
Every day more than 6 billion searches are performed on Google.
This excites the website owners. They want to be on top of the Google search results and attract visitors to their websites.
This creates significant competition. The number of indexed pages on Google was only 26 million in 1998. This number exceeded 1 trillion in 2008 and reached 130 trillion in 2016
As Everyone Tries to Persuade Google in 2020, Google Trusts Websites Less Day by Day
Once, websites could appear on top of the Google search results only by doing a few things on their webpages.
This is no longer possible.
5 Steps of Success in SEO Projects in 2020
1. Research, Strategy & Keyword Selection
Brands often think about this stage as a waste of time and assume that no actual work is being carried out in this period.
They think that their websites deserve to be on top of the search results with every keyword they want, so they do not understand the need to formulate the right strategy.
However, this stage is really important. Without this stage, you may spend significant money, time and energy but you may not achieve success.
2. On-Site SEO
30 – 40 points out of 100
On-site SEO is absolutely necessary, but it is no longer adequate in 2019. Even if you achieve excellent SEO compliance on your website, you get only 30 to 40 points out of 100 from Google.
This will not be enough to bring your site on the first page of the search results with generic keywords that require at least 80 points out of 100.
3. Technical SEO
20 – 30 points out of 100
Google has recently begun to pay more attention to the effective functioning of infrastructure and usability of websites.
This makes it necessary for the software developers to be involved in SEO projects.
For example, if your website is slow, this will have a negative effect on SEO and software developers need to work on the codes to speed up the website.
Today, this topic provides you 20 to 30 points out of 100.
4. Link Building
40 points out of 100
With on-site and technical SEO, you are telling Google that your website is relevant to the searched keyword and it is a useful website with an efficient infrastructure.
This is necessary, but it is not adequate.
In order to convince Google, you also have to show how popular your site is.
The links your website gets from other sites, your domain name being mentioned on other sites, the popularity of your brand on the web and on the social media bring you 40 points out of 100.
5. Performance on Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
This stage is very important in order to turn your efforts into actual results.
Don’t think like “So what, people will obviously click on my website when it appears on top of the search results.”.
Google knows the click-through rate of every rank on the search results page. When Google brings your website to a certain rank, will your website be clicked more or less than the average click-through rate of that rank?
Let’s say it is clicked more. Will the visitors stay on your website or bounce back to the search results page immediately?
This is important.
If you have a lower click-through rate than the average or if the visitors clicking your website bounce back to search results and click on another site, your website will be dropped from the search results very quickly and all the effort you have made will be wasted.
WHAT SHOULD YOU DO TO RANK ON TOP OF GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS IN 2020?
Research, Strategy & Keyword Selection
When starting an SEO project, you should first analyze the current state of your website with an SEO check-up.
As the strategy will be based on these findings, this stage is very important.
Analyze the Current State
Analysis of your website is based on 3 topics.
1. The Amount of Competition
How intense is the SEO competition regarding your target keywords? How well optimized are the websites ranking on top of search results?
2. The SEO Power of Your Website
What is the current status of your website in terms of on-site SEO, infrastructure, and usability?
3. The Link Power (SEO Support from the Web)
What is the current status of your website in terms of getting links from other sites? How popular is your website on the web?
Free SEO Sites and Tools
SEO sites and tools are important to perform an SEO analysis of your website. You may also use them to research competitor websites. Here is my list of free SEO Tools: http://korayodabasi.com/best-free-seo-tools/
Determine the Best Strategy for Your Website
After you complete the SEO analysis, the current situation of your website and the state of competition becomes clear, the result of your SEO project becomes predictable.
As each website has different strength levels, appropriate strategies should be followed for each site.
1: WORK HARD
If both the SEO power of your website is low and you do not get enough support from the web, you definitely have to work hard.
2: DEVELOP YOURSELF
If you have low on-site SEO power but a high number of links from relevant websites on the web, it may be possible for you to generate results in a relatively short period of time.
3: BECOME POPULAR
If you are in a good state in terms of on-site SEO, you now need to make your site popular in Google’s eyes.
4: DRAW AWAY
Considering that SEO is an extremely dynamic topic and the algorithms are changing constantly, you should still work hard to preserve your position.
Content Strategy
1. Target Keywords (Topic)
Target keywords are usually the names of your products or product categories (or services and service categories).
As these keywords are result-oriented, they will provide high conversion and you should attach importance to this.
2. Target Audience
Determining your keywords based on your products or services is quite straightforward and many people stop at this point.
However, what provides additional benefit is considering your target audience.
You may go the extra mile by creating pages for your target audiences such as college students, men over 40, single women living in big cities or mothers.
On these pages, you can present tailored content for each audience and make sure that you quickly get their attention.
When you present relevant products, your conversion will be significantly high.
If you provide high value content and update the content regularly, you will observe that these pages will be generating sales constantly.
How to Choose the Right Keywords?
In order to be successful in an SEO project, it is very important to choose the right keywords.
Even if wrong keywords may somehow generate traffic, this will not provide conversion.
