The Entire SEO Procedure Described: Step-by-Step

We are all aware of the significant effect that search engine optimization (SEO) can have on increasing website traffic, brand recognition, and eventually sales.

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However, simply experimenting with SEO will not be enough for any organization to consistently reap these benefits. Instead, sticking to a tried-and-true SEO procedure is essential for ongoing SEO success.

However, what makes an SEO approach effective? Where does it start? And what are the most crucial steps?

This article will guide you through every important step of the search engine optimization process, including link development, content planning, competitor analysis, and on-page optimization. After we're done, you'll know exactly what has to be done to turn your next SEO effort into a success.

What Is The Process Of SEO?

The set of actions required to constantly improve a website's exposure on search engines is known as the search engine optimization process.

The procedure guarantees that every one of the four SEO pillars is taken care of:

• Material: Spreading informative material that searchers find interesting.
• Technical SEO: Making sure Google can easily crawl and index the website in question.
• On-site-SEO: Optimizing HTML and content for target keywords is known as on-site SEO.
• Off-site SEO: Building strong backlinks to the website in order to increase its domain authority.

The SEO process is a continuous cycle of testing and fine-tuning with the goal of optimizing a website's ranking potential; it is by no means a one-time exercise.

The SEO process never stops because of the ongoing need to adjust to shifting search engine algorithms, consumer demand, and competitor activity. To see results over time, you must continue with it after you start.

However, you don't have to wait a lifetime to get benefits from SEO because it's a long-term game where patience and diligence are essential to success. In reality, after committing to a well-executed SEO strategy, many firms that are new to organic search notice notable ranking increases within 4 to 6 months.

Research on keywords

The SEO approach begins with developing a clear picture of the type of content your target audience prefers to consume.

Once you understand what your audience is looking for, you can start deciding what content to offer and which keywords to target.

Keyword research exposes what people are looking for in regards to your brand, category, or sector, as well as how frequently they search for various terms.

The idea here is to identify a list of target keywords around which you may create content to boost your organic reach.

The most effective way to create a comprehensive keyword list is to use a premium keyword research tool such as SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Long Tail Pro.

For small SEO campaigns, it may be sufficient to rely on free keyword tools like the Ahrefs Free Keyword Generator or even manual approaches like getting keyword suggestions from Google's auto-complete function.

When creating a keyword list, you should keep track of each term's monthly search volume and predicted ranking difficulty.

This information will assist you decide which keywords to target the most aggressively. And, because it is often more difficult to rank for high-volume terms than for low-volume ones, it is often wise to target 'Goldilocks' terms that provide the optimal balance of traffic and ranking power.

You should categorize your keyword list into primary and secondary keywords. Primary keywords are those you want to rank for, but secondary keywords assist Google understand what your article is about.

You should also categorize your keywords based on their position in the marketing funnel. This will ensure that your content targets different stages of the buyer's journey.

Simply consider the search intent behind a question to determine where it fits in the marketing funnel. In other words, consider what the user is trying to accomplish when Googling that term.

For example, say you own a wedding planning firm in New England. Your keywords include 'best marriage proposal ideas', 'top wedding venues in Maine,' and 'hire New England wedding planner'.

Where do these inquiries fall within your marketing funnel?

The initial inquiry is at the top of the funnel (ToFu), since, while the customer is not currently looking for a wedding planner, they may be in the future.

Meanwhile, the second question is in the middle of the funnel (MoFu), indicating that the user is certainly planning a wedding and may be looking for a wedding planner.

The competitor Research

The next stage of SEO is to assess how competitive the search market is in your particular area.

Assessing how well other businesses in your sector or market perform in relation to your target keywords is the aim here.

This is significant because it establishes early expectations for the requirements you must fulfill in order to successfully compete in your area of Google.

When rival websites consistently show up at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs), you should take note of what it is that they are doing right.

Technical Search Engine Optimization

After completing the study, the following stage of SEO is to make sure that every technological component of your website is operational.

To put it simply, if your website is difficult to use or has bugs, your chances of ranking well decrease dramatically.

Technical SEO encompasses many different actions, therefore we'll only highlight a handful of the most significant ones here.

QUICKNESS

Everyone has experienced the annoyance of a website that takes forever to load. It follows that the widespread belief that one of Google's ranking determinants is site speed is not surprising. Furthermore, for every additional second that a website takes to load, conversion rates decrease by about 4.4%.

