One of the bigger difficulties of search engine optimisation is that it tends to focus a business solely on the search engines. While the search engines will provide the majority of traffic for your site, they aren’t the only place you should be looking at for your online marketing strategy. Looking only at search engines can also hurt your chances of success with
SEO.
It may sound strange to look beyond the search engines for SEO, but being aware of other sites on the net is vital if you want your search engine optimisation plan to succeed. Knowing where your target user groups like to ‘hang out’ can help you to plan your off-page SEO and where to fish for links. Knowing what’s popular around the net can also help you to plan your future Internet marketing strategies.
Here are a few key things to look for:
Non-search competitors. Not every business concerns itself with search. Some of your competitors may be comfortable enough that they don’t bother with SEO. This doesn’t mean however that they aren’t still competing for your target market. Look around forums and review sites for hidden competition.
Social media trends: Social media is becoming an important forum on the net, and most SEO experts now include social media sites in their regular search engine optimisation plans. Knowing where and how to look on these sites is likely to become vital in the future.
Movers and shakers: Knowing which sites are influential in your industry can help your off-page SEO. Get to know the blogs in your industry.
