expect when they enter your site?

Search engine optimization techniques

SEO revolves around user experience. It’s about creating people-first content. But it still requires research, testing, technical optimizations, and content marketing expertise.

No matter what you may have heard, keywords still matter. You can’t create people-first content without knowing what people search for and how they use the info. Keyword research answers these questions.

On top of that, your website must deliver an amazing user experience that people remember and want to come back for. When your SEO strategies keep that focus, everyone wins.

What’s the role of SEO in marketing?

SEO strategy helps you meet the marketing goals that impact your company’s bottom line, like:

• More organic traffic
• More leads
• Higher quality leads
• Increased customer retention
• Lower customer acquisition cost
• Increased customer lifetime value

The benefits of SEO strategy start with more website traffic. In today’s digital world, no marketer will say no to more traffic.

But all traffic isn’t created equal. The source of your website traffic impacts its quality. And when higher quality traffic comes in, that quality cascades down your whole funnel to increase conversion rates and retention.

When you do SEO right, the organic traffic it brings in is higher quality than, say, advertising traffic. Why? Think of it this way. Every time someone clicks an ad, you’re trying to build credibility from scratch. When was the last time you built a meaningful relationship with someone in a few minutes?

Advertising is also an expensive way to get traffic. And when you stop your campaign, the traffic stops flowing in. By contrast, using SEO as an evergreen marketing tactic is a gift that keeps giving long-term.

Here’s how to design an SEO marketing strategy.

SEO marketing strategy

Nearly 70% of online experiences begin with search. And as technologies like voice search become more ubiquitous, that will increase.

What’s more, 91% of websites get no search traffic because they’re not ranking for any relevant keywords. As a marketer, you must have a strategy to insert yourself into your audience’s online experiences. Because it’s not going to happen on its own.

That’s where your SEO plan comes in. Having a solid plan in place will improve three crucial areas for your brand:

• Visibility. That should be obvious. But this isn’t about being everywhere at once. You’re visible in the places ideal customers are.
• Credibility. People know that Google goes to great lengths to show the most credible sites first. Search result visibility communicates that your brand has staying power and is likely to deliver on its promises. Relevant content boosts brand credibility.
• Authority. Potential customers can see that customers and influencers care what you have to say. You are a thought leader rather than a follower, and an expert in your industry.

These three together make you hyper-relevant in the eyes of your potential customers. They generate the benefits of SEO.

What are the types of SEO in digital marketing?

There are four categories of SEO strategy in digital marketing.

1. Technical SEO

When launching a new SEO strategy or auditing previous efforts, we often start with technical optimization. That’s because a solid technical foundation is table stakes to play the SEO game.

Moz co-founder Rand Fishkin said, “Technical SEO is like the plumbing of a website… it’s crucial to ensuring everything runs smoothly and efficiently.” Creating content and building backlinks are essential strategies, but they’re only as strong as the tech they run on.

If your website has technical issues, it’s a big red flag to search engine algorithms. And that means the content you worked so hard on has a slim chance of ranking.

Here are the most important technical SEO aspects to include in your strategy.

• Crawling and indexing. You must ensure search engines can crawl and interpret your website content. To find out if you have any hangups in this area, check the Index Coverage report in Google Search Console.
• Website speed. It goes without saying that speed should be a top priority. If your content takes too long to load, no one will read it – insightful or not. For a report on your core web vitals, use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. Some common issues are large media files and unnecessary code.
• Structure and navigation. A simple, clear site structure helps both human users and search engine crawlers. Use short, descriptive URLs and breadcrumbs so users always know where they are.
• Mobile-friendliness. More than half of online traffic is mobile. If your site is somehow still stuck in non-responsive 2012, it’s time for an overhaul. Many content management systems let you customize elements for different devices.
• Accessibility. Speaking of device diversity, users today are searching on a wide array – from voice-enabled smart devices to assistive devices like screen readers. Make sure your content is accessible to all by being intentional with your use of meta data fields and alt tags.

Technical SEO is important because user experience is important. It’s one of Google’s top priorities when deciding which content to show searchers.

2. On-page SEO

Content is the backbone of on-page SEO. But by itself, great content isn’t enough to get you all the benefits of a comprehensive SEO strategy. You need a keyword-driven content strategy focused on quality.

Which, of course, starts with research.

The key to keyword research

There are many keyword research tools out there (see our review of the keyword research tools we use every day). Google’s free keyword planner is a great place to start. Competitor research is another way to contextualize your own content strategy. What kinds of keywords are in your competitors’ ad copy and SERP headlines?

