SEO Campaign Template: Here's The Plan For The Next 12 Months

This blog post and SEO Campaign template has been updated for 2024 with the latest information for being successful in search engine optimization. This not a complete education on SEO. There are many intricacies and sub-topics that go way more in depth. There are absolutely some SEO tactics that can only be understood through experience. Experience through optimizing websites and achieving ranking increases, along with experience working through constant search engine algorithm updates. Knowing the history of algorithms and other changes search engines have made over the years is paramount to having a solid grasp on SEO.

Most topics we will cover are what is known as on-page SEO and have to do with direct changes to your website and your content.

Additionally, we will briefly cover:

Links (Off page SEO)
PPC vs SEO ( and how they can work together)
How Google Search works (small business owner terms)

It’s no secret that we are a society dependent upon access to the internet. The World Wide Web has far exceeded the estimated 1.5 billion websites represented in statistics from a year ago.

Businesses were told they need to have websites to remain relevant but rarely are they told how to get traffic to their sites.

They soon learn there is stiff competition, and their site will need a digital marketing strategy to rise above the fray. It is then they learn about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and the importance of planning an SEO campaign.

eep reading for our step-by-step guide to creating the perfect SEO campaign plan.

What is an SEO Campaign?

Before getting started, you’ll need to have a strong understanding of what SEO is. The ultimate goal of SEO is to raise your website rankings on search engines like Google. If you have a local business, your focus will be on attracting a local audience instead of a global one.

An SEO campaign is a selection of SEO strategies and techniques designed to generate a specific outcome. Reasons to create a campaign include a new product introduction or to promote an event.

Your campaign is in addition to the basic strategies you have in place.

What Components Make Up A Strong SEO Campaign

Google search engine is a computer at the end of the day, running software that both collects information about webpages and algorithms that sort those webpages into “worthy of showing customers” and “not so much”.

This computer takes input from three sources to make their decisions about “ranking”:

Input from your website (this is your content and what it says about your business)
Input from other websites (these are backlinks that act like “votes” for your content)
Input from users (these are click throughs, dwell time, and actions taken on your website by users)

So how do these three inputs work together?

You start by creating a webpage. Google ranks web PAGES not web SITES. A web page is a single page on your website. This could be your homepage, a blog post, a product page, etc.

When you publish your page to the live web there is a strong chance that the “crawler” or “spider” will find that page. When it does it will start collecting information first based on the content of that page.

Your content will be what helps “index” your webpage correctly. Meaning when people search for terms related to your content, your page will at the very least be in that category. You may not rank #1 yet, but that’s a different story!

Using “on page SEO” SEO specialists (like yourself) add specific keywords to areas of the web page that may not be instantly visible to a reader. These spots include your “title tag”, your “meta description”, your image “ALT tags” and more. Once Google reads all of that information they will make a decision where to index your page.

Additionally, these “on page signals” can add “relevancy” to your web page. An article discussing dog grooming may discuss additional topics like bathing, nail clipping, teeth brushing and information on different breeds. Using keywords both in content and in those additional spots can help Google not just index your page correctly but increase your relevancy score. So if there are two articles about dog grooming but your article goes further in depth there is strong chance your article ranks better – you provide more relevance to the searcher’s query.

Once your article is complete and has excellent information, is well-written and structured, has interesting images or graphics or even a video you are ready to acquire and monitor the link building efforts. Oftentimes, if your article is strong enough, it will naturally gain quality backlinks from other websites. For example, your dog grooming article could gain a backlink from a dog rescue website who wants to share good information with their users. Other times, you may need to reach out to specific websites in your niche that could be open to working with you on a mutually beneficial piece of content.

These links to your website (text or images that someone can click to get to your webpage) act as “votes” showing Google that your content deserves to be ranked higher. The majority of early patents filed by Google founders are based around using link metrics to rank webpages.

Finally, your user experience can contribute greatly to your SEO campaign. Getting people to click on your result in the SERPs (because of your well written title tag and meta descriptions) is step one. Getting those people to spend more than a few seconds on your webpage without clicking the “back button” is step two. Getting those users to now take an action on your website is step 3. This could be click a button, fill out a form, watch a video, etc. If your website is getting the clicks and users are spending time browsing the site this signals that your content matches what these people are looking for, and you should see higher rankings because of it.

