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1) WHO IS YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE? SEO is useless without understanding who you want to actually visit the site. Thinking you site is for EVERYONE would be pretty outlandish, unless you are looking to replace Wikipedia or Google. You must really drill down and figure out details on the niche of your target audience before moving any further. There are plenty of general marketing resources to help with this, please use them.
2) WHAT CONTENT WILL YOUR AUDIENCE FIND USEFUL? Search Engine Optimization is about helping others find the information THEY want on YOUR site. SEO is not tricks trying to get visitors to your site. The planning phase is requires the establishment of a plan to develop all of the content that will meet your target audiences need.
3) HOW WILL YOU DIRECT THE AUDIENCE TO THE INFORMATION PROVIDED? Developing the content is not the same as the layout of the site, but once someone is at the site, it is very important to make sure they can easily find the other information they need. This means it should be easy to get from some content to some other content, products, etc. A plan on how to move a site visitor from some part of the site to another part of the website, allowing the user to interact with the site is essential. This strategy should include a degree of flexibility as not all visitors will land on the home page (especially true of a site with good Search Engine Optimization). Most visitors will expect to choose their own path through the website content, making this as easy as possible by incorporating appropriate links could benefit SEO as well as conversion.
4) HOW WILL YOU UPDATE THE WEBSITE? Regular updates could be a very critical component to long term SEO, depending on the competition. Whether you plan to hire resources or do it yourself, it is essential to have a plan up front, prior to developing the website. Waiting to figure out that strategy until AFTER the site is created could be a DISASTER. If a single developer hand coded each page, it could be a very big undertaking to update that site, while a Content Management System (CMS) could be much easier for an individual to add new content. The overall style of the site and expansion capabilities could be limited by this decision, so a 3-5 year plan for the site should be discussed up front, otherwise an unnecessary redesign could be necessary down the road.
5) HOW WILL YOU ENSURE GOOD CODE THAT IS EASILY INDEXED BY THE SEARCH ENGINES? This is not about fancy tricks, it is about avoiding unnecessary items on the site that do not help SEO (such as flash, etc). It is VERY IMPORTANT to make sure your site developer understands proper SEO design techniques and if not, hire a consultant to ensure these are "built in" to the site. Many people build a site first using a creative designer to capture the "vision", thinking optimization can happen later. Unfortunately, the strategy of "SEO Later" could involve "redesigning the site" because much of the fixes could require cleaning up of code. The number of people that can build a SEO website from scratch if far less than the number of people that can just give you a pretty website.
6) HOW WILL YOU GET LINKS? Since link building will eventually be a necessary component of the Search Engine Optimization strategy, you must also consider who might want to link to your site and how the site can be built in a way that would help facilitate this process. Consider who you would freely link to from your brand new website. Would you link to a website that has moving advertisements all over the homepage or pushes a product while providing no real valuable information? What type of content would a different website need to provide to deem it useful to link to them? Other webmasters will not be lining up to link to your site unless you give them a compelling reason to do so. Unless you want to make the compelling reason a dollar value by PAYING for links, making useful content for others is the best way. This generally means USEFUL INFORMATION in general, not just USEFUL INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR PRODUCTS. There are of course other considerations, but plan for these first, than you can start the "fine tuning" process of your Search Engine Optimization.
2) WHAT CONTENT WILL YOUR AUDIENCE FIND USEFUL? Search Engine Optimization is about helping others find the information THEY want on YOUR site. SEO is not tricks trying to get visitors to your site. The planning phase is requires the establishment of a plan to develop all of the content that will meet your target audiences need.
3) HOW WILL YOU DIRECT THE AUDIENCE TO THE INFORMATION PROVIDED? Developing the content is not the same as the layout of the site, but once someone is at the site, it is very important to make sure they can easily find the other information they need. This means it should be easy to get from some content to some other content, products, etc. A plan on how to move a site visitor from some part of the site to another part of the website, allowing the user to interact with the site is essential. This strategy should include a degree of flexibility as not all visitors will land on the home page (especially true of a site with good Search Engine Optimization). Most visitors will expect to choose their own path through the website content, making this as easy as possible by incorporating appropriate links could benefit SEO as well as conversion.
4) HOW WILL YOU UPDATE THE WEBSITE? Regular updates could be a very critical component to long term SEO, depending on the competition. Whether you plan to hire resources or do it yourself, it is essential to have a plan up front, prior to developing the website. Waiting to figure out that strategy until AFTER the site is created could be a DISASTER. If a single developer hand coded each page, it could be a very big undertaking to update that site, while a Content Management System (CMS) could be much easier for an individual to add new content. The overall style of the site and expansion capabilities could be limited by this decision, so a 3-5 year plan for the site should be discussed up front, otherwise an unnecessary redesign could be necessary down the road.
5) HOW WILL YOU ENSURE GOOD CODE THAT IS EASILY INDEXED BY THE SEARCH ENGINES? This is not about fancy tricks, it is about avoiding unnecessary items on the site that do not help SEO (such as flash, etc). It is VERY IMPORTANT to make sure your site developer understands proper SEO design techniques and if not, hire a consultant to ensure these are "built in" to the site. Many people build a site first using a creative designer to capture the "vision", thinking optimization can happen later. Unfortunately, the strategy of "SEO Later" could involve "redesigning the site" because much of the fixes could require cleaning up of code. The number of people that can build a SEO website from scratch if far less than the number of people that can just give you a pretty website.
6) HOW WILL YOU GET LINKS? Since link building will eventually be a necessary component of the Search Engine Optimization strategy, you must also consider who might want to link to your site and how the site can be built in a way that would help facilitate this process. Consider who you would freely link to from your brand new website. Would you link to a website that has moving advertisements all over the homepage or pushes a product while providing no real valuable information? What type of content would a different website need to provide to deem it useful to link to them? Other webmasters will not be lining up to link to your site unless you give them a compelling reason to do so. Unless you want to make the compelling reason a dollar value by PAYING for links, making useful content for others is the best way. This generally means USEFUL INFORMATION in general, not just USEFUL INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR PRODUCTS. There are of course other considerations, but plan for these first, than you can start the "fine tuning" process of your Search Engine Optimization.
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There are of course other SEO considerations, but plan for these first, than you can start the "fine tuning" process of an overall SEO Plan. This and other unique content '' articles are available with free reprint rights.
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