SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an indispensable part of digital marketing strategies. Business owners have been investing in SEO for around ten years. The strategies have changed over time, and so have the tactics. As search engines became particular about a white hat technique and a black hat technique, business owners have become more careful in implementing their SEO strategies.

If you reread the above paragraph, you will notice the use of the terms strategies and tactics. For a layman, the terms are interchangeable and mean the same thing. But for an SEO agency, a strategy and a tactic are two interdependent and interlinked concepts. A strategy and a tactic are not the same. They are, however, used in tandem to deliver the expected results for a business owner.

In simple words, a strategy focuses on questions like why we are doing a particular thing. On the other hand, a tactic aims to answer the question of how we will be doing it. Unless you have answers to both the questions, your SEO efforts will not give you what you are looking forward to.

SEO Strategy

We can define SEO strategy as a long-term plan to achieve your goals. Unless you know why you are doing a thing, you cannot decide how to do it. If you are not sure why you need SEO for the website, how will you know which tactics to follow?

Your SEO strategy should come before the tactics. It is the first step of digital marketing. When you contact an SEO agency, the primary question we ask is what you want from the project.

• Is the goal to improve website rank in Search Engine Result Pages?
• Is it to bring immediate traffic?
• Is it to increase the sales?
• Do you want to enter new markets?
• Are you aiming at your target audience?

The answers to these help us build a comprehensive SEO strategy for your business. An SEO strategy is tailor-made for every business. The tactics, however, remain the same. But it is the strategy that decides which tactics need to be used and when.

SEO Tactic

An SEO tactic is an action (or the steps you take) to execute the strategy and get the results you want. However, it is not as effortless as it sounds. A tactic might have more than one option. In that case, how you know which option to choose?

If digital marketing is a tactic, you will need a strategy to determine which option will work the best for your business. Website design services are one option where you change the website’s layout and revamp it to get a fresh look. But whether this option is necessary for your business or not can be decided only when you focus on the strategy.

• Optimizing alt descriptions
• Optimizing the website for voice search
• Embedding videos on the site
• Getting backlinks from sites with high DA (Domain Authority)
• Improving UI (user interface) to enhance UX (user experience)
• Submitting schema mark-up, etc.

These are a few examples of SEO tactics. We often hear about these tactics, don’t we? But each one serves a definite purpose, and unless you have a solid strategy in place, you cannot decide and be sure of which of these tactics will work for the website.

SEO Strategy vs SEO Tactics

• SEO strategy and tactics can exist without each other. But it is when you combine them that you will see the desired results.
• Strategy is planning, and tactic is an action.
• A strategy needs to have a measurable goal. Tactics already have their purpose defined. The responsibility of connecting and aligning these two lies with the SEO agency.
• The SEO strategy and tactics fall in a loop. From strategy come tactics, which further lead to more strategies that will help in choosing the right tactics for the business.
• The cycle continues as long as you keep investing in SEO to optimize the search engines’ website and gain better visibility.
• The strategy and tactic are two sides of the same coin. One without another is incomplete and of no use to a business. When used together, your business will reach new heights and conquer the markets.

Conclusion

Remember that the strategy and tactics should go hand in hand if you want to achieve your goals and want your business website to bring more ROI. Digital marketing agencies offer various services, such as website design services, SEO, SEM, SMM, PPC, content marketing and email marketing.

This is to make it easy for you to plan the right strategy and choose the exact tactics required to execute it. Achieve your short-term and long-term goals by making wise decisions.