Use your keyword tool of choice to answer these three key questions:

1. What looks achievable based on keyword difficulty? Often, the highest volume keyword or most relevant to your business isn’t the best place to start. The competition for it may be through the roof. You won’t rank well for very difficult keywords if your website has a lower domain authority. Instead, start gaining traction with long-tail, niche keywords that have lower difficulty and lower volume. Then, leverage your newfound authority to pursue the tougher keywords.
2. What has a decent search volume? With the above in mind, you don’t want to target keywords that have no volume at all. No one would see it! You’re looking for a sweet spot for your keyword strategy – achievable keyword difficulty with at least some volume.
3. What aligns with your content strategy? Finally, look for keywords that align with the topics you want to be an authority on. You should never target a keyword if it doesn’t relate to your brand. This would lead to the creation of irrelevant content that doesn’t align with the search intent. And SEO strategy is all about aligning your goals with your target audience’s goals to maximize your visibility and relevance.

Once you have enough info to select some target keywords, it’s time to get down to business and start creating high-quality content.

Pulling off high-quality, helpful content

What, exactly, is high-quality content? This isn’t a nebulous concept that marketers have to guess at and hope for the best. As the world’s largest search engine, Google has put out extensive information on what it considers when judging content quality.

In late 2022, Google’s “helpful content update” confirmed its intention to focus on people-first content. It’s becoming impossible to trick search engines with the black hat SEO techniques of yesteryear as the algorithms learn what’s truly helpful for users.

In the helpful content update, Google suggests creating content for people, not search engines. It also reminds marketers to rely on the E-E-A-T framework to ensure their content shows:

• Expertise: The person who created the content is an expert on the topic.
• Experience: The creator has some degree of experience with the topic.
• Authoritativeness: The creator and the website hosting the content demonstrate authority.
• Trustworthiness: The creator and the website are reliable and credible.

One effective content strategy is the pillar (or cornerstone) method. To start, create one substantial post for a keyword you’d really like to rank. Then create several related sub-topic posts. Link these other posts to your pillar.

This method maximizes your ROI because the supporting posts are faster and easier. But they increase the authority of the pillar they link to.

Of course, your content will be the most “helpful” if it shows up to the people who will benefit from it most: your ideal customers. And since you know exactly what keywords they’re using, you’re ready to optimize.

Be sure your focus keyword is naturally woven into these areas of your content:

• Title
• Slug
• Headers
• Meta description
• Image tags when relevant

3. Off-page SEO

Now the fun part: off-page. What is off-page SEO? In a nutshell, backlinks.

You can spend all day talking about how great your own content is. But there’s a reason why 82% of consumers trust reviews, and only 4% trust ads – credibility.

When ranking your content, search engines look for signs that other users have found it helpful. Lots of relevant links from high-authority websites are a big green flag.

To be clear: backlinks aren’t just a ranking factor. They’re critical. Inbound links show you’re connected to a community. Your content has authority with the people who matter.

Links also show who you’re associating with. Links from spammy, untrustworthy sites may hurt your ranking more than help. You want links from relevant web pages on mid- to high-authority websites.

How to get backlinks

Backlinks come from other websites you do not own.

Of course, Google wasn’t born yesterday. Backlinks you can easily build yourself (social media, Quora, ads) don’t carry the same weight as a link created by others because they appreciate your website. Still, they don’t hurt.

Backlinks can be tough to get, but the payoff is worth it. You can earn them through link-building strategies like:

• Creating linkable content people want to cite. This kind of SEO content includes data and actionable insights that are well-organized and engaging.
• Performing link outreach in a targeted and mutually beneficial way. (The right link building tools make this process far more efficient.) Think news sites, industry publications, educational sites, and guest posting opportunities.
• Networking with publishers and influencers online.

The last one is a more invested strategy. But it’s also the most effective. It’s often employed by SEO agencies supporting many clients.

4. Local SEO

Any business operating locally can’t afford to skip local SEO. By targeting users searching for location-specific keywords, you can lower your marketing expenses and make sure your brand shows up in the right place at the right time.

How? For starters, claim your Google Business Profile and complete the information. This will ensure your business listing shows up by the map when users search for local keywords.

If there are particular keywords you know you want to rank for, be sure to include them in the services or description of your listing.

Focusing on these areas will also boost your rankings in local SEO results.

• Creating high-quality content that includes local keywords
• Having active social media accounts
• Optimizing your website for mobile

How do I create an SEO strategy?

To create an SEO strategy, start by identifying your goals and ideal customer profile. Then, invest some resources into researching your ideal customer. This investment is either your own time, money on SEO tools, or outsourcing the work to an agency.

Your research will provide context to help you determine which elements of your SEO strategy are the most important. From there, you can prioritize the four types of SEO we’ve discussed.

How do beginners do SEO?

For SEO beginners, all the strategies and tactics can be a bit overwhelming. The good news is that you don’t have to come up with your process from scratch. There are many checklists and frameworks out there for beginners.

Here are the basic steps to follow when you’re starting out.

1. Set your goals
2. Audit your site for technical issues
3. Do keyword research
4. Build a content strategy
5. Develop a plan for backlinks
6. Track progress and optimize

What is an example of SEO strategy?

