Imagine deciding that your project cannot progress without SEO promotion. You’ve hired an SEO specialist and provided them with all the necessary access to your website. Soon, you receive a comprehensive list of recommendations covering your site’s structure, content, and design.
How do you gauge the importance of these recommendations, and what exactly does an SEO specialist do to optimize your website?
The Universal Process of SEO
Here, we outline the essential steps in a professional SEO strategy.
Stage 1: Website, Competitor, and Niche Analysis
Relevance:
- Online stores
- SaaS sites
- News sites
- Multi-page business sites
- Online bulletin boards
- Corporate websites
- Forums
Upon gaining access to your site’s analytics and search console, the SEO specialist begins by analyzing your products and services. This allows them to provide a general assessment and identify the initial tasks. The strategy and detailed work plan are formulated at this stage.
Key Activities Include:
- Analyzing website visibility by high, medium, and low-frequency keywords.
- Assessing competitors and industry leaders to understand their strengths and incorporate these insights into your strategy.
- Reviewing the structure and link profile of leading niche websites.
- Identifying keywords for new page creation.
- Conducting search results analysis via tools like Serpstat.
This analysis determines if your website requires significant changes, such as CMS reform, mobile adaptation, or a protocol change from HTTP to HTTPS. Early identification of these needs helps in budgeting for content, links, and other resources.
Stage 2: Primary Semantic Core Formation
Relevance:
- Online stores
- SaaS sites
- News sites
- Multi-page business sites
- Online bulletin boards
- Corporate websites
- Forums
With a promotion strategy in place, the SEO specialist collects and clusters keywords using tools like Serpstat and Google AdWords Keyword Planner. The primary semantic core is vital for:
- Structuring the website
- Generating meta information templates and manual meta tags (Title, Keywords, Description, H1)
- Writing content for landing pages
- Interlinking
- Off-page SEO
- Visibility analysis
This process can be lengthy, often extending over several months, especially for large websites. The semantic core is usually divided into sections and categories to avoid slowing down promotion efforts.
Stage 3: Enhancing Website Structure
Relevance:
- Online stores
- SaaS sites (excluding narrow-topical sites)
- News sites
- Multi-page business sites
- Online bulletin boards
- Corporate websites
- Forums
Search engines prioritize relevant pages in search results. To rank highly, your site needs an expanded structure with optimized landing pages for each keyword group. It’s advisable to optimize product cards for ultra-low-frequency queries to avoid diluting the inner PageRank of category pages.
Sources for Landing Page Ideas:
- SERP analysis
- Competitor analysis
- Internal site search data
- Product/service range analysis
For large stores with multiple locations or companies with branches, the number of landing pages multiplies by the number of locations. Unique content for each page is crucial for effectiveness.
Stage 4: On-page SEO Task Formation
Relevance:
- Online stores
- SaaS sites (excluding narrow-topical sites)
- News sites
- Multi-page business sites
- Online bulletin boards
- Corporate websites
- Forums
At this stage, the SEO specialist identifies and rectifies on-page SEO issues, improving landing page relevance and removing duplicate pages. This involves a thorough technical audit, which lays the groundwork for the website optimization tasks.
Key Tasks Include:
- Automatic Meta Information Configuration: Set up templates to automatically generate Titles, Descriptions, Keywords, and H1 headers for categories, product cards, filter pages, and intersections.
- URL Structure Formation: Develop user-friendly URLs that are easy to read and understand.
- Filter Page Optimization: Create rules for filter page URLs, meta information, and visibility of filter links.
- Performance Enhancements: Improve server response times and page loading speeds to enhance user experience.
- Duplicate Content Management: Eliminate duplicates using permanent redirects, canonical tags, and noindex follow to prevent issues with search engines.
- XML Sitemap Creation: Generate an XML sitemap to help search engines index your pages effectively.
- Multilingual Settings: Implement and optimize multilingual settings if your site supports multiple languages.
- Pagination Optimization: Ensure proper handling of paginated content to avoid indexing issues.
- Server and HTTP Header Optimization: Optimize server response codes and HTTP headers for better performance and SEO.
- Structured Data Markup: Add markup for reviews and product cards to enhance visibility in search results.
Stage 5: Internal Linking
Relevance:
- Online stores
- SaaS sites (excluding narrow-topical sites)
- News sites
- Online bulletin boards
- Corporate websites
- Forums
Effective internal linking is crucial for improving site rankings. It ensures that both users and search engines can navigate your site efficiently. Problems often arise with optimized filter pages that users can access but search engines may not.
Activities Include:
- Building Internal Links: Develop interlinking strategies for menu category pages using collected and clustered keywords. This ensures that the PageRank flows from low-competition pages (e.g., product cards or filter pages) to higher-level pages.
- Link Distribution: Use developed scripts to distribute keyword data and improve internal linking.
- Avoiding Indexing Issues: Address issues where optimized filter pages are accessible to users but not indexed by search engines.
Stage 6: Content Optimization
Relevance:
- Online stores
- SaaS sites (excluding narrow-topical sites)
- News sites
- Multi-page business sites
- Online bulletin boards
- Corporate websites
Content optimization involves creating and refining meta-tags and textual content to align with SEO best practices. This ensures that content is not only relevant but also engaging and optimized for search engines.
