5 Steps to Create an Effective SEO Keyword Strategy

Accelerating business growth is a core objective for all B2B marketing teams. That’s why marketing leaders prioritize initiatives that increase website visibility, drive traffic to landing pages, and convert leads into customers. At the heart of these objectives lies the bread and butter of digital marketing: SEO. Developing an SEO keyword strategy is your first step toward creating long-term business success.

Our SEO methodology provides step-by-step guidance to optimize your SEO keyword strategy in four phases. The first phase sets the foundation by covering keyword strategy, competitive analysis, and on-page keyword development. The second phase prioritizes on-page technical refinement and fixing technical errors on landing pages. The third phase provides the right insights to build a content strategy that aligns with your buyer personas using the pillar-cluster content model. Finally, the fourth phase focuses on implementing an authentic backlink strategy. In this article, you will discover the first phase of our SEO methodology.

Step One: Assess Current Keywords

Identify the keywords your marketing team is currently targeting and record your current keyword research using SEO software to understand keyword difficulty, search volume, and search intent. Create a spreadsheet with the following row headers as you gather SEO data.

Step Two: Perform Competitive Analysis

A keyword analysis will help you gain visibility into the competitive landscape for SEO. Start by creating a list of your top competitors along with their keywords to identify gaps in your SEO keyword strategy. Use SEO software to find the top organic keywords, keyword ranking, domain authority, and position changes. Then, make a list of the new target keywords you would like to “own,” including their search volume, keyword difficulty percentage, and intent. Create a spreadsheet with the following row headers for your competitive analysis.

Step Three: Shortlist New Target Keywords

Based on an audit of your current SEO keyword strategy as well as your competitors’ keywords, identify new keywords to target. Use your SEO software to sort new keywords based on keyword difficulty, search volume, and search intent. Create a spreadsheet with the following row headers to record target keywords that have high volume but low-to-medium competition.

Step Four: Update Product and Service Pages

The goal of this step is to update content on your product and service pages. As you update these landing pages, use your SEO software to find the current rank and current keywords. Create a spreadsheet with the following row headers to identify and prioritize landing pages to update.

Step Five: Revise Individual Pages

The last step in Phase One of our SEO methodology involves revising each of your landing pages to ensure they include primary target keywords, H1, title tags, and keyword-rich descriptions. To complete your individual page strategy, create a spreadsheet for each URL with the following row headers. Under notes, include the date that each page is optimized. Doing this can help you refresh landing pages regularly based on your new SEO keyword strategy.

SEO Keyword Strategy: Final Insights

Search algorithms are constantly evolving, which means your SEO keyword strategy must be dynamic. An optimized keyword strategy will move your prospects along their buyer’s journey and help you increase marketing-influenced wins such as engaging more website visitors and converting more leads into customers. Here are the top three insights from our SEO advisors to help you build an optimized SEO keyword strategy: ?

Create People-First Content

Best-in-class SEO practitioners focus on people-first content, not computer-first content. Search engine algorithms continue to focus on how to rank better content first, and a strategy that moves your buyers through the funnel with a logical and cohesive path will be more successful in the long run.

Find White Space

A good keyword strategy uses competitive research to carve out white space and give your SEO efforts a competitive edge in an increasingly competitive landscape. Gaining deep insights into your buyer personas and buyer journeys are a prerequisite for an effective SEO keyword strategy.

Understand the Strategy

If you don't fully understand the strategy your SEO practitioner is implementing, it is a red flag. B2B marketers need to work collaboratively with their SEO specialists to quickly uncover SEO gaps, create a strategy that aligns with the needs of buyer personas, and efficiently execute an SEO strategy that is aligned with business goals.

Optimizing your SEO keyword strategy is more important than ever to ensure your website attracts the right buyer personas. Building an effective keyword strategy also helps to set your marketing team up for success when executing lead generation campaigns, publishing content that engages your target audience, and more.

Learn how to create an optimized SEO keyword strategy using the insights and research featured in our new SEO eBook. >>

Create an Effective SEO Keyword Strategy.