What is SEO Strategy Analysis?
Simply put:
SEO Strategy Analysis is an in depth analysis of your site's content, keyword targeting and on-page optimization in order to create a successful seo strategy, rank higher and maintain your top keywords.
Elaborate please...
The goal of an SEO Plan Analysis is to thoroughly examine your site's content, target keywords, and perform on-page optimization in order to develop an effective SEO strategy, climb up the search rankings, and keep your top keywords. Simply buying a domain with a keyword in it and creating content won't get you ranked on the search engines. In order to be successful you must do comprehensive research of your target audience, their intent and the health of your search engine competition.
Why do I need SEO Strategy Analysis?
Finding the right keywords is just part of the research you need to complete in order to create an effective SEO strategy. With comprehensive analytics and analysis you can uncover deep relationships between your users search intent and your content.
This allows you to optimize your content, products or services to better match your visitors expectations.
When you can fulfill your visitors expectations they will share, return and engage with your content which leads to higher organic search rankings and the growth of your business!
How do I complete an SEO Strategy Analysis?
There are many different aspects of your site that need to be analyzed in order to create the best strategy possible. Some of these include:
- On page SEO analysis that includes meta description, title tag, URL structure and keyword alt tags.
- Keyword research to determine which keywords are being searched for the most
- Site audits to ensure your site is clean enough and structured well enough to be found on Google or other major search engines
- Competitor analysis so you can see who you are up against and what they are doing to rank better than you
- User trend analysis so you can see where your visitors are coming from and how they are navigating through your site.
- On site analytics analysis to show visitor behavior, interest, attention and conversions
You may need to work with an experienced SEO agency to complete all of these steps, but once completed it will pay off exponentially. A great SEO team will constant be analyzing your SEO efforts in order to fine tune content for the best chance at more quality traffic.
I spend several hours each month on my client's account in order to identify our strength and weakness within our search engine rankings, provide new insights, uncover new opportunities and update existing plans.
When do I need to have my SEO Strategy Analysis done?
The best time to complete an SEO strategy is when you are launching a new site or have just started with your existing site. Then you will need to complete a comprehensive strategy review annually with monthly analysis and optimizations to areas identified by your on-going SEO analysis.
You will want to have a SEO strategy in place before you create any content so that you know what keywords are being targeted on the search engines.
Why you need to do it sooner than later:
- If you launch your site and do not have a strategy you will probably not rank for your exact keywords (especially if they are popular).
- If you wait to long then everyone else who has done an SEO analysis on their sites, including your direct competition, may outrank you.
What is SEO Competitor Analysis?
When it comes to how to do SEO competitor analysis right, having accurate tools can make a huge difference. Whether you are doing keyword research , deciding which keywords to rank for, building your editorial calendar, listing backlink opportunities, improving user experience, or rethinking your overall SEO strategy, here are a few tools to help you quickly get the job done.
- Moz Open Site Explorer
- Ahrefs
- Majestic SEO
- BuzzSumo
What are Some Common Elements that are Analyzed for SEO Optimizations?
While you may never be able to optimize ALL the features of your app at one time, over the life of your project you shoudl constantly be updating elements below to retain your current positions and acquire preferred keyword rankings.
- SEO Content Optimization
- Ease of Navigation
- Page Loading
- Content Quality
- Keyword Placement
- SEO Product Optimization
- Website Usability & User Experience
- Call to Actions in Place
- SEO Technical Analysis - Mobile Friendly Sites, Site Structure, Site Navigation, Site Architecture
Log file analysis can be used to track search engine spiders crawling your site via the logs generated from server requests. This information can help you determine which pages on your site are getting crawled and indexed, and more importantly how often.
You'll be able to see the last time certain URLs were crawled (or not), where they came from (i.e. Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc.), how many requests were made for each of them, and the HTTP response code.
A crawler diagnostic report based on log file analysis can also help you find problems that may be causing crawling issues. For example, if there are broken links on the website or tiny redirect chains, this will cause some search engines to stop crawling certain pages of your site. Using the data in your crawler diagnostic report you can easily find these problems and fix them to get search engines back on track.
The log file information can also help you identify crawl issues such as duplicate content, 404 errors, infinite loops, authorization problems, robot exclusions, meta-characters blocking URLs from being crawled but the links are still accessible in the source code.
How Often do I Need to Update my SEO Analysis?
As often as needed! If you are launching a new site you will want to do it when everything is set up so you know all the keywords you are targeting. A good place to start is monthly, but if you see a big drop than it might be time for an update sooner.
If your SEO analysis shows that your competition is inching closer or overtaking your rankings in certain areas then you should revisit those areas. For example, for my clients I ensure they are using keyword variations and trending topics in their content.
If you want to stay ahead of the curve with your SEO strategy then do a comprehensive SEO analysis once per quarter and address any issues before they become problematic. Monthly reviews of yoru analysis will help you complete your quarterly analysis quicker and more effectively.
At Discourse Digital I have a comprehensive SEO strategy process that includes regular updates. This ensures our clients are always at the top of their game when it comes to organic search rankings so they can stay ahead of their competition and get more leads, sales & conversions!
What is Organic Traffic and Why Do I Need It?
Organic traffic is the traffic you receive from search engine users. This usually results from a visitor either clicking on an organic result, or using a browser bookmark to visit your website again at a later date. The key metric for organic traffic is percentage of total visitors.
When relevant keywords are found in your keyword research you can tailor your search engine optimization to target these keywords and bring more visitors to your pages. Such search queries are often not exact searches but rather an intent of what the visitors is looking for. This search intent can be analyzed and optimized for click throughs from organic search results and on site conversions.
Organic traffic can lead to increase brand loyalty and identification of your company or persona as an expert in your industry. When expertise is gleamed from your content by a search engine it will show your content more often leading to higher conversions and greater visitor satisfaction.
How Does SEO Traffic Compare to Paid Search Traffic?
Typically organic traffic is a higher quality than paid search traffic and overtime typically makes up a larger percentage of visitors than paid search. However, it's important to measure the true value of both types of incoming traffic and compare this to your overall marketing strategy and business goals. The comparison gives you an idea of how valuable incoming traffic from each source really is.
You can also compare the two in terms of conversion rates and ROI in order to determine how much more valuable one channel is over another. I do this with our clients by comparing their organic traffic and paid search traffic. You'll be surprised at what you find!