Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not rocket science. However, it’s something that you need to actively keep working on, to reach results. I have recently worked with a client on an SEO project, and I have created a process for them in four main parts, to improve their search engine rankings. I’ll share the structure of that process here.

Four SEO Focus Areas

1. Make sure your site is optimized for search engines
   • Use a checklist to ensure that your website is technically optimized for search engines. Without a search engine friendly website, you’ll not get the same results, regardless of your other SEO. I have a 100+ point checklist for my clients, you can compile your own by looking at resources like Google Ranking Factors.
   • If you use a Wordpress blog, check out this post on SEO for Wordpress for some handy tips.
   • At the very least, the main sections of your website should be optimized with relevant titles, meta tags and not be based on Javascript or Flash. If you do use excessive Javascript or Flash, provide alternative pages for search engines to index.
   • DO NOT TAKE SHORCUTS. Cheating will jump up and bite you, in the end. There is no substitute for doing it the right way.
2. Keyword Research and Content Evaluation
   • The second step involves identifying keywords and content on your website. A nice tool like SEODigger will help get you started, to identify which key phrases you rank in the top 20 for. Just search on your own website URL, and you’ll get a list of key phrases.
   • It’s important to get creative with the words you optimize your website for. WordTracker lets you identify which keywords have the most searches with the least competion. This is good for both your SEO efforts and SEM advertising.
   • Start adding content and keep adding content. The debate on whether ‘Content is King’ or not has been going on for years between various online professionals, but I think it’s safe to say that the more optimized content you have on your website, the more likely you are to attract visitors via search engines.
   • Stay relevant. Write useful content for your niche target audience. Keyword stuffing (cramming keywords into texts without relevant context) is a bad practice, and it will not get you results in the long run.
3. Competitive SEO Analysis
   • In SEO, you have two types of competitors; the ones from your industry (in real life) and the ones that compete for the keywords that are relevant to you.
   • Use SEODigger to identify which (and how many) keywords your competitors rank in the toip 20 for.
   • Use tools like SEO Spyglass to figure out who your competitors are and which pages link to them.
   • Build a list of keyword phrases in your industry – keep track of the keywords in Excel or another useful tool.
   • Build a list of backlinks (links from external pages) to your competitors.
4. Link Building
   • Search engines place different value on links to a website (link popularity), but there is not doubt that the number of incoming links to a page effects SEO.
   • Use the list of backlinks from the Competitive SEO Analysis and identify the Google PageRank and Alexa Rank for each link (using tools that do this in a batch format).
   • Sort links based on ranking. Remove the links that have PageRank below 4 and Alexa Rank below a million.
   • Start from the top of the list, and research the pages. Look into whether the website is owned by a competitor (doing a Whois) or if perhaps the competitor could have paid for a link. Remove any such links from the list.
   • Add a description to each of the remaining links on your worksheet, of the website and how you can add a link to it. For example, you can update Wikipedia yourself, but unless you add relevant content, it will be removed again. For DMOZ, you have to adhere to the rules before you submit your site to a moderator.
   • For a detailed link building process, have a look at Linking Matters – although it’s a bit old, and you shouldn’t spam website owners with linking requests, there are a lot of good details on link building (without direct SEO focus, but it helps SEO as well).

Finally, always remember to keep track of your business objectives. Add, optimize, monitor and revise. Keep it up and you will see the results – optimize your content based on which keywords are generating the revenue for you.

photo courtesy of allshots_imaging

Filed under: Search Engine Optimization
Tags:Process, SEO