Since there are clearly defined steps in an SEO campaign, following an SEO blueprint is one way to keep on track and maximize results. This effectively is known as taking SEO from theory to practice and placing concepts into actions so you can track, assess and refine results.
10 Steps to Successful SEO Campaigns
Assessing the stages:
- Market Research
- Keyword Research
- Landing Page Creation
- Internal Linking & On Site Optimization
- Link Building
- Social Media and Content Syndication
- Split Testing and Refinement
- SERP Results
You can then segment a protocol and map out clearly delineated steps within each. Take keyword research for example.
Assuming you have conducted market research already and have selected your seed-set of keywords, now what? You need to turn those keywords into pages capable of standing on their own in search engines in addition to serving a dual purpose of converting window shoppers just passing by into credit card wielding long term value consumers.
But first, back to the how to!
Keep in mind that continuity and semantic connectivity translates well across a broad medium of tiered pages. By thoroughly mapping each tier, you can have commercial and educational appeal, which further allows you to segment visitor types into conversion funnels over time.
As far as tiers are concerned, at the top are your groomed landing pages with a direct call to action, below that in tier 2 is a category page which laterally ties together other related landing pages which have some type of overlap and the tier 3 pages which can be informational or product based which lend weight to categories and / or root level landing pages (at the apex of consumer intent).
One useful strategy is to:
- Pick your seed set of keywords.
- Create your content (500-750 words min).
- Adopt the use of singular and plural keyword usage on the landing page.
- Integrate the keyword into the title, meta description, H1 tag and URL naming convention.
- Write your sales copy (using the keyword in the first 25 words and surrounded by at least one to 3 other targeted keyword variations or synonyms to create an ideal contextual link environment).
- Use the overlapping keywords to link to your category pages to support equally as important keyword clusters.
- Build 10 internal links from other pages that are (a) indexed (b) contain some type of semantic relevance for the target pages keywords and (c) preferably are ranking, have links or Pagerank – to expedite ranking the new preferred landing page.
- Build 10-25 deep links to the page without exceeding a natural occurrence of each keywords anchor text occurrence (7 instances of main keyword, 5 of secondary or plural, 3-5 alternative synonyms, etc.)
- Use syndication and / or social media (to create commercial appeal).
- Let the page age, get indexed then check the SERPs for its initial debut.
If a page is (a) built properly (b) groomed via internal links, on page optimization and has deep links then (c) that page should appear in the top 30-50 results within a 2-3 week period.
From there, you will have to map out the appropriate on page SEO (on site) and off page SEO (link building, syndication and promotion) to facilitate buoyancy for the keyword(s) in question.
Depending on (1) the competitiveness of the market (2) the authority of the sites above you and (3) your own websites authority in relation to that keyword (often determined by the volume or quality of the information housed in your website or the amount of citation from other sites linking to yours) ultimately determines how quickly your site offsets the barrier to entry and starts ranking.
The above summary is merely one module for initiating an SEO campaign and serves as a preliminary overview, which could be refined into more specific tasks, action items and protocols.
Getting started is the hardest part and knowing what to do, when its the right time to do it and why are what differentiate repeatability and take SEO from theory into practice as a result of carefully orchestrated steps.
valuable information.. thanks for sharing.. but I have a question I can’t find a direct answer for it, when anyone starts an SEO campaign he should be expecting specific amount of traffic and set an estimated time to reach that traffic.. so my question is how do you estimate your expected traffic, what factors or criteria you depend on? is it a percentage of the search volume of your targeted keywords?? and how do you estimate the time (after you do the keyword research, competitors analysis, etc. how do you estimate the time)?
I would appreciate it if you answered my questions
HI Jeff
Great post again, informative and to the point (but alas no 10 step image);-).
Love the way you just fit in your deeplinks, do you think about what pages you want to include before or during the posts compilation? (you have a fair selection to choose from).
In your tips you mention 2nd tier and 3rd tier pages, how many content pages do you need to start making a difference to you own PR? (then again I suppose it depends on the niche and the competition).
Thanks again for a great set of easy to follow tips.
Kris
PS Can I get your opinion of this post?
http://letsfindkeywords.com/blog/specific-searches-absolute-relevance/
Hi Kris:
Deep links are the name of the game for SEO. Ideally, I work them in after the post based on co-occurrence but I never try to over-think the linking strategy.
Since I have typically touched on a topic prior to any given post, I just try to give readers and search engines more related content to cement the relevance and link-flow of pages which could use a boost or some eye-time.
