The SEO Process to Your Site

Monitor, report, repeat

You have found your site’s most profitable keyword niches to target; built and optimized site structure and content; and promoted your site for link building and brand building.But SEO never stops. Your competitors will not stop optimizing, so nor can you. And your best targets may have changed. So you must return to the start of the SEO process.

Revisit metrics (visits, response, goals, sales, rank)

Check visits, Google ranks for target keywords, response rates and numbers for different metrics including goals like email recruitment, sales numbers and revenue.

Check whatever measures you’ve got. If you don’t have Goals or Ecommerce configured then use bounce rate, average time on site and pages per visit.

Check seasonal demand and trends in your target niches with Google Insights.

If you’ve been wise enough to take out a trial subscription to Wordtracker Strategizer then you’ll be able to see trends for all this data in one place. This allows you to make useful comparisons.

For example, visits and response may have gone up. But has the niche size increased at a greater rate, as reported by Google Insights?

Always look for trends – changes over time.

Look for marginal response (what’s happened recently) since you invested in SEO.

Marginal response

Average response rates over 12 months might conceal recent declines or rises. Recent investment in your targets may have delivered more response at first but now tailed off. Or it may not have worked at all.

New niches or sub-niches may now offer the highest response rates or total response potential. Fashions may have passed and new ones begun. Different seasons bring different demands. Time has passed and response has changed.

Either way you’ll need a new prioritized list of target keyword niches and a new plan of SEO actions. You’re back at the start of the SEO process for established sites – a virtuous circle response. If you’ve got comments or questions, please let us know at

The SEO process

SEO Process

We’ve seen that different SEO processes are required for new and established sites. New sites must find their first target keywords. We call this first step the Keyword Research Funnel. Established sites with traffic and response can build on the success of their most responsive keyword niches. We call this the virtuous SEO Circle of Response.

The diagram below illustrates the different steps in this SEO process …

The Keyword Research Funnel

The Keyword Research Funnel is a process for starting SEO for new sites with little existing traffic. Using keyword research tools, such as Wordtracker’s Keywords tool, and your own marketing and product knowledge you will find your target market’s keywords and keyword niches within those markets.

Those targets are then tested with PPC to verify the research. Are the keywords as popular as predicted? Can your site get response from them?

Here are the four steps to take to find out …

Step 1 (Find target markets) finds your site’s target markets and the keywords that define them.

Step 2 (Prioritize first keywords) finds and prioritizes target keywords within your target markets.

Step 3 (Create first content) creates landing pages on your site ready for testing your prioritized target keywords’ niches with PPC.

Step 4 (Test keywords with PPC) tests your target keyword niches with PPC. Predicted popularity and hoped-for response are verified.

Keywords that don’t deliver response are dropped.

Keywords that bring response are taken forward to the SEO Circle of Response.

The SEO Circle of Response

The SEO Circle of Response is for established sites with traffic and response. It’s a virtuous circle based on two simple principles:

1) Build on success ie, fish where the fish are feeding. So, target keywords that are proven to bring response. This is the quickest and easiest route to more success.

2) Target keyword niches (groups of keywords) because targeting single (exact match) keywords doesn’t deliver enough response.

Only with keyword niches can you work at the scale required for SEO for Profit.

Here are the five steps on the SEO Circle of Response …

Step 1 (Find target keyword niches), finds your site’s most responsive keyword niches for short and long term results.

You can do this manually (which will take forever) or you can use Wordtracker Strategizer (which will take minutes).

Step 2 (Plan site structure & navigation), organizes your site’s content and navigation for users and search engines.

Users must be able to first find what they want and then find your related content.

Search engines need to be able to find all your content.

Your site’s internal navigation must distribute your site’s link power around your site efficiently and to the pages you most want to receive it.

Step 3 (Optimize new and existing content for the long tail and links), optimizes your flagship and your long tail pages.

Flagship content must primarily be link-worthy. So visitors will want to link to it from their sites and share it on Facebook, Twitter, G+ and specialist social sites.

Long tail content absolutely must still be high quality but its job for SEO is to target many thousands of your target keyword niches long tail keywords.

Step 4 (Build links and promote), uses your flagship content to build inbound links and shares of your flagship content.

This must also be used to build your brand’s presence across the web because significant SEO success within any market now requires you to be a brand leader within it.

Step 5 (Measure response and repeat), returns to measuring different keyword niches’ response rates and opportunities - especially marginal response rates.

New targets are found, or existing ones confirmed, and the next turn of the SEO Circle of Response begins.