Creating an SEO Plan

Before you can even begin to optimize your web site for search engines, you need to have a search engine optimization plan in place. This will help you create SEO goals and keep those goals in focus as the purpose of your site changes, and as the methods for search engine optimization change — and they will change.

Your SEO plan will help you see where you need to concentrate your efforts at any given time. This need will change over time. In the beginning, you’re most likely to be focusing on getting started with SEO. However, after you’ve put all of your SEO strategies into place, the focus of your SEO activities will change.

Note that I said they will change, not that they will end. Once you’ve started SEO, if you plan to continue using it, you’ll need to constantly monitor and update your SEO plan, strategies, and activities. There was a time when the only thing you had to worry about was which keywords or links would be most effective for getting your site ranked high in relevant search results. Today, very few search engines focus on a single aspect of search engine optimization. This means that over time those who focused only on keywords or only on links have found themselves with diminished SEO effectiveness.

Search engines will naturally change and mature, as the technologies and principles that enable SEO and the engines themselves change. For this reason, the SEO plan should be considered a dynamic, changing document. To keep up with that document, you need to be evolving or changing as well. And that’s where your SEO plan will help you stay on track. Using the SEO plan, you can quickly and easily tell where you are and where you need to be with your search engine optimization efforts.