In some ways, SEO is pretty complicated these days, between social media, brand building, link building and of course the all-important on-page stuff; which is why I decided to put together this infographic in the first place.<\/p>\n
Now I don\u2019t want to imply for a moment that this is the right order. Everything should be on-going or at least re-visited occasionally & the right order very much depends on the project you are working on and to an extent where you think your skills lie.<\/p>\n
This guide is intended to be a quick and easy guide for planning out a new project, as well as getting some new ideas for your existing products.<\/p>\n
Keyword research comes at the start of most SEO projects, it is perhaps the most important aspect of SEO; after all, if you end up ranking for the wrong keywords then you have wasted your efforts.<\/p>\n
Keyword research isn\u2019t necessarily about finding unexploited opportunities per sae. In fact there really aren\u2019t many of them these days anyway. It\u2019s about getting ideas for what your potential visitors may be searching for.<\/p>\n
There are numerous guides online that go into detail on keyword research and there are dozens of ways to go about it. Google\u2019s keyword tool is essential (find it here) and depending on your budget there are various keyword difficulty tools available, although the best ones cost money.<\/p>\n
Whatever your strategy, it is best to select the most relevant keywords rather than necessarily the ones with the most traffic. You want to make sure that your site is absolutely appropriate for that keyword phrase, otherwise there is little point in ranking for it.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re going to try to rank for \u201cfence painting tips<\/em>\u201d then you had better make sure that when a visitor arrives from the search engines they find every tip they will ever need on painting fences.<\/p>\n If they arrive and find a sales page selling them paint they will leave again just as fast \u2013\u00a0and that\u2019s bad for business and for SEO<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The second \u201cbit\u201d (I\u2019m not calling it a step because this whole process should be cyclical) is competitor research. In this instance we are talking about SEO, but\u00a0researching your competition is important<\/strong>\u00a0in virtually every aspect of business, even in the real world.<\/p>\n In SEO terms your main aim is to understand what your competition is doing right and also finding areas that they could be doing better. Then you can adjust your approach and hopefully out-compete them.<\/p>\n There are a number of ways to research your competition, so let\u2019s start with the basics. Firstly, your competition in SEO terms are the sites and pages which are ranking for the terms you want to rank for:<\/p>\n Start by looking for obvious signs of SEO on other pages of their websites. Which terms are they targeting? Are they optimized for any keywords that you hadn\u2019t thought of? This exercise can often inform future keyword research.<\/p>\n If they are ranking for a phrase you want to target, look for chinks in their armor. Have they done their title tags properly, is the page actually relevant? Or are they just relying on their links. If they have missed a step, make sure your site does the job properly.<\/p>\n SEO Moz\u2019s\u00a0open site explorer\u00a0is an essential tool. You can check your competitor\u2019s link profile and look for opportunities. Find their best links and see if you can get similar links.<\/p>\n You can also track their links each month and try to figure out what their link building strategy is. Emulate them,\u00a0but do it better<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 just be careful not to copy their mistakes too.<\/p>\n Site architecture is all about how your site fits together. You should have some ideas about this from your keyword research and also from analysing your competition.<\/p>\n In an ideal SEO world you will use your keyword research to inform your website\u2019s layout, but you will probably have other, user related considerations too and you may be working on a site which has already been built.<\/p>\n In SEO terms<\/strong>, your site architecture should ensure that each keyword you want to target is given a relevant page. If you have a phrase which doesn\u2019t really make sense on any existing page you have a choice: Create a new page, or don\u2019t target that phrase.<\/p>\n Good architecture will allow you to make your pages very\u00a0relevant<\/strong>\u00a0for your keywords and will also produce a\u00a0simple navigation structure<\/em>\u00a0so that when visitors land on your optimized pages they are able to find their way onto the rest of the site and get everything they need.<\/p>\n Once you have designed your site you might even want to revisit your keyword research to test out a few new ideas, and you should certainly compare your site\u2019s usability to that of your competitors.<\/p>\n On-page SEO gets left out a lot these days \u2013 it\u2019s not that it isn\u2019t considered important, just that it \u2018should\u2019 be fairly simple. A lot of your on-page SEO should be covered by the site architecture and by covering a few basics:<\/p>\n Note:<\/strong> You should have turned your keyword research into a sort of site map spread-sheet thingy. I tend to use that as an SEO progress sheet \u2013 I check off which pages are at which stage of on-page SEO so I know where I\u2019m up to. Once your site is built and laid out nicely there\u2019s nothing to stop you building some delicious links. If you did your homework properly you\u00a0probably have a list of juicy sites to target<\/em>. But don\u2019t be lazy; go have a mooch around the internet and find some more targets too.