Researching keywords and creating a content plan is a fundamental example of SEO strategy. Let’s say your gym offers exercise classes for night owls. Your approach might look something like this.

1. Through keyword research, you learn that your ideal customer is searching for “is it okay to work out at night?”
2. You develop a piece of content that answers this question. To optimize your content to the target keyword, you incorporate it in the post’s title, URL, meta description, headers, and body.
3. As you create your content, you focus on linkability. It’s not enough to simply answer the question – hundreds of pieces of content already answer it. Go the extra mile by citing original research, creating engaging assets like videos or infographics, and interviewing a credentialed expert.
4. Once you publish your content, you reach out to publishers and influencers in the exercise space to build backlinks.
5. Since your gym serves a specific geographic area, you claim your Google Business Profile and include keywords like “evening exercise class.” This will help the right audience find out about your offering.
6. You plan to do a quarterly technical SEO audit to make sure there are no performance issues with your website.

What is the best SEO strategy in 2023?

The most effective SEO strategy in 2023 and beyond will focus on content quality. As search engines become more sophisticated and the digital world gets more flooded with content, the very best content will rise to the top.

The brands that win will be the ones that have an SEO strategy rooted in understanding their customer and content niche. Then, on that foundation, they’re willing to test new tactics and keep up with trends.

Tracking progress is critical to meeting goals with SEO. You’ll have trouble influencing a metric if you can’t measure it. And you certainly won’t be able to test or optimize.

There are advanced tools available, but for starters, you need to make sure these free analytics tools are set up on your website.

• Google Analytics. Measure and analyze traffic volume, sources, engagement, audience, and sales funnel conversions. For more advanced needs, check out our review of marketing analytics platforms.
• Google Search Console. Track search ranking, backlinks, indexed pages, and other measures that influence your ability to meet SEO goals. Manage your backlinks, indexed pages, and other behind-the-scenes technical tasks.

Think about what KPIs you want to track. For SEO, track conversions, ranking, organic traffic, and new subscribers to your blog or email list.

SEO tools

Research is at the heart of a thoughtful SEO strategy. To some extent, you can do SEO research and optimizations on your own if you have the time to invest.

Eventually, you’ll need SEO tools to boost your efforts. There are free and paid tools available. The cost and functionality vary, but most fall into one of these categories:

• Keyword research tools
• Tools to audit your site
• Content optimization tools
• Tools for analyzing backlinks

Many of the household names in SEO offer all-in-one solutions to help with all these phases of the process. Should you invest in one of these platforms? Perhaps, if you have the budget and the internal resources to use it.

Alternatively, you can put together an efficient plan by paying for specialized tools where you need them most. If you have a larger budget but no internal SEO professional, you might choose to hire an agency.

What are common SEO mistakes?

Nobody’s perfect. But when it comes to SEO strategy, mistakes can be costly. Here are some common SEO mistakes to avoid.

1. Targeting the wrong keywords. Companies often target the keywords with the highest volume. Unfortunately, high-ranking results for these keywords can be almost impossible to topple. Instead, narrow down your target keywords to long-tail and zero volume keywords at first if you are starting from scratch. If you’re already ranking for a decent amount, evaluate search volume and keyword difficulty to find the sweet spot for keywords to target.
2. Not Matching content to keyword intent. Optimizing your content by inserting your target keyword in the right spots isn’t good enough for today’s sophisticated algorithms. Your content might get a user to click through, but if it doesn’t meet expectations once they get there, Google will know.
3. Throwing resources at backlinks without focusing on content quality too. The most costly mistakes happen when you start investing in promotion tactics but don’t focus on quality onsite content to support it. Whether it’s buying low-quality backlinks or churning out content that’s just plain bad, this is a real waste of money. Focusing on quality first and foremost will make earning backlinks much smoother.

How SEO will change in 2023

The field of SEO moves fast. If you want your SEO strategy to keep performing and remain relevant, you must stay on top of changes and trends. Here are a few of our predictions for 2023 and beyond.

1. Algorithms will get even better at identifying and prioritizing helpful content.
2. Marketers will explore how to incorporate AI and automation into their content creation process while still putting people first.
3. A strong technical foundation will continue to be crucial.

SEO strategy is the heart of growth marketing

An effective growth strategy includes visibility, authority, and credibility. Growth-minded businesses focus on reducing customer acquisition costs to maximize ROI. They do this by investing in sustainable, long-term branding strategies – like SEO.

An effective SEO strategy emphasizes manageable growth through fantastic customer experience.

It builds your brand on a firm foundation and creates a brand that attracts trust and loyalty through your authentic desire to help customers. It focuses on creating a welcoming and relevant user experience for your target audience.

Without these features, it’s just not SEO. And without SEO, your brand is invisible.

The post How to Create a SEO Strategy in July, 2026 appeared first on Relevance.

Here are the main factors to think about as you’re building your plan of attack.