Key Activities Include:
- Meta-Tag Creation: Manually develop unique meta-tags (Title, Description, Keywords) and H1 headers based on long-tail queries.
- Content Writing: Craft text content for landing pages, incorporating relevant keywords in a natural, non-spammy way.
- Search Engine Requirements: Ensure that text content adheres to search engine guidelines for optimal ranking.
Stage 7: Crawl Budget Optimization
Relevance:
- Online stores
- SaaS sites with filtering and sorting features
- Online bulletin boards
Crawl budget refers to the number of URLs that search engines like Googlebot can and want to crawl. Mismanagement of crawl budget can lead to indexing issues and reduced visibility for valuable pages.
Key Activities Include:
- Optimizing Crawl Efficiency: Ensure that important pages are crawled and indexed effectively while minimizing the impact of low-value content.
- Filtering Unnecessary Pages: Disable indexing of non-essential filter pages that don’t drive significant search traffic.
- Managing Crawl Access: Limit bot access to low-value pages and control the visibility of sorting options.
Stage 8: Usability Improvement
Relevance:
- Online stores
- SaaS sites
- News sites
- Multi-page business sites
- Online bulletin boards
- Corporate websites
- Forums
User behavior significantly impacts search engine rankings. Enhancing usability ensures that users have a positive experience on your site, which can lead to better engagement metrics and improved search engine performance.
Key Activities Include:
- Mobile-Friendly Design: Ensure your website is fully optimized for mobile devices to improve visibility in mobile search results and boost conversions from mobile users.
- Navigation Simplification: Simplify navigation to reduce bounce rates and make it easier for users to find what they’re looking for.
- User Interaction Monitoring: Track how users interact with your site, focusing on metrics like non-returning visitors to search results, bounce rates, and session durations.
- Content Optimization: Write compelling and informative content for key pages, such as the “About Us” page, to build trust and loyalty among users and search engines.
Stage 9: Off-page SEO
Relevance:
- High-competition websites across all types
Off-page SEO involves activities outside of your website that influence your rankings within search engine results pages (SERPs). The goal is to build a strong link profile by acquiring high-quality backlinks from authoritative sources.
Key Activities Include:
- Link Building: Engage in link building by leaving links on forums, Q&A services, and through guest posting, which involves writing articles for other websites with links back to your site.
- Content Creation: Develop high-quality, shareable content that naturally attracts backlinks from other sites.
- Guest Posting: Write and publish articles on other reputable websites to gain backlinks and increase your site’s authority.
- Donor Selection: Carefully select donor sites for backlinking, ensuring they are relevant and authoritative to enhance your site’s credibility in the eyes of search engines.
Stage 10: Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
Relevance:
- Online stores
- SaaS sites
- News sites
- Multi-page business sites
- Online bulletin boards
- Corporate websites
CRO focuses on improving the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action on your website, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or requesting more information.
Key Activities Include:
- Form Optimization: Simplify and enhance order forms to reduce friction and increase conversions.
- Communication Channels: Add multiple ways for users to contact you, such as chatbots, contact forms, and social media links.
- Visual Design: Adjust the colors and layout of page elements to improve aesthetics and usability.
- Review Management: Encourage and display customer reviews to build trust and credibility.
- Personalized Newsletters: Configure trigger-based email newsletters to engage users and drive conversions.
Stage 11: Step-by-Step Page Optimization
Relevance:
- Online stores
- SaaS sites
- News sites
- Online bulletin boards
- Corporate websites
- Forums
SEO is an ongoing process that involves continuously monitoring and optimizing your website to adapt to changing search engine algorithms and user behavior.
Key Activities Include:
- Ranking and Traffic Analysis: Regularly analyze page rankings and traffic data to identify opportunities for improvement.
- Content and Meta-Tag Adjustments: Update texts, meta-tags, and interlinking to ensure they remain relevant and effective.
- Link Profile Management: Monitor and enhance your website’s link profile to maintain and improve authority.
- Adapting to Algorithm Changes: Stay informed about search engine updates and adjust your SEO strategies accordingly to maintain optimal performance.
Conclusion
A comprehensive SEO strategy involves multiple stages, each critical to enhancing your website’s visibility and performance. Here’s a summary of the essential stages:
- Website, Competitor, and Niche Analysis: Develop a strategy and work plan.
- Primary Semantic Core Formation: Collect and cluster keywords for website structure and content.
- Enhancing Website Structure: Optimize landing pages for various keyword groups.
- On-page SEO Task Formation: Address technical SEO issues and optimize meta information.
- Internal Linking: Improve navigation and PageRank distribution.
- Content Optimization: Create engaging and SEO-friendly content.
- Crawl Budget Optimization: Ensure important pages are indexed efficiently.
- Usability Improvement: Enhance user experience and engagement.
- Off-page SEO: Build a strong link profile through external activities.
- Conversion Rate Optimization: Increase the percentage of visitors completing desired actions.
- Step-by-Step Page Optimization: Continuously monitor and adjust your SEO strategy.
SEO is a complex and ongoing process that requires expertise and dedication. If you’re looking to take your website to the next level, contact WayDigit for expert help with your SEO needs. Our team of professionals is ready to develop and implement a tailored SEO strategy to drive your project’s success.
