Let’s start with a plan
If you’re new to search engine optimization then know this: there are no guarantees and it’s a moving target in a changing industry. The reason I say that is I just want you to hear alarm bells if your SEO company is guaranteeing you a #1 spot in Google from organic results (we’re not talking about pay-per-click advertising - yet). There are new and exciting developments in the SEO industry all the time, but you can create a plan that focuses on the basics.
The 4 key elements we’ll focus on to develop your plan are:
1) Conduct an SEO audit - assess the site you’ve got, the keywords you want to use, who ranks #1 for those keywords, and what your competition is doing. To learn more read how to Audit your Website.
2) Content Updates - review your content and rewrite where necessary, take a look at your design and architecture and simplify where necessary, what part of the site will be regularly updated and when will you do it, and what kind of multi-media do you have on your site that would interest your visitors?
3) Link Popularity - determine what inbound links your currently have, check out internal links within the site, select locations for inbound link opportunities, join relevant groups within social media framework, and discover who is linked to your competition and could they also link to you?
4) Monitoring and Reporting - conduct search (use various search engines i.e. Google, Yahoo, MSN) prior to making any changes then periodically after that to monitor changes, make regular and consistent changes to your blog or content, regularly research new link opportunities, join conversations in social networks, and submit to free directories (e.g. dmoz.org)
We’ll get into more detail on the next post, but in the meantime give a lot of thought to what exactly you want to accomplish with your website and how you’re currently doing that. Think also about what you aren’t doing and get the ‘to do’ list started.
The 4 key elements we’ll focus on to develop your plan are:
1) Conduct an SEO audit - assess the site you’ve got, the keywords you want to use, who ranks #1 for those keywords, and what your competition is doing. To learn more read how to Audit your Website.
2) Content Updates - review your content and rewrite where necessary, take a look at your design and architecture and simplify where necessary, what part of the site will be regularly updated and when will you do it, and what kind of multi-media do you have on your site that would interest your visitors?
3) Link Popularity - determine what inbound links your currently have, check out internal links within the site, select locations for inbound link opportunities, join relevant groups within social media framework, and discover who is linked to your competition and could they also link to you?
4) Monitoring and Reporting - conduct search (use various search engines i.e. Google, Yahoo, MSN) prior to making any changes then periodically after that to monitor changes, make regular and consistent changes to your blog or content, regularly research new link opportunities, join conversations in social networks, and submit to free directories (e.g. dmoz.org)
We’ll get into more detail on the next post, but in the meantime give a lot of thought to what exactly you want to accomplish with your website and how you’re currently doing that. Think also about what you aren’t doing and get the ‘to do’ list started.