What is SEO?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a set of measures and actions aimed at eliminating, preventing and minimizing technical errors on the site, as well as improving its readability for search engine robots. The main goal of SEO is to make it faster and easier for users to find the information they need, and to make this information match their queries in Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines.
Often you can meet requests for website promotion, where the terms “SEO optimization” or “SEO promotion” are mentioned, which is erroneous, because CEO is the head of the company, Chief Executive Officer. Even the phrases “SEO promotion” or “SEO optimization” contain a tautology, as SEO already includes the word “optimization” and literally translates as “optimization for search engines”.
Search engine optimization involves constant actions to develop your website in three main directions:
- Internal optimization: adjusting the technical aspects of the site to improve its interaction with search engines.
- Content component: creating and optimizing content to interact with the target audience.
- Work with behavioral factors: improving key business performance indicators through analysis and optimization of user behavior.
To start work on SEO the presence of an online store or a ready-made website is not a prerequisite. It is important to understand that successful search engine optimization starts from the moment of planning your web resource and continues at all stages of its development.
When you need SEO
One of the key moments before starting work on SEO is the formation of goals and objectives that the client sets for the performer. Without clearly defined goals and objectives, any cooperation will be associated with high risks. The number of specialists (and their qualifications) needed to achieve them depends on the goals and objectives.
SEO optimization is necessary for a project if its owner can track and improve the following key performance indicators (KPIs):
- Synthetic KPIs – indirectly affecting profit:
- Percentage of the site’s landing pages in the search engine index.
- Visibility of the site in the search engine.
- Site traffic.
- Number of new and repeat visits.
- Business KPIs – directly affecting profit:
- Number of registrations, subscriptions or applications.
- Number of conversions from visitors to customers.
- The amount of the average check.
- Number of repeat orders.
- ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) – return on investment.
It is important to realize that SEO website promotion is one of the key components of a successful business. However, more than 90% of new websites are developed with only the customer’s vision in mind, and SEO specialists are involved at the “finished product” stage. This leads to the need to correct mistakes, which wastes time and kills the potential of promoting the site in search engines at early stages.
Implementing SEO at the site development stage is a strategic step. Competent optimization for search engines allows you to prevent mistakes that can negatively affect further promotion, and take into account search demand. This helps to increase audience coverage at the start of the resource, which contributes to a faster payback and increased profits.
Step one: analyze the site, topics and competitors
For which projects this step is relevant:
- Online stores
- Service and product sites
- News sites
- Business card sites (not one-page sites)
- Bulletin boards
- Corporate sites
- Forums
Google Webmasters Panel – analyze without panic
When an SEO-specialist gets access to the project analytics and webmaster panels (or adds a site there himself), he starts analyzing the goods and services of the project, as well as gives a general assessment of the site to understand what work needs to be done first.
At this stage, a project promotion strategy and a detailed work plan are formed.
What exactly does the specialist do?
- Analyzes the overall visibility of the site not only for high-frequency queries, but also for medium- and low-frequency.
- Analyzes competitors, market leaders to understand what to emphasize in this topic and what in the sites of competitors are better.
- Examines the structure of the leading sites in the niche, their link profile.
- Determines the queries for which the client’s site should be created and optimized landing pages.
- Conducts both standard analytics based on search results and system analytics, for example, using Serpstat.
What is the difference between http and https
Why is all this necessary? SEO-specialist determines whether it is necessary to make global changes on the site at once. For example, changing the CMS (content management system), adapting the site for mobile devices, switching from http to https and so on.
A competent specialist notifies in advance of the need for global changes to clarify with the programmers the possibility of, for example, finalizing the current version of the CMS.
This also helps to clarify the budget for site promotion – the cost of content, links and other expenses.
It is better to make global changes in advance, otherwise in the third or fourth month of work on the implementation of SEO-audit you may encounter technical limitations that will not allow you to optimize filters, add new tags or categories.
