Questions to Ask Before You Start an SEO Campaign

We find many clients do not think of search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) as marketing, but that’s exactly what it is.

SEO and PPC are internet marketing.

Before you start a campaign you have to evaluate, as a company, your goals for right now and five years down the road. You have to be able to articulate to us, your internet marketing team, what is important to your business.

Having content on your website to support popular phrases isn’t enough. We’re creating a strategy. Your campaign is a long-term marketing goal. Asking questions like the ones outlined below will hopefully help guide you in the direction of understanding that internet marketing is about proving, on a marketing level, that you are only the ultimate resource and top authority figure in your industry.

Strategic Questions to Ask Yourself

In your next marketing meeting throw these questions out to the crowd, which we adapted from Rand Fishkin at Moz:

• Why are you venturing into internet marketing? What is your overall goal?
• What is the benefit you provide clients?
• What about that benefit makes your company different from the place down the street?
• What is your sales process?
• What is your current marketing process (how do you turn visitors into sales)?

Tactical Questions to Ask Yourself

After you have a general answer for the strategic questions you can dive into the technical questions:

• What do you want to rank for? Determine a plan to dominate rankings.
• How do we get links? Start with the most obvious places for quality links.
• How can we improve content? Understand the basics of writing for the web before you start.
• How can we improve the design? Small improvements can make a big difference.
• How can we improve site speed? Keep customers happy, increase your load time.
• How can we improve mobile? Your site better be mobile-friendly if you want to rank.
• Are there any penalties? Get rid of bad links if they will result in penalties.
• Are there any technical issues? Our checklist can help you determine if there are problems.