11 stages of SEO website promotion

You have decided that further development of the project is impossible without search engine promotion. We found a specialist and gave him access. After a while, you get a weighty list of recommendations for implementation — at the level of the site structure, texts, and even the most holy design.

How do you understand that all this is really necessary, and what exactly does an SEO specialist do to optimize your resource?

Regardless of whether you are engaged in website promotion in Ukraine or the USA, and, accordingly, focus on Google or Bing, the promotion process as a whole does not change. Of course, as in other areas, much depends on the specifics, but there are still mandatory stages of SEO promotion.

What is SEO?
What does SEO stand for? Search Engine Optimization is a set of measures and actions that eliminate, prevent/minimize technical errors on the site and improve the readability of the resource by search engine robots. The essence of SEO is to make it faster and easier for the user to find the information he needs and for this information to match as closely as possible what he was looking for in Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines.

In requests for website promotion, you can often find "SEO optimization" or "SEO promotion", which is fundamentally wrong, since the CEO is the head of the company, Chief Executive Officer. However, even the phrase "SEO promotion" or "SEO optimization" contains a tautology: SEO already in the English version contains the word "optimization", and literally translates as "promotion/promotion on search platforms".

Search engine optimization is a set of constant actions for the development of your site in three main directions:

internal site optimization for search engines;
the content component for interacting with the target audience;
work with behavioral factors to optimize key business performance indicators.
However, the presence of an online store or a ready-made website is not the main condition for starting work on search engine optimization. When should I start working on SEO?

when SEO is needed
One of the fundamental points before starting work is the formation of goals and objectives that the client sets for the contractor. Without this, any cooperation will have high risks. The goals and objectives directly determine how many hours of specialists (and which specialists — the composition and skill level of the agency's team) need to be allocated to achieve them.

Relatively speaking, SEO optimization is definitely needed by the project if its owner has the opportunity to track and improve such KPIs:

Synthetic KPIs — indirectly affect profits

Business KPIs — directly affect profits

Percentage of the site's landing pages in the search engine index

Number of registrations / subscriptions / applications

Site visibility in the search engine

The number of conversions from visitors to customers

Site traffic

The amount of the average check

Number of new/repeated visits

Number of repeat orders

ROMI — return on investment

It is important to understand that website promotion is one of the important components of a business. Unfortunately, today more than 90% of the sites being developed are made according to the customer's vision, and SEO specialists are involved already at the stage of the "finished product", which needs to be corrected, corrected, spend time on it and, most importantly, kill the potential of website promotion in search engines at an early stage.

SEO at the development stage is a strategic step. Carefully designed optimization for search engines allows you to prevent errors that will negatively affect further promotion and take into account search demand. This will help to increase the audience coverage at the start of the resource, which means to get the desired payback and profit in a shorter time.

Step one: analysis of the site, topics and competitors
For which projects is this stage relevant:

Online stores.
Websites of services and products.
News sites.
Business card sites (not one-page sites).
Bulletin boards.
Corporate websites.
Forums.

Google Webmaster Panel — analyze data without panic
When an SEO specialist gets all access to the project analytics and webmaster panels (or adds a site there on his own), he begins to analyze the project's goods and services, and also gives an overall assessment of the site in order to understand what work needs to be done first.

It is at this stage that a project promotion strategy and a detailed work plan are being formed.

What exactly does the specialist do?

Analyzes the overall site visibility not only for high-frequency queries, but also for medium and low-frequency ones.
Conducts an analysis of competitors and market leaders in order to understand what to focus on in this topic, what is better on competitors' websites.
Analyzes the structure of the leading sites in the niche, their link profile.
Marks the queries for which landing pages need to be created and optimized on the client's website.
Conducts both regular analytics based on search results and system analytics, for example, using Serpstat.

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Why is all this necessary? The SEO specialist determines whether it is necessary to immediately make global changes to the site. For example, to change the CMS (content management system), adapt the site to mobile devices, change the protocol from http to https, and the like.

A competent specialist notifies about the need for global changes in advance in order to clarify with programmers how possible it is, for example, to finalize the current version of the CMS.

It also allows you to clarify the entire budget for website promotion — the cost of content, links, and other expenses.

It is better to make global changes in advance, otherwise, in the third or fourth month of work on the implementation of SEO audit, you will find yourself at a dead end - you will face the fact that it is technically impossible to optimize filters, add new tags or categories.

Step two: we form the primary core of search queries
For which projects is this stage relevant:

Online stores.
Websites of services and products.
News sites.
Business card sites (not one-page sites).
Bulletin boards.
Corporate websites.
Forums.

How to create a semantic core without the help of a specialist — a guide to collecting semantics for online store owners
Now you have a promotion strategy, a work plan, a preliminary analysis of the site and the sites of market leaders. An SEO specialist uses Serpstat and other search query collection tools to collect, cluster into groups, and break through the frequency of the semantic core.

It is useful for:

formation of the site structure;
creating templates for generating and generating meta tags manually (Title, Description, Keywords), H1, H2 headers;
writing texts on landing pages;
creating a competent linking;
external site optimization;
site visibility analysis.
The semantic core can consist of several hundred search queries (for small business card sites) or several hundred thousand (for online stores).