FYI:
I liked the post you referenced…
@Yasser:
Regarding your question – “When anyone starts an SEO campaign he should be expecting specific amount of traffic and set an estimated time to reach that traffic?”.
There are many ways to approach this and various metric to consider (1) SERP position [where you rank on the page] (2) the Meta Title and Description [if it is compelling, descriptive, contains actions words that entice click-throughs] (3) where the consumer is in the sales cycle [just looking using educational queries or towards the end of the cycle and ready to purchase] and (4) how competitive the vertical is.
In most instances it boils down to keyword selection, relevance and SERP position. You can determine what percentage of traffic after looking at Google webmaster tools (it houses page and click-through percentages) but you still need to determine if the keyword was a dud or not.
This becomes difficult, so it is better to optimize a semantic cluster of keywords, then use analytics to determine which keyword has the highest conversion.
You can always look at SERP position to assess just how much more traffic you could garner. Impressions and click-throughs have to be measured differently, just because people searched doesn’t mean they clicked.
Also bounce rate and engagement time and number of pages consumed per visit are also additional metrics for consideration.
If you use the assessment that 45-60% of the traffic for a given keyword is from the #1 position, and roughly 10% of that in the #10 position and 91% of most consumers do not go past page 1, then if you get to the top 10 you can triangulate a more accurate depiction of what to expect for traffic estimates.
It really does depend on the market, keyword and commercial climate, but if you are getting more than 20 click-throughs per day per keyword, then you can always branch out from there to capture related keywords based on the root phrase or keyword cluster.
Taking the reverse approach, find which keywords are your top performers now, then determine how to bridge the gap to the next tier of keywords that represent more traffic, engagement and commercial viability.
I hope this helps shed some light on the matter, however each keyword and condition is unique.
Thanks Jeffrey for your great answer, It really helpful, but this could be effective for a running websites, what about new websites which doesn’t have reliable statistcs data or still in prelaunching stage, should you depend on predicitions from the targeted keywords to rank on or there is another way to get a well estimated number?
and what about time estimation, for example if I am targeting to rank number on on “the world today”, do u do some calculations after the competitors analysis, keyword difficulty, etc., or you just say I will rank within 3 months and hope that you can achieve the deadline.
ah one more thing according to the chart on this link
http://econsultancy.com/blog/6306-12-kickass-seo-infographics
, 42% of people click on the first result and 8% on the second.. what do you think does this means that result number 10 only gets less than 1% of clicks, or it does mean that searchers who don’t make more than on click act as previous.
thanks again for your answer and sorry for bothering you with so many questions
Thanks for writing, I very much liked your newest post.I’ve been burned by a few SEO companies in the past so when I need to look for a new one, I’m always a little skeptical about things. I’m not giving up though. I know that I need the best seo company I can get on with to really make my website a big hit. I had a friend of mine reccomend http://www.bergstrom-seo.com. Have you ever worked with them before? Or looked into them? I’m really interested in what your opinion of their work is. Like I said, I’m not giving up on finding the best seo company for me and my needs. I really just want the opinions of some experts out there and if you have any other suggestions I’d like to hear those as well.
@Yasser:
I just remembered, you can use two methods to data mine competitors keywords.
https://seodesignsolutions.com/blog/seo-tips/seo-tips-to-find-competitors-keywords/
1. Type is the keyword in Google.
2. See who is #1,2 or 3
3. Use SEMRush and determine the % of search traffic they get from that keyword.
4. Use that data in Tandem with compete.com to see how many estimated uniques or visitors they get.
If they get 50% of their traffic from Keyword A, and they have 10,000 visitors per month, then you can expect 5,000 visitors per month (166 visitors per day) from that keyword.
This is a basic technique, but I think this is more what you were asking for.
@David:
Their tactics seem solid, but they are new and the keywords they are showcasing are not competitive “best seo company” is not competitive “SEO company, SEO Service, SEO Services” however are stacked.
When they can topple a series of more competitive keywords of prove examples that have a steeper barrier to entry, then I would spend money.
We have clients outranking fortune 100 companies and no they do not have the same budgets, but the technique is what matters.
Here is a post I wrote a while back about how to evaluate an SEO company, this should provide a bit more insight.
I enjoyed reading your blog. You have got some good tips I can use Thanks
Thanks Jeffrey for your answers and help, and again great article as usuall
Hi Jeff,
I am looking for information regarding ‘How to start SEO campaign’ I read your useful article and conversation with Yaseer and Kris, which is really useful. Thank you for your article. I believe you will be there to help me in case of any problems :D