Top 8 steps for SEO campaign strategy planning

SEO Campaign Strategy Planning

Most frequent question asked by webmasters or SEO guys is "How to start with SEO strategy for a new campaign or website?"

Here we will be talking about some of the basic and important steps to consider while planning for SEO strategy.

Before starting SEO for any website there are few queries which should be answered:

1. What is the targeted Geography for the website?
2. What is the targeted audience segment for website?
3. What kind of services or products website is offering?
4. What is the main USP for the website?
5. Who are the competitors?
6. Is there any other Online Marketing being done for the website?
7. Are there any specific product or services for which webmaster want to rank first?
8. Are there any specific targeted keywords which should be focused first?
9. Is there any historical data present which can be shared?
10. How audience is currently reaching to website?

All of the above questions are for existing websites and some are for new websites launched.

SEO strategy planning points :

Planning for SEO strategy differs from industry to industry, but few are some basic points which remains common for every industry :

 1. Understand and read the website:

First thing before starting SEO for any website, all the webmasters should sit and give enough time to understand the website. This helps webmasters to know about the website

• Product or Services Offered 
• Targeted Audience
• Targeted Geography
• USP of Website
• Issues with Website
• Limitations with Website

Along with above points a detailed discussion with web owner can help in understanding what exactly he/she is looking as a outcome of the website.

 2. Identify the competitors:

After reading the website in depth, webmasters should look for the actual competitors present online. Now there can be a query "How to identify a competitor?" . 

There can be direct competitors for a website, which a web owner is aware about and want to compete with. If competitor's are not known to website then we can pick up some of our product name or services and see who all are ranking high for those terms. 

Competitor Analysis

Again there is one point to remember that, some informative websites like wikipedia or .gov, .edu, .coc kind of websites can rank high on search results as they are given high preference by search engines. We will have to be very careful while finalizing on competitors as given websites are not our direct competitor from business point of view.

After finalizing on competitors, we should analyze how they are promoting them selves online. Points to do in competitors analysis

• Domain Authority of Competitor's
• Page Authority of Competitor URL ranking
• Back link analysis for the URL's
• Keywords targeted for URL Ranking
• Anchor texts used for link building

 

3. Identify the keywords to target

Once done with competitor analysis now it's time for identifying keywords to target for website. Keywords are the most important factor for any website and for any SEO campaign to be successful. 

Identifying right set of keywords to target for website requires a deep analysis and market analysis. To do the keyword analysis we need to do:

Keywords Identification

• Do competitor analysis and come up with a keyword list what what they are targeting 
• Do market analysis using Google Trends and Google Keyword Planner to come up with different search volume keywords
• Do brain storming with in the team and with other people that what sort of keywords they will type to look for specific type of products or services
• Check for historical data (if available) and look for the keywords which have driven traffic to the site 

After coming up with a set of keywords, not it's time to filter keywords and come up with a more optimized list. 

Once keywords are finalized, we should pick one by one URL's of the website and should map relevant keywords to relevant pages. It should be taken care that only 3 to 4 keywords can be targeted on each page ( as all search engines have a limit to display characters in title tag). All the keywords should be arranged from high search volume to low search volume in a title as all the search engines start reading title from start and gives priority to initial words.

 4. Plan content for your website

Now it's a time for planning website content. Website content plays a major role for any website to get higher search visibility.

There are some basic tips to write quality content :

Ask Questions to Yourself

• Who is your targeted audience?
• What expected from that web page?
• What is the USP of the page?
• What should be targeted keywords for the page?

Write Text

• For readers not as an article or news
• Plain English should be used
• Concise



Web Content Creation

• Easy to understand

Use language

• Simple, familiar words
• Short sentences
• Short paragraphs
• Use the active voice ( direct message, not like a third party message)
• Use positive language
• Structure content for your intended reader

Space around text

• Use of headlines
• Short sentences
• Short paragraphs
• Bullet points

Information

Search engines and users look for information. Include your main message and keywords at top of your content

• Initial paragraph should contain main message and important keywords to target
• Break your content in paragraphs and sentences

Understandable Content

• Relevant, consistent and meaningful headings with a logical hierarchy
• Content should be well organized and easily to navigate
• Use easy-to-read text styles
• Put key ideas at the top of the page and at the start of each paragraph

5. Identify, Correct and Plan for SEO On-Page Optimization

On-Page Optimization

After completing above tasks, now let's move on to On-Page SEO optimization. First thing before starting the on-page SEO, webmasters should analyzed the complete website from technical point of view, architectural point of view, and on-page point of view.

Webmasters should always see that if any on-page activity is already done or not, whether current On-Page
tags are fine or not, how much modification is required ( as per finalized keywords and web content).

Webmasters should go page by page for on-page SEO for any website as it doesn't give any chance to miss on important factors of SEO for individual pages.

On-page is an important factor for website as search engines stores websites based on that and also users click on search results based on on-page tags visible there.

6. Plan for your Link Building Techniques

Once you are done with your on-page activity for all the pages present on the site, you should move on and work on your link building techniques.

To start with link building techniques planning, you should know :

Off-Page Activity

• Where your competitor's are present?
• Where users can find your website? 
• How would you like to reach to your users?
• Where exactly is your targeted audience present?

Based on above points we can finalize on what back link techniques will exactly work for us. 

But there is one point to be considered that Social Media channels should be part of your link building techniques as they are the most appropriate place to find targeted audience and increase traffic.

Social media channels are given preference by search engines as those are the places where user can write some content. All the search engines give preferences to user generated content, reviews and ratings which actually tells about the popularity of website. 

Webmaster should focus on Facebook Marketing, Twitter, Linkidin, Pinterest etc.

Only thing while planning for back link techniques is that places which are finalized for link building should be relevant, should be active place ( regular updates happening), should have some good page rank (try for min PR 4)

7. Create or Analyze Google Accounts Setup

Although this is one of the initial activity to perform, but can be done before actually implementing all the strategies for the campaign.

Webmasters should create Google Webmaster, Google Analytics and Bing Webmaster account to track performance of the website. Webmaster account can be created by verifying account through a file upload method or some html tags adding method. Analytic account can be set up by adding analytic code on each and every page of website.

Webmasters should create proper sitemap.xml and robots.txt file and update it on root folder of the website. 

Given tools are helpful from performance tracking and planning future strategy.

8. Monitoring, Reporting and Changing strategy

Once done with every aspect of strategy, planning and implementation now it's time to monitor the strategy impact on website.

Previously webmasters used to track keywords ranking and traffic coming through those keywords but since Google has stopped sharing keywords data now it's more important to focus on landing pages driving traffic to the site. 

You can check which pages are driving traffic to your site and see what all keywords are mapped against those keywords. By checking ranking for those keywords we can estimate which keyword might have brought traffic to your site. 

Continuous monitoring and analyzing of account gives a sense how your strategy is performing for the campaign. If you are not getting results are expected then should think about changing strategy or if strategy is giving you expected results, keep on looking for industry trends so that you can bring required changes in your strategy.