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SEO Checklist: Fundamental steps for every SEO campaign

Posted by Michael Martinez on September 12, 2007 in SEO Theory, Search Engine Optimization

Keyword Analysis

Also called “keyword research”, keyword analysis is the starting point for all search engine optimization. Use your keyword research to determine where your content should be visible AND to analyze the market you’ll be approaching.

Keyword analysis works best if you consider query trends over the past 1-2 years.

Keyword analytics tools are mediocre at best, so be sure you use at least 2 or 3 for each SEO campaign.

Web site design

Web site design falls into two categories: concept and architecture. Web site concept determines what the site will be (directory, retail site, affiliate link farm, informational site, community site, etc.). Web site architecture focuses on the layout (page design), navigation, and site structures (directories, sub-directories, etc.).

There is no such thing as a “flat Web site”. By definition, all Web documents are only one link away from some other Web document. “Deep content” is more of a conceptual issue than an architectural issue. After all, your root URL can link down to any page six directories deep.

You divide your on-page content into “information about information”, “navigational information”, and “core information”. But “core information” can be divided into “primary information” and “secondary information”. Core information is, of course, the body copy. Your “navigational information” includes your menus and intrasite navigational links but also links to important information (such as partner sites, trademark attributions, etc.). Your “information about information” includes page titles, meta data, and alt attributes but may also include HTML element titles, HTML comments, etc.

For Web sites with fewer than 10 pages you don’t really need an HTML sitemap. If you have between 10 and 50 pages you can get by without an HTML sitemap but it does help with internal crawling as long as you have every page on the site link to the HTML sitemap.

If you have 15-20 pages you probably have enough content that it can be organized into sections. Some sites lend themselves to sub-sectioning with fewer than 10 pages but that is rare. Generally speaking, if I’m going to use sub-sections, I’m going to include an HTML sitemap.

If you have more than 20 pages you pretty much need sub-sections but I’ve occasionally created sites that got by without them. When you get above 30 pages you’re insane NOT to sub-section a Web site.

Sub-domains should not be used frivolously. While there is some benefit to using sub-domains (their links and content will be treated as separate Web sites), you have to understand there are tradeoffs. The opportunity cost of spreading content across sub-domains may be greater than the search visibility benefit you’ll gain. Use some common sense and think about how coherent the content will be to a visitor. You may think they don’t care about URLs but to many changes in base location look suspicious even to the untrained eye.

XML Sitemap

XML sitemaps are all you need for effective free search engine submission services. You no longer need to pay someone to submit your sites to search engines (okay, you never really did need to pay anyone to do that). You can create an XML sitemap and point to it in your “robots.txt” file. You can also verify your site with Yahoo! and Google and tell them where to find your XML sitemaps.

XML sitemaps make free web site search engine submission insanely easy and efficient. Anyone can use them, and there are plenty of tools out there to help you create valid XML sitemaps.

Very large content sites should use multiple XML sitemaps. You can link to them all from a master sitemap but I have found that submitting multiple XML sitemaps doesn’t cause any problems. Keep in mind that I haven’t submitted thousands of XML sitemaps for any one site. Use some common sense here.

If someone approaches you offering to do Web site search engine submission for you, ask them which XML sitemap tools they use. If they say they “submit by hand” or that they offer professional search engine submission you know they’re just taking money from people.

Don’t set your page priorities higher than 0.5 except for your root URL and your HTML sitemap. It’s okay to set incidental pages like your “About Us”, “Contact Us”, etc. pages to a priority of 0.4. I don’t recommend a wide variation in page crawl priorities (these priorities are only relative to your one site).

I don’t like to set my update frequencies to less than a week. I’m not going to mess with a Web site that much and if I do continually add content (as on a blog) the RSS feeds can take care of notifying the search engines of new pages. The best frequency is once a week or month. So far, all I’ve seen for sure is that the search engines fetch my XML sitemaps about as often as my frequency settings.

Linking

This is probably your favorite part of search engine optimization. What most people in the industry don’t realize, however, is that most of your truly effective linking has already been done by the time you reach this stage. That is, your internal links work nearly as well and in some cases better than external links.

But you still want some external links. Search engine optimization aside, there is that nagging doubt that will haunt you if no one else chooses to link to your Web site. So be a good Web site marketer and go get some links.

Assuming you’re not optimizing for SEO, pizza, or Britney Spears, you probably don’t need more than half a dozen links (for counting purposes only, treat all links from one domain or sub-domain as 1 link). If you’re competing on link anchor text you might as well skip the first three sections of this checklist.

Evaluate

This is the evaluate part of the SEO method (Experiment. Evaluate. Adjust.). Evaluation begins with checking your work. Yes, you should have checked it carefully at each stage but the human mind is a funny thing. You often remember that you left the sale coupons on the dresser when you’re halfway to the store.

Turn around, go back, and fix things. Add content. Adjust your links. Ask yourself, “Have I done all I can do in a reasonable amount of time?” Be sure you frame that question exactly as I did: use the word “reasonable”. If you don’t force yourself to put a limit on the amount of time you spend on each phase of the process, you’ll spend the rest of your life tweaking pages and building links.

Having reviewed your work and made last minute tweaks and fixes, it’s time for you to start checking the search results — on a weekly basis. But what are you looking for?

You want to see how fast your pages are indexed. If you have done everything right, it should take less than a month. Some verticals may be subjected to additional scrutiny but for the most part you should see your pages start appearing in the search results in a week to 10 days.

As you find pages in the indexes, start looking for their titles and unique anchor text. It may take 2-3 days for a search engine to fully integrate that data into its index data. Just because you see a page in a site search doesn’t mean the search engine has absorbed all its data into the searchable indexes.

By the end of the first month you should have a pretty good idea of whether your pages are going to rank for anything. Even in a moderately competitive query you should see some significant action if you have enough content and internal linkage to build a substantial site (which can still be fewer than 100 pages).

Adjust

This is the adjust part of the SEO method. After the first month you can begin changing page titles, adding content, replacing content, etc. You should have a pretty good idea by now of whether your meta descriptions are working. If they could use a few tweaks, now is the time to tweak.

And if you want, add some more links but remember that what you do on your site has a much broader impact on your search engine optimization than links you chase around the Web. You won’t even know which links pass value or when they start to pass value.

Report

Many SEO firms offer no more than monthly reporting. If you’re directly responsible for search engine optimization then checking your rankings once a week is sufficient. If you report to a client or someone else in your company try to limit the reporting to no more than twice a month. Once a month is better.

Monthly reporting gives you time to work on problems that occur. Remember there are four reasons why your search referrals change:

1. You do something with your site
2. Other people do something with their sites
3. Search engines do something with their data
4. People change the way they search

When you see a dropoff in referrals, you need about a month to evaluate what is going on (are your competitors being hit or just your site?), figure out a plan of action, execute it, and spend enough time evaluating.

It should take no more than six months for a site to achieve high visibility in a moderately competitive query (anything to do with local real estate and travel services is moderately competitive). Many less competitive queries should take less than six months.

This is not a formula for guaranteed success. After all, search engine optimization seeks equilibrium points where content and links cancel each other out. Content will work better on one side of that point and links will work better on the other side of that point.

But multiple SEOs targeting the same queries can also cancel out each other’s efforts. You have to continually evaluate and adjust until you achieve stability at a visibility level that is acceptable. Then you can stop and turn your attention to other projects.