The truth about search engine optimization (SEO) is that once you’ve accounted for basic on-page SEO, there is no quick fix. No simple hacks. No short cuts.
Your return on the time you invest in SEO is directly proportional to the amount of effort you put in. If you want faster results you have to boost your productivity through efficiency.
In this article, we’ll cover the tools and tactics you can use to maximize the time and effort you put into SEO and we’ll show you how you can automate the following SEO processes:
- Keyword Research
- Performance Analysis
- Social Media Posting
- Link Prospecting
- Content Creation
With the right resources, you’ll be able to think faster, move faster, and most importantly, grow your traffic faster. Let’s get started.
1. Discovering Untapped Keyword Opportunities
Your SEO success is built on keyword research. Keywords are phrases that help your website pages gain a competitive advantage and rank in Google’s SERPs for relevant searches.
It’s important to understand that the mere process of keyword research has changed. Today, optimizing pages for the exact match keywords or using phrases with the greatest search volume doesn’t guarantee high rankings. You need to not only optimize for untapped keyword opportunities.
And, this is where keyword research tools like SEMrush can help.
For starters, it lets you identify keywords your competitors are ranking for. Simply enter your competitor’s website URL and you’ll get a comprehensive report on the competitor’s position for that keyword, search volume for each keyword, the average CPC, the percentage of traffic for that keyword, competition for that keyword, and the popularity of the keyword.
While their keyword analyzer provides you with information about a particular keyword, the Keyword Magic Tool is a valuable resource that lets you select a combination of phrases, based on which it offers long-tail combinations.
Another tool that may help you streamline your keyword research process is Sistrix.
Sistrix lets you enter up to three competitors to show you what keywords they rank for, as well as the traffic opportunity and competition for each keyword.
2. Analyzing Website Performance & SEO Reporting
SEO is one of the most turbulent industries. Trends are changing overnight. Google is constantly altering its algorithm affecting SERPs to make users’ browsing experiences more pleasant.
If you want to maintain your competitive advantage and high rankings you have monitor your website’s performance regularly.
For starters, you need to pay attention to your keyword ranking and the changes in your backlink portfolio.
This is exactly where tools like SERanking can help. It lets you monitor your backlinks, social signals, keyword rankings, and competitor performance from a single dashboard. Based on the results it generated through your website analysis, SERanking will also help you set clearer SEO goals.
However, using a single tool is not always enough for you to gain full insight into your website performance. You will need to observe it from multiple viewpoints, using multiple tools.
Monitoring your data on several complex dashboards, extracting them into Spreadsheets, and analyzing them manually will eat up lots of your time. Not to mention that each tool, no matter how helpful it is, offers some features and insights that are not relevant to your campaigns.
This is exactly where automated SEO reporting tools can help.
For example, Reportz will shave off a few hours from your data monitoring by letting you combine the features from multiple tools and observe their results on a unified and personable dashboard.
This is how you will focus on only those features from each tool that matter to you and, above all, set clearer KPIs to track.
Reportz integrates will all key website analytics tools like Google Analytics, SERanking, SEMrush, Ahrefs, CRM tools like Salesflare, Facebook Ads, etc., so you can see all your relevant SEO reporting in one place.
3. Managing Social Media
Social media and SEO go hand in hand. Keeping your social media accounts active and packed with value is one of the most effective ways to promote your content and build your brand.
When it comes to building a social media community, consistency is key. It helps to build a monthly editorial calendar and social media calendar for the content you will share.
However, sharing valuable content (both yours and curated) across multiple platforms, a few times a day will eat up lots of your time and prevent you from focusing on some more important aspects of your SEO campaign.
This is why you can invest in social media management tools that allow you to manage multiple social media accounts.
These tools help you automate the sharing process and monitor your social presence. You can simply enter relevant phrases you want to track across social networks (e.g. your brand name, product name, competitors, etc.) and these tools will let you know when someone mentions them.
4. Pitching Content Partners & Building Backlinks
Guest blogging remains one of the most significant link building strategies you can do, especially for startups striving to increase online exposure and visibility.
However, to get the most out of your guest blogging efforts, you need to do it wisely by picking the right sites to partner with.
Trying to find high-quality/relevant can be time-consuming so here are some tactics that will make the process easier.
First, you need to use Google to identify relevant blogs in your niche. This is where Google’s search operators like “keyword”, OR, AND, site:, link:, intitle, intext, and so forth, can help.
Next, you will need to enter all potential guest blogging opportunities into your spreadsheets.
This is only half the job done. You will need to visit each guest blogging prospect to assess the relevance of the site and the content they publish, as well as observe their rankings and domain authority.
Once you filter out all irrelevant prospects, you need to find the contact information for quality ones.
This is exactly why many bloggers turn to automated guest prospecting tools like Dibz.
Dibz lets you use the abovementioned advanced search operators to find relevant sites in your niche without forcing you to complete the annoying captcha. It contains a built-in Spam Filter that lets you set clear search criteria.
Based on your criteria, Dibz will filter out all irrelevant and poor-quality results, letting you focus on the most quality link building opportunities.
Dibz also collects contact data for each blogger automatically, as well as lets you export your prospects directly to PitchBox, a tool that makes pitching content partners a breeze.
5. Creating Fresh Useful Content
Creating high-quality content is the backbone of any SEO strategy. The problem is searching for writers and negotiating a price is a major time suck. That’s were Crowd Content comes in.
Crowd Content is a marketplace that can match you up with freelance writers who best suit your needs. Their platform couldn’t be easier. Simply tell them what you want, click go, and they start writing.
Their writers take turnaround time seriously and strive to increase their “words per hour” rate. This means you get your content faster. Most orders are completed within 24 hours.
The best part about Crowd Content is how they control for quality. Every completed order get’s a quality score. Writers who perform well are promoted. Writers who perform poorly are demoted. This system keeps writers motivated to deliver high-quality content.
Editor’s Note: This article is part of the blog series Run Your Business brought to you by the marketing team at UniTel Voice, the virtual phone system priced and designed for startups and small business owners.
