SEO is a complex process that works best when approached as a series of small, well-managed projects.
We’ve been applying SEO campaigns to our client’s websites for years as an SEO agency. In this post, I will share with you the SEO campaign checklist we (Hasty Rank) use before launching an SEO campaign for one of our SEO clients. Hopefully, it will help you not miss out on any SEO basics and run your SEO campaign more efficiently!
Off-page SEO:
It refers to all activities performed by search engine optimization outside of the website itself that can affect its ranking in search engines such as Google or Bing. The aim is to improve the website’s search engine visibility and rank on search engine result pages (SERPs).
On-page SEO:
Also known as on-page SEO, all SEO activities can be done inside of a website. The aim is to make sure the site is easily crawled by SEO bots and structured so that SEO bots can index it properly. As a result, websites will have higher rankings because SEO bots show them as more relevant than other SERP results.
Checklist:
The title tag appears first on a browser tab or window, so keywords are ample on your ranking. If using SEO professionals, ask them to create a title tag and description for your website.
2) Keyword Research:
Search volume is the frequency with which a particular search term or SEO- the phrase is entered into a search engine over a while. Enter your primary keyword and run it through the Google Keyword Planner tool to get an idea about how many searches per month are performed globally and on which specific search engines such as Bing, Yahoo, etc.
3) Segment the list based on the search engines where you want a higher rank:
E.g., if you have chosen search engine 1, SEO company 1 & SEO company 2 for this quarter, make sure SEO company one is optimizing only for search engine 1. This would be helpful if SEO company 1 has more expertise on this SEO platform, and hence you get desired results faster than SEO company 2.
4) On-page Optimisation:
– Build a website that follows SEO guidelines:
Add meta tags like meta description, title tag, and SEO-friendly URL structure (http://www-example.com/seofriendlyurl.html). E.g., instead of using www in URL, whether or not to use www can affect your rank because google prefers one domain over the other.
– Use Google Analytics for tracking traffic sources:
It is essential to know where visitors are coming from. It will help the organization to understand if a campaign is successful or not and can further improve future campaigns.
-Add keywords into the header tags:
Meta Title, H1 tag, and first paragraph of the article are considered header tags. Make sure you use those keywords here, as this is one of the SEO basics. Adding those keywords helps search engine bots pick up your website as the relevant content for the given keyword and rank it higher on SERPs.
5) Build links:
It refers to the incoming hyperlinks pointing to a webpage that search engine bots crawl and use as one of the SEO basics while determining site relevancy and ranking.
There are two types of links: editorial and contextual links. Editorial links refer to links that are explicitly placed within the content of a page, and Contextual links refer to links that have been placed on pages other than the first one for a particular keyword.
6) Content Optimization:
– Use your target keywords in title, URL, meta description, and throughout the article where relevant (at least 2% keyword density):
SEO companies should make sure they optimize every piece of content on your site with targeted keywords. The reason why SEO companies do this is that Google measures user engagement as an SEO metric.
If users like it, then google will rank it higher (if all SEO basics are followed). So ask SEO company to use your primary SEO phrase into title tag and meta tags too.
– Create new pages on your site for every new campaign you run.
-Use related keywords in content:
It is crucial to find out which words your customers are using on search engines to find the products or services that you offer. Using those target keywords will be helpful as it tells search engines what kind of content user is expecting on this page.
E.g., if someone searches “SEO companies,” then they are expecting information about SEO companies, therefore using phrases like SEO company names, SEO agency, SEO consultants, etc. were relevant to tell Google bots that you are an authority website for SEO.
7) URL Optimisation:
– Use hyphens instead of underscores or numbers when building URLs
If two words were meant to be separate in a URL, use hyphens instead of underscores or digits. E.g., a person-scholarly article. In this case, the scholar is a related SEO word to the primary phrase “person” and hence will help SEO companies rank your page higher.
8) Content Promotion:
– Create high-quality content that differentiates you from your competitors:
Include images and videos on all SEO campaign pages because it helps search engine bots better understand the content on the page, which, in turn, helps with ranking higher. Plus, having visual elements will make users stay longer on your web page, telling Google bots that users find your website valuable. Again ask SEO company to do SEO for video, too if you have one.
– Ensure that you have a high Google ranking for your web address:
Include your primary SEO phrase into the title tag, meta description, and URL as this tells Google bots what kind of content user is expecting on these pages. E.g., if someone searches “SEO agencies,” then they are expecting information about SEO companies, therefore use phrases like SEO company names, SEO agency, SEO consultants, etc. were relevant to tell Google bots that you are an authority website for SEO.
– Use Search Console to monitor organic traffic trends:
Google Search Console helps tell how many visitors are coming from search engines (organic traffic). It will help organizations track progress on their SEO campaign checklist.
9) Analyzing results:
– Monitor rankings in search engines for your campaign keywords:
SEO companies should monitor their rankings in SERPs (search engine result pages) because it’s one of the easiest ways to determine if your SEO campaign is having any effect or not. Remember that SEO ranking fluctuates over time, but the general SEO graph should be upward sloping. This tells us that SEO companies are doing an excellent job of keeping SEO company web addresses high on SEO ranks.
10) Measuring success:
– Track total visitors and conversions (leads, sales, sign-ups):
You can track organic traffic using Google Analytics or similar tools like KISSmetrics, etc. It helps you know how many visitors are coming from search engines and whether they are converting into your desired outcome, such as leads, sales, sign-ups, etc.
– Track campaign metrics:
Google Analytics provides a great SEO campaign checklist for tracking all SEO campaign-related data like revenue, conversions per page, etc., E.g., if the keyword phrase you targeted to rank higher is “SEO agency,” then track how many times this SEO company term is used on the SEO company website and try to improve those SEO numbers by using other SEO techniques like content marketing.
In closing, I hope that the SEO checklist mentioned above has been helpful for you in getting to know what kind of SEO work needs to be done for an SEO campaign checklist. If you are looking for an SEO company, Hasty Rank is one of the SEO companies around the world. You may contact Hasty Rank to know more about SEO companies and find SEO services offered by us.