This is my first post on YOUmoz, so I hope you find it of some use. This is simply the process I follow when I start doing SEO for a company.

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STEP 1: RESEARCH

Research the business. What we do, how we do it. What we aim to do. Best sellers, biggest margins.

Get to know and understand the industry. Find industry feeds. Research. Stay ahead of the competition. Look for trends. This is absolutely vital. If you don't know your business and understand its customers, you're in for a tough time.

Research the competitors. Find the who’s who in the industry. What do they offer that’s different? What do they do better, what do we do better?

Research our website. What’s good, what’s bad, what works, what doesn’t. Add heatmapping software, see where page attention is. View in lynx, see as an engine does. Add ClickTale, and see how effective the call to actions are. Write a website and SEO analysis.

Research our traffic. Where it’s coming from. What traffic sources are converting well. Where would my SEO attention be better spent? Check web stats. Look over the PPC campaigns.

Research competitors websites. Write a website and SEO analysis. Compare to ours.

Keyword research. Use a mix of techniques, ranging from checking competitors' sites and using tools like WebPosition/Wordtracker to find keywords you may be missing. Make a list and use the Google Adwords keyword suggestion tool to check approximate traffic figures. From that, make a prioritised keyword list. Note KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) and compare with our conversion rates for information on which to target first/most. Remember, well targeted traffic > a hoard of random traffic.

Set up monitoring on keywords. Set up an automated program to check positions of keywords and create reports (like WebPosition or the SEO Book toolbar).

Set KPIs. Set KPIs to help drive the SEO process. KPIs do not HAVE to be hit, but having a tangible goal in SEO helps motivate and  monitor success.

• Rank top ten for keyword x
• Increase traffic from search engines by x
• Improve conversion/lower bounce rate for keyword x

Research current links and anchor text. Use Yahoo! Site Explorer, Google Webmaster Tools, and other tools to research current links. Note anchor text and, if needed, make a list for change due to new keyword research. This information is useful for targeting specific keywords. For example, try to change anchor text from “company name” to “keyword”.

Research links to be acquired. Use Yahoo! Site Explorer to find where our opposition get their links from. Use knowledge of the business to find links. Look into and approach:

1. Industry regulatory bodies
2. Business we are networked with (suppliers, partnerships, service providers) via reciprocal links or testimonials
3. Regular customers/clients
4. Friends and family who run businesses with websites

STEP 2: QUICK WINS

• Check for duplicate title/meta tags on pages
• Look for links that point to old pages (404s) and 301 them. Re-write title, description and keywords ala new research. Make and link to the sitemap on every page (HTML type). Send the XML type to engines.
• Utilise the main navigation better. Contain anchor text on every page.
• Change filenames of linked pages to more suitable keyword based names. For example, keyword-keyword.html > products/123.html
• Dashes > underscores
• Check on-site SEO factors such as:
  1. Keyword use in title tag
  2. AnchortText of inbound links
  3. Age of site renewal date of address
  4. Internal link sculpting (with targeted anchor text!)
  5. Keyword use in body text
  6. Check page titles and URL styles
  7. Use of 301 redirects for dead links
  8. Check/improve URLs of site

STEP 3: CONVERSION RATES + LONG-TERM SEO

• Restyle pages to convert higher; use information gathered from click mapping and ClickTale to help restructure pages. Improve CTAs.
• Use Adwords + landing pages + Google Website Optimiser + data from heat mapping to find optimum page layout
• Create a solid, steady, targeted, relevant link building campaign

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And there you have it.  Do you have a set method? Does it vary from mine? Am I missing an important steps? Let me know in the comments!