<\/p>\n You won\u2019t beat your competition by just copying Anyway, hopefully you know not to upset the big G with silly link networks, spammy spun articles and the like. Nice ethical link building is hard work and can be a bit dull, but it\u2019s the only way to do the job properly.<\/p>\n Here are a few link building strategies to consider:<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s more than these 5 methods, but this post is wordy enough as it is, so go do your own research. Here is a guide to managing your guest posting, which is probably one of the best methods of link building right now.<\/p>\n Once you have the basics sorted, on-page SEO is actually a lot more about the user. In many ways you need to become a usability expert and throw in a bit of old-fashioned marketing expertise.\u00a0Look at your website from your user\u2019s point of view and make it better.<\/em><\/p>\n The principals are simple; a large (and growing) part of Google\u2019s algorithm is user-behaviour, so take a look at your page, think about your keywords and ask yourself \u201cIf I was searching for this phrase, what would I be looking for?\u201d<\/p>\n You are an expert already, but your clients may not be This is another great time to revisit your competition analysis and see what you missed. Does your competitor\u2019s landing page have a great feature that your site is missing? If your competition has something that you don\u2019t, ask yourself whether your site would be better if you added that feature.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t over-complicate things unnecessarily though; adding features is great if those features make your user\u2019s life better. Sometimes though, having a simpler, more user-friendly site is the key to better rankings.<\/p>\n Social signals are all about brand building. You can utilise it even if you\u2019re not a big fan of social media yourself. The simplest option is to encourage your users to Tweet about you, Pin you or whatever else.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t bother opening your own Twitter account unless you are prepared to put in the work. A poorly run social media campaign can do you more harm than none at all. So if you\u2019re not into it, just focus on the simple things like getting your more social visitors to do the job for you.<\/p>\n Try to pick the right platform too. If your niche is a visual one then Pinterest might make more sense than Twitter.\u00a0Some niches might not suit social media as much as others either<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Oh, and for the time being Facebook is (mostly) closed to Google, so from an SEO point of view don\u2019t worry about it. Of course if you think you can make Facebook work from a traffic perspective, great, go ahead!<\/p>\n Whatever you do, track the performance of your social media campaigns and figure out what works best.<\/p>\n Finally, data analysis; this not just the end of the process, it is also the start. Everything you do has a result \u2013 even if you don\u2019t know what the result is. By tracking your progress you can learn what works and what doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Data analysis can come from many sources; needless to say, Analytics is the obvious choice, but comments left on a blog, items purchased from a shop, email sign ups etc\u2026 All offer valuable data to shuffle through.<\/p>\n The things to stress here are the arrows pointing out from this item The list goes on and until you master this step your SEO loop will be incomplete. This isn\u2019t the last step, it\u2019s just the one before you return to step 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In some ways, SEO is pretty complicated these days, between social media, brand building, link building and of course the all-important on-page stuff; which is why I decided to put together this infographic in the first place. Now I don\u2019t want to imply for a moment that this is the right order. Everything should be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n2 \u2013 Competition Analysis<\/h2>\n
What keywords are they targeting?<\/h3>\n
How well optimized are they?<\/h3>\n
What about their links?<\/h3>\n
3 \u2013 Site Architecture<\/h2>\n
4 \u2013 Basic On-Page SEO<\/h2>\n
\n
\nWhen working on a large site I will do this gradually alongside other SEO tasks. No point faffing about with 100 page titles when your home page doesn\u2019t even have any links yet.<\/p>\n
\nGoogle likes to see sites gradually evolving anyway, so this is doubly beneficial. Woo.<\/p>\n5 \u2013 Link Building<\/h2>\n
\nI tend to do the on page SEO for the home page as a basic step and then I start looking to build some links whilst I keep working on those other pages; adding content etc\u2026<\/p>\n
\nYou need to copy and improve upon<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
6 \u2013 Advanced On-Page SEO<\/h2>\n
\nso don\u2019t overlook the obvious.<\/strong><\/p>\n7 \u2013 Social Signals<\/h2>\n
8 \u2013 Data Analysis<\/h2>\n
\nData is pointless unless you do something with it<\/strong><\/p>\n\n