The complete SEO Process guide for 2021
Table of content
- The Research Phase
- The planning and strategy phase
- The implementation phase
- The follow-up phase
- The evaluation phase
- SEO alternatives
- Summary
Figure 1 shows the phases connected by arrows. Please note
that the SEO process is very iterative. Each phase constitutes its own body of
knowledge.
Also note that Figure 1 uses arrows to indicate the
relative order of each phase, and loops to indicate the iterative nature of the
SEO process. The smallest loop occurs between the (re) evaluation phase and the
maintenance phase, and the widest loop occurs between the (re) evaluation phase
and the research phase. Go ahead explore each of these phases.
1 - The Research Phase
The research
phase is the first phase of the SEO process. It typically consists of several
different types of research, including business research, competitor analysis,
current state assessment, and keyword research.
Business investigation
Before doing
anything, find out about your business in relation to your online presence. In
this phase, you have to answer many questions, and most of them may be specific
to your business. What does your business have that the competition doesn't?
What is your point of sale?
Many other questions and issues need to be asked and explored, and much of be described in your standard business and / or marketing plans, as well as on your (website) Business needs. When it comes to your online marketing, ask yourself: how do you Do you have a good knowledge of SEO and PPC? Looking to target certain demographics? or geographic locations? What are your general and specific expectations? How do you measure success? What do you perceive as failure? What is your budget? Do you have resources available to manage SEO and / or SEM? Who is the owner (driver) of your SEO efforts? What does the project schedule look like? There is some deadlines?
The more you know
about the business, the better. The clearer the image you initially have, the
more focused your efforts will be. Quickly find answers to all your questions.
Competition analysis
Once you know
what the business is like and what the expectations are, it's time to see what
others are doing. How to base your SEO if you don't know the rules of the game?
Rest assured that your site will be observed, tracked and examined by your
competitors or your SEO consultants!
Discover all the players in your field of activity. Understand where they are now and how they got there. Find out who connects them. Find out how much content your site has.
Find out how many
pages they have indexed on Google and other search engines. Calculate your
website traffic and research the keywords they are targeting. In general, the
more you know about your competition, the better. This book presents a number of
tools that you can use to analyze your site and your competitors' sites.
Assessment of the current state
Therefore, you
are responsible for increasing the visibility of an existing site. Now you need
to delve into the site, dissect it from all angles. In SEO vocabulary, this is
called a site clinic. This research process is very similar to competitor
analysis, but this time you only focus on the site you are assigned to work
with.
First off: check the site's current rankings (if any). Then you start looking at internal factors (on page and on site), including site age, <title> tags, <meta> tags, internal link structures, content duplication, cheating search engines, etc. At the same time, you also look at external factors. How many backlinks does this site have? Who creates a link to this site?
From there, you will learn about the current technology in use, current practices, the availability of any in-house technical expertise, web server logs, web analytics, and more. Knowing the current size of the website and the current performance of the website can also help. The availability of resources and the budget must be defined.
Keyword research
The conversion
rate can mean several different things (depending on the context of the site).
For some sites, the conversion rate can be the number of visitors who have
purchased a particular product. For other sites, this may mean the number of
visitors who have signed up to the site. Conversion involves a specific earned
value. In PPC, if the conversion rate is too low, the earned value may be less
than the invested value, defeating the purpose of the PPC campaign.
Keyword research is the activity of identifying and targeting specific keywords with the goal of creating references that are relevant to search engines. For existing sites, keyword research identifies keywords that are already "working" (that is, keywords that convert) and attempts to find new ones that can help drive quality traffic. Additional.
Keyword research
doesn't just apply to textual elements on the page. It also applies to the
selection of domain names, inbound links, link composition, directory listings,
and many other things. The fundamental question is always: what keywords should
I target? The answer is not always the same. Are you targeting the most popular
(broad) keywords? Or are you targeting niche (narrow) keywords?
Result of the investigation phase
Once all the research has been done, it helps to produce a document (the SEO research artifact) that summarizes the results of the research phase. This document should contain all of your findings, including business research, competitor analysis, current state assessment, and keyword research.
2 - The planning and strategy phase
The planning and
strategy phase answers some fundamental questions based on the results of the
research phase. There are several strategies you need to figure out in this
phase, including content management, link building, social media, and SEM, as
well as technical strategies. All these strategies can be grouped into a single
artifact: the SEO plan.
Content strategy
Your content strategy should address all aspects of content: creation, modification, delivery, and archiving. You also need to address the content presentation area - how will this content be presented to end users? There are many additional questions that your content strategy must also answer, such as whether the site will include blogs, press releases, testimonials, distribution, multimedia files, and the like. Also consider what content needs to be crawled (and indexed) and what doesn't need to appear in the search engine index.
