The first results of the SEO-promotion are visible only after a few months after the start. Correction of the site promotion plan makes sense only after analyzing these results. Therefore, the initial plan for SEO-promotion is usually calculated for six months.
Plan for the promotion of the site more than six months does not make sense, since you can’t anticipate the activity of competitors. The algorithms of promotion in the search engines are changing. So be prepared for the fact that in the course of SEO plan will be adjusted.
Where to begin? Let’s discuss the key stages of website promotion and the sequence of steps for SEO-optimization.
To begin with, you need to make sure that the web analytics tools are active. If the site had not previously been connected to Yandex.Metrika and Webmaster, Google Analytics, Search Console — this should be done immediately. Make sure that the site is open for indexing. See what can be refined in the template and assess the usability of this resource.
At this stage, you determine the need to replace or modify the CMS and template, and realize the amount of work to be dealt with.
Here are the parameters by which to conduct an initial analysis of competitors:
Compiling the structure of the site on the semantic core
If up to this point there was a certain structure of the site, it is extremely wrong to refine it. There is no need to please the customer if he/she has his/her own vision of the structure.
At this stage of SEO-promotion, only one recipe is effective: to make a complete semantic core from the very beginning. After that, parsing and clustering of queries of different frequencies is carried out. Then they are scattered over the existing and newly created landing pages.
In other words, the structure should be discussed and agreed upon on the basis of the semantic core. If the customer will be against the new structure, he/she should be warned that some of the queries may not be promoted in search.
You should be prepared for the fact that this process will be long and laborious. A site-card may contain only a few dozen keywords, while a large online store can be promoted by a hundred thousand queries. Where do they come from?
You will need a semantic core not only for creating the structure, but also for forming meta tags, linking and external optimization of the site. If you understand that your site will contain a lot of queries, divide all the information by sections, then by categories, subcategories. So you can collect the semantic core in parallel with other works on promotion.
Pay attention to clustering. If you enter, for example, the query “buy a wooden wardrobe”, you get in the output a specific list of sites:
To get to a high position in search engine rankings, you need to clean up queries on different landing pages. This means that similar queries should be present only on one page. Each low-frequency query is better to use separately. This is most relevant to online stores, where the product card is promoted for a particular query.
In our case, the query “buy wooden wardrobe” and “buy a wardrobe with a mirror” should be on different pages. If your site has no pages for specific categories, sections and other branches, then it would be logical to create them. Expand your semantic core by product range. The more queries you have, the more chances to increase the number of visitors.
Manually assigning tens of thousands of keyword phrases to groups can take a long time, so you can use Clustering in Serpstat to automate the process. The tool combines similar phrases using user-defined parameters: Soft or Hard clustering, Weak or Strong correlation between phrases.
The output is pure semantics, indicating the existing pages and those that need to be added to the collected queries. It may look like this in Excel:
When promoting a site in different cities, create landing pages for each city. For example, “wardrobes Moscow”, “wardrobes Ivanovo”, etc.
Analyze existing meta tags, check pages for duplicates and assess the current situation with the structure of the site. This is done by conducting a technical audit with the help of SEO services. Be sure to pay attention to the following points:
This is the most relevant if you are working on a competitive project, regardless of its subject. The essence of the process is to build up the external reference mass from authoritative sources. Strive to ensure that as many donors as possible referred to your site. This should be done gradually, creating textual content with key queries.
Use natural sources like forums and comments, as well as link exchangers. Interact directly with website owners who can also link to your resource.
This is a permanent job, which does not lose its relevance. However, the greatest number of external links is usually created during the first months.
Promotion algorithms are regularly updated and vary in part depending on the search engines. SEO specialists have to regularly follow these updates and adjust the promotion strategy.
Put all these activities in the SEO-plan by months, making consultation with the client. How exactly to schedule them, in what order — it all depends on the site being promoted, the wishes of the client, the allocated budget, promoted queries, and the technical state of the site and competitors’ activities.
This article was written under the guidance of Evgeny Gluschenko, CEO of Intop-Media