The Business Goal

A journey begins with the first step. However, do not forget that you must know where you're going even before you take that first step. In SEO parlance, this means that you must know why SEO is being initiated and what the results you are trying to achieve through it.

There are many reasons which could lead a site owner to do SEO on his sites. It could be that he wants more subscribers to his service. It may also be that he is selling products and wants to increase his sales volume. Perhaps, the website is being used merely as an advertising medium for offline businesses so the main object is increasing the web traffic itself.

After determining the main goal of SEO, you can proceed much more confidently and be able to initiate steps appropriate to the goal.

The Project's Timeframe

It is obvious that you should know how long you have got to institute changes and see results. Your client is paying you for results so you need to know how short or long a time-frame you have got to show results.

Know the Budget

Determining the budget is essential in any project. In the case of planning an SEO campaign, you should know how much your client is willing to pay for his SEO campaign so that you can plan your moves accordingly. After all, some SEO techniques are more expensive than others.

Responsibility Allotment

It is important to know who is/are responsible for the project. In particular, you need to know who will do what and if you will need to outsource some of your SEO requirements.

It is important to know whom you need to make a success to of the SEO campaign so that you can immediately acquire the necessary personnel. This will prevent delays in schedules and other problems.

Once you have settled all of the above crucial preparatory issues, you can undertake your SEO campaign. Here are some steps you should follow for a successful SEO campaign.

Determine if the search engine is compatible to the site

You need to undertake a search engine compatibility review. This involves comparing the codes of the site you are optimizing to the standards set by the search engines. This step is essential because if you want your client's site to tope that ranks, the search engine must first be able to read your client's site.

Analysis of the site's compatibility to the search engine will require a technical review of the site's codes: tags, file extensions, etc. From your analysis results, you'll be able to know which of the design elements need some modification to make the site compatible with search engines.

Draw together what needs to be done for the project

After you have analyzed the site's compatibility with your target search engine, you nee to institute changes that will make the site as search engine-friendly as possible. You may have to make changes on the site's scripts.

You may change the site's codes from HTML to Javascript. You may also need to change the file extensions used in the site's contents and page elements. You may also need to overhaul the site's design. There are a lot more changes you can do to site. Just remember that all these changes are all geared to give the site maximum optimization.

Draw up the SEO details

You also need to determine the little details that will achieve your optimization goals. You must establish the most logical keywords that you can use on the site. This will involve checking out the competition on keywords, trying out keyword variations and such. At this point, you will also determine what search engines you're going to submit the site to so that you can fine-tune your optimization plan even further. By the way, do not forget to look at what the site itself is selling or what the site itself intends to accomplish.