New Year, new strategy? A lot of businesses plan out their marketing for the coming year, whether that's financial or timed. Are there any new products launching? Do you have any big campaigns planned? Are there peak trading events throughout the year to focus on? Whether your business operates in a B2B or B2C world, you’ll likely have some key dates which shape your marketing strategy.
We’ve already spoken about the importance of SEO for your business, from building brand awareness to generating conversions. However, it shouldn’t be something that you look at now and again - it needs to become a core part of your marketing strategy.
Since 2022, we've seen quite a few Google Search Ranking updates be released which once again caused some volatility - both good and bad - within the SERPs. A few businesses we work with saw an initial uplift in performance after the March 2023 update, only to see a decline from the bigger update rolled out in October. Those who worked hard throughout the year on their content strategy found that they benefited from the helpful content rollout (which is now part of Google's Core Updates), seeing an increase in their performance overall as well as with those key terms which were targeted. You might think it’s just luck, but it shows that the more effort you put into your SEO strategy, the more likely you are to see results.
But why do these Google changes matter to you? The consistent message that Google has shared is that all of these updates have been created to help ensure that content is relevant and as friendly for the consumer as possible. Gone are the days of keyword stuffing and creating content that is ‘Google friendly’, now the focus is on making your content as user friendly as possible. Semantic search, focus on local businesses and the importance of page experience has also played a part in this. In order to make a difference in the search results, your website needs to be optimised to answer the questions that are being searched for in a way that gives the user the best experience.
So how can you use this within your marketing strategy? Think of what key events you have coming up and then build out your content and SEO strategy to support it. For example:
Product(s) launch - ensure that your product page(s) are optimised on site with appropriate URL structure, headings and content. What problem is your product giving a solution to? What are the key search terms people will use to find it? Do your research beforehand, including identifying any competitor gaps and key terms which you want to rank for to ensure your product page includes the key information in order for it to be found.
Peak campaigns - whether it’s Valentine’s Day, The King’s Coronation or Christmas, there are a lot of key dates in 2023 that might be relevant to your business. Plan content to be created around the topic and consider creating Hub pages to link your informational content as well as any commercial links, such as category and product pages. The key thing? Ensure that the content is launched in advance, not two days before, to help build topical authority.
New website - hooray, 2023 is the year you’re finally investing in a new website! Ensure SEO tasks are prioritised - think page optimisations, content refresh, internal linking and redirect mapping to give your new site the best chance to succeed. Need some help? We can run an audit to help identify those priorities.
Day-to-day content strategy - okay, you might not have anything big planned in, but that doesn’t mean you should forget about SEO. Take a look at your performance over the past year and identify where you want to see improvements. Focus on those keywords ranking in position 11 - what can you do to help move them to the first page? Or are there any new keywords that you want to rank for? Think about your content on site being in the best possible position to answer consumer questions and build trust - can you add some reviews to your product pages, or perhaps your category pages will benefit from FAQ schema to answer those longtail keywords? There’s always a chance to optimise and create new content to help improve overall SEO performance.
Whatever your business has planned, make sure there’s focus on building a sustainable SEO strategy to support the overall strategy. Whether you’re stuck on where to begin or would like a review on performance, get in touch and we’ll be happy to help.
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