SEO, Search Engine Optimization, or my worst – ‘SEO Optimization’ are terms that have entered the business lexicon, but many small business owners and entrepreneurs seem to be at a loss in terms of what it is. Even less so if we mention SEO pyramid strategy.
We know there are already many demands on your time. And using tools like The Eisenhower Matrix to determine which tasks we should prioritize, really does help.
As do these great productivity hacks.
You’ll find SEO pyramid strategy also warrants your attention.
So, What is SEO?
Simply put, search engine optimization is the process in which you optimize your website and its content so that search engines ultimately display your content on the first page of the search results, so your audience can find you.
With me so far?
Good.
What is SEO Pyramid Strategy?
Basic Strategy in Blackjack shows players the best moves to make based on the dealer’s upcard and their hand. Its about understanding the rules and making them work for you.
SEO Pyramid Strategy is also about rules, or SEO best practice and ensuring the basics are in place. The end goal here is to improve your website’s search engine ranking and increase traffic to your site.
How Does SEO Pyramid Strategy Work?
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs prioritizes our primary physiological needs – air,water, food and shelter – over loftier needs like self actualization. The needs essential to our survival form the foundation.
These fundamental needs are mission critical and must be fulfilled before we can focus on self actualization.
This is similar to how the seo pyramid works too.
Get the SEO Basics Right
Accessible Quality Content
The foundation of the SEO pyramid is accessible quality content. Getting this step right is essential. Yet so many small business owners and entrepreneurs want to jump straight to social media, because it sounds a lot more glamorous, right?
Don’t be that guy.
Put in the work and get the basics right.
What exactly does accessible quality content entail?
- Unique text content
- Internal link architecture
- Bot accessibility
- Sitemaps
- URL structure
- Server response codes
Relax, it sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is.
Unique Text Content
The first thing to remember is that you are primarily creating unique text content for actual human beings. Let this be your guiding principle when you’re creating text content for your website. Who will be reading it? What do they need? Make it easy for them. Create interesting content. Solve a problem. Answer their questions. And make sure it’s original.
Bear in mind that Google’s Hummingbird algorithm is adept at prioritizing lengthier, quality content over short, keyword rich content. So it really just makes sense to put in the time and effort to create quality content that your readers will find useful.
Internal Link Architecture
Internal Link Architecture sounds impressive, doesn’t it?
All it means are internal hyperlinks on your website pages, which point to different pages on the same domain.
Why are Internal Links Important as Part of SEO pyramid strategy?
Simple. The internal links on your site helps Google to find, index and understand the pages on your website.
It is important if you want your site to achieve higher rankings. If you’re serious about getting this right, you need to be strategic about it. Because, when you link to another page on your site, you send link authority to that page.
So for new blog posts that you want to rank for, but that has little to no backlinks, do the following:
- Use Ahrefs or SEMRush to identify your top performing pages.
- Create internal links from your high-performing pages to your new post.
- Use keyword-rich anchor text.
- Don’t use the same anchor text for two different pages.
- Pay attention to link placement. You want your links towards the top of your page.
- Make sure you are using dofollow links. It’s worth mentioning because some plugins default to nofollow links.
- Remember, this is an on-going process that you need to do regularly.
Bot Accessibility
Search bots are trying to understand what your content is about. Which words are being used, how often they show up and where. They don’t ‘read’ content the same way we do, so we make our content more accessible and easier for search bots to index. This in turn increases the likelihood of our pages being visible in search results.
Site architecture
It is important to pay attention to your site architecture. Prevailing wisdom states that it should be structured according to categories. With a minimum of 4 categories. And each category requires a minimum of 4 posts.
Title Tags
This HTML code defines the web page’s title, which are referenced by search engine algorithms.
Meta Description
While this doesn’t directly affect your ranking, a good meta description can improve your click-through rate.
Use Heading and Subheading Tags
These are the ‘H’ tags to use in your code or content management system.
For example: H1, H2, H3 etc. Use them to categorize your headings and subheadings according to importance. This tells search bots about the overall structure of your page.
Sitemaps
A sitemap helps search bots find, crawl and index all of your website’s content, and which pages are most important. If you’re on WordPress, you can use the Yoast plugin to generate your sitemap.
If you don’t use WordPress, you can generate your sitemap at XML-Sitemaps
You can submit your sitemap through Google Search Console.
Generating a sitemap and submitting it to search engines is especially important to do if your website is new, or if it has grown into a monster with millions of pages.
URL Structure
When it comes to your website’s URL structure, try to keep it as simple as possible.
In terms of search engine results pages, you want yours clean and easy to read, as this encourages more clicks
SEO friendly URLs:
- Includes your keyword
- Is descriptive and meaningful
- Easy to read
- Uses relevant categories or subfolders
- Contains 3-5 words if possible
Check out this deep dive into SEO Friendly URL Structures for more in-depth info.
SEO Pyramid Strategy: DIY vs Outsourcing?
These are the bases you need to cover before moving on to the next tier of the SEO Pyramid. It’s not difficult, but it requires time and diligent application. And you want to do it right. As an entrepreneur or small business owner, it is important that you understand the basics of SEO and why it is important. And it makes sense to implement an SEO pyramid strategy.
But why do it yourself?
A Website Maintenance Virtual Assistant is a cost effective solution, easily handling your seo requirements, while saving you time.
Let’s schedule a discovery call to discuss your requirements and find the right virtual assistant for your needs.
And,if you found this post useful, be sure to check out SEO Pyramid Strategy for Small Business – Part 2.
