An SEO strategy is not unique, it all depends on your project. Each one will have to focus on different aspects. But we can draw a common road map, and we'll explain it to you.

The first thing you should know to plan a good SEO strategy is that you must have patience. Positioning in the top positions of Google is not a matter of two days, but of perseverance and dedication.

Good advice when implementing an SEO strategy is for you not to be obsessed with wanting to occupy the first position or be among the first for certain searches. It is about gaining visibility, being among the first in many searches, and directing traffic to your webpage.

Having said that, let's see the steps you can take to carry out your SEO strategy successfully.

1. SEO audit

It all starts with an SEO Audit and using different SEO tools. The idea is to know the starting point. How is your website performing and what are the necessary steps to take to increase the numbers? If the project is new, you can fall into the error of skipping this step.

A complete audit does not have to include more than 200 factors that affect web positioning. It must definitely consider the main aspects of the 3 major areas of SEO:

• Indexability: this includes the different aspects that influence Google and other search engines to track and index your content correctly. In addition, here you could include other relevant parameters such as web loading speed, mobile optimization, the HTTPS protocol.

• On-Page SEO: you must check if you are using the right keywords if you have a good structure of the contents if the images contain the ALT attribute. In short, it is the aspects that influence the search engines to consider your web pages relevant.

• Off-Page SEO: you should perform an analysis of the links that point to your website. And above all, analyze the competition to know the effort that should be made in obtaining links.

2. Indexability and other parameters

Once the audit is done and you know your starting point, here is a checklist of the basic actions that you should implement on your website:

• HTTPS protocol: Although it is not essential, it is highly recommended to have a secure SSL protocol on your website (the famous padlock).

• Sitemap: Make sure you include what you want to index. Avoid duplicate content by also showing other content classifications such as authors or dates.

• Robots.txt: This file is used to give guidelines to search engine robots. Use it to define the content you want to index.

• Web performance optimization (WPO): Do not get obsessed with it, but ensure that web pages load in not less than 3 seconds. Try not to fill your website with unnecessary code, and use caching systems both at the server level and on your own website.

• SEO mobile: The famous mobile-first index. The mobile version of your website is more important than ever. There are basically 3 ways to make your website responsive.

• Responsive: The same page/URL is used regardless of the device.

• Dynamic publication: The same page is used, but different HTML, as Amazon does.

3. On page or Relevance

In this section you must have a well-defined content strategy, based on two parameters:

• Who is your buyer persona?

• How do they perform the searches?

The first is fundamental to define the problems you need to solve, and the second one will be solved with a good analysis of keywords.

Therefore, whether it is a new project or if you are improving an existing one, based on these two analyzes, you will outline the strategy to be followed with two clear objectives:

• Define the structure of your website and identify the categories and taxonomies based on the search patterns of the users that you have detected.

• Develop an editorial calendar of the contents that you will generate on the website.

As they say, "content is king" but if this content does not contain keywords, you are missing a great opportunity to position yourself better in search engines.

Try to optimize the images on the web, both in their weight so that they do not slow down the page load and include the appropriate keywords in their ALT attributes.

4. Off-page or Popularity

Finally, in any SEO strategy, you must draw and carry out a good link strategy which is regarded as link building. It is recommended to carry it out once you are sure that the SEO on the page is well implemented. In this aspect, you must always remember that quality matters more than quantity.

How is the popularity of a website measured?

You can do that with PageRank, an algorithmic base ratio of 0 - 100 that Google previously made public and now keeps secret. As alternatives, the most accepted parameters are Moz (domain and page authority) or Majestic SEO (citation and trust flow).

And a tip: use the internal links of your website correctly. Use keywords when linking and avoid expressions such as "click here" or "in this link". Also, remember this concept: depth of link. The farther a page is from the home, the less relevance it has to position. That's why the most important products and services always have a direct link from the homepage. For your web development projects, you should meet with top web development companies.

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