Step two: compiling the primary core of search queries
For which projects this step is relevant:
- Online stores
- Service and product sites
- News sites
- Business card sites (not one-page sites)
- Bulletin boards
- Corporate sites
- Forums
How to collect semantic kernel on your own – a guide for online store owners
Now you have a promotion strategy, work plan, preliminary analysis of the site and the sites of market leaders. SEO-specialist uses tools like Serpstat and others to collect and cluster search queries and determine their frequency to form a semantic core.
The semantic core is necessary for:
- Formation of the structure of the site
- Making templates and forming meta tags manually (Title, Description, Keywords), headings H1, H2
- Writing texts on landing pages
- Creating competent linking
- External site optimization
- Analyzing the visibility of the site
Semantic core can include several hundred queries for small business card sites, and several hundred thousand queries for large online stores.
Example of semantic kernel compilation
The process of compiling a semantic core is long and can take several months, depending on the volume of the site. Therefore, it is broken down into sections and categories, so as not to delay promotion and expand the semantic core in parallel with other work.
Step three: creating a broad structure of the site
For which projects this stage is relevant:
- Online stores
- Sites of services and products (except for highly specialized projects)
- News sites
- Business card sites (not one-page sites)
- Bulletin boards
- Corporate sites
- Forums
Why you need a broad site structure
Search engines are constantly improving their algorithms to show users the most relevant pages for their queries. For example, if you enter the query “laptops with backlit keyboard” into a search engine, the most relevant pages will appear in the first positions.
If you want your project to occupy these positions, you need to form a broad structure of the site. For each group of search queries you should create and optimize separate landing pages.
How to structure a site by query
For high-frequency queries, category pages are created, for medium- and low-frequency queries – static pages of filters and filter intersections. For super-low-frequency queries (entered no more than five times a month) it is better to optimize specific product cards, so that they do not distract the internal static weight from important pages.
Sources of ideas for new landing pages
- Search engine optimization
- Competitor analysis
- Internal site search
- Analysis of product range and range of services
For large online stores, marketplaces, bulletin boards and companies with branches, the number of landing pages increases in proportion to the number of cities in which they are present. It is important that the content on such pages be unique.
Process duration
Creating a broad site structure is a long process. In large projects, new filter pages for specific categories can be created even two years after the start of site promotion. However, the bulk of work to expand the structure of landing pages should be done at early stages to achieve the desired effect faster.
Step four: creating a task for internal optimization
For which projects this stage is relevant:
- Online stores
- Service and product sites
- News sites
- Business card sites (not one-page sites)
- Bulletin boards
- Corporate sites
- Forums
Internal site optimization
At this stage SEO-specialist corrects internal optimization errors, works with landing pages for different query groups and removes duplicate pages. The basis for this is a technical SEO-audit of the site, on the basis of which the task for internal optimization is formed.
Mandatory items of internal optimization (in order of importance):
- Setting up automatic formation of meta tags and titles: Creating templates for Title, Description and H1 for categories, products, filters, filter intersections, pages under geo-requests and other elements.
- Formation of page addresses: Bringing URLs to human-understandable form.
- Optimize filters: Create rules for forming URLs for filters and their intersections, meta tags and visibility of links to filters.
- Increase loading speed: Optimize server response speed and site page loading.
- Removing duplicates: Utilizing permanent redirects, canonical addresses and noindex follow tags to eliminate duplicate pages.
- XML sitemap creation: Generate a sitemap to improve indexing.
- Multi-language customization: Optimize your site to work with multiple language versions.
- Pagination page optimization: Improve the structure and content of pages withpaginated navigation.
- Server response code and page headers optimization: Adjust HTTP headers and server responses.
- Micropartitioning customization: Implementation of micropartitioning for reviews and information on product pages.
Step Five: Organize internal linking
For which projects this step is relevant:
- Online stores
- Service and product sites
- News sites
- Bulletin boards
- Corporate sites
- Forums
Importance of internal linking
The problem with poor site ranking is often associated with improper organization of internal linking and distribution of static weight of pages. Creating landing pages is only the first step. It is also important to organize linking in such a way that users and search engine robots can easily navigate through the site.
Without properly set up internal relinking, search engine optimization will not be effective, and some pages may not get into the index of search engines. This problem often occurs with pages optimized for filters, which are accessible to users but invisible to search engine robots.
