You need to form a comprehensive strategy if you hope to see any real return on investment with your SEO efforts. Everyone has their own methods for success, and they may achieve it to varying degrees; you have to find the method that works best for you. That being said, there are certainly universal tactics and a clear battle plan you can draw up using basic SEO strategy.

Branding

Your brand is the personality that defines your product. It is the flagship indicator of culture. There are more than a half billion brands in the world and they are all vying for attention. How does yours stack up? Few people are aware that branding is the real purpose of content-focused SEO.

Let’s take Groupon for example. As a nascent company, Groupon hired on a number of talented comedians from the Second City, an improv group as famous as Oprah and infamous as the bloody gang battles fought in many a Chicago hotel. The culture of Groupon is steeped in that talent pool and flows through their every email, notification, and web page. When people see the cat with the gold chain around its neck, they know it is Groupon.

Developing that kind of brand takes time and effort, but what do you do once the brand is cultivated? Send it out!

Groupon approaches their target market across multiple platforms.

Mobile – The Groupon application for smartphones and tablets used to just send you an email about what deals were available that day, but the company announced Groupon Now, a hyperlocal deal finder targeted at users on the go. By keeping the name and essentially launching an offshoot to their already successful service, Groupon carries over many customers who are familiar with the brand and attracts new ones who have heard good things.  This model fits their company very well, but it may not work for yours. Nevertheless, developing a mobile strategy is key in finding success in a world where the computer means less and mobile Internet is growing exponentially.

Email – As mentioned above, the Groupon emails have become the calling card for the company. Evocative and provocative, the emails use humor to connect with their consumer base and do so on a daily basis; it is as much a part of their brand as their logo, color scheme and rugged low deals. Other culture sites like Thrillist attempt to use humor in their daily emails, though they take on a decidedly “edgier” tack in order to differentiate themselves.

Social – When targeting a demographic of young professionals, maxing out social media potential is key. Again, the brand must come through and for Groupon it does.

WHAT NOT TO DO

When Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings, announced that Netflix would be separating its DVD by mail service, the service that made the company famous into a separate entity called Quikster, the Internet went into a riotous frenzy. This is a big no-no. Not only was it a bad business decision, but it segmented the brand’s base, forcing them to choose between Netflix and “Quikster”. Users who wanted both would need two separate accounts for what used to be included under one umbrella. It was a costly mistake for Netflix; they lost nearly one million customers after the announcement and subsequent price hike.

Your brand is going to be the first thing about your company that people see and you literally have seconds to pull prospective customers in. Using SEO and digital PR to amplify that brand and its messages is going to be paramount to achieving success in the digital present and future.