1. Strong technical foundation

The best integrated SEO plans are built on a solid technical foundation. Content-focused marketers might be tempted to ignore technical SEO (or at least save it for last). But it’s the cornerstone of high-ranking content.

That’s because search engines have gotten very good at identifying a great user experience. If Google sends a user to a poorly-designed website, the user is less likely to trust Google to provide the best search results. Therefore, if your website has technical issues or inefficiencies, your content won’t rank well, no matter how expertly-crafted it is.

For these reasons, it’s crucial to check table-stakes technical SEO elements like website speed, site structure, mobile-friendliness, and accessibility.

2. Keyword-optimized content matched to search intent

We talk a lot about keyword optimization in SEO. Why are keyword research and optimization so important?

Keyword research is valuable because it’s a kind of prospect research. As marketers, we’re sometimes removed from the audience we’re targeting. Unlike sales or customer service, we don’t interact with our prospects and customers every day. This distance can cause us to drift from research and start relying on assumptions.

Consistently including a keyword research step in your SEO strategy helps you validate your assumptions. It allows you to ask, “What topic is our audience actually searching for? What kind of language do they use when searching?”

A key part of keyword search is identifying search intent. Look at the types of keywords your audience uses. Are they informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional? Then, craft your content using this research.

3. On-site interlinking

When it comes to linking strategy in SEO, we sometimes jump straight to backlinks. But on-site interlinking also plays an important role in ranking.

Building links between your own website content helps search engines understand the structure and hierarchy of your website. From Google’s perspective, on-site interlinking passes link equity back and forth between your pieces of content.

Interlinking also improves your website’s user experience by making it easier to navigate. Think about it this way: New content you create is probably related to other content you’ve already published. Maybe the two topics are laterally connected, or maybe one piece is a deep dive into a concept mentioned in the other.

Users who landed on one piece from a Google search may not know about the other piece. It’s important to connect the two via on-site interlinking.

4. Backlinking

Of course, you can spend all day linking to your own content internally. But there’s a reason why 82% of consumers trust reviews and only 4% trust ads. What other people say about you is simply more credible than what you say about yourself.

That’s why building backlinks is one of the most important off-page SEO factors. Search engines view backlinks as a sign that others have found your content helpful.

If your strategy is to publish excellent content and sit back as the backlinks flow in, you’re missing opportunities. There are sites out there with an audience that would love your new content. But that publisher likely won’t find your content without a friendly introduction.

5. Helpful content

Last but certainly not least, let’s talk about content. Great content can’t accomplish your SEO goals by itself. But it’s a vital component of your strategy. If you don’t get content right, the other factors we’ve discussed won’t matter.

What makes content helpful in the eyes of search engines? We don’t have to take a shot in the dark to answer this. Google has shared that it uses its E-E-A-T framework to judge content’s quality.

• Expertise: The creator is an expert on the topic.
• Experience: They have firsthand experience with the topic.
• Authoritativeness: The creator and the hosting website demonstrate authority.
• Trustworthiness: The creator and website are reliable and credible.

Publishing helpful content is the bread and butter of on-page SEO. Let’s dig a bit deeper into these concepts.

Why on-page SEO is important

Improving on-page SEO factors can boost your content’s chance of ranking at the top of the SERP. Here are the three most important SEO ranking factors for your content.

What are the 3 most important ranking factors in on-page SEO writing?

There are many ranking factors in SEO. Here are the three most important for writing content.

Your content should be:

• Written to search intent. If your user is looking for information with their search, your content shouldn’t focus on a transaction.
• Focused on a keyword. Here’s where your keyword research comes in. Crafting your content with a focus keyword in mind is much easier than retroactively optimizing it. Include your keyword in the title, URL, headers, meta description, and image tags.
• Helpful. Your content is easy to read, educational, and credible. It includes fresh insights and perspectives.

Your 5 steps to success

As you develop an SEO marketing strategy, focus on the five SEO factors we’ve discussed. There are lots of optimization opportunities in each of these areas. But having a roadmap will help you ensure you’re putting your effort and resources toward a well-rounded strategy.

The post 5 SEO factors your team should consider appeared first on Relevance.

If you’re new to SEO, consider starting with our SEO marketing primer. If you’ve mastered the basics and want to go deeper, you’re in the right place. Here we break down each type with real examples. Let’s dig into the four types of search engine optimization.

Search engine optimization can be broken down into four categories:

• On page SEO
• Off page SEO
• Technical SEO
• Local SEO

The most effective SEO marketing strategies use all four types in tandem. Let’s take a look at how each SEO technique helps you get more qualified traffic to your website and build your brand.

1. On-page SEO

On-page SEO is where we start with every new client engagement. It includes the tactic most people think of first when they hear “SEO.” It starts with high-quality content. Typically a blog post, high quality content helps position your brand as an industry leader. Search engine algorithms are more sophisticated than ever, and Google gets better at recognizing truly valuable content with every update. We have inherited accounts from agencies still trying to game the system — the results are always the same: penalties and lost traffic. Black hat SEO techniques are dead and buried. If you want to show up in a search result, practicing white hat seo techniques is key.

