In this post I share SEO processes that increase traffic to your website
Here is the SEO step by step process that I use on websites to rank in search results.
- Gather information from client through a questionnaire
- Keyword research
- Analyze and organize keywords
- Determine where there is opportunity to realistically rank in search results
- Create an on-page SEO blueprint
- Review with client for alignment
- Implement the strategy developed in the on-page SEO blueprint onto the website
- Set up Google Search Console and submit sitemap
- Set up Google Analytics
- Monitor and review data
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I encourage all of my clients to build their website based on an SEO strategy.
If you are not familiar, SEO is Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of adding specific keywords and content to website pages that match search queries that your ideal clients are actively searching in search engines.
Do you have to have SEO on your website? No, not if you want to just publish your website. But if you want to attract traffic to that website then yes, you do need to have SEO on your website.
Without SEO your ideal clients might not find your website in search results. Which means you are leaving money on the table. If your competition IS showing up in search results and you are not, then I think we know who the ideal client is going to go with! I mean, at that point your ideal client wouldn’t even know you exist!
SEO is included in my custom design service: Website Design and SEO
Check it out if you’re looking to grow your business through organic traffic on your website!
Here are the exact SEO Processes I use to increase traffic to my clients websites
1. Gather information from client through a questionnaire
When you sign on as a client for a custom website design service, the first thing you will receive is a SEO questionnaire. It’s not super long but the questions help you get super clear on who your ideal client/audience is. You share your services and answer questions related to your business.
There’s space for you to share what your SEO goals are, what keywords you want to rank for in search results. I also request that you share your competitors or businesses you aspire to grow into.
2. SEO keyword research process
I take all of the information you provided in the questionnaire and do extensive keyword research and competitor analysis.
With this I end up with a keyword list ranging anywhere from 250 keywords to 1000+. This really depends on your business, the industry and how niche it is. If I were to just hand over that keyword list to you just like that you would probably feel very overwhelmed. And quite frankly, it wouldn’t be the most helpful!
Which is why this next step is so important…
3. Analyze and organize keywords
I take all of your keywords and organize them into keyword clusters. Basically analyzing them and determining which keywords relate to one another and creating categories for them. This is based on the keywords themselves but it’s super important to keep in mind what website pages we will create for you. Because we need sets of related keywords for each page on your website. These will be the keywords we are trying to rank for in search results.
For example, for a photographer in Vancouver we would want a page on their website that targets keywords related to being a photographer in Vancouver.
4. Furthermore, I’m analyzing this data to determine where there is opportunity for you to realistically rank in search results
So now you know that we use keywords on your website that are related to the content on that specific page. But to take it one step further we need to make sure your website can actually rank for the keywords we pick!
This is based on the volume of searches for each keyword and the search difficulty. Which means we want keywords that have a high search volume (the amount of people making this search query per month) and a low search difficulty (how realistic is it for your website to show up in search results for this query).
These are crucial steps and they take a lot of time. Steps 3 and 4 are where I build you a custom SEO strategy! It’s hard to break it down into a couple of paragraphs but I hope this gives you a glimpse into these steps!
5. Create an on-page SEO blueprint
The next step in my SEO search engine optimization step by step process.
At this point we have:
- Created a keyword list
- Organized the keywords
- Determined where there’s realistic opportunity for you to rank
Now I take all of that information and come up with an on-page SEO blueprint. This is where I determine what keyword clusters you should rank for on each page of your website.
It’s really important that we target different keyword clusters on each web page! This is to avoid keyword cannibalization. Meaning, we don’t want search engines to be confused about which page should rank for specific keywords. Keeping our Vancouver Photographer example from earlier, we don’t want two separate pages trying to rank for keywords related to Photographers in Vancouver. If you do that, Search Engines can get confused and not know which one actually provides the information the user is searching for.
So in this step of my SEO Processes we determine what keyword clusters we want to focus on for each specific web page.
I create this blueprint based on data and research. This whole blueprint is your website SEO strategy. It’s the key piece to creating a strategic website!
6. Review with client for alignment
Once I’ve created the blueprint, we jump on a call together. I want you to look at the strategy I created and provide your feedback. It’s important to write your website copy based on research but it’s also important that it aligns with your messaging and brand. Which is why this call is so important.
If you approve the SEO blueprint I created, great, if not we look at it together to see what we can modify! Once this is approved we can move onto the next step.
7. Implement the strategy developed in the on-page SEO blueprint onto the website
I’m not going to get into the tech details here. But once you have approved the on-page SEO blueprint I will take it and add it all to your Showit website on the back end.
8. Set up Google Search Console and submit sitemap
Again, this is something I set up for you so you don’t need a step by step of how to actually do this. But it is important for you to know what this is if you are planning on using your website to market your business!
“Google Search Console is a free service offered by Google that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google Search results. You don’t have to sign up for Search Console to be included in Google Search results, but Search Console helps you understand and improve how Google sees your site.” – Google
I also submit your sitemap. Which basically means your website is being submitted to Google to crawl. Google has to “crawl” a website in order to “index” it.
- Crawling a website is when Google reads and reviews your website
- Indexing is when it adds it to its information library.
When your website has been crawled and indexed Google can serve your web pages in search results.
9. Set up Google Analytics
I also set up your Google Analytics so you can continue to track your website traffic.
“In simple words, Google Analytics is a free tool provided by Google that tracks and reports website traffic and user behavior. It collects data on metrics like page views, sessions, and user demographics, enabling businesses to analyze performance, optimize content, and improve marketing strategies.” – Monster Insights
A general difference between Google Search Console (GSC) and Google Analytics:
- Google Search Console (GSC) tracks organic traffic to your website. This is traffic coming directly from Google Search Results
- Google Analytics tracks all data to your website. This can be paid traffic, traffic from other social media platforms, referrals to your website, etc.
10. Monitor and review data
Once your SEO optimized website is launched and your GSC + Google Analytics is set up, you can start monitoring your website traffic! I show you how to look at these, just an overview so you can understand where traffic to your website is coming from. You can review this daily, weekly, monthly, however you please. It’s important that you do track your data because then you can see what’s working and what’s not so you can focus your marketing efforts.
It’s important to remember, when you launch a website with SEO it can take anywhere from 6-12 months for it to really start attracting organic traffic. So I wouldn’t recommend making changes until you have waited to see what the results are over time!
You can also add blogging to your marketing strategy which really helps increase your website traffic! You can learn more about that here: 7 Benefits of Blogging for Small Businesses
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