You Can Understand SEO in 11 Easy Steps (steps 6 to 11)

Are you fed up with being made to feel stupid by IT jargon? Frustrated by not understanding how SEO works? THen this second of two part guide is for you. In plain English, the necessary steps to successful SEO that will bring fair results for your investment.

The introduction and first five steps to SEO heaven discussed how to get a website ready for an SEO campaign. In this second part, steps 6 to 11 explore what is necessary to take a website well prepared for SEO and begin the continuous and competitive process of earning a high search engine ranking.

Step 6 to SEO Heaven - Web Analytics

As with any marketing, but particularly for online marketing, where the tools and results are so effective, it is essential to measure and track results. Market behaviour is very predictable, accordingly, the effectiveness of each part of your campaign can be compared and optimised. The options for web analytics vary from free services to very expensive and heavily customizable packages.

Whichever you choose, don't put it off. Measure your results from day one and use them to improve your site and your marketing campaigns. That old statement 'I know half my advertising does not work, if I only knew which half was not working I'd stop spending it' is not true on the internet. You can and must know.

Step 7 to SEO Heaven - Content Building

Part of being 'the best and most relevant' result is having the freshest content and the search engines look for that by regular visits to you and comparing progress. They use a formula not usually a human being unless they detect potential fraud. Actually, for good SEO practice a website is never done and the fact that it has to change and grow over time give your customers a better experience. The search engines reward a 'natural process' that adjust to changes in the market and your normal business growth. Providing good quality content that is related to what you do, but not necessarily aimed at selling something directly is a powerful, perhaps the the best, opportunity to increase the traffic to your website and the exposure of your business. Most people do not link to pages that only serve the purpose to make a sale. This leads to the next step in this 11 step process of successful search engine optimization for your website.

Step 8 to SEO Heaven - Link Building

The internet works through links, it would not be a "net" without links. A collection of independent pages that are not connected to each other cannot be found and, for the most part, that defeats their purpose. People seeing and clicking on links to your site make effective inbound links that search engines like to reward with a higher ranking for your website. They are also vital for SEO. Inbound links play an important role in virtually every search engine when it comes to ranking pages in their search results. In the normal course of business links are added, and sometimes removed, all the time. This never ending organic is monitored and measured by the search engines as an indicator to importance and relevance so is it advisable to be a bit more pro-active to ensure you get more and good inbound links. There are plenty of sites out there that should link to you, but don't know you and your content. Help them to find your content and encourage linking to it.

Step 9 to SEO Heaven - Engagement, Trust and Community Building

Like it or not social media is a reality whole sections of society participate for hours daily and are fundamental indicators of relevance and popularity. Don't allow your website to exist in an isolated bubble, talk to people and allow people to respond and to interact with you.

Without your permission people will talk about you, with or without you being around. Much better to seize the initiative and become part of the discussion, use it to build trust and deeper relationships with your customers or potential customers. Use it like research to listen to what they say and learn about their wants and their needs. Hear what they say about you and your products, especially the criticism, and improve. You can save the money you might have spent on focus groups and get it free of charge on the internet. In relation to SEO it provides huge opportunity to expand your link building. For your business it increases your brand exposure for a fraction of the cost of traditional more intrusive advertising campaigns that are usually less effective.

Step 10 to SEO Heaven - Ranking and Traffic Analysis

When you begin, or if you have already started, check where you are today to be able to track and compare with data in the future. Look for trends and evaluate the progress towards your goals. You know those goals which we set in the first paragraph before we began the campaign. The ones you should specify before you engage in any type of marketing campaign. Those goals were measurable I hope? If you view improving your SEO ranking as a measure of your business success rather than an essential step to achieving business success, long term you will maintain a high SEO ranking. Why, because the high traffic that comes with it will drive your business. Does the change in ranking yield the traffic you expected? Does this traffic actually convert? This leads to the 11th step to SEO heaven.

Step 11 to SEO Heaven - Conversion Analysis

All of this effort matters not one jot unless you make your profit number (or the equivalent in not for profit organisations). It all comes down to one critical factor, what is your bottom line? Did you make profit or did you lose money. Web Analytics is part of the process of making this determination among other tools and methods. Focus on the things that work and help your bottom line and stop doing the things that don't. Improve on the details to increase visitor conversion to sales. This requires testing. Don't reject anything upfront without testing it first. The things that work for others might not work for you and the same is true the other way around.

Those who really understand SEO, and it is an art, will tell you there is another vital first step, pushing the total steps to SEO heaven up to 12. That step is to be sure only to work with people who can really explain all of this in plain English. Being blunt, small independent and one-man-band web designers rarely get SEO fully and their usually well meaning efforts end up costing more than they deliver. They do get part of the story, they sell their time, but they fail you wasting both your money and your opportunity.

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About the author Tim Meadows-Smith is an experienced non-executive chairman, director and business advisor, from a classical sales and marketing background gained with famous global FMCG brand owners. He has worked with businesses in Europe, North America, Asia, The Pacific Rim and Far East in the hospitality, FMCG, logistics, service and technology sectors. He speaks about internet marketing in a way business people can understand.