How to Prepare a Successful SEO Campaign

 Search Engine Optimization isn't out of the reach of anybody. It is a standard set of (freely available) techniques designed to strengthen a site in the eyes of the search engines. However, in order to be successful in what is a hugely competitive market you have to know what you're doing.

When it comes to preparing a SEO campaign you need to be clear about your objectives for the site. Whether it's an ecommerce site in need of a sales lift or a domain used to promote your businesses services, performance is key.

For example, anybody could increase a failing website's traffic. All you'd need is a few extra rankings and watch the visitors roll in. Unfortunately, being able to attract visitors who are likely to convert requires more than a laissez faire estimation of what search terms you should be aiming to rank for. It needs proper research.

So when you are preparing for an SEO campaign, you need to ensure that you have the proper tools available to you. This means sourcing decent keyword research tools (Google offers a free one), analytics software (again, Google provide a decent free option) and setting up your Webmaster Tools for each search engine.

Without keyword research, your SEO would be rudderless. It informs all of your optimisation efforts and allows you to really add some much needed focus to your pages. Without keywords you can't hope to target anything. Visitors might find you, but if they're following a term that is irrelevant to your page, then they probably won't convert.

So when you have your keywords sorted, you need to make sure that your site is working as it should be. Webmaster tools will give you an indication of any broken links, site speed issues and anything else that the search engine spiders encounter.

With this data you can stop preventable navigational issues and ensure that your site provides the search engines and human visitors with an efficient, working domain.

With analytics you'll have the opportunity to track how effective your changes have been. Whilst you'll want to keep an eye on rankings independently, traffic statistics and visitor behaviour within the site can be vital tools in locating areas that require improvement and report back the relative successes

You need to have time at your disposal and the resources to really provide the optimal SEO campaign. Whatever can be done to improve your standings needs to be properly implemented. So make sure that you have the basics done properly.

That means ensuring that each page has content that promotes its unique keywords and will help guide visitors towards the money areas of the site. If you can't produce this yourself, set aside some budget to get in a copywriter to do it for you.

Trying to shortcut areas like content will do nothing to promote your general SEO work. You have to have everything in place and not just simply focus on a single factor, like inbound links. It is a process defined by layers. Ensuring that each individual layer is completed properly and will provide optimal benefit to the page and site as a whole.

So in order to have a truly successful SEO campaign, you need to address each aspect of website optimisation individually. Don't become blinded by a single task like content creation or link building (no matter how important they may be) and overlook everything else. Proper preparation means assigning appropriate resources to each area and understanding their individual benefits.

Steve Logan works as a Copywriter for leading Hampshire-based SEO Company Impact Media. They offer a full range of search engine marketing packages including professional SEO services