The Agency SEO Process – Part 5
It's been a lot of work, but we're finally nearing the end of our twelve-month engagement. Over the past twelve months, we've covered a lot of ground:
- Month 1: SEO audit and keyword research
- Month 2: Keyword testing and architecture analysis
- Month 3: Content and meta tag optimization
- Month 4: Link bait research
- Month 5: Content creation and link research
- Month 6: Link Building
- Month 7: The Six Month Review
- Month 8: Campaign adjustments and link building
- Months 9 & 10: Link building and content development
Month 11: Link Building and Content Development
We're in the final push of our engagement and you should have one thing in mind: continue to drive traffic and conversions up so you can get the client to re-engage with you. It's no secret that SEO isn't a one-off project. It's something that requires constant attention and tweaking, so there is no reason why this engagement shouldn't go beyond twelve months. Remember, if you can show them in the numbers that what you are doing is paying for itself, this will be an easy decision for your client.
Month 12: The SEO Project Final Review
You made it. Twelve months of unforgettable SEO magic. Now it's time to wrap up everything you did in a report that will make them ask you, "how can we improve on this?" You'll of course need to come prepared to answer that, but that's the key to getting them to resign for another engagement.
In this report you should cover the following:
- A summary that lists all of the major accomplishments – average rank, non-branded organic traffic improvement, non-branded organic conversion improvement, etc.
- A recap of all major accomplishments for each month during your engagement
- A chart of your client's average rank throughout the 12 month engagement (to show how it improved) – be sure to also include why there were any major shifts in position
- Comparison of client's top keyword rankings to competitors
- Listings of the top links you were able to acquire for them
- Analysis of top performing content (in terms of traffic, conversions and links created)
Also include any other unique components to your engagement in this report. I try and keep my reports short and to the point. As much as I enjoy doing SEO, I know that most clients aren't interested in the details. They just want to see what is working, what isn't and what else they can do to make money.
To wrap your report up, you need to go over what they need to do to continue growth and highlight areas of improvement. Recommended topics for this section of the report include:
- How to duplicate link building successes
- What do they need to do to stay competitive in their market?
- Is there an opportunity to expand the SEO campaign (e.g. new content on the site)?
- Do you recommend scaling back, maintaining or intensifying SEO efforts?
- What SEO efforts are going to have the biggest impact?
Get their interest, show them the importance of maintaining their SEO and give them a taste of what their site is capable of achieving after being well optimized for the past twelve months.
I hope you enjoyed this series on The Agency SEO Process. I realize that there isn't a blanket approach when it comes to SEO, but hopefully this will help you to outline the process and become more efficient.
Taylor Pratt is an online marketing consultant at Built to Search. Built to Search offers customized SEO, PPC and social media consulting services.
Leave a Reply
Get the SEP Newsletter
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Collective Thoughts, Kathleen Hanover, Dilip Rajpurohit SEO and others. Dilip Rajpurohit SEO said: The Agency SEO Process – Part 5: It's been a lot of work, but we're finally nearing the end of our twelve-month… http://bit.ly/fnvd5l [...]
Taylor first of all thank you for this kind of article you wrote. Secondary i think that the keyword research process is one of the main things in Seo. We need always to check the competition websites with the keywords that we want to bit. you know what i mean. The spy tactics is required for been successful in SERP
.-= Yossi jana recently posted: קידום אתרים באמצעות Html 5 =-.
Taylor, throughout this series you've talked about content development and link building. Does each phase of this focus on supporting content for the main keywords you are targeting or are these creating new avenues for new keywords? Just curious how you look at this process from your perspective.
In the beginning part of the engagement I really make an effort to ensure I have great content for the main keywords I'm targeting. Later on, however, I start creating content to use for targeting all of those other keywords I either skipped on or newly discovered. Great question!