12 Expert SEO Strategies to Rank Better Than Competitors

If you are just starting with SEO or wouldn’t call yourself an SEO expert by any means, this article will help you implement the best SEO strategies used by top marketers.

Content is ‘king’ in marketing, and understanding how to approach it both technically and artfully (yes, building trust with content is a skill!) is paramount to having an edge over your competitors. So, let’s look at different SEO strategies and why it is so important for business growth. 

What is SEO? 

SEO is the common acronym for “search engine optimization.” Simply put, it is a digital marketing technique that optimizes content so that it can be found easily by those looking for that specific information. 

For example, if your business was in the Dallas digital marketing industry, your content would be designed to educate, provide solutions, and call your readers to action through content that solves their marketing problems. 

Why Are SEO strategies Important to Digital Marketing?

When you do SEO on your website, you simply improve its visibility on Google and other search engines. In essence, SEO is important because search engines are the main source of online traffic. This fosters competition among businesses for their place on the SERPS, or the search engine result pages, and highlights the importance of learning how to stand out from the competition through targeted SEO strategies.

Although SEO requires long-term dedication and doesn’t breed results overnight, it is still one of the best digital marketing strategies for business growth. To get started with optimizing your content for SEO, you’ll have to prioritize creating a content strategy around topics that answer your client’s most pertinent questions and pain points. To do so, start exploring keywords, topics, and competitors’ data with a comprehensive SEO keyword research tool.

What Are The Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO strategies?

Here is a list of our top keyword research tools that will help you analyze your competitors’ content, understand what your potential customers are looking for, and provide you with the best relevant keywords related to your industry, products, or services:

• Google Trends (free) 
• Ahrefs (free and paid) 
• SEMrush (free trial and paid)
• Moz (free trial and paid)
• SpyFu (free and paid)
• Ubersuggest (free and paid)
• Answer The Public (free and paid)

What Search Engine Factors Affect My Website Ranking?

SEO is not a simple science, and you’ve probably asked yourself “What search engine factors affect my website ranking the most?” Indeed, content optimization with the right keyword research is only one part of the website ranking process. Here are a few other main search engine factors that you’ll need to master to rank well on Google and other search engines:

Backlinks (Off-Page SEO) – Backlinks are links that connect one website to another. When someone links to your website, they help improve your webpage’s authority, relevance, and trustworthiness. Backlinks are essential to successful SEO strategies in today’s online marketplace.

Quality Content – Quality content is crucial for SEO rankings because search engines intend to deliver the most relevant and valuable results to users. Creating content that satisfies both the search engines and the users’ expectations for helpful content is the winning recipe for SEO success.

User Experience & Technical SEO – To meet the users’ desire for a seamless website experience, your content should be able to load fast, be mobile-friendly, and engage users enough to increase their click-through rates. Likewise, your website should be technically optimized for site structure, URL descriptions, broken links, and more. 

On-Page SEO – When you use the right keywords and understand the formula behind optimized headers, calls to action, internal linking, as well as metadata and meta descriptions, the search engine algorithm will reward you. 

Domain Authority – The age of your website and how many quality backlinks it has will determine your domain authority. In addition, other authority markers such as having a secure website with SSL encryption and great on-page SEO will help boost your authority score.

12 Expert SEO Strategies That Work

By dedicating yourself to mastering the following search engine optimization strategies, you’ll be lightyears ahead of your competitors. Here are 12 expert SEO strategies from our Dallas digital marketing experts.

#1 How to Do Holistic Keyword Research 

SEO experts not only focus on keyword density and difficulty but also on the domain authority of the websites that rank high for those keywords. The higher the authority, the harder it would be to rank for those keywords, no matter the keyword statistics. 

The best strategy to adopt for keyword research, especially when starting with SEO strategies, is to focus on long-tailed keywords that are rated under 30 in difficulty, understand the motivation behind user search intent, and target the keywords for which your competitors are ranking.

#2 How to Leverage Local SEO

For businesses that operate locally, it is essential to be optimized for local search. For example, when someone searches for a type of service “in Dallas,” all the businesses optimized for that service and location will be the first that shows up in SERPS. 

Back to our previous marketing industry example, you could label your service page “Leading Dallas SEO Agency” to optimize it for your local market.

To harness this local SEO strategy, ensure that your website copy and blog content are optimized across your website for local locations, events, and business collaborations. 

