SEO Strategy: What Does a Good SEO Strategy Include?
A good SEO strategy is not about adding a few keywords to a website and hoping it appears higher in Google.
Search Engine Optimisation works best when the different parts of a website support each other: technical performance, site structure, useful content, search intent, internal linking, local visibility and ongoing measurement.
The aim is to make it easier for search engines to understand your website and easier for the right people to find useful information when they are searching for the products or services you provide.
A strong SEO strategy therefore looks at the website as a whole.
Table of Contents
What Is an SEO Strategy?
An SEO strategy is a planned approach to improving a website’s visibility within organic search results.
Rather than focusing on one keyword or one page, it considers questions such as:
- What are potential customers actually searching for?
- Which pages should appear for those searches?
- Can search engines crawl and index the website correctly?
- Is the website structured clearly?
- Does the content answer the searcher’s question properly?
- Are important pages connected through internal links?
- Is the website fast, mobile-friendly and technically sound?
- How will performance be measured over time?
SEO is therefore both technical and content-focused.
It also needs to support the real objectives of the business rather than concentrating only on rankings.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO provides the foundation for everything else.
A website may contain excellent content, but if search engines have difficulty crawling, understanding or indexing it, that content may never perform as well as it could.
Technical SEO can include:
Indexing and Crawlability
Search engines need to be able to discover and access the pages you want them to include in search results.
This means checking areas such as robots directives, XML sitemaps, canonical URLs and indexing settings.
Website Speed
A slow website can frustrate visitors and reduce engagement.
Images, hosting, caching, code and other technical elements can all affect performance.
Mobile Usability
A website needs to work properly across phones, tablets and desktop devices.
This includes more than shrinking the layout. Navigation, forms, buttons, images and page content all need to remain easy to use.
HTTPS and Security
A secure HTTPS connection is now standard for professional websites and helps protect information exchanged between visitors and the site.
Structured Data
Structured data, often referred to as schema, helps search engines understand specific types of information on a website, such as businesses, services, articles, products or properties.
Our SEO services include both technical and content-focused optimisation rather than treating SEO as a separate set of keywords.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is the optimisation of individual pages.
Each important page should have a clear purpose and make it obvious what information it provides.
This includes:
- a relevant page title
- a clear main heading
- useful subheadings
- well-written page content
- descriptive URLs
- relevant images
- appropriate image alt text
- internal links
- an accurate meta description
The objective is not to repeat the same phrase as many times as possible.
A well-optimised page should read naturally while giving search engines enough context to understand what the page is about.
Search Intent
One of the most important parts of a modern SEO strategy is understanding search intent.
Search intent means understanding what somebody is actually trying to achieve when they enter a search.
For example, someone searching:
“website maintenance cost”
may be looking for an explanation of typical costs.
Someone searching:
“website maintenance company”
is more likely to be looking for a provider.
Those searches are related, but they should not necessarily lead to the same type of page.
A good SEO strategy matches the right content to the right search.
That may mean creating:
- service pages
- location pages
- guides
- blog articles
- FAQs
- comparison articles
- product or property pages
- supporting information pages
Trying to make one page rank for every possible search usually creates weaker content.
Content Strategy
Content gives a website more opportunities to answer the questions potential customers are searching for.
A business website may begin with a relatively small number of pages, but useful content can gradually build authority around the subjects connected to the business.
Good content should have a clear reason for existing.
It may explain a service, answer a common question, compare options, provide guidance or help someone make a decision.
Publishing articles purely to increase the number of pages on a website rarely provides much value.
Quality, relevance and usefulness are far more important.
Content can also support discovery beyond traditional search results as search engines and AI-powered tools increasingly use online information to answer users’ questions.
Internal Linking and Website Structure
Internal links connect pages within your own website.
They help visitors find related information and help search engines understand which pages are important and how different subjects relate to each other.
For example, a blog article about website maintenance might naturally link to a website maintenance service page.
A guide about SEO could link to supporting articles about technical SEO, content or local search.
Good internal linking should feel useful to the reader rather than being added purely for search engines.
The overall structure of the website is equally important.
Important services should not be buried several levels deep or difficult to reach from the main navigation.
This is one reason SEO should be considered during website design and development rather than being added only after a website has been completed.
Local SEO
For businesses serving particular towns, cities or regions, local SEO can be especially important.
Local optimisation can include:
- a properly completed Google Business Profile
- consistent business contact information
- location-specific website content
- relevant business directories
- customer reviews
- local links and references
- accurate map and location information
A business serving several areas may also benefit from individual location pages where there is enough useful information to justify them.
Creating dozens of nearly identical location pages with only the place name changed is not a strong local SEO strategy.
Each page needs to provide genuine value.
Off-Page SEO and Authority
Off-page SEO covers signals beyond the website itself.
One of the best known is backlinks: links from other websites pointing to your own.
However, the quality and relevance of those links matter far more than the quantity.
A link from a relevant and established website can be useful.
Hundreds of low-quality links from unrelated websites may provide little value and can create problems.
Off-page SEO can also include:
- business directory listings
- digital PR
- industry mentions
- partnerships
- citations
- relevant editorial links
The strongest links are often earned because a business or piece of content is genuinely useful enough to be referenced elsewhere.
Measuring SEO Performance
SEO should be measured over time.
Rankings can be useful, but they should not be viewed in isolation.
Other useful measurements include:
- organic search traffic
- search impressions
- clicks from search results
- click-through rate
- indexed pages
- enquiries
- purchases or bookings
- important website actions
- performance of individual landing pages
Google Search Console and website analytics can provide much of this information.
The most important measurements depend on the business.
A website receiving fewer visitors who regularly enquire or purchase may be performing better than one receiving large amounts of irrelevant traffic.
SEO Is an Ongoing Process
SEO is not something that is completed once and never revisited.
Websites change.
Competitors change.
Search behaviour changes.
Services and products change.
Search engines also continue to develop how they understand and present information.
An effective SEO strategy therefore includes regular review.
That does not mean every page needs constant alteration.
It means checking performance, fixing technical issues, updating outdated information, improving important pages and adding useful new content when there is a genuine opportunity.
SEO, Hosting and Website Performance
SEO does not exist separately from the rest of a website.
Poor hosting, technical errors, outdated software or slow performance can affect both visitors and search engines.
Reliable hosting and maintenance therefore supports the wider SEO strategy by helping keep the website secure, available and performing properly.
Likewise, a well-structured website makes future SEO work much easier.
Bringing the SEO Strategy Together
A strong SEO strategy combines several different areas rather than relying on one tactic.
Technical SEO helps search engines access and understand the website.
On-page SEO makes individual pages clearer.
Content answers the questions potential customers are searching for.
Internal linking connects related information.
Local SEO helps businesses appear for location-based searches.
Off-page SEO builds wider authority.
Analytics then shows what is working and where improvements may be needed.
The best results usually come from treating these areas as parts of the same long-term process.
EurMarketing provides SEO services covering technical SEO, website structure, content optimisation and ongoing search visibility.
