Five tips to analyze and improve your SEO strategy and rank higher in 2021

Want to rank higher on SERP pages in 2021? Here are five tips to help you analyze and improve your SEO strategy.

Retaining your visibility in the digital world is a multilayered challenge that never really stagnates. On one hand, you need to keep your audience interested and engaged with the help of social channels, you work hard to help customers via your ticketing systems, but you also need to ensure that your website and content output meets Google’s latest criteria. 

With several billion daily searches (and counting), your brand continuously has to invest in SEO to stay relevant in those results, even though you’re limited to a specific industry. In fact, considering that so many companies have switched to online selling and engagement during the pandemic, your competition has likely grown over the course of this and last year. 

This is a very unique moment in time for anyone to run an online business. That is why you need to rethink your approach and focus on the most optimal strategies in 2021 to boost your business this year and elevate your ranking over time. Here are a few strategies you should use this year to let your SEO work in your favor.

Define your KPIs and goals for 2021

No strategy can be considered an actual strategy without well-defined goals you want to achieve. In SEO terms, that means that you should first conduct a thorough analysis of your current ranking, create a detailed report as to what kind of issues your website is experiencing (broken links, missing meta descriptions, poorly optimized images, no voice search optimization) and then you need to establish your most effective roadmap moving forward.

Define your KPIs based on your current performance elements, and make sure you regularly track and analyze how well your site is performing based on those indicators and if your strategy is aligned with your SEO goals. Keeping track of your KPIs regularly allows you to get a clear perspective on how you can improve with specific steps to elevate your ranking.

Audit your site regularly

Audits aren’t a one-time thing, especially since your ranking will oscillate from time to time depending on all your online interactions and of course, what your competitors are doing. To make sure your site is ranking organically as high as possible, you should audit your site at set time intervals, and compare your performance with your past ranking as well as your goals for 2021.

If you own a local business in a larger market like Australia, it’s crucial to keep an eye on your site’s performance.

  • Check for usability issues that might derail user experience and satisfaction. 
  • Regularly check for plugin updates for your site’s chosen platform.
  • Conduct security checks to make sure you have all the right preventative measures in place.
  • Keep track of Google’s latest ranking requirements to avoid penalties.
  • Analyze your content to see if there are topics you should cover, keyword opportunities related to your Australian market, and user preferences to be mindful of for your local audience.

Produce content relevant to your location

In addition to regular SEO audits, all businesses that are defined largely by their location need to produce content that is both relevant for the local customer, but also valued by the search engines that will rank you. Many businesses work with an expert SEO agency that understands the local market and that utilizes specific strategies that are most effective for the region where you operate. 

Agencies work with local brands to audit their SEO and site performance, but also to spot content opportunities, set up a link-building strategy, work with various analytics tools to maximize your content’s relevance, and recognize emerging trends. If your audience is in, let’s say, Australia, and every customer uses voice search to find your type of service or products, an SEO professional will focus on optimizing your content with that in mind. 

Work on user experience 

Top-notch SEO is all about providing every visitor with a spot-on experience as well as valuable information they’ve been looking for to begin with. For your site to send the right signals, you need to be mindful of those core elements of user experience that affect how visitors interact with your site and what kind of issues arise. 

In 2021, there will be a greater focus on Core Web Vitals, referring to a set of technical and experience-related factors that make it possible for your brand to be considered relevant and safe to rank high. Factors like site loading speed, visual stability, and interactivity will help your site stay on that first page of the SERPs, preferably towards the top. 

Clean up your link portfolio 

Whether you work with local or global influencers, publish blogs as guest posts or you collaborate with few, carefully selected platforms, or focus on video content for the time being – your link portfolio needs to be added to your SEO focus. 

According to Web Integrations Edinburgh, even if you’ve linked to a page that was once relevant and highly ranked, it’s necessary to analyze your links to make sure all links are still valid, and not harming your ranking potential.

Diversify your backlinks by working with reputable sites and producing high-quality, relevant content that gives your customers value. With that in mind, monitor your portfolio constantly to eliminate links that could harm your site and spot opportunities to boost your ranking with a better, stronger linking strategy. 

In addition to keeping your site in check in terms of technicalities and performance, it’s vital to monitor your link portfolio as well as your overall digital footprint. Working with SEO experts, as well as locally relevant influencers whom your customers trust will elevate your potential to rank higher and build up your digital presence in your industry.

In 2021 and beyond, you’ll be able to use these strategies to make sure more people will find your brand and that you can elevate your position both in the SERPs and in the eyes of your target audience.