Search Engine Optimization

This is the preparatory stage, without which it is impossible to develop an effective SEO strategy. We need to get answers to several basic questions from you:

• What goals and objectives do you set for an SEO agency?
• What areas of business (services or product categories) are your priorities?
• What are the main KPIs for you and what tools do you use to track them?
• What are the possibilities and restrictions on making changes to your website?
• Who do you consider your main competitors?

We will also ask you about your previous SEO experience (if any): what were the main difficulties, why you didn’t achieve the desired results, and what didn’t suit you in the approach of the previous contractor.

Before we take on a project, we need an SEO strategy. To draw up a strategy, we carry out:

• Website pre-audit. What types of pages are there and how many are there? What are the main problems now preventing the website from being indexed and ranked?
• Preliminary keyword research. What is the demand potential for different categories or types of pages?
• Analysis of current organic traffic and website rankings. What is the structure of current organic traffic? What keywords are driving traffic to the website?
• Competitor analysis. Why and how are they progressing in organic search? What solutions are worth borrowing?

At the same time, we take into account many factors: a type and age of a website, a geography and characteristics of a potential audience, specifics of the subject, a structure of a website, a quantity and quality of a website content, a previous history of search engine optimization oa a website.

As a result, you get: a formulated SEO strategy, a work plan for the next 12 months, SEO project budget and a forecast of expected results.

In the first month of work, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of the site. The audit is carried out on 45+ points, which are divided into 2 areas:

• Website indexing. We need to ensure fast, complete and error-free indexing of a website by search engines.
• Links and content. We identify and fix problems that can negatively affect text relevance and link ranking.

Why do we start SEO with an audit?

• Technical problems can negate all other SEO efforts. If a page is not indexed, then it doesn’t matter what great content is on it. Until a page gets into the search index, it will not bring traffic.
• Correcting technical errors may require some resources of a development team. The sooner we understand what resources are needed, the easier it will be to allocate them and the faster we will fix all critical errors.

Keyword research is the foundation for most other SEO tasks. The result of keyword research is a structured list of keywords distributed across relevant pages of a website. We use this list to track a website’s search rankings, optimize content and internal links, optimize search snippets, link building, and more.

Depending on a type and size of a website, this work is either carried out in the first months after a start of a project, or can be regular:

• If a website has a large catalog of products, we work through one category after another. We move from the most priority to the least priority. We take into account the seasonality of search demand.
• In a case of informational or media websites, a development of a keyword list is carried out regularly (for example, once a quarter). We select keywords and, based on them, prepare a content plan for several months in advance. We can work with both “evergreen” topics (for which there is always a demand), and with seasonal or event-related keywords.

A final list may include thousands of keywords. For regular monitoring of website positions, a so-called “control list” can be assembled: a shortened list covering all main categories, sections of a website and page types.

At this stage, we carry out all our planned work in accordance with our SEO strategy. As a rule, a plan includes the following tasks:

• Recommendations for creating new sections or pages based on keyword research.
• Recommendations for optimizing titles and meta tags of pages.
• Preparation of technical specifications for writing content.
• Copywriting for new pages and optimization of existing texts.
• Working with commercial and behavioral factors, etc.

When implementing our recommendations, we advise your developers:

• We explain an importance and priority of certain problems. We can predict an effect of fixing a particular error if a fix requires significant resources.
• We offer alternative solutions if there are problems with implemetning SEO recommendations. We show the advantages and disadvantages of different methods for eliminating existing problems.

For reporting, we use two types of tools as data sources:

• Systems for monitoring the rankings of websites in search results.
• Web analytics systems (Google Analytics, Yandex Metrica, etc.)

Data on positions and traffic can be presented in different sections: by search engines, by site sections, etc. The SEO report format is developed jointly with the client.

By default, we prepare monthly reports. If necessary, we can provide other details: weekly summaries, quarterly reports, etc.

Based on the results achieved, we can adjust our SEO strategy and work plan. In the course of work, it may turn out that some of the directions of a strategy bring better results than others. Then we can reallocate our resources to make the most efficient use of them. For example, reduce time for less effective tasks or abandon them altogether and use the freed hours for those tasks that bring more effect for this particular project.