Local SEO strategies to Capture Nearby Web Traffic

Here are just some of the ways you can capture organic traffic with a local SEO strategy:

• Google My Business optimization
• Local citations
• Google and online reviews
• Local content creation
• Geotagging images on the website
• Local social media presence

#3 Strong Social Media Presence 

A strong social presence can help you promote your blog content and make it share-worthy among your prospects. Traffic to and engagement on your blog posts will help your domain authority grow as you increase click-through rates and backlinks to your website.

Another great way to improve your Google rank is to guest on authoritative podcasts that will promote your business and website to qualified leads and generate more backlinks. 

#4 Updating & Improving Existing Content

Improving your old and new content is one of the best ways to get more traffic to your website. This SEO content strategy is most successful when applied to already well-performing content that can most easily outrank top competitors for those keywords. 

By adding extra passages, related keywords, and current industry updates, your blog update strategy can be an even better return on investment than new content creation.

#5 Dedication to E-A-T 

For Google and other search engines to appraise your content as top-notch quality, it has to exude expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T). 

You can do this by writing authoritative in-depth content, citing sources and references, including testimonials and reviews, and collaborating with other industry experts. 

#6 Developing Various Types of Content 

Diversifying your content creation will ensure that your content is not stale and that it meets user intent. It will also help you explore a wide range of topics and attract users with diverse content preferences. 

For example, you may decide to show off your knowledge and authority by posting your opinion on some of the most common customer pain points. Or, you may make a top 10 list of influencer perspectives in your niche, which would benefit you by growing your network and content reach.

#7 Tips for Creative Backlink Building 

Although backlink building may be one of the most difficult SEO strategies, it proves to be the most rewarding when it comes to building your website’s authority long-term. 

Some creative ways to get quality backlinks to your website are by writing high-quality pillar content, creating resources (like a quiz or a digital tool) that others can link to, and contributing to the HARO (Help a Reporter Out) platform.

Why Link-Building SEO Strategies Are Important

Link building is an important strategy since building links involves plenty of time, effort, and external outreach. By building quality backlinks to your website, you demonstrate your E-A-T expertise and send positive signals to search engines about your website’s relevance and value.

#8 Being Authentic

Authenticity is the heart of marketing. Even if you do everything right with your SEO strategies, if you don’t come across as authentic in your content, you will not be able to harness the power of long-term customer loyalty. 

When you are authentic and even polarizing, you exude a unique identity that attracts customers who are aligned with your purpose and “edge.” These customers will support you for years to come by sharing your content and becoming your new product or service adapters. 

#9 Seamless Custom Web Design 

Investing in a seamless online user experience is truly important for any business since it helps grow your brand authority, helps your leads find the information they’re looking for, and fosters user loyalty. 

In a competitive online landscape, a superior user experience can set your website apart from competitors. You can truly stand out with a custom web design that matches your branding, personality, and mission.

#10 Competitors’ Data Analysis

Data analysis is the foundation of all SEO strategies since data provides business owners with feedback on how they should approach their content strategy as well as how they should continue. 

Competitor data can help you discern which content is popular with your demographic and which SEO methods worked for your competitors. By studying your competitors, you can reverse-engineer their best SEO strategies wins.

Examining your competitors’ data can save you time and resources, and eliminate the guessing game by focusing on what works best.

#11 How to Optimize Images For SEO

Since images can be explored in search engines just like text, it is important to optimize them with proper titles and alt text descriptions. The titles and descriptions should always include an SEO keyword as well as anything that could distinguish your image from other images, such as location, product/service, or a long-tailed keyword. 

You can also optimize images by compressing them without sacrificing quality. Compressed images help your website load faster and consume less bandwidth, which is particularly important for websites with a large number of visitors. 

#12 Testimonials & Reviews 

Undoubtedly, testimonials and reviews are the ultimate trust factors that help lower customer resistance to doing business with you. 

When new leads land on your website, resonate with your authoritative content and contemplate taking action with your product or service, they will still need reassurance before parting with their hard-earned money. That is where testimonials come in. They trigger the last step in the buyer’s journey and help you stand out from your competitors. 

Always ask your customers for a Google review, which will help with your Google My Business standing, especially in local search. 

How to Master SEO Marketing

Mastering SEO strategies is a step-by-step process, and starting with these 12 expert SEO strategies will give you a leg up over your competitors. As a business owner with a digital presence, we feel it is best to learn some SEO strategies on your own. That way, you’ll be able to understand its processes and function well enough to plan your digital growth effort with confidence. 

If you stumble along the way and need more assistance with SEO strategies, we invite you to connect with us at CloudMellow for your free consultation on how to make your business goals a reality.