What is an SEO strategy?

An SEO strategy is a comprehensive plan designed to enhance a website’s visibility in search engine results. It involves organizing content around specific topics to improve the chances of appearing in relevant searches, thereby maximizing organic traffic. The strategy is essential for content marketing, as it ensures that the content created aligns with what users are actively searching for, rather than relying on assumptions. By establishing a structured approach, an SEO strategy helps in effectively indexing the site, clarifying the area of authority, and ultimately improving rankings in search engine result pages (SERPs).

Mobile SEO Strategy

Mobile-first indexing is a search engine optimization approach where search engines, like Google, primarily use the mobile version of a website for indexing and ranking purposes. This shift reflects the growing trend of users accessing the internet via mobile devices, making it crucial for website owners to ensure their sites are mobile-responsive and user-friendly. A robust mobile SEO strategy is integral to a successful campaign because it ensures that content is accessible and optimized for mobile users. This includes enhancing page load speeds, implementing responsive design, and ensuring that mobile users have a seamless browsing experience. By prioritizing mobile optimization, businesses can improve their search engine visibility, attract more organic traffic, and ultimately enhance user engagement and conversion rates.

How to Start Your SEO Project

Now that you understand the inputs to focus on, it’s time to start your SEO project. Every search engine optimization plan starts with research. The two most important forms of research are keyword research and competitor research.

1. Keyword Research

Keywords are the lifeblood of SEO. Without keywords or search queries, what are we doing here? The very first thing that happens in the lifecycle of converting an organic customer through search is that person physically types or speaks a search query into Google.

That query has something called “search intent” attached to it. Is the customer looking for an immediate solution “emergency, near me, now, today”, is the customer looking for information “how to, why, questions”, is the customer looking to purchase a product “best, prices, shipping” etc.

Knowing what these key phrases are and the intention behind them is imperative to the success of your campaign. Targeting keywords with both a high volume of search and intent that promotes sales is half the game.

For example, the term doctor gets hundreds of thousands of searches per month. But someone searching the word doctor can be looking for a plethora of different topics. How to be a doctor, types of doctors, how to spell the word doctor… you get the point.

The term vein doctor near me doesn’t get quite as many searches, but you can be sure exactly what the person making that search is looking for. Optimizing for this keyword will create more return on investment over the life of your business.

Secondly, researching long-tail keywords can also drastically increase the success of your SEO campaign. These search terms are often easier to rank for but ultra-specific in what the searcher wants to know.

To start, compile a list of about 10 words and terms associated with your product or service. Use an SEO tool (Google’s Keyword Tool, SE Ranking, Ahrefs, SEMRush, or GrowthBar, just to name a few) to research these words, identify their search volume, and come up with variations that make sense for your business.

If you looked at a graph of all the search terms related to the main topic, these keywords would be the tail end of the graph (hence the name long-tail).

Google Search Console is a free way of tracking how your page is performing for your target keyword. Just go to the Search Performance report, then filter for your URL and target keyword.

2. Competitor Research

Knowing your enemy is the first step to battle. If you want to get to the #1 spot, you need to understand what the sites currently there are doing right, wrong, and what you can do better.

After figuring out what main search phrase you are targeting, the first thing you should do is…you guessed it, Google it! See what comes up. Different search queries bring up different styles of results.

Is it a local query? You will probably see a map and local business suggestions along with websites like Yelp and Angie’s List.

Is it a how-to query? You will probably see the best YouTube videos to answer the question along with how-to blogs and sites like quora.com.

Is it a review search? You will probably see a bunch of review-style websites in the niche of your search.

Knowing what comes up when you execute your search will point you in the right direction when it comes to creating content.

You will find the following characteristics by going through search results:

Text length of ranking pages – how many words will you have to write?
Is media featured in ranking pages – videos? photos? how many?
The content makeup of ranking pages – showing ads? popups? font size? text features (I’m using bullet points here because a list makes sense here AND it breaks up the content. Instead of just walls of text, there are other elements.)