What is high-quality content? You’re on the right track with your content if it:

• Centers on one keyword phrase or theme
• Educates or entertains your reader (or both!)
• Has credibility indicators like original research and citations
• Includes new insights rather than regurgitated info

High quality content is also easy to read. Think proper grammar, short sentences, numbered lists, scannable headers, and credible outbound links.

Including keywords in your content

Your focus keyword and closely-related keywords should appear in all the following areas:

• Title tag
• Slug (URL)
• Meta description
• Headers
• Body

Including your keyword shouldn’t be difficult or unnatural. If you’ve created a focused, high-quality piece, it should happen almost organically. But it’s important to review all these elements before finalizing your content to ensure it’s optimized.

How do you decide which keywords to focus your content around? Ask yourself: What would a users search intent be if they were looking for this content? What types of keywords would they use – informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional?

Here are a few tips for researching keywords :

• Use keyword research tools – there are free and paid tools, including Google Trends
• Check out the keywords your competitors are using
• Consider using long-tail keywords (phrases that are longer and more specific)

2. Off-page SEO

This is where our digital PR team shines. You can talk all day about how great your content is. But there’s a reason why 82% of consumers trust reviews , and only 4% trust ads – credibility.

Search engines look for signs that other users have found your content helpful: backlinks (links from external sites). For this reason, creating linkable content is the foundation of off page SEO.

Wait. What’s the difference between high quality content and linkable content? If your content meets the quality indicators above, you’re halfway there. But as Barbra Streisand lamented, “being good isn’t good enough” when you’re trying to get to the top of the SERP.

Linkable SEO content has been specifically crafted to attract attention and – you guessed it – earn backlinks. It might include:

• Focus on data
• Quotes from industry leaders
• Podcasts, videos, and other engaging media

Building your backlink strategy

Once you’ve crafted high-quality, linkable content (we have secured over 700 media placements for clients this way)… you’re not done yet. Your content will likely earn some backlinks just because it’s amazing (like you). But to get the most out of the content you worked so hard on, you should try to get as many backlinks as you can.

Link building isn’t just about having great SEO content. To get more backlinks, identify trustworthy, popular sites within your space. Track down who’s responsible for their digital content, and craft an email. Ask them to consider linking to your content. Include a summary, how it benefits their readers, and where the link could go. Be specific, including the anchor text (the text that links to your content) you’d prefer them to use.

3. Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the type most teams neglect — and it is often the reason great content underperforms. It is probably the next thing that comes to mind when you hear SEO. To make the most of your content, it’s important to make sure your website meets modern technical standards. We run technical audits for every new client, and the issues we uncover — slow load times, broken crawl paths, missing schema — almost always explain ranking underperformance.

That means optimizing elements like:

• Site structure
• URL structure
• Loading speed
• Security
• Mobile performance

These components are important to search engine algorithms because they impact accessibility and user experience. Your content might be brimming with unique insights… but if it takes 90 seconds to load, most users won’t stick around to find out.

Run a SEO analysis and make sure you’re following web design best practices. Your topics and audience should be clear. Simplify your site structure as much as possible to focus on the essentials. To get a sense of technical performance, run your site through Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool .

4. Local SEO

Local SEO is the fourth type . This area doesn’t apply to all businesses, but it’s could benefit a small business or any business that serves customers in a particular geographic area. The most important factors in local SEO are proximity, relevance, and prominence.

In general, improving the first three types of SEO will help boost your brand in local SEO results as well. You’ll want to focus on these particular areas:

• Creating high quality content that includes local keywords
• Having active social media accounts
• Optimizing your website for mobile

Optimizing for local SEO can lower your content marketing expenses since it allows you to focus on targeted geographic areas.

Why the best SEO strategies use all four types together

There’s a lot to learn when it comes to SEO in marketing , and there are specialists in each of these four categories. So what’s the most important lesson here?

SEO strategy is ultimately about the user experience. As search engines become more sophisticated, the gap closes between what’s prioritized by the algorithm and what’s helpful to the user.

When it comes to SEO best practices, the most important is making sure your website is easy to use and meets your audience’s expectations. Keeping your customers top of mind is the north star that won’t steer you wrong as you navigate SEO. If you want help building a strategy that ties all four types together, book a call with our team — we will audit your current setup and show you where the biggest opportunities are.

The post The 4 Types of SEO We Use to Drive Results (And How They Work Together) appeared first on Relevance.

Marketing funnel stages are often discussed in relation to sales, paid ads, and customer service. But what about SEO? Here is a quick rundown of how a solid SEO strategy can impact visibility across the entire digital marketing funnel.

What Is SEO Visibility?

