As I’m always explaining to my SEO101 students, there are some important steps to take in advance of launching your campaign that will make sure it has a better chance at succeeding.

Before You Start

Before you start any search engine optimization campaign, whether it’s for your own site or that belonging to a client, you need to answer following important questions:

1) What is overall motivation for optimizing this site? What do I/they hope to achieve? (e.g. more sales, more subscribers, more traffic, more publicity etc.)

2) What is my/their time-frame for this project?

3) What is my/their budget for this project?

4) Who will be responsible for this project? Will it be a joint or solo effort? Will it be run entirely in-house or outsourced?

Answering these questions will help you to build a framework for your campaign and establish limitations for size and scope of campaign.

Requirements Gathering

Next, you need to establish project requirements, so you can tailor SEO campaign to you or your client’s exact needs.

You need to know things like:

1) What technology was used to build site? (i.e. Flash, PHP, frames, Cold Fusion, JavaScript, Flat HTML etc)

2) What are file extensions of pages? (i.e. .htm, .php, .cfm etc)

3) Does site contain database driven content? If so, will URLs contain query strings? e.g. www.site.com/longpagename?source=123444fgge3212, (containing “?” symbols), or does site use parameter workarounds to remove query strings? (the latter is search engine friendly).

4) Are there at least 250 words of text on home page and other pages to be optimized?

5) How does navigation work? Does it use text links or graphical links or JavaScript drop-down menus?

6) Approximately how many pages does site contain? How many of these will be optimized?

7) What is current link popularity of site?

8) What is approximate Google PageRank of site? Would it benefit from link building?

9) Do I have ability to edit source code directly? Or will I need to hand-over optimized code to a site admin for integration?

10) Do I have permission to alter visible content of site?

11) What are products/services that site promotes? (e.g. widgets, mobile phones, hire cars etc.)

There is specific data about your web site that you should be looking at in your log files on a regular basis. Several variables should be examined monthly or even weekly to ensure your site design and page optimization is on right track:

1. Entry Paths

Most sites can be developed and analysed around concept of visitor pathways. If, for example, your site is a Business to Business (B2B) site and you service small, medium and large businesses, there should be pathways through your site designed for each class of visitor. An extremely simplified example would be:

Clients coming to site through an optimized home page:

home page ---> small business page ---> order page ---> order confirmation page home page ---> medium business page ---> order page ---> order confirmation page home page ---> large business page ---> order page ---> order confirmation page

The site entry pages for these pathways are often optimized home pages or optimized content pages. The final page of this route is often action that you want clients to take on your site (e.g., sign up for your newsletter, buy your products online or contact you for further information). You can easily determine how effective your pathways are by tracking entry paths on a regular basis via your site stats.

You should have some idea of main pathways that clients take through your site, both for monitoring effectiveness of your page optimization and conversions, and for purpose of subsequent site redesign(s). A good starting point to track pathways through your site is via graph or chart called "Entry Paths" in your log files / site statistics.

2. Top Exit Pages

These are pages from which most visitors click away from your site. Why is it useful to track these? Because exit pages can tell you:

a. If there is a technical problem with page that is causing visitors to leave your site. For example, if there are broken links, or form on page is not working properly etc.

b. If your site design is breaking strategic pathway, for example, you may have links to external sites that are inducing clients to click away before buying your product or signing up for your newsletter.

c. If there is something on these pages that is encouraging visitors to leave your site. For example, an unprofessional design or confusing layout.

In your log files / site statistics, graph or chart called "Top Exit Pages" is place to learn why visitors are leaving your site.

3. Single Access Pages

These are entry pages that are viewed once before visitor clicks away from your site. Similar to Top Exit Pages, Single Access Pages can tell you a lot about why people are not staying on your site for long.

Have a close look at search terms used to find your site. Single Access Pages can often indicate that your target search terms are too broad. For example, you may be getting a lot of traffic by targeting "printer cartridges" but if you only stock a particular brand of cartridge, then people seeking other brands are not going to find what they truly seek when they arrive at your site so they will leave immediately. This can be resolved by narrowing down your search terms to be more targeted and focused on your niche products and services, for example, by changing "printer cartridges" to "HP printer cartridges" and so on.

To see what pages of your site are viewed once, look for graph or chart called "Single Access Pages" in your log files / site statistics.

4. Most Requested Page(s) and Top Entry Pages.