SEO planning is critical for marketing strategy and should be done before other tactics. Key aspects of an SEO plan include determining customer triggers, goals, target personas, questions to answer, and content types and frequency that can reasonably be committed to. Content like blogs, photos, videos, and podcasts should help others and be optimized on-page and off-page through internal links, relevant external links, and social promotion to build authority over time. Ongoing monitoring and adjustments are needed as search algorithms and the competitive landscape evolve.

1. introducing

2. SEO: It’s Your Move

3. everybody is looking for this

4. cause everybody wants to be

5. truth
“SEO has evolved to become the
result of an actual marketing
strategy versus marketing tactics”
Rae Hoffman

6. Google’s goal = best answers
“We showthe results at the top that
answer the user’s queries directly
(after all we built Google
for users, not websites).”
Posted by Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman, Google

7. why blog?
Companies that blog have
434% more indexedpages.
And companies with more
indexed pages get far more leads.
--Search Engine Strategies Conference, NYC 2013

8. blogging is..
Blogging is an essential
marketing component for
your business

9. simple advice
Not sure where to start
with your blog content?
Follow one, simple rule:
Help other people
From Shareaholic Blog: 4 Ways to Increase Audience Engagement Kali Hawlk

10. strategy
Before you jump into planning answer these
critical questions:
– What triggers your customer to purchase?
– What are you seasonal / sales goals?
– What do you want to communicate?
– Who are my customers; personas/segments
– What questions can you answer, problems can
you solve, or understanding can you add?
– What can you reasonably commit to?

11. seo planning is the 1st step
• seo is not an item to be
left to the end
• plan first
• w/o planning, you’ll
never get where you
want to be
Photo credit: Oatsy40

12. long tail world
latent semantic indexing (LSI)

13. voice search
•coffee shops near me
•Who has the cheapest gardening supplies
near me?

14. content types
• Photos
• Videos; interviews, Q&A, demos
• Text / written articles; in-depth, long-form
• Podcasts & Audio Files

15. fundamentals
• solid, strong brand
• greatcopy
• adds value
• Exceptional User Experience
• useful information
• fast; mobile responsive

16. google is mobile first
•“mobile-friendlycriteria will continue
to be a ranking signal”
•“after January 10, 2017, pages
where content is not easily accessible to a
user on the transition from the mobile search
results may not rank as highly”
Webmaster Central Blog

17. secure your site
“security- top priority for Google
“HTTPS everywhere”
HTTPS as a ranking signal
switch from HTTP to HTTPS
Webmaster Central Blog Wednesday, August 06, 2014

18. essential
• Focus keyword and content analysis
• Post titles and meta descriptions
• Robots meta configuration
• Readability check
• Canonical
• Breadcrumbs
• Primary category
• Permalink cleanup
• XML sitemaps
• RSS enhancements

19. all ins
• Title
– page
– file media library
• Text
• Tags
– alt
– post
– H2, H3
• Page
• Subheads
• Descriptions

20. other considerations
• Relevant inbound links
• Cross site links as on-
page navigation
• No “click this link”
rather, “click for map to
our location”

21. taxonomy
• Map it out
• Identify primary
• Supporting branches
• Categories
– One per post
• Tags as micro-
categories
– Not contained in post
titles

22. plan blog categories
Cupcakes
Chocolate Birthday DecoratingChocolate BirthdayBirthday
Parent
Category Child or
Secondary
Categories
Parent
Category Child or
Secondary
Categories

23. plan ‘tags’- micro-categories
Dark
Chocolat
e
White
Chocolat
e
Milk
Chocolat
e
Child
Category
Chocolat
e
Tags

24. create editorial calendar
Superhero
Birthday
Cupcakes
Favorite
Milk
Chocolate
Cupcake
Recipes
How to
decorate
cupcakes
with real
flowers
Desserts
Chocolate
Cupcakes
Birthday
Cupcakes
Cakes
SunSatFriThursWedTuesMonTopic

25. after posting...promotion
“The real magic lies in content promotion.
Without it, your content will struggle to earn a
social mention, let alone a quality backlink.”*
• Where will they see it?
• What will motivate them?
• Where will you/they share it?
*Robbie Richards in 16 Explosive Content Promotion Strategies

26. lather, rinse, repeat
• monitor
• adjust
• refresh
• keep alert to changes
• competition
Photo credit: 1950sUnlimited