If you’re asking yourself, “What is SEO visibility in the first place?” The answer is as simple as it sounds. If you’re ranking on SERPs (search engine results pages), then you have good visibility. SEO ranking means you’re getting good attention and traffic for your website and its content. Website visibility is important, as it makes your brand discoverable, even to those who don’t know you exist yet.

There are many paid and free SEO visibility tools, each of which functions as a different version of the same thing: an SEO visibility check to see if your content is discoverable by your target audience through search engines. These tools compare your content to an SEO visibility index and use that to create a content score. 

Each site’s score can vary based on what metrics it considers. Moz, for instance, provides an SEO visibility score definition that reads, “the percentage of clicks we estimate you receive based on your organic rankings positions, across all of the keywords you’re tracking in your Campaign.” 

While the specifics can vary, SEO visibility always revolves around the key concept of how much traffic and attention your SEO is getting you. High SEO visibility is a powerful thing. It’s also an organic marketing element that has an impact on all parts of the marketing funnel.

SEO Across the Sales Funnel

So, how does good SEO visibility impact the various stages of the marketing funnel? Let’s start at the top.

SEO is never more important than at the early stages of the marketing funnel. Good SEO visibility ensures that your content is showing up when customers are searching for solutions to the pain points that you address — even if they don’t know who you are. 

As they see your brand appearing in searches, they become aware of you and the odds of them engaging with your brand grows. Awareness leads to acquisition, which then leads to activation and retention (i.e., getting an established customer to use your solutions and then become a returning customer).

Once again, SEO comes into play here. Greater search engine visibility leads to a steady stream of brand reminders. Seeing positive feedback from other customers encourages engagement. Quality search engine optimization also ensures that you’ll be at the top of the list the next time the customer does a google search for the same or similar solutions that your brand can answer. 

Investing in SEO provides a perpetual and affordable way to maximize customer retention and improve the speed at which potential customers move through the funnel for the first time. This translates to better customer lifetime value (CLV).

Finally, there’s the referral stage. Word-of-mouth marketing is powerful all on its own. However, good SEO visibility reinforces this when a customer recommends your products to a friend, and they can immediately find that product online.

Improving SEO Visibility Across Your Funnel

Good SEO visibility can improve your reach and general awareness, facilitate decision-making, and turn consumers into repeat customers and even referral machines. If you aren’t experiencing these benefits yet, here are a few suggestions for how to increase SEO visibility:

• Research your target audience and conduct keyword research. Pick a relevant keyword based on ranking position and search volume that aligns with your company goals. 
• Find a good tool to conduct an SEO visibility test to ensure you’re targeting a relevant keyword. Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and SEMrush can give helpful insights among others. 
• Create a variety of quality content that addresses everything from pain points to benefits, unique value propositions (UVPs), and even product how-tos so that you have SEO content for every stage of the customer journey. 
• When uploading your content, include a meta description, meta tag, and some internal links to ensure search visibility. 
• Consider what aspects of SEO you need, such as focusing on local SEO visibility if you’re a brick-and-mortar business.

There are many ways to boost your visibility through SEO. The key is remembering the comprehensive benefits that SEO visibility offers to the entire customer journey.

Using SEO for Comprehensive Brand Visibility

Remember, don’t invest in SEO services simply as a way to generate leads or create brand awareness. Build out your organic search content with the big picture in mind. 

If you’re struggling to see results, or even to know where to begin, our team at Relevance can be your SEO expert to help craft an SEO strategy that benefits every stage of your sales funnel. 

The post How SEO Boosts Your Brand’s Visibility From Top to Bottom of the Funnel appeared first on Relevance.

This is called link building, and it is a great way to increase your ranking online. If you’re aware of the need for backlinks to boost your SEO, but you aren’t sure what to do, here are some thoughts and tips on how to build a rock-solid SEO backlink strategy.

What Are Backlinks in SEO?

Backlinks are hyperlinks that point from one page to another. In SEO, a backlink exists when one site creates content with an embedded link that directs visitors to your website.

Backlinks also go by a variety of other names, including inbound links and one-way links. These reflect the incoming traffic element that makes a backlink so important.

Why Are Backlinks Helpful for SEO?

Google sees each backlink as a digital “vote of confidence.” In other words, a backlink is a third-party website signaling to the search engine that your content has value and is worthy of attention and priority.

Creating high-quality content is a critical first step of SEO. Backlinks take this further by alerting search engines to the fact that your content is a solid online resource for related search queries. This leads to search tools ranking your content higher in their SERPs (search engine results pages), which results in more traffic, quality leads, and a better conversion rate.

What Is an SEO Backlink Strategy

Backlinks are an essential part of any SEO campaign. Unlike on-site content, though, you can’t compose backlinks as you would create, say, a blog or webinar. So, how do you get a high quality link, then? 

