6 Tips to Help Build Your SEO Strategy

2. Define your SEO strategy before you build your Web site.
When SEO is treated as an afterthought in the Web development process, it shows. Even the smallest site architecture or content updates can lead to unintended consequences that undermine your site’s ability to realize its full potential in search engines. Those who get ahead of the development curve with an informed SEO strategy will save themselves a great deal of pain down the road.

Since many existing sites will need to be restructured to some extent to accommodate the search engines’ particular quirks, SEO should not be viewed as a separate marketing channel, but as a practice that helps drive the Web publishing and promotion process. Wait until after your new site is launched to focus on SEO and you not only may be faced with the prospect of rebuilding the new site, but in many cases may find yourself saddled with ongoing maintenance as a result of issues such as modified URLs or broken links that were once supporting the ranking power of every individual page on your site. These issues can plague your IT department for years to come.

3. Your SEO SWOT analysis: Evaluate your position in the search marketplace.
SEO shouldn’t take place in a vacuum; you need to consider the competitive landscape and take inventory of your brand’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT). Marketers familiar with SWOT-analysis reports know the value of using this structured format to help your team see the brand in a larger context.

These reports can help lead you to a strategy that takes into account a wide range of environmental conditions. Some questions you might ask: What types of content do we have the rights to leverage? Are there specific types of queries that Google is under-serving? Which keyword phrases are most likely to convert into sales? How difficult will it be to compete for our keywords in the future?