Website requests for the sale of watches

In this fragment of the table, there is not even 1% of the requests from the site that sells watches

The process of compiling the core is long and, depending on the size of the site, may take several months. That is why it is divided into sections and categories, so as not to slow down the promotion and expand the semantic core in parallel with other works.

Step three: we form a broad structure of the site
For which projects is this stage relevant:

Online stores.
Sites of services and products, except for some projects with a narrow focus.
News sites.
Business card sites (not one-page sites).
Bulletin boards.
Corporate websites.
Forums.
Search engines are constantly improving their algorithms and showing the most relevant pages for user queries. If you type "laptops with backlit keyboards" in the search engine, you will see the pages most relevant to these queries in the first places.

Example of the issue

If you want to see your project in these positions, you cannot do without forming a broad site structure. For each group of search queries, you need to create and optimize your landing page.

At the same time, it is important to remember that it is better to optimize specific product cards for super-low-frequency queries, since they will only interfere with the promotion of important pages, taking away part of their internal static weight.

A super low frequency request is considered to be entered no more than five times a month.

Category pages are created for high—frequency queries, and static filter/filter intersection pages are created for medium and low-frequency queries.

Where do you get ideas for creating new landing pages?

Analysis of the issue.
Competitor analysis.
Internal site search.
Analysis of the product range / range of services.
For large stores with distribution centers in various cities, as well as bulletin boards, marketplaces, companies with branches, the number of landing pages in the structure is multiplied by the number of cities. At the same time, it is important that the content of such pages is unique.

This is a long process, and in large projects, new filter pages for specific categories are created even two years after the start of site promotion. But still, the bulk of the work on expanding the structure of landing pages should be carried out much earlier — in order to get the desired effect faster.

Step four: create an internal optimization task
For which projects is this stage relevant:

Online stores.
Websites of services and products.
News sites.
Business card sites (not one-page sites).
Bulletin boards.
Corporate websites.
Forums.
The specialist corrects errors in the internal optimization of the site, works with landing pages for query groups, and removes duplicate pages. To do this, a technical SEO audit of the site is carried out, on the basis of which an internal optimization task is formed.

The following points must be fulfilled (in order of importance):

Setting up automatic generation of Title, Description and H1 headings based on templates for categories, products, filters, filter intersections, pages created for geo-queries, and the like.
The formation of page addresses on the site (bringing them to a human-readable form).
Filter optimization: creating rules for generating URLs for filters and their intersections, meta tags, visibility of links to filters).
Increasing the speed of the server response and loading site pages.
Deleting duplicates using permanent redirects, canonical addresses, noindex follow.
Creating an XML site map.
Multilingual settings (if there are language versions).
Optimization of pagination pages.
Optimization of the server response code and page headers.
Setting up micro-markup of reviews and information on product card pages.

We design the product page: five chips for online stores
Read the details in the article "Designing a product page: five chips for online stores".

Step five: organization of internal linking
For which projects is this stage relevant:

Online stores.
Websites of services and products.
News sites.
Bulletin boards.
Corporate websites.
Forums.
Often the reason for poor site ranking is the problem with filling promoted pages with static weight. What is it about?

It is important not only to create landing pages, but also to organize internal linking so that users and the search robot can easily get to other pages. Otherwise, search engine optimization of sites will not work and they may not appear in the search engine index.

This problem usually occurs with pages with optimized filters — the user can get to such pages by selecting a filter, but the search robot does not see it.

It is important not only to create landing pages, but also to organize internal linking so that users and the search robot can easily get to other pages

Also, at the stage of website promotion, an SEO specialist builds a link between menu categories using developed scripts, where he adds previously collected and clustered queries, pours static weight from pages with low competition (for example, from product cards, filter intersections) to pages with a higher level of nesting.

Step Six: Content optimization
For which projects is this stage relevant:

Online stores.
Websites of services and products.
News sites.
Business card sites (not one-page sites).
Bulletin boards.
Corporate websites.
The optimizer manually generates unique meta tags (Title, Description, Keywords) and H1 headers based on the "long tail" of search queries for those pages where it is needed. Also, texts are generated for the promoted pages of the site, including previously collected key queries, of course, taking into account the current requirements of search engines.

Texts affect both the ranking of pages for high-frequency queries and the display for queries with a "long tail".

Step seven: Working with a crowding budget
For which projects is this stage relevant:

Online stores.
Sites of services and products where it is possible to filter search results and sort them.
Bulletin boards.
The crawling budget of the search robot is the number of pages that it can crawl at a time on the site.

Often, site owners, after reading 1-2 articles on site promotion using filter and tag optimization, create hundreds of pages of useless filters for which there are no queries or very few of them. Moreover, the pages of intersections of two filters from one block (for example, two brands), intersections of four or more filters are not closed for the robot. They do not hide pages of various sorts: by price, rating, number of products on the page. These are all gross mistakes.

As a result, the search robot can index only a part of the filter pages and leaves the site. Even if you do everything else correctly, this will be the reason why the pages will not fall into the index. Moreover, the static weight of category pages will decrease significantly.