The first answer to that question is that you don’t just want backlinks. You want quality backlinks from high-authority websites. Fortunately, there are many backlink techniques and tactics that can help you get these valuable inbound links. Here are a few common ones:

Research the Success of Others

The first step is to use a tool like Semrush, Ahrefs, or Moz (see our full review of link building tools) to study backlink profiles. That means looking up the collection of domains and web pages linking to a website that ranks well for a particular word or phrase. 

Backlink profiles can help you see how others are ranking for the keywords that you’re targeting. You can use this information to inform your own link building efforts.

Find Guest Blogging Opportunities

Guest blogging is a popular form of off-page SEO. Often called “outreach,” this involved contacting other popular websites and then offering to write a piece of content for them as a guest author, aka a guest post. Typically, guest posting comes with a backlink. 

You can also use a social media site like LinkedIn to build links in the form of high-quality posts. Working with industry influencers is another great way to collaboratively create the conditions for quality backlinks.

Utilize Broken Links

A broken link is one that no longer clicks through to a live page. There are two ways to use this in your SEO strategy.

First, look for broken links on high-authority websites and ask if they’d consider swapping them out for a live link with the same solutions. Second, make sure your own links aren’t broken on your site so that no one can do the same to you.

Track Your Success

Backlink strategies aren’t effective unless you can track them. Use tools like Google Search Console to collect data and observe analytics in relation to your link building strategy over time.

Monitor your site’s traffic. Check your search rankings. Look for which pages are benefitting from backlinks and which ones need more help.

A Quick Word on Organic Backlinks

As you invest in a backlinking strategy, remember that the ultimate goal is to create organic backlinks. These are instances (whether you create them or not) where your links naturally make sense in other publications’ content. 

Organic backlinks come from offering genuine value to the reader and surrounding each quality link with appropriate textual context. They have relatable anchor text (the actual words hyperlinked) and don’t misdirect the reader as to their destination.

How Do Backlinks Play Into an Overall SEO Strategy?

Backlinks are a powerful off-site indicator that it’s worth visiting your content (or, in the case of search engines, directing users to visit your content). Even so, backlinks should never be your primary focus.

A quality SEO strategy incorporates backlinks into a larger plan that includes keywords, internal linking, and technical SEO. Even then, a good SEO strategy should just be one part of a larger approach to growth marketing that includes digital PR and a good content strategy as a way to simultaneously improve your company’s visibility, credibility, and authority across the interweb.

If you’re uncertain how to work all of these things together into a single, cohesive digital marketing strategy, you may want to work with an SEO company to ensure your efforts positively impact your bottom line. Whether you develop your strategy on your own or with third-party support, backlinking should have its rightful place as an effective part of your online marketing endeavors.

The post Building a Rock-Solid SEO Backlink Strategy appeared first on Relevance.

Emphasis on “science.”

Because let’s be candid. A thoughtful, beautifully-written piece of content won’t pay the bills.

What will make you more money is more qualified website traffic. Crafting elegant content that’s backed by research and data will help you earn that traffic. And that’s what SEO is all about.

What are SEO tools?

It’s nearly impossible to nail the data-driven aspect of SEO without tools. SEO tools help you effectively deploy SEO techniques for your website. They provide research and insights to help you focus your SEO efforts instead of just shooting in the dark.

What is the most effective tool for SEO?

Although some platforms claim to be a “one-stop shop” for SEO, most marketers use a variety of tools to carry out their SEO strategy. The best tool for the job depends on your goal.

What kinds of research should drive your SEO plan? There are three big ones:

• Current content performance
• Competitor research
• Keyword research

Here are the tools we recommend for each.

To evaluate current performance:

One of the best predictors of future performance is past performance. For assessing your current content’s performance, Google’s free products can provide all the insight you need. Use Google Search Console to learn which queries are already bringing users to your site. You can also see which keywords are earning impressions but have a low click-through rate. These are golden SEO opportunities.

To see which content is getting the most traffic and engagement, check out the reports in the Engagement tab of Google Analytics. Google Analytics has a learning curve, but you’ll get the hang of it after spending a bit of time with it. For step-by-step resources to mine meaningful data in GA, we love Analytics Mania.

For competitor research:

Knowing who your competitors are and what they’re doing is foundational for SEO. This information helps you determine where you need to cover the same bases as your competitors. And more importantly, it can uncover content gaps that are opportunities for your brand to shine.

For competitor research, you’ll want a third-party SEO search tool. SEMRush’s competitive research tool allows you to find some information for free. In most cases, you’ll need to pay for a tool to get substantial competitor data.

For keyword research:

Keyword research is an essential step in developing an SEO marketing strategy. The more you know about what your target audience is searching for and which terms they’re using, the better your keywords will perform.

Ahrefs has an excellent free keyword generator that can get you started. Just enter a keyword to see useful metrics like search volume, traffic potential, and keyword difficulty.

What 3 Google tools would you use for SEO?

If paying for sophisticated SEO tools is outside your budget at the moment, you can accomplish a lot with these three Google tools.

