Basic things need to know before optimizing website
Good planning is important before execution.
So why not make a good preparation plan before taking search engine optimization project for your website.
Before you start, there are some important steps to keep in mind before optimizing your website that will make sure your SEO is successful.
You need to know the answer of following question if you work for client:
1) Motivation behind optimizing website. What you want to achieve? Is it generating more sales, more traffic, more publicity etc etc.
2) What is the budget and time frame?
3) Who is responsible and who will work with you on this project?
After getting answer for this question, now starts making framework for your SEO project and establish limitations for the size and scope of the campaign.
Project requirement for SEO project or optimizing website:
1) What technology was used to build the site? (i.e. Flash, PHP, frames, Cold Fusion, JavaScrípt, Flat HTML etc)
2) What are the file extensions of the pages? (i.e. .htm, .php, .cfm etc)
3) Is it a dynamic website? If so, will the URLs contain query strings? e.g. www.website.com/lpagename?source=123444fgge3212, (containing "?" symbols), or does the site use parameter workarounds to remove the query strings? (the latter is more search engine friendly).
(4) Are there at least 250 words of text on the home page and other pages to be optimized?
(5) How does the navigation work? Does it use text links or graphical links or JavaScrípt drop-down menus?
(6) Approximately how many pages does the site contain? How many of these will be optimized?
(7) Does the site have a site map or will it require one? Does the site have an XML sitemap submitted to Google Sitemaps ?
(8) What is the current link popularity of the site?
(9) What is the approximate Google PageRank of the site? Would it benefit from link building?
(10) Do I have the ability to edit the source code directly? Or will I need to hand-over the optimized code to programmers for integration?
(11) Do I have permission to alter the visible content of the site?
(12) What are the products/services that the site promotes? (e.g. widgets, mobile phones, hire cars etc.)
(13) What are the site's geographical target markets? Are they global? Country specific? State specific? Town specific?
(14) What are the site's demographic target markets? (e.g. young urban females, working mothers, single parents etc.)
(15) What are 20 search keywords or phrases that I think my/my client's target markets will use to find the site in the search engines?
(16) Who are my/my client's major competitors online? What are their URLs? What keywords are they targeting?
(17) Who are the stake-holders of this site? How will I report to them?
(18) Do I have access to site traffíc logs or statistics to enable me to track visitor activity during the campaign? Specifically, what visitor activity will I be tracking?
(19) How do I plan on tracking my or my client's conversion trends and increased rankings in the search engines?
(20) What are my/my client's expectations for the optimization project? Are they realistic?
