When using an effective marketing strategy, you shouldn’t be focusing solely on SEO. SEO is a companion and should e treated as such, it goes hand in hand with other aspects when you’re working with a strategy.

Change is the only consistent thing, and every marketer working with SEO would describe their relationship by quoting the famous but cliché “The Only Constant Is Change”. The algorithm is constantly changing, so your SEO strategy must evolve with it, in order to keep up with the times.

What they’re looking for according to the specifics of Google’s Webmaster is:

• That your pages shouldn’t be created for search engines, but for users instead
• Never deceive your users in any way
• Make your website so it stands out from the rest by letting people know why you’re unique.

The emphasis of the first bullet point focuses on people, even though technical SEO can get you on Google’s front page and drive a lot of traffic towards your page, if they’re not turning into leads it could mean that you’re wasting money and time.

Focusing on SEO alone is not enough.

Before beginning the outline of a marketing strategy, most businesses make use of a ‘T- shaped marketer’. This refers to looking for individuals who have an understanding of SEO and creativeness for engaging content creation.

It was found through research done that almost 75 000 job listings were scraped while finding that the peak of ‘SEO Job’ listings was between 2011 and 2012. The study also identified the six most common search query titles that were Google Analytics, SEO, PPC, social media marketing, content marketing, and digital marketing.

High-Value Content Answers Questions Not Alt Attributions

You shouldn’t overlook the technical aspects of SEO, things like URL structure, alt attributes, etc. We’re well aware that companies look for people who know what they’re doing, however, it’s quality content that keeps people on your site.

According to the latest Search Metrics Report, the new approach called ‘holistic content’ combines relevant keywords similar to target keywords to completely answer search intent.

Meaning you use keywords to make your content more comprehensive and you’ll not only get more shares but also rank equally well with search engines for your many keywords used together.

You have to look beyond an extensive keyword list, this is what quality requires of you.

Here are some red flags that are easily managed:

• Links that are broken: Do a thorough inspection on your site to make sure there are no ‘404 errors’.
• Information that is inaccurate: Be it internal or external, any source you link to should be credible and accurate.
• Spelling and grammar: Go over your content and do a proper spell check before you publish it.
• Loading speed: It can help you rank higher if you have a fast-loading site.
• Comprehensive content: When you post your content, it should be able to answer all questions that are related to its topic.

Three ways to ensure that your content has value:

• It offers something original and unique: If you have internal data that no one else has access to be sure to share it.
• It provides actionable tips: When someone lands on your content it’s because it can solve some kind of problem, so always make sure that after people are done reading they leave with insight.
• It’s able to stand alone as a resource: Your content should answer every question possible, but in a way, that’s easy to take in and digest. They call this ‘The holy grail of content’.

Your content should also provide answers to real questions that potential customers may have, this is a big thing to keep in mind.

Social Shares Are Valuable

Social shares shouldn’t be overlooked at all, though they make no direct difference to your site rankings they do prove to have value. The traffic that highly sharable content generates is something that Google will definitely reward.

SEO alone isn’t able to put your posts in front of a big audience.