Rising in the Rankings: An SEO Checklist for Large Businesses and Enterprises
Sarah
Google and other search engines frequently update their ranking algorithms and search engine optimization (SEO) guidelines. While these changes are meant to enhance the user experience, it can often feel like Google is moving the goalposts: Every time you are about to score a win with your SEO marketing campaign, the rules change, or the finish line gets pushed just a little further out of reach. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an SEO checklist for large businesses to help keep your optimization efforts focused?
We thought so, too — and that’s why we created one. Our SEO checklist for large businesses includes 10 tips and tactics that you can use to rise in the rankings and maintain a top spot on search engine results pages (SERPs). We will also share four of our favorite tools and strategies that you can use to get noticed. Let’s dive in.
The Importance of SEO Cannot Be Overstated
Everybody knows that search engine optimization is integral to any digital marketing strategy. In fact, it is likely the most important component of your marketing mix. By prioritizing SEO, your organization can:
- Increase brand visibility
- Build awareness among your target audience
- Generate more web traffic
- Obtain quality leads
- Increase sales
- Stay top of mind among consumers and prospects
We understand that multiple strategies can contribute to brand growth and help you differentiate yourself from the competition, and we appreciate the value of pay-per-click (PPC) and other paid marketing tactics. But dumping thousands upon thousands of dollars into paid ads to make up for your lack of an organic presence is not a sustainable strategy.
Instead, SEO for large businesses sets the foundation for short- and long-term marketing success.
The 10-Point SEO Checklist for Large Businesses
As a large organization, your business probably already has a detailed SEO strategy in place. In light of that, we have omitted some of the basics of SEO, like building a website or choosing a content management system. Instead, we’ll focus our attention on these 10 high-level tips that can help you revitalize an existing SEO strategy:
1. Conduct Extensive Keyword Research
While a multitude of factors impact your rankings, keywords are still king. If you want to get noticed by users and search engines, you need to strategically incorporate the right keywords into your website. Before you can do that, however, you must first decide which words to target.
Conducting keyword research is straightforward. There are plenty of tools, both free and paid, that can help you identify words that are trending in your vertical. These tools also provide insights into how competitive each word is. Once you have gathered this data, make a list of phrases that you want to use in your next campaign and get to work.
2. Scope Out the Competition
Whether a competitor is gaining ground on your spot atop the rankings podium or has leapfrogged you altogether, it is important to know what you are up against.
Check out a few competitor websites to assess their content quality and identify which keywords they are targeting. Use these insights to inspire your next campaign and create higher-quality content so you can reclaim your top spot.
After each campaign gets underway, keep an eye on the rankings and see if your position changes in relation to the competition. Remember that SEO takes time, so don’t expect drastic changes overnight.
3. Optimize Your Meta Tags
Meta titles and meta descriptions are key pieces of data that help Google contextualize and understand the content on your web pages. Optimizing this metadata is a part of technical SEO, which focuses on improving behind-the-scenes components of your website to increase your rankings.
Every page needs both a meta title and a meta description. Meta titles should be 40 to 60 characters, while meta descriptions should be 120 to 165. Both types of meta tags need to incorporate your primary target keyword.
4. Improve Website Speed
Website speed is another aspect of technical SEO. If your website is slow or experiences errors while loading, Google will penalize your ranking. And even if you maintain a high ranking, an unresponsive website will negatively impact the user experience and contribute to a high bounce rate.
Make your website as fast, efficient, and responsive as possible. Doing so will enhance visitors’ experiences and help you obtain a favorable ranking.
5. Ensure Your Site Is Optimized for Mobile
Chances are that a large percentage of your site traffic originates from mobile devices. If your site is not optimized to load and perform on mobile, you could be alienating a huge chunk of your target audience.
Mobile responsiveness is perhaps the most important aspect of technical SEO. If you have a site that performs well on mobile, you can connect with more prospective customers, reach a wider audience, and improve the ROI of your marketing efforts.
6. Refresh Your Existing Content
Just because you are reworking your SEO strategy does not mean that all of your existing content needs to be tossed in the digital trash. Often, old content can be refreshed or repurposed to make it relevant and impactful.
For example, suppose that you wrote a “Top Tips of 2019” blog series that performed exceptionally well. Reuse that winning formula by creating a new edition of the blog for 2023.
Refreshing existing content will save you time, reduce the hassle of brainstorming completely new topics, and help you start moving up the rankings faster.
However, not all content can be recycled. Pieces about old techniques, equipment, software, or services that you no longer offer need to be removed from your site. Getting rid of this outdated content will help create a more focused experience for users and ensure that they can access timely, relevant information.
