Heard the word SEO a million times, but not quite sure what it actually means? You know you need SEO work done on your website, but don’t know everything that’s involved? This is a quick overview of what’s under the covers of an SEO campaign.

I will walk you through the various parts of an SEO engagement, and include the answer to the ever important question of “How much does it cost?”

SEO is the art and science of getting your website listed on the first page of search engine results. There are ways to get it there through paid advertisements, or completely free through organic means.

I will concentrate on a strictly organic method. Although there is a cost to get your site prepared to attract organic traffic, once everything is in place, people will come to you automatically.

So, let’s start with every thing that needs to happen in an actual SEO engagement.

Keyword Research & Recommendations

Keyword research analysis starts with a brainstorming session to investigate a list of targeting keywords that a prospect may use to find you on the internet. The goal is to find what keywords will pull in qualified traffic of people who have a genuine interest in purchasing your product or service.

We need to see how many searches do these terms/phrases get on a monthly basis, and how should keywords be used in the site to attract search traffic. This information is important to ensure that you have the right keywords that generate the volume of traffic needed to create interested visitors.

Competitive Analysis 

Part of this keyword analysis is to look at what your competitors are using who have already hit the first page of search results. A competitor’s site can be re-engineered to give you valuable information that can be applied to your SEO efforts.

You can learn who’s currently chasing traffic for their terms, or targeting the audience they want. Finding the right terms and phrases is critical to attracting the audience you want.

Competitive analysis lets you determine what it is these sites are doing right or wrong.

Identify Possible Keywords With Google Keyword Tools

The use of Google analytical tools like Google’s Keyword planner and Google Suggest will be used to gather ideas to add to your list of viable keywords. With these tools you can get keyword volumes and CPC values to add to your list of relevant keywords.

Targeted Keyword List

After the keyword research is complete, you will have a list of keywords to try to rank on. These words on the list will be grouped into categories of similarity, and used for various type of content.

Review of Search Engine Friendliness Issues

Conduct a site review to determine the current weaknesses in the URLs, Code, Internal Linking, Metadata, Sitemap Use, etc.. That will determine that amount of effort that it will take to address all these issues.

Design, Usability & User Experience Suggestions

The site review will uncover design, usability, user experience issues that need addressed to help improve the way visitors use the site. Usability means a lot to other sites who may want to link to yours. These backlinks could mean another source of traffic, and linking to other authoritative sites is a good signal to Google to boost your sites credibility ranking.

Content Creation Suggestions

Periodic suggestions will be made to create valuable content that will attract more people searching for that content. This type of content will also be valuable in converting visitors to paying customers.

Search Engine Optimization Pricing

You cannot get top 10 rankings for $50, as some companies may claim. The old spam techniques of using thousands of low quality links from pages that are nothing but links farms doesn’t work any more. There are only ten top listings on a search results page, and they were achieved with either careful linking, and careful keyword selection. Doing it right cost a lot more than just $ 50. Search engines constantly change their algorithms for ranking sites in order to maintain quality results.

SEO Methods May Take 3 to 8 Months to Show Results

A single month of SEO work will often improve traffic significantly in the long run. The search engines may finish indexing your site about 4 to 12 weeks after the SEO campaign starts.

As the search engines change their ranking methods, or if competitors mount their own optimization campaign, your search rank may change. Companies often retain SEO firms on a monthly basis for monitoring and maintenance. If much of your sales or sales leads come from the web, then continual maintenance is a must.

The Search Engine Optimization process often requires changing web pages, building links, building new content web pages, and re submitting your site to the search engines. Then, we wait to see if your traffic and your search engine rank increases. Sometimes this process will go through several cycles before we get the results you want.

If there are many competitors in your field, you may need 6 to 12 months of steady SEO work, promotion through Public Relations and link building, to achieve and to maintain your goals.

The Real Value of Increased Website Traffic

Some firms will spend $ 20,000 annually on yellow page ads that list them among thousands of firms, but are slow to invest in a professional Search Engine Marketing program that lists them at the top among a few firms. If optimization is performed properly, after careful study of your customers, your industry segment and your keyword phrases, the increase in web traffic and sales will easily justify the initial cost.

The bottom line is the search market is extremely competitive, and you can’t afford to drop the ball for one second. The race will be won by consistently running, maintaining, and improving your search engine efforts by playing the long game. When the results roll in, it will snowball your way to profits.

The longer you apply SEO tactics to your marketing, the greater you return on investment. Remember, you are playing the long game. Your persistence will pay off. Also, as always, I am hear to help every step of the way. Feel free to contact me anytime.