Client-Centered SEO Activities List

Client-centered SEO Activities List 1

Published April 18, 2022 by Jim Hyde – www.jimhydeshelp.com

This is a list of the tasks to implement Search Engine Optimization in a new or existing website. It will help us identify the tasks that match your needs and resources... all with the goal of moving your web site ever-further toward the top of the Google search engine results list.
Unlike creating a website or an email campaign, SEO deliverables and the SEO process are not easily observed artifacts, and their effect is not immediate.

• They consist largely of embedded words and phrases designed to attract the attention of search engines.
• They involve research and the use of a broad set of other services and software.
• They benefit from activities and ongoing direct actions involving other applications and social media.
• They are on-going, and they are guided by feedback from a variety of monitoring services.
  
  

The purpose of this list is shed light on this process, aid in communication and keep track of progress. We will use this list to track what has been done and what is still to be done. We will also use it to select those activities that best suit your particular circumstances and resources.

Websites can enhance sales, promote services, provide social benefit, personal expression and many other functions – often in combination. I have written this list of tasks to accommodate all types of purposes. The most compelling reason to implement SEO is often to increase business income.

To this end, our over-arching strategy will be to imitate your most successful competitors, using the same proven tools and strategies that have put them at the top of the search. In general, these same activities will make your website more accessible, attract a greater audience and enhance your purpose. That said, we will not expect to go head-to-head with the business that currently dominate the niche you are in. Rather, we will pursue tactics that take advantage of opportunities they do not, and arrive at a position which – if not at the very top of the search – will surely get your site noticed.

1. Research and consider the importance of SEO traffic in your niche

• What are your goals?
• Who do you want to attract to your site?
• Who are your competitors?
• What keywords do you think your potential audience might use in their searches?
• What s your current ranking? That is, how far down the list is your website when searchers enter a variety of likely keywords?

2. Set up metrics
Google Analytics (free) ...”is an analytics tool that can be used to track and analyze actions on a website, such as the number of visitors, number of page views, and the site’s bounce rate.”2
Google Search Console (free) “...helps users measure their site’s traffic, see keyword performance, fix issues, and receive messages from Google about their website. It provides insight on how a website is doing in organic search as well as ways to make adjustments to the site in the Google index.”3

3. Assess and improve website speed
Google PageSpeed Insights (free) tests the speed and performance on any page in your website and makes suggestions for fixing problems that slow down the site.

4. Test your site for being mobile friendly.
The Google Mobile-Friendly Test assesses your site’s presentation on mobile devices. Google’s algorithm favors mobile friendly sites.

5. Compose a set of keywords.
“Keyword” denotes both the single words and the short phrases people enter in search engines. Our target search engine is, of course, Google, but other search engines such as DuckDuckGo respond similarly.

Some keywords are highly competitive. They are already used by large and very successful business and not worth competing on. We will aim to target less competitive keywords and phrases our competitors have overlooked.

Keywords are the words and short phrases people enter into their browser’s search field to look for websites like yours.

5.1 Develop a Buyer Persona
Getting into your customers shoes is the first step to keyword research. Remember, customers are not searching for your site. They are searching for valuable information to solve their problems. Focus on your best customers. Having a buyer persona is the first step to figuring out what your best customers are typing into Google.

5.2 Select your keywords

• Use Ahrefs (free) to measure keyword ranking (search position results) and backlink building.
• Create a long list of potential keywords using a variety of free automated tools, along with Quora and Wikipedia.
• Narrow down the list using Keywords Everywhere and Google Keyword Planner. These tools present search volume (how many people enter this keyword) and other valuable information for keywords or lists of keywords.
• Test the candidate keywords by typing them in to Google and assessing their strength and performance, and to identify which keywords have less competition than others.
• Assess other indicators of your selected keyword’s potential strength within the field of your competitors using the MOZ SEO Toolbar.

6. Incorporate the keywords within your website

• Pick one keyword per page
• Review and revise page names to incorporate selected keywords
• Write page title tags using the selected keyword
• Use keywords in H2 and H3 sub-headings
• For blog articles, include the target keyword in the first 100 words.

7. Write a metadescription to accompany the search result presentation.
Metadiscriptions do not, in themselves, enhance SEO. However, once your search result is displayed, this description encourages the searcher to “click through” and visit your site.

8. Optimize images for Google Image search results

• Rename images using keywords.
• Add keyword-rich alt text to images.

9. Include out-bound links in text and articles you publish on the site or in blogs

10. Determine a set of desirable backlinks.
Backlinks are links to your website from websites that would most positively influence your SEO rating. Identify sites that might publish links to your site. See
Desirable backlinks have the following qualities:

• They are found in websites that have relevance and authority within your niche.
• The anchor text – the clickable part of your backlink – varies from your actual keywords, and the position of the link is near the top of the article, versus at the end. (You will have control over this when these links are embedded in text that you manage to get published on the target site.)
• There are a good number of referring domains that are publishing links to your website.
• The links are unpaid. They were not bought by the publishing site, nor sold to them.
• They are not easy to acquire

Links from social media channels are important, but may not directly influence SEO. “Conventional wisdom says that the correlation between SEO and social media is a gray area. If social links and shares are a ranking factor, they’re likely a relatively minor one.”4
Once search results are returned, however, the entity’s social media presence will frequently be presented below their website.

Get backlinks:
Analyze your competitors backlinks, rankings and traffic using the MOZ SEO Toolbar, Ahrefs, Magestic SEO, etc. Replicate these.

• Create content that you submit to related sites.
• Contact authoritative sites for links.
• Use Mention or Buzzsumo to find any non-linked content mentioning your company. Write them and ask them to add a link.

11. Local SEO

• Set up a Google My Business profile.
• Create profiles in Yelp, Facebook and Tripadvisor.
• Check that your name, address, phone number, opening/closing times etc. are consistent across all of these profiles.
• Ask existing customers to leave reviews

Other non-SEO ideas:
Create content that generates links and social shares. Post to sites with high domain authority such as YouTube or Quora. Publish on these sites and drive traffic back to your website.

1 This article draws extensively on material from the Udemy Complete Digital Marketing Course.
2 https://www.educba.com/what-is-google-analytics/
3 https://raddinteractive.com/what-is-google-search-console-used-for/
4 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/seo-and-social-media/

Copywrite (c) 2022 by Jim Hyde