Case study: how to save the project and increase organic traffic by 109% in 6 months
An excellent case study on working with filters: "How to save a project and increase organic traffic by 109% in 6 months."

It is recommended to work with a crowling budget only for specialists with experience. Experts will competently close the "garbage pages" created only for the convenience of users for indexing, leave only the necessary filters, prohibit robots from bypassing the "garbage pages" and close links to them.

Step eight: improving the usability of the site
For which projects is this stage relevant:

Online stores.
Websites of services and products.
News sites.
Business card sites (not one-page sites).
Bulletin boards.
Corporate websites.
Forums.
Do search engine algorithms take into account behavioral factors — how the user interacts with the site? Yes, they do.

SEO specialists are working on:

the user's failure to return to the search results;
by reducing the bounce rate;
increasing the length of stay on the page.
Adapting the site for mobile devices will significantly increase the visibility of the site in mobile search results, and conversions from mobile devices will also increase. Simplifying navigation reduces the bounce rate. Proper design of the About Us page will increase the trust of visitors and search engines.

Step nine: External site optimization
For whom is this relevant? For all types of sites in highly competitive topics.

Yes, in a number of topics with low competition, you can do without increasing the external reference mass, but mostly external optimization is necessary. The more high-quality content sites link to you, the more authoritative you become in the eyes of search engines.

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The case in the subject: "About content marketing in the USA using the case study: 51 publications in 5 months."

There are many parameters by which you need to build a reference profile and select donors. SEO specialists can use permalink exchanges, add natural links from forums, Q/A services, and also directly post through webmasters of sites that do not sell links.

In addition, we always recommend that owners post such content so that users can link to them themselves. These are the most useful links.

Step ten: increase conversion from visitors to customers
For which projects is this stage relevant:

Online stores.
Websites of services and products.
News sites.
Business card sites (not one-page sites).
Bulletin boards.
Corporate websites.
Conversions are not necessarily sales. This can be either an order for services or a subscription to a newsletter.

In fact, this is a complex stage that requires knowledge of design, usability, email marketing and even skills to create high-quality content.

What does the specialist do in the first place?

Corrects order forms.
Adds ways to communicate with managers through the site.
Changes the colors of page elements.
Works with reviews.
Sets up trigger personalized mailings.
And this is only a hundredth of the improvements that increase the conversion rate of the site.

Step Eleven: Step-by-step page optimization
For which projects is this stage relevant:

Online stores.
Websites of services and products.
News sites.
Bulletin boards.
Corporate websites.
Forums.
Based on the ranking of pages by queries and traffic analysis by category, SEO specialists constantly work with the structure of the site, expand it, make changes to texts, meta tags, internal linking, external link mass of pages. This is a long process.

Everything is complicated by the constant updating of search engine algorithms, and therefore it is often necessary to make changes to the website promotion strategy and constantly improve it for users and search engines.

There are 11 main stages of an SEO specialist's work:

Analysis of the client's website, subject matter and competitors. Formation of a strategy and work plan. Relevant for all types of sites.
Collection and clustering of semantics, formation of the primary core of search queries. Relevant for all types of sites.
Creating a broad site structure. It is irrelevant for specific products and narrowly thematic services that solve specific goals.
Conducting an audit, creating a task for technical optimization of the site. Relevant for all types of sites.
Internal linking, increasing the internal weight of pages important for promotion. Relevant for all but small business card sites and specific products.
Content optimization. Relevant for all types of sites.
Working with a crowding budget. It is relevant for online stores, bulletin boards, services where it is possible to filter the results and sort by various parameters.
Improving the usability of the site. Relevant for all types of sites.
External optimization, working with the reference profile. It is irrelevant for topics with low competition.
Increase the conversion rate from visitors to customers. It is relevant for all types of sites, except forums.
Step-by-step optimization of pages by sections, categories, implementation of improvements based on data analysis. It may not be relevant for small business card sites.
Almost all the steps are not applicable to single-page sites.

FAQ
1. What is SEO in simple words?

SEO in simple words is the improvement of the site to increase the number of visits from search engines. Although the main goal of SEO is stable and long—term profit growth. For example, increasing the profitability of an online store depends on the dynamics of the growth of incoming traffic and the dynamics of the growth of its quality (conversion rate).

2. What does SEO include?

To summarize: internal optimization of the site for search engines, working with content to interact with the target audience, working with behavioral factors to optimize key business performance indicators. Although there are many more intermediate stages of search engine optimization.

3. What is needed for SEO optimization?

First of all, the measured KPIs of the project, the willingness to quickly implement the recommendations of specialists, the understanding that search engine optimization of the site is a long—distance race.

4. What types of SEO are there?

SEO optimization is conventionally divided into white (external and internal), gray and black methods. When using gray and black optimization, you can get to the top faster, but at the same time there is an increased risk of receiving sanctions (measures in case of violation of the rules) from search engines — a decrease in the output or a complete ban, exclusion from the index in the future.

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Of course, there are many nuances that remain outside the scope of this review. For example, the correct transfer of the site when changing the CMS, working with the mobile version of the site.

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