Jun 26, 2025

7 Steps to Create a Successful SEO Strategy: A Complete Guide

Black hat SEO attempts to improve rankings in ways that are disapproved of by the search engines or involve deception. One black hat technique uses hidden text, either as text colored similar to the background, in an invisible div, or positioned off-screen. Another method gives a different page depending on whether the page is being requested by a human visitor or a search engine, a technique known as cloaking.

There’s a simple search option above every data table to narrow down the results. You can select one of the default segments (e.g. Organic Traffic, Mobile Traffic) or create and save a new one to speed up your workflow. You can find the date range selector at the top right of every report. It enables you to look at the data within various time frames or compare two time periods. Selecting the right time frame is the first thing you should do when working with any analytics tool.

Your SEO service provider should offer detailed progress reports every month so you can measure the return on investment (ROI) of your SEO expenditures. Get a clear idea of what results might be possible—based on what the provider has done for others—as well as how long it will take for the new SEO efforts to start gaining traction. Based on the reviews, it appears that SmartSites is a well-liked company that improves SEO for many businesses. However, there are a few negative reviews that specifically call out SmartSites for offering refunds after poor performance in exchange for no bad press. Straight North is an SEO services provider that tailors its SEO plans for businesses of all sizes. It provides the standard services that its competitors offer and it has a client dashboard to show tasks in an SEO plan and the progress of a custom plan.

Besides including high-performing keywords, you’ll also want to educate readers about a topic or solve their problem. Google changed the algorithm to measure whether or not your blog is providing value. When you Google “best lawn care services,” the search engine will scour the internet for the best website to suit your needs.

Keyword Research Tips

This means that improving your website’s visibility on search engines can put your business in front of more customers. Beyond keywords, does your content give users what they’re looking for? If they search for “shaggy cat” do you know if they want pictures of shaggy cats, how to adopt shaggy cats, or maybe how to groom shaggy cats? A good place to start is by looking at current search results, and seeing what already ranks highly. Using keyword research (which we’ll cover below) make sure your titles contain the keywords users are likely searching for when your page appears in search results.

And LinkedIn is one of the best places to search for these people. Guest blogging can be a lot of work, but the good news is that these links are usually high-value backlinks. They aren’t low-quality because you focus on publications that have high domain authority.

• And when you write a title tag that stands out, you can get tons of clicks (even more than the sites that rank above you).
• PPC keywords – research keywords to use in your PPC campaigns.
• It’s really important to get this right before you start doing any marketing.

Google AI Mode And The Future Of Search Monetization: Ads, Prompts, And The Post-Keyword Era

This has to do with how long it takes for your pages to load for a visitor. Page speed is important because it is one of Google’s SEO Anomaly ranking factors. It also can drive customers away who get frustrated at how long it takes for items to load.

Google is known to rewrite a lot of title tags, but there are a number of best practices you can use to help your SEO. For a quick look at how search engines see the mobile version of your site, you can try Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Ask yourself if the site is truly worthy of appearing in search results. Spam, non-original, or low-value content may be excluded by search engines by default. You’ll see how much of your search traffic comes from branded keywords and how these keywords perform in Google Search.

Let’s finish off with some SEO strategies, best practices, and tips to help you get the most out of your time. You can refer to our more in-depth how-to on keyword research here. SEO is your chance to get in front of potential customers at any stage of their customer journey.