Couple friends of mine had a clear understanding what can be achieved online with SEO, but could not figure out how to do it. What are the most common tasks and the responsibilities such a job entails? As you know, Search Engine Optimization is the ongoing effort of optimizing a website’s on-page and off-page aspects so that it attracts more organic traffic. I’m listing below the 5 main tasks which any SEO expert will do on a regular basis.
SEO Task 1 – Keyword research (fine-tuning or finding new areas of opportunities)
How to do keyword research?
- Brainstorming sessions
- Analyze at your own website’s traffic sources and webmaster tools
- Use various online tools such as Google’s Search-based Keyword Tool
- Check what key phrases are bringing traffic to your competitors
- Estimating competition for same keywords on search engines
- Create lists of key phrases you intend to target
SEO Task 2 – On-site optimization (helping search engines to find all content correctly)
How to do on-page optimization?
- Check validation of the website’s code as per W3C standards
- Optimize HTML page titles, meta tags and content
- Enhance the internal linking structure
- Sort all canonicalization issues
- Create robots.txt and sitemap.xml
SEO Task 3 – Building online authority (gaining quality incoming links)
How to build online authority?
- Search engine submissions
- DMOZ, Yahoo and other directory submissions
- Optimize press releases
- Post content on 3rd party websites
- Contribute in your niche’s blogging community
- Contact people who might be interested in recommending your website
- Promotion of exceptional content for linkbaiting
SEO Task 4 – Monitoring industry changes (keeping up-to-date with algo changes)
How to monitor industry changes?
- Participate in specialized SEO forums and online communities
- Follow and communicate with the most popular SEO experts
- Testing various SEO ideas and monitoring performance
SEO Task 5 – Maintenance and reporting (for successful long-term benefits)
What are the most common SEO reports?
- Tracking number of indexed pages and incoming links for your website
- Keyword ranking reports to monitor position on search engines
- Daily, weekly and monthly organic traffic reports
- Reporting spam in search results to search engines
The above tips are not a complete list of all SEO tasks and responsibilities, but am sure it gives a clear picture of the effort involved.