Creating your 2019 SEO action plan

Whether you’re in the middle of getting a website designed for your small business or have a site that has just launched, you can never ease off search engine optimisation activity. With 2019 just around the corner, we’ve created and SEO action plan to set you off on the right foot in the new year.

1. Work on brand mentions This may be a new addition to your website marketing or SEO activity but, you should add brand mention building to your optimisation action plan for next year. Google has stated that it uses brand mentions to help it determine how authoritative your business is in your niche. The more of an authority you can become, the better your chances of rankings.Working on brand mentions is something you’ll need to set time aside for all year so make it an intrinsic part of your plan. Not all brand mentions need to come with a back link (though of course it’s good for your SEO if they do) the important thing is that you get your brand name mentioned as much as is possible. Focus of course on natural brand building and keep in mind that the sentiment and the context of the mention matters too (so a good customer review for example is a positive). 2. Focus on page speed Page Speed is a known SEO ranking factor but with Google recently upgrading its Page Speed tool to offer lots more data, you can be sure that it will be a recurring theme in 2019. The more you can speed up your page loading times then better so you’ll need to consistently check in with this task and make it a pro-active part of your 2010 SEO action plan. 3. Authorative Link Building One of the key things to focus time and resources on from an SEO perspective is link building. While white hat link building isn’t easy and the results are very rarely swift, making it a regular activity is the only way to see progress. Try reverse engineering your competitors’ link profiles to identify possible opportunities for your own site and focus on good quality links rather than volume of links. 4. Review building Reviews are a very important local SEO ranking signal so, if you have a physical shop or location, review building should be a big part of your new year action plan. There are lots of ways to build a positive review profile so make a list of all of the ways you can request reviews from customers. Be sure to check the guidelines of all of the review sites you have a presence on first, as some don’t allow direct requests. Almost all rule against incentivised reviews too.