8 Steps To Optimize a Website:

An Overview of The StratiMind SEO Process

At StratiMind we prefer to build an SEO strategy as an integral part of the larger marketing and corporate strategies. This page will give you a brief outline of how we go about the process of optimizing a client's website for better rank in the natural search engine results. We will provide you with more details on our process and customize it to fit your needs as a normal part of our early discussions.

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Step 1: Assessment and Analysis

We begin by establishing a common understanding of your strategies, goals and market/customers and review any prior expereinces with search engine marketing. We then conduct a thorough analysis of your current web site and those of your competitors. This provides us with an essential foundation of data for the remaining steps, and enables us to establish realistic SEO program goals.

Step 2: Keyword Discovery

If the understanding we build in the first step is the solid foundation of the SEO project, then the keyword discovery step is the cornerstone. In this step we begin with your best understanding of search terms that your target customers might use to find your web site. We then work to "discover" the search terms that searchers are actually using, how frequently each search term is used and the number of other sites that currently match that search term. After analyzing tens of thousands of potential keyword phrases, we narrow the list down to the best keyword phrases for your specific goals and situation.

Step 3: SEO Strategy Development

In this step, we establish the final list of keywords around which we will be optimizing the web site, and develop a customized SEO strategy that fits your goals and budget. We also establish a baseline of your current search positions for each of the target keywords so we can measure progress as the project proceeds.

Step 4: Basic Optimizing

With our final keyword list and overall strategy in place, we begin implementing that strategy by optimizing your web pages one at a time. In this step we perform basic optimizations including crafting optimized HTML tags for each page's title, meta keywords, meta description, image "ALT" tags, header tags, etc. In contrast to many SEO firms, we do the complete HTML coding for you so you don't have to worry about how to implement a list of vague and conflicting recommendations. Once we make the changes, then we go the last mile and host the optimized working pages on our web site so you can quickly and conveniently review the changes in a "test" setting and approve them before they go live on your own web site. This eliminates delays incurred while waiting for your webmaster or IT department to upload pages.

Step 5: Advanced Optimizing

Once we get through the basic optimizations, we turn to the more advanced page-level and site-level optimizations. Depending on the specific goals and situation, these optimizations might be made to your file structure, navigation system, internal linking structure, page templates, page programming methods, collaborative optimization of "body" content (the main "copy" or text on the page). We can also offer SEO guidelines for press releases and additional development of new pages and content.

Step 6: Indexing and Submitting

The goal of this step is to establish the optimal sequence of search engine submissions so as to ensure that your web site is fully indexed by the search engine spiders on an on-going basis. We perform an in-depth indexing analysis and based on this, we establish and implement the best submission strategy for your situation including both directory and search engine submissions.

Step 7: Linking Programs

In the Linking Programs step, we analyze and optimize current inbound and outbound links, identify potential new inbound link partners and develop a customized program for increasing the link popularity of your web site. We can also initiate contact with existing and potential linking partners and establish a relationship with them on your behalf.

Step 8: On-going Reporting, Fine Tuning and Maintenance

This step provides the on-going reporting of search positions and thus provides a regular measure of progress over time. In this phase, we will constantly monitor your evolving search positions, and make additional optimizations as needed to achieve the best possible positions for your web pages. Once achieved, your search positions must be maintained so they can continue to provide you with the highly qualified traffic to your web site. this requires an on-going effort since the search engines change their ranking algorithms and your competitors may also respond when they discover that you have captured their lead flow from the search engines!

Ready to talk to the experts? Call or email us to set up an appointment to discuss your specific needs, and join the growing list of satisfied StratiMind clients.