13 Smart SEO Ideas for Beating Your Competitors at Search

13 SEO Tactics to Beat Online Competition

man explaining traffic sources stats
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Internet marketing succeeds on one criterion – Search Engine Optimization, or SEO.

 

SEO is, without a doubt, one of the most cost-effective and viable ways to reach and understand customers at crucial moments. In addition to this, incorporating an excellent SEO strategy will certainly bolster a website’s overall visibility and searchability.

 

But regardless of how beneficial SEO is for digital businesses, it is a highly volatile domain, meaning it is quite competitive. Even if your company has enough resources to spend on internet advertising, it might not be easy to stay competitive and survive in the current business environment. Fortunately, understanding the SEO paradigm is not difficult.

 

SEO, of course, is unpredictable, but once you start to get the hang of it, all you need is a solid plan to keep on top of things and win. So, jump in and use these SEO tactics to outperform your rivals:

1. Competitor Analysis

The first phase in this race is researching your rivals extensively. You must be aware of the methods they use and the ideas they hold dear. Look into their on-site SEO in great detail. More importantly, pay attention to the overall pattern of their SEO activities.

 

Has your rival just made a significant shift in their approach? Keep an eye out for such changes. Have a committed team member do that instead. Observe what they are not doing as well. Look for areas where your rivals are lacking or not focusing on, and take advantage of those spaces.

 

Imagine if your top ten rivals have more than 100 pages of high-quality content, a perfect link building strategy, and many active social presences. How long would it take you to attain that goal? If your firm is new to the ecosystem, you may need a longer time to tank it.

2. Plan when targeting keywords

It’s crucial to pay extra careful attention to the precise keywords you are considering while producing content. You might climb to the top of the rankings for a specific keyword, but keeping that position needs constant effort.

 

Concentrate on the industry-specific search terms that receive the most traffic. You may get all the pertinent traffic data for particular keywords and phrases by utilizing a few helpful tools. Just be sure to use the keyword combinations that lead to the most conversions.

3. Remember that social media plays a crucial part

Social media platforms may seem like fun places to visit, but they’re also excellent resources for online businesses looking to engage with existing customers, prospective clients, and new audiences. 

 

Many people begin their online searches on social media and eventually end up on a company’s website after viewing or interacting with some of its material. If you want to stand out, share relevant, engaging, and tailored material and increase the number of individuals that visit your profile and, ultimately, your website.

4. Link your pages internally

Internal linking is undeniably the best SEO strategy to increase your website’s ranks. But ensure that your blog articles and other sites have pertinent links back to one another. Your website will not only score better, but you’ll also likely see an increase in organic traffic from people just surfing.

 

Additionally, your rankings will improve the more time a visitor spends on your website. Ensure the connections make logical sense and are relevant to the audience.

5. Content is paramount

The internet is still dominated by evergreen content, which means it is here to stay. Writers must make sure their material is current and informative. The viewers will be disappointed and may be hesitant to visit you again if they discover outdated content on your website.

Constantly producing and disseminating credible material that incorporates LSI keywords naturally should be a priority.

6. Format your content with the help of featured snippets 

These days, featured snippets control the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). You’re likely already aware, even if you’ve never heard the word. For the majority of search queries, they’re the underlined response boxes that are found at the top of the pages. You must’ve been doing something right if you were able to obtain a featured snippet.

 

You can enhance your chances of getting a featured snippet by using particular formatting and styling choices, like infographics, numbered lists, and bullet points, and directly responding to search queries. The search query is answered in the Google preview, meaning snippets don’t always result in direct clicks. Although, as of now, snippets are present in over 19% of SERPs. They’re highly effective for promoting your name and increasing brand awareness. And what’s best is that the clicks will continue to come.

7. Use meta tags and title tags

Title tags

These headlines are clickable and appear on SERPs. They provide users with information about your content and its relevance to their search query. The title tag is frequently the primary source of information used to guide consumers in choosing which result to click on to gain more info/data. The target keywords can be used to construct title tags. But make them brief. 

