Planning for SEO Success

The plan is comprised concepts that will be broadly familiar with business analysts and project managers:

• Current position
• Desired position
• Plan
• Who
• Quantify
• Budget
• Timing

Quantifiable Success

In order to determine if the SEO has been successful, it is necessary to document the current position of the search engine rankings. Some specific SEO-related statistics that can easily be collected follow. Links to assist with these activities can be found at the end of this document.

• How many unique websites and web-pages link back to your website
• Current page rank
• Check W3C compliance of each page.
• Page load times

The desired position can be defined from these results. This may comprise:

• Setting a goal for the number return-links. Try to qualify this by also setting goals for return-links from sites that have specific page ranks e.g. 20 links from PR3 sites and 30 links from PR4 sites.
• Increasing the page rank to a certain value e.g. equalling or exceeding a competitor.
• W3C compliance for all or at least the key pages.
• Increasing page load speeds at specific loads.

Set targets by analysing competitors when executing searches on chosen keywords. Targets will aim to exceed those results attained by competitors.

Project Management

The other aspects of the plan comprise project management. Defining timelines, resourcing and budget.

SEO is a long-term, on-going activity that requires continual management and tracking. The initial setup will also take time to affect search results.