Link building strategy
One of the pillars of SEO, a link building strategy is crucial. Whether you are looking for directory submissions (paid or free), social networking sites, social bookmarking, blog comments, direct request, news distribution, or press releases, you must have strong inbound links. Unlinked content can only go so far. Good content can promote natural link acquisitions. However, you cannot rely solely on the content.
Social media strategy
Engaging your customers on social media sites can be helpful and rewarding if done right. You can think of this strategy as an important extension of the general link building strategy. The phenomenon of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, among others, is changing the landscape of link acquisitions.
Search engine segmentation strategy
A search engine targeting strategy can mean several things. First, what search engines will you target? This includes targeting the major regional search engines. There are search engines besides Google, Yahoo! And Bing. If you are concerned about your presence abroad, there are plenty of other search engines to worry about. The large search engines also operate in various search engine verticals. Don't confuse vertical search engines with vertical search engines (which specialize in specific areas or data). The benchmark is for mixed search results displayed on Google, Yahoo! And Bing. These are additional avenues that you may want to explore.
SEM strategy
Using PPC in
conjunction with SEO can help. There are many advantages, especially if the
site in question is new. PPC can provide accurate predictions for specific
keywords.
For example, on the Google AdWords platform, you can target the same the keywords in your ads that you are currently targeting on specific pages. Then you can accurately predict the conversion of your pages for the same keywords once you start get the equivalent SEO traffic.
Technical strategy
There are many
technical considerations involved in developing a sound technical strategy. For
starters, you should think about URL rewriting, avoiding content duplication
(canonization), error messages, and link structures. After the basic technical
elements of SEO, think about some of the other elements.
For example, what tools and platforms are needed to create the site? Will you develop custom software? In the case of custom software development, it is important to understand the underlying software architecture. It's even more important that custom software makes architectural arrangements for good SEO.
There are also many other questions to ask. What browsers will need to be supported? Should accommodation considerations be taken into account? DNS information, file space, traffic bandwidth, backups, CPU usage, etc. can be useful for paint an accurate technical picture. Make sure you understand what is acceptable performance benchmarks, scheduled maintenance hours, and change request methodology (if applicable).
The performance
of the website is important. It is essential for large sites of several
thousand pages. In general, slow sites waste everyone's time and tend to be a
huge distraction for web visitors. Also, crawlers may not crawl every page on a
large site (if it is very slow).
Your technical strategy should also include provisions to track, report, and analyze SEO progress. Part of SEO monitoring is web server log analysis and web analysis. At the heart of the SEO business is web traffic analytics. Converting traffic is what matters. Ranking high without converting is wasted effort.
Outcome of the planning and strategy phase
The result of the
planning and strategy phase is the SEO plan. The baseline plan contains
information about the proposed internal and external optimizations. This
includes on-page and off-page optimizations derived from particular strategies.
The SEO plan is actually a proposal and a call to action to fulfill the
relevant SEO requirements.
The SEO plan is
also a roadmap. Documents the steps and activities necessary to achieve higher
rankings for a particular site. It also documents the steps and procedures that
will need to be followed to add or modify any new content, once the SEO plan
has been implemented. The SEO plan needs to be reviewed every few months
because the search engines and their ranking never stop.
3 - The implementation phase
Once the referral
plan is approved, the implementation phase can begin. The SEO implementation
phase is where all planning and strategy takes effect. This phase includes two
main areas of work: internal and external optimizations. Table 2 lists some
of the activities in each area. Please note that the creation of attractive
content is implicit.
Internal optimization
Internal optimization
refers to the activities on the page and on the site. On-page activities
include keyword optimization for <title> tags, meta description tags,
page copy, and link anchor text.
On-site optimization refers to the general activities of the site. Domain selection (for new sites), website design or redesign, web server configuration, and site-wide performance tuning are all part of site optimization activities.
External optimization
External optimization is as important as internal optimization. The main focus of all external optimization activities is on link building. It all depends on the visibility of your site. Each link referral can be considered a vote for your site. The more quality links you have, the more popular your site will be.
Result of the implementation phase
The
implementation phase can vary greatly in size and complexity depending on the
project. You don't have to do everything at once, and you usually never do.
Entering too many variables can be confusing when it comes to tracking SEO
progress. The result of the implementation phase can be various artifacts
detailing new technical knowledge acquired, problems encountered, and lessons
learned. Also, any deviations from the original referral plan must be
documented with
Justification noted (and any future action to be taken). Procedures and processes for adding new content or modifying the website (for example, backups, maintenance and deployment) should also be formalized. Complying with the SEO plan is essential. Introducing gaps could be counterproductive and could hamper (or confuse) the benefits of another job.
