There is a fierce battle happening on the internet today. Organizations want to rank #1 on a search engine results page (SERP) at any cost. No longer can an organization rank high for all keywords in their industry because too many competitors compete for the same handful of phrases. As more organizations deploy internet marketing tactics, such as search engine optimization (SEO), it’s becoming increasing clear you need to differentiate your SEO or die.
Jack Trout first taught us the important lesson of differentiation in the year 2000 with his famous book Differentiate Or Die. Jack used this exercise for positioning purposes, but it’s very relevant in today’s internet marketing tactics, such as search engine optimization (SEO).
SEO considers what people are searching for and how users and search engines value content on a website. Many organizations now subscribe to SEO practices, so we must adapt and differentiate our SEO to stay ahead. Here are a few steps we feel are important in a differentiated SEO process.
1. Consider the content on your website.
Does the copy help make your organization stand out from the competition? Is the content clear and concise on how your products or services are different than anyone else’s?
2. Research keywords and keyword phrases that define your business, but make sure they are not being used by competitors.
Use the copy in the first step to define your difference, then reinforce it by implementing keywords into your meta data and copy that help define and clue search engines into those differences.
For example, every town has 10-20 electricians and they all want to rank high for the keyword “electrician.” A great way to differentiate their online presence is to differentiate the keywords they optimize their website for to the type of sub-service they want to be known for. “Residential electrician” or “commercial electrician” are great keywords that might serve equally as many searches as “electrician” but have less competition. Those sub-service keywords are key to a differentiated SEO process and ranking higher in SERP.
3. Differentiate your organization’s SEO tactics through the links you build.
Links should come naturally with differentiated content and keywords, but we can’t always start out with natural links being built. Sometimes we have to build links manually. When building links, differentiate where the links point to your website. Make sure the links go to more than your home page. This gives the perception to search engines, that other websites value content through-out your website, not just one page.
In the beginning stages of crafting a website, you must pay attention to and write copy that defines your differentiation. Next you should differentiate your SEO to encompass those differentiated services. Using those differentiated keywords that people search for, you must massage them into the content. Differentiated content then gives additional websites great content they want to link to.
Organizations are presently in an age of differentiating their SEO or dying. One way to set yourself apart online and get ahead of the competition is to differentiate your SEO through the keywords we research, content we create and links we build. Do you know someone who needs SEO help? Please share on your favorite social media platform.