1. Google Analytics

Once you’re comfortable in GA, a world of valuable data opens up. Of course, you can see how users are engaging with your existing content. Here are a few other ways to use it for SEO:

• Measure the quality of your organic search traffic with Conversion rates and Assisted conversions.
• See what users are searching for with your native site search to identify content gaps and opportunities.
• Use UTM parameters for every backlink to track its traffic volume in GA.
• Review your organic traffic’s demographic information to make sure your SEO work is pulling in your target audience.

2. Google Search Console

GSC isn’t as notorious as its cousin Google Analytics, but it has a wide range of uses in SEO. In addition to query data, it also tracks backlinks to your site. This information is a great place to start when targeting publications to build future backlinks.

Google Search Console can help you identify technical issues that might impact your site’s search rankings, like broken links, duplicate content, and crawl errors. It will also alert you of any potential security issues such as malware or user-generated spam.

3. Google Keyword Planner

Many marketers use Google’s keyword planner for paid search campaigns, but you can also use the data for SEO. You can even enter your website to see examples of SEO keywords that match your existing content.

Build your data-driven strategy with SEO tools

An SEO strategy without data is… well, it’s not much of a strategy at all. Like many of the finer things in life, SEO strikes a balance between art and science. Between the tangible and the intangible. Luckily, there are lots of SEO tools out there to help you with the research portion of your plan.

The post What are SEO tools? appeared first on Relevance.

Nearly 70% of online experiences start with search.

What? No way. That can’t be right.

You tap the microphone icon on your phone. “What percent of online experiences start with search?”

And then the irony hits you.

These days, search engines are the ports from which our inquiring minds disembark. And yet, search engine optimization is basically a footnote in your marketing strategy.

If you’re ready to devote more resources to search engine optimization techniques, you want to get it right. You might be wondering, Can I do SEO by myself? Do I need paid SEO tools? An agency partner?

Let’s dive in and answer these questions.

Can I learn SEO myself?

The short answer is yes. You can learn a lot about SEO strategy on your own if you’re a business owner or a marketer who’s never dipped your toes into SEO. It’s possible to DIY SEO for small business, at least for the basics.

Does SEO work for small business? Absolutely! Even small teams with modest budgets can produce strategic content to bring in organic web traffic over time.

Can I do SEO for free?

Yes, you can do SEO for free to an extent. Between free tools, self-learning, and manual research, you can address many of the important SEO factors.

However, most marketers and business owners eventually hit a ceiling when doing SEO for free. Most of the free tools available have built-in limitations to drive users toward a paid subscription. (Hey, we’re all out here to make a living.)

It can be frustrating to make it so far through an optimization process only to hit a wall. You might decide that paying for subscriptions to some tools is worth the investment. Our recommendation: Try the free version of the tool first to see whether it meets your needs. Many tools also offer a free trial of advanced features.

What is the best SEO checker tool?

There are lots of SEO tools out there, ranging from completely free to $500+ per month subscriptions. If tackling SEO by yourself seems intimidating, start by evaluating your existing content. Here are some of the best SEO checker tools to help you create a great SEO strategy. 

Audit your site

Most SEO tools include a site audit feature. Why start with an audit? Using a tool like SEMRush’s free website audit will help you identify glaring issues and opportunities for improvement. With the report from a tool like this, you’ll see how your site stacks up in terms of speed, crawlability, internal linking, and more.

Identify high-performing keywords

Most searches happen on Google, so it’s no surprise that several of the best SEO tools come from Google. To see which keywords are already bringing in traffic, look no further than Google Search Console. Go to the Performance tab and look in the Queries section to see what your visitors searched to end up on your site.

Analyze backlinks

Curious how many backlinks your content has earned? Serpstat’s backlink analysis tool will give you all the data you need. Reviewing this data will give you a good idea of which types of sites are likely to link to your content in the future.

Assess overall site performance

Google’s got you covered on site performance as well. Google Analytics is a trove of valuable data. To see which content on your site has gotten the most traffic, go to the Reports tab and then Engagement > Pages and Screens report. You can also build custom reports to dig into the nuances of your content’s performance.

Efficiently scaling your SEO efforts

The main reason folks often decide to pay for SEO tools or partner with an SEO agency is efficiency. Sure, you can cobble together your manual research with insights from free tools. You’ll be able to make some progress that way.

But is that the best use of your time? What else could you accomplish for your business if you invested in getting better results more efficiently?

If your budget allows, the most effective and efficient way to achieve your SEO goals is to partner with an agency. They’ve done the research. They know your industry. And they have the relationships to earn your content authoritative backlinks.

The bottom line is: Yes, you can build an SEO strategy by yourself for free. But when you start to see results (and you will!), it’s hard to scale a DIY approach. When you get to that point, it’s time to get out the big guns by paying for SEO tools. Or better yet, hire the big guns by partnering with a full-service SEO agency.

The post Can I do SEO by myself? appeared first on Relevance.