By adopting steps like compressing pictures, optimizing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code, and utilizing browser cache, you may significantly lower load times.

To find out how to make your website faster, try Google's free PageSpeed Insights tool.

PORTABLE RESPONSIVENESS

Making sure your website looks and functions properly on mobile is essential, since over 60% of US organic search traffic originates from mobile devices.

Remarkable call-to-action (CTA) buttons, thumb-friendly navigation, and few on-page distractions (such pop-up boxes) are characteristics of a well-designed mobile-responsive website.

COPYABLE Material

When multiple pages on a website have identical content, Google has difficulty determining which page should appear first in its search results.

This can occasionally result in pages with identical content ranking lower than if they were a single page.

You can use a canonical tag to notify Google which specific version of the material it should display in the SERPs in order to combat this problem.

INDEPENDENT

There are pages or complete parts on a lot of websites that search engines don't need to index.

These could be materials like PDFs or private pages (like a sign-in page).

Making a robots.txt file instructs search engines not to index (or crawl) specific pages on your website.

Making ensuring that the architecture of your website is as simple for visitors and search engines to browse is the next phase in the SEO process.

It will be even more difficult for Google's spiders to crawl and index your pages if they have a bad navigational structure. Furthermore, your pages won't rank if they aren't indexed!

These are the primary things to think about:

LINKING Inside

A website that is well-connected makes it easier for search engine spiders to navigate through its pages and enables users to move between sites with ease.

As a result, your website ought to feature an easy-to-use navigation system, a logical information architecture, and contextual relationships between relevant content.

XML Site Map

A list of all the key pages on your website that you want Google to scan can be found in an XML sitemap.

Even if your internal linking structure isn't flawless, the sitemap guarantees that every page is indexed by search engines by providing them with a shortcut to every page on your website.

Optimizing Pages on the Web

A crucial phase in the search engine optimization procedure is ensuring that every element on your page is fully optimized.

These on-page components are essential for informing Google about the purpose of your pages and assisting it in matching your content to pertinent search terms.

Target keywords must be incorporated into your web pages' body material, header tags, image alt text, and page names in order to achieve on-page SEO. Giving search engines the best indication that your content is a relevant match for the keywords you're aiming for is the aim.

Naturally, this does not imply that you should cram your HTML code and pages with keywords in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings. In addition to ruining the user experience, doing so may result in a Google penalty.

Strategy for Content

Publishing top-notch content that your target audience actively seeks out is the secret to higher rankings and increased traffic.

Growth cannot be achieved by the SEO process in the absence of a clear content strategy.

Doing a content audit is the first step in developing a content strategy.

Finding out how well your current content is doing in terms of different engagement and conversion metrics is the goal. A content gap analysis, which displays how highly you presently rank for your target keywords, is also a part of the audit.

Restructuring your material is one technique to improve it if it's not performing up to par. This may entail rearranging some content into topic clusters that are thematically connected or combining several pieces of content into a single, conclusive pillar post.

The next step will be to organize, create, and release fresh content after you have a clear understanding of how well your present material is performing and where the gaps are!

Backlinks

Backlinks have already been discussed as having a significant impact on the ranking of your sites.

As a result, the goal of this SEO phase is to build your backlink profile's quantity and quality.

The main technique for constructing links is guest posting. Writing content for well-known blogs in your industry in return for exposure to a wider audience and backlinks to your website is what this comprises.

In this phase, bad links must also be removed and good but broken links pointing to your domain must be fixed. Making sure your website gets as much link equity as possible is the aim here.

FAQs for the SEO Process

What is the SEO process's initial step?

Whether the website in issue has already been developed or is not, the SEO procedure always begins with research.

The objective is to gain a thorough grasp of the informational requirements of your target audience (keyword research) and the competitive environment in which your brand operates (competitive research). The content strategy that follows is based on these findings.

Why does SEO require constant effort?

Because it necessitates regular change, SEO is a continuous process.

For a brief period of time, let's say your website was #1 for all of your target keywords in the SERPs.

Your target audience would still be hungry for fresh, helpful material despite your success, your competitors would still be publishing new content, and search engine algorithms would keep changing.

When does the SEO process start with the launch of a website?

A new website should ideally go live after all of the original content has been created and the site's technical and user experience requirements have been met.

After the website launches, developing links will be crucial to increasing its authority.