7. Regularly Publish New Blogs
As a large organization, you should publish new blogs every week. While your exact publishing tempo will vary depending on your vertical and your current objectives, you should strive to publish at least one to two blogs weekly.
If you want to make a more immediate impact on your rankings, consider organizing a content sprint. This approach involves publishing four to five blogs per week for a predetermined time frame, which usually ranges from one to three months.
Content sprints allow you to restock your content library and give Google’s algorithm plenty of copy to analyze when assigning rankings.
8. Add Location Pages
Geotargeting is a tactic that involves making your brand more visible in specific markets. To geotarget with content, you need to strategically incorporate location-specific keywords into your copy. Additionally, you should create separate location pages for each area you want to connect with.
For instance, let’s say that you offer digital marketing services, and New York City, Los Angeles, and Atlanta are three of your core markets. You can create separate location service pages for each city and include keywords like “LA digital marketing,” “digital marketing in New York,” and “Atlanta marketing services” on each respective page.
9. Incorporate Schema Markup into Your Site
Alternatively referred to as “structured data,” schema markup is semantic vocabulary (code) that search engines can use to categorize and characterize the content on your web pages. Adding schema markup can not only help your pages rank higher but also make your content eligible for the rich results sections at the top of SERPs.
Since adding schema markup is a relatively new SEO strategy, becoming an early adopter could give you an advantage over your competitors. However, schema markup can be quite complex, so you may want to enlist the services of a talented expert to assist with this process.
10. Analyze, Revamp, and Repeat
SEO is never finished; it is an ongoing process that requires continued commitment and dedication.
Once you implement these tips in your SEO strategy, continuously analyze your results, apply what you learn to make your campaigns more effective, and repeat.
Tools to Propel Your Brand to the Top of the Rankings
Now that you have an SEO checklist for large businesses, it’s time to start prioritizing tasks and generating compelling copy. Here are some of our favorite tools that you can use to blaze through your new checklist and sprint toward page one of the rankings.
Semrush
There are dozens, if not hundreds, of different SEO tools out there. But Semrush is one of our absolute favorites. Why? Because Semrush is not just one tool but rather a platform filled with powerful SEO software that you can use to measure the efficacy of your campaign, conduct keyword research, and much more.
Some of Semrush’s best tools include:
- Keyword research
- Site audit
- Competitor reports
- Topic research tool
- Position tracking
With Semrush, you can easily determine where you stand and whether your site is trending in the right direction. It puts key SEO data at your fingertips so that you can plan better, get more done, and align your campaign with your overall marketing strategy.
Surfer
Whether you create content in-house or work with third-party B2B content writers, Surfer is an app you should consider adding to your SEO toolbox.
This advanced AI-powered writing tool is designed to guide your content creation efforts. Once you choose your topic and outline your goals, Surfer will analyze the world wide web, assess the competition, and provide detailed recommendations for your content.
As you write, Surfer displays a real-time score that ranges from 0 to 100. The platform lists which keywords to use and how many times you should include each of them. It also offers heading, paragraph, and word count total recommendations.
Surfer can help a B2B writer elevate the quality of their content and deliver copy that makes an impact on your ranking.
Grammarly Business
Grammarly Business grants you access to all of Grammarly Premium’s tools at an affordable per-user price point. You’ll get access to real-time writing feedback, a style guide, admin controls, brand tone settings, and more.
This is a great tool for polishing up content, detecting clarity issues, and maximizing the readability of your copy. You can also use Grammarly Business to optimize internal content like emails and presentations, which will help you communicate more effectively and share important information with your team.
B2B Content Writing Services
What is B2B content writing, exactly? Much like other business-to-business offerings, B2B content writing services are offered by one company and provided to another organization. Approximately 49% of businesses either partially or completely outsource content writing.
When outsourcing, the key is to find a team of writers who specialize in your industry. Enter Write Collective. Each of the writers on our talented team specializes in one or two particular industries.
The sectors we serve include tech, healthcare, insurance, finance, manufacturing, retail, B2B, automotive, HVAC, and many more. Thanks to our dynamic, diverse team, we are ready to craft knowledgeable, authoritative copy for virtually any client. We even partner with digital marketing firms to expand their content creation capacity.
Elevate Your Ranking with Write Collective
What is B2B writing from Write Collective? Our suite of content writing services can best be described as a growth catalyst that will help you launch your business to the top of the search engine rankings.
Write Collective’s talented team of B2B content writers will provide you with captivating, expertly crafted copy that encapsulates your brand voice and values. From blogs to white papers and everything in between, you can leverage our B2B content writing services to generate any type or style of content. Want to learn more about our B2B content writing services and discover how Write Collective will help you mark off some key items on the SEO checklist for large businesses? If so, check out our B2B page and browse some of our compelling content samples.