How to organize internal linking
At the stage of site promotion, the SEO-specialist builds the relinking of menu categories with the help of developed scripts, using previously collected and clustered queries. This allows redirecting static weight from pages with low competition (e.g., product cards, filter intersections) to pages of higher nesting level.
Such organization of internal relinking helps to improve the indexing of the site by search engines and increase its position in the search results.
Step six: content optimization
For which projects this stage is relevant:
- Online stores
- Service and product sites
- News sites
- Business card sites (not one-page sites)
- Bulletin boards
- Corporate sites
Content Optimization
SEO-specialist manually forms unique meta tags (Title, Description, Keywords) and H1 headings based on the “long tail” of search queries for those pages where it is necessary. Texts for the promoted pages are also created, including previously collected key queries, taking into account the current requirements of search engines.
These texts help to improve the ranking of pages for both high-frequency queries and “long tail” queries.
Step Seven: Crowler Budget Management
For which projects this step is relevant:
- Online stores
- Sites of services and products, where there is a possibility to filter and sort search results
- Bulletin boards
What is a crowdsourcing budget?
Crawling budget is the number of pages that a search engine robot can traverse at one time on your site.
Mistakes in crawling budget management
Site owners often make the mistake of creating hundreds of useless filter pages that have no or very few queries. They don’t close pages of filter intersections from the same block (e.g., two brands), intersections of four or more filters, and pages sorting by price, rating, and number of products on the page to the robot. These mistakes can lead to the robot indexing only part of the pages and leaving the site, reducing the static weight of category pages and their visibility in search engines.
Recommendations for crawling budget management
Working with a crowling budget requires experience. Specialists will competently close for indexing “garbage pages” created for the convenience of users, leave only the necessary filters and prohibit robots to bypass unnecessary pages, which will improve the indexing of the site.
Step eight: improving the usability of the site
For which projects it is relevant to improve usability:
- Online stores
- Service and product sites
- News sites
- Business card sites (not one-page sites)
- Bulletin boards
- Corporate sites
- Forums
Do search algorithms take behavioral factors into account?
Yes, search algorithms take into account how users interact with the site.
SEO specialists work on:
- Decreasing the user’s return to search engine results
- Reducing the bounce rate
- Increasing time on page
Adapting the site for mobile devices significantly increases visibility in the mobile rendition and increases conversions from mobile devices. Simplified navigation reduces bounce rate, and a well-designed “About Us” page increases the trust of both visitors and search engines.
Step nine: external website optimization
For which projects external optimization is relevant: For all types of sites in competitive niches.
Although in some topics with low competition can do without external link mass, in most cases, external optimization is necessary. The more quality thematic sites link to you, the higher the authority of your site in the eyes of search engines.
SEO-specialists can use permanent link exchanges, add natural links from forums and Q/A-services, as well as place links directly through webmasters of sites that do not sell links.
We also recommend that site owners create content that will attract natural links from users, as these are the most valuable links.
Step ten: increase conversion from visitors to customers
For which projects this step is relevant:
- Online stores
- Service and product sites
- News sites
- Business card sites (not one-page sites)
- Bulletin boards
- Corporate sites
Conversions are not just sales. It can be ordering services, subscribing to a newsletter and other actions.
This is a complex stage that requires knowledge in design, usability, email marketing and creation of quality content.
What does a specialist do first of all?
- Fixes order forms
- Adds ways to contact managers through the site
- Changes colors of page elements
- Works with testimonials
- Configures triggered personalized mailings
And this is only a small part of the improvements that increase the conversion rate of the site.
Step eleven: step-by-step page optimization
For which projects this stage is relevant:
- Online stores
- Service and product sites
- News sites
- Bulletin boards
- Corporate sites
- Forums
Based on the ranking of pages by query and traffic analysis, SEO-specialists are constantly working to improve the structure of the site, expand it, make changes to texts, meta tags, internal linking and external link mass. This is a long process, complicated by constant updates of search engine algorithms. Therefore, the site promotion strategy is constantly being adapted to improve it for users and search engines.