When determining the keywords, paying attention to the following topics will ensure that you achieve the best result.
Act with the Perspective of Your Audience
Create a Balance between Generic and Long-tail Keywords
Focus on the Keywords That Will Generate Conversion
Place Emphasis on Divide and Conquer Method
Improve Your List
Are these the right keywords?
On-Site SEO
Most of the SEO articles focus on this topic.
You should definitely do the work described in this section. But this alone will not be sufficient. The work in this section will provide you 30 to 40 points out of 100.
You might think that each of the topics I will explain below will provide you 0.1 to 5 points, depending on the level of importance.
In order to rank high for generic keywords that require at least 80 points out of 100, you need to focus on other SEO topics in addition to doing the work in this section.
You should focus on the following topics in order to achieve maximum on site SEO compliance.
How Should You Edit Page Title?
How Should You Edit Meta Desc?
What Should Be the URL of Your Webpages?
7 Effective Tips for Content Strategy
Why Should You Pay Attention to Visuals?
How Should You Organize Internal Links?
How Should You Manage External Links?
How Should You Manage 404 Not Found Pages?
Technical SEO
Google attaches importance to directing people to websites having strong infrastructure and high usability.
If searchers do not like the sites they click, this leads to a negative perception and Google definitely does not want this.
For this reason, the infrastructure and usability of the websites gained importance, especially in the recent years.
Today, 20 to 30 points over 100 come from this topic.
You should focus on the following topics in order to achieve maximum technical SEO compliance.
o Mobile Friendly Structure Is Indispensable
o How Important Is the Site Speed?
o Quality of Software
o Smooth Navigation
o Activities of Users (from the Usability Perspective)
o Other Issues
Building Links to Your Website & Increasing Your Popularity on the Web
Even if you do all of the SEO work on your website perfectly, it will provide you 60 points out of 100. This score will not be enough for your site to rank high for generic keywords.
For this reason, you should continue to work on your SEO project on the web environment to get the remaining 40 points.
You should get relevant and powerful links to your website from other sites and show Google that your site is popular.
You should focus on the following topics in order to achieve maximum effect from links.
o Follow – Nofollow Links and Domain Name with No Links
o What Determines the Link Importance?
o The Quality of the Link
o Popularity on the Web
o 7 Indispensable Strategies for Providing Links to Your Website and Increasing Your Website’s Popularity
Local SEO
It is usually used as a separate topic because the format of the search results page changes significantly.
In fact, most SEOs argue that Google is becoming the new “home page” for local businesses.
Google Ads and Google Maps results appear on the top, which makes it hard to reach organic results.
Achieving Success in Featured Snippet Structure
Recently Google has increased the use of information boxes and featured snippet structure. As you can see on the next page, in most of the cases Google directly presents the information on top of the search result page.
With certain search queries like “when is Christmas”, “weather in London”, “… football match result” or with some calculation questions, the answer is provided openly, eliminating the need to click on any of the results. This naturally decreases the click through rate on SERP.
Actually, an article by Rand Fishkin pointed out that, based on 150 billion searches, almost 50% of the search results on Google had no clicks.
Especially with the increasing use of in-formation boxes, users instantly get the information they need.
Within this structure, it becomes very important to be featured in order not to lose organic traffic.
This snippet is sometimes called “Position Zero” as it is placed above the first rank. Therefore, the positions below the first rank especially benefit from this structure, if they are featured.
Voice Search
As the technology advances, new tools are presented to the us-ers. Voice search is one of them.
Although the share of the voice search in total searches is not very high at the moment, significant increase is expected in the coming years.
According to a research performed by Brightlocal, the ratio of the people who performed voice search in the past twelve months to get information about a local business reached 56%. This figure reached 77% for the young segment with ages 18-34. To gain advantage in voice search, it is important to overlap with the perspective of the users making the search.
Performance on Google Search Results Page
You have worked hard on your SEO project and you have achieved success.
Great news!
But it’s not over yet. Now you need to be clicked on the search result page. This is very important.
Google analyzes many factors and tries to provide the most accurate results to every user. However, it leaves the final decision to users.
You should focus on the following factors to achieve the best result.
o Edit Page Title Effectively
o Use Meta Desc to Motivate
o Enable URL Rewrite
o Prevent Users from Bouncing
SEO Project Success Path
On-site SEO (in line with the determined strategy)
Controller: Panda
+
Technical SEO
Controller: Panda
+
Providing Links to the Site & Increasing Popularity on the Web
Controller: Penguin
=
SEO Success: Top 10 On Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
V
Click-through Rate on SERP
Controller: Preference of Searchers
V
Visitors Staying on the Site / Not Bouncing Back to SERP
Controller: Preference of Visitors
=
Permanent SEO Success
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I explain SEO strategies in detail in Digital Marketing Strategies Book.
Selected as “Best Digital Marketing Books of All Time” get more information here: http://korayodabasi.com/digital-marketing-book/
See it on online bookstores: http://korayodabasi.com/#buy-the-book