Meta tags

These are the descriptions that appear on SERPs beneath the title tags. Although brief, these descriptions must contain enough details to pique the user’s attention. Use them as an elevator pitch to persuade the user that your material will satisfy their search criteria while keeping them pertinent to the page. To accomplish this, make it distinctive to your page (include your target keywords). Recall that Google enjoys finding new things. Make it actionable and clear.

8. Use voice search SEO

Your site needs to be prepared to take advantage of voice search because it will soon dominate internet searches. You may also utilize voice search to reach the growing market of consumers who purchase products and services using smart home gadgets like Siri and Alexa.

In today’s time, one of the best small company SEO ideas to future-proof your chances of success is incorporating voice search.

9. Keep yourself informed with SEO news

As you are aware, SEO is an area that is always evolving, especially in today’s tech-reliant era. So, ensure you’re constantly updated on the latest tactics and methods. Spend some time keeping up with all the latest SEO news online.

As soon as any significant advancements or modifications occur in SEO, take action. Maintain a step above your rivals.

10. Track your backlinks

Link mining is a crucial backlink approach in which you identify the backlinks of your rivals, contact the website owners, and publish feedback or a guest blog of your own. For this reason, keep a running log of the backlinks to your business.

What’s best is that you can defend against any upcoming negative SEO campaigns by ensuring that all the links pointing to your website come from reliable sources. Watch out for your competitors’ link-building tactics as well.

11. Create an email list for remarketing

The final piece of advice for outpacing your rivals with SEO may not initially appear to have anything to do with it. Still, it’s an important technique to gain an advantage over them online. You may develop a useful resource for re-engaging visitors to your website by striving to compile an email list from those who visit it.

In essence, you may use email to share links to your content with your subscribers to drive immediate traffic that doesn’t depend on pay-per-click (PPC) advertising or organic search traffic. So, it pays to work on developing an email list if you’re serious about surpassing your competitors.

12. Get rid of anything that makes your site sluggish

It can’t be stressed enough how easy it is to get the technical aspects perfect so that your website and certain content can speak for themselves. Your website needs to be speedy, available, and simple to use, whether you’re writing educational blogs, marketing a service or product, or just putting someone in the right way. People now want instantaneous information and outcomes. They will go away if your website takes a long time to load. You can increase site speed and the general fluidity of your UX in several ways, such as the following:

  • Deleting outdated or inactive plugins 
  • Optimizing and compressing your images
  • Cleaning up your code 
  • Ensuring your subfolders make sense
  • And using tools to continue the monitoring process.

13. Incorporate your customer funnel into your SEO strategy

Making sales is what matters. Without clients, there is no income, and a business cannot function. Your SEO approach should align with your customer funnel to help with sales. Your sales funnel, often referred to as the customer journey, is a compilation of clients’ interactions with your business as they go from attention through post-purchase. SEO is a natural fit for each phase of this cycle:

Awareness: In today’s world, many clients learn about your company online through, say, a Google search.

 

Interest: This is the point at which clients begin their studies. And your website is the ideal resource for research.

 

Choice: A potential consumer chooses between you and the competitors before purchasing. Your meta description mentions that free shipping might be what convinces them.

 

Purchase: Ecommerce is still expanding. People find buying simpler when a point of sale is search engine optimized.

 

Post-purchase: Reviews, whether posted on your website or a different website, are an excellent method to gain credibility and improve your search relevance.

Conclusion

Maintaining your top ranking or boosting your present rankings in search engines will always be difficult, but standing out becomes much simpler with a little guidance. These SEO tactics will help you stay one step ahead of the curve. Most importantly, use prominent and effective SEO tools to ensure your website is doing well. And always be ready to explore new things and adapt.

About author

Ron Stefanski
Blogger | One Hour Professor
blogger Ron Stefanski

Ron Stefanski is a website entrepreneur and marketing professor who has a passion for helping people create and market their own online business.  You can learn more from him by visiting OneHourProfessor.com