4 - The follow-up phase
The surveillance
phase includes just that: surveillance. There are several things to be aware
of, including spider web activity, referring sites, search engine rankings,
website traffic, conversions, hacker intrusions, and more. All of these
activities are interrelated and are highly dependent on your web server log
analysis.
Webspider Activity
You have just done a lot of work on your site (in the implementation phase). No spider activity can indicate trouble. Observe the spiders' activities closely.
Website referrals
Knowing about
website references can help you identify link building strategies that work.
It's a matter of time. There is no point wasting extra time on specific link
building paths if they don't produce any referral results.
Search engine ranking
The ranking of
search engine pages is important. Without a good ranking, you won't get
traffic. Without traffic, you won't get any conversions. Don't get too
obsessed! Initially, the ranking of your pages might be changing. Focus on your
most important pages.
Website traffic
While website traffic is different from traffic conversion, it is still an indicator of the relative visibility of your site. An increase in visitor traffic is always good news (unless your site is experiencing performance issues). Examining your web server logs can help you spot specific trends. You may even have surprises as to which pages get hits.
Conversions
At the end of the
day, it's the conversions that matter. If you sell a product or service, you
want to know how many people on search engines have bought the product or
service. Specifically, you might want to know the landing pages that
contributed to those conversions. Depending on your organization and your level
of experience, this could be a challenge if you use SEO and SEM at the same
time. Knowing how to differentiate SEO from SEM conversions is essential. Using
Google Analytics can help you achieve these goals.
Exit the follow-up phase
The results of the monitoring phase are data sets, usually organized in monthly report summaries. This generally includes data from web statistics tools and web analytics tools. This output is used as input for the (re) evaluation phase.
5 - The evaluation phase
The evaluation
phase uses the results of the monitoring phase, as well as a series of
checklists (on which to base the evaluation). This phase is also called the
control phase. SEO checkpoints can be set monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or
annually. At a minimum, quarterly evaluations are necessary.
The goal of the
evaluation phase is to see what works and what doesn't according to the SEO
plan. The evaluation phase can reveal many problems. With reference to Figure
1, minor issues will be addressed during the maintenance phase. Major issues
may require a different approach, including getting a second SEO opinion or
going back to the research phase.
Result of the evaluation phase
The result of the evaluation phase is the recommendation artifact. Sometimes that could be a call to action for further investigation or a call to action for other minor adjustments.
The maintenance phase
Once the great
SEO work is done in the implementation phase, the focus will be on maintaining
the website. The maintenance phase deals with issues (minor and major)
encountered during the (re) evaluation phase. In many ways, the maintenance
phase is similar to the implementation phase.
Exit the maintenance phase
The result of the
maintenance phase is a confirmation of all the SEO work done, in addition to
the problems encountered and the lessons learned.
6 - SEO alternatives
The Internet is not just about search engines. If your goal is just to get the level of traffic you want, there are many ways to 'skin the cat'. SEO alternatives (or plugins) can be divided into two broad categories: online and offline. Online alternatives come in the form of paid advertisements, while offline alternatives are used in the traditional marketing sense.
Paid ads (or links)
Paid links can be
highly targeted and generate excellent quality traffic to your site, often
outpacing search engine traffic. If the conversion rate of your paid link
traffic is making a profit, there is no reason to stop using paid links. The
essence of organic SEO lies in acquiring natural links. Paid links are
generally considered noise factors in search engine algorithms. Google talks
more about paid links.
It wasn't always
this way, but Google is now looking closely at paid links. If you use paid links,
Google wants to make sure that you don't follow these paid links when
spidering. It is your responsibility to ensure that paid links have the
nofollow link attribute. Otherwise, your site could be penalized. We will cover
paid links and the nofollow attribute in more detail throughout this book.
7 - Summary
The value of using SEO is clear. Studies have shown that organic search results are more reliable than PPC advertising (SEM). SEO is about having the right knowledge, applying proven techniques, experimenting with new ones, and letting the search engine do the rest. Of course, the prerequisite for all of this is to have engaging content and a quality product (or service). Get away of:
- Make changes to mimic the competition without knowing why the change was made.
- Apply all the SEO rules in the book (exaggerate)
- Don't try different keywords, stop at one or a few
- Make frequent SEO-related changes without realizing the effects of previous changes
Every website's
SEO job is different. What is similar, however, is the actual SEO process. You
should always do the same exercise whether you are working on a new site or an
existing one.
The SEO process
is always on the move. Throughout your journey, various artifacts are produced
to promote better tracking and better management of overall SEO efforts. When
done correctly, working through the phases of the SEO process will take time.
Once major SEO
efforts are completed (in the implementation phase), SEO becomes more of an
operational activity than a full project. Once the SEO fundamentals are
established, your website will be on the right track to increase search engine
visibility.
 Complete Process 2021){kind=link}
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