These are the key characteristics you will discover and make note of on ranking pages. As SEO professionals, we look at other factors like backlink profiles, website age, website speed, etc.

There is a lot to learn by studying your competition. If you can do it better, you will earn the spot.

Review & Improve Website Structure

Your website’s structure is incredibly important to your success with search engines.

One of the key elements of how a search engine works is how it finds new pages. They do this by actually following links on pages. When the crawler encounters a link, they will then crawl that new page. Of course, the actual process behind the scenes is more complicated than that, but for our purposes, that is what you need to know.

So if you have a link on your homepage to your About Us page, when Google crawls your homepage, they will also crawl your About Us page.

Mobile-First Design

In today’s society, people are attached to their smartphones and tablets. Too often, businesses create websites with a focus on simply having an online space to represent their product or brand. They don’t consider the importance of having a mobile-friendly or mobile-responsive website.

With a mobile-friendly site, the focus is on providing a positive user experience. The website is easy to navigate, and there are minimal distractions like music or videos on autoplay. The focus is also on color themes and font sizes.

With responsive web design, it’s about creating a better visual experience. When someone visits a website on a mobile device, regardless of screen size, the website adjusts down without losing the layout. WordPress can be a great way to quickly get a responsive website up and running.

Your SEO techniques will also transfer to the mobile version of the website.

Create Social Media Pages

Your SEO strategy includes social media platforms. Just as your business needs a website, it also needs a social presence. Research the various social platforms available and choose the ones that are best suited for your business or brand.

There is no set number of social sites you should use. It is important that you do not try to force the issue. Your SEO campaign will have features specifically designed to attract your target audience and guide them to your website.

Social media is a perfect place to begin the sales funnel that will generate interest and ultimately lead to profit.

Incorporate Basic SEO Techniques

There are basic SEO techniques that are part of all SEO planning. Without having them as part of your strategy, your campaign will not gain any traction.

Content

Although there are close to 2 billion websites on the internet, only a fraction of them are active. If website owners are not updating their content on a regular basis, their sites will eventually drop into the abyss.

To keep the site fresh, include a blog that is updated with a new post once or twice a week. Add new photos or post updated content about products.

Using WordPress? Here are some tips on the new Gutenberg editor.

Keywords

As we mentioned above, keywords are a vital part of every SEO campaign. You need them to identify your product or service. Utilize a keyword finder app to see what words are trending in connection to what you are promoting.

Use the keywords in product descriptions, file names, and URLs. You can also create keyword hashtags for social media posts.

Images and Video

Use SEO to optimize your campaign by including high-resolution images and videos. Name your files using SEO standards. Create keywords when tagging the files on your site and the URL.

Since people love videos, you should see increased traffic when integrating them into your campaign.

Title Tags

In this SEO technique, you’re letting the search engine gods know what your content is all about. The wording in your titles contains important keywords that match what people are entering into the search engine.

Your title tags will also appear in web browsers, so if the user has multiple windows open, they can quickly get back to your webpage.

Planning SEO Campaign Planning

Research Latest SEO Trends

Google is always coming up with ways to measure optimization techniques used to improve search engine results. SEO specialists must stay abreast of new trends when designing SEO campaigns for their clients.

Some of the current trends in website technology include:

Artificial Intelligence
E-commerce platforms
Live Streams
3D Technology
Mobile Apps

Each one will have an SEO strategy template that can be applied to get your site noticed on Google. If you’re really doing things right, your content could end up in a Google featured snippet. Snippets are the best answer appearing at the top of Google search pages.

Pay Attention to Analytical Data

Once your SEO campaign is up and running, you’ll want to track its success. To do this, you’ll need to have access to analytical data.

Most cookie-cutter web builder platforms come with some form of reporting apps for their paid platforms.

Google Analytics can be used to track website visitors and provides insights into metrics like page speed.

Your social media business platforms will also provide insights and data to help you track how the campaign is performing.

Use the information to make tweaks and get the best return on investment.