Search Engine Optimization

Why You Need a SEO Maintenance Plan

A search engine optimization maintenance service plan will

ensure that your site will continue to increase in its

rankings, attract more visitors and make more sales. It's

not enough to simply design your web site, have it

optimized for the search engines and expect it to

continually rank well. If left alone, you may soon lose the

business your web site initially generated.

What should be included in a SEO maintenance service plan?

1. Monitor search engine rankings - there will be many

fluctuations in your search engine rankings. This may be

due to search engines changing their ranking formulas, or

competitors trying to get ahead of you. More sites are

added to the web each day so you need to monitor your

search engine rankings to be competitive. I create monthly

ranking reports on where your site is currently ranked for

each of the major search engines.

2. Traffic Tracking - it's essential to know where most of

your traffic is coming from so you can make adjustments to

your marketing strategies. For example if most of your

traffic is coming from one particular page, you may want to

place your best products on that page to get more sales. I

analyze your site statistics (if they are available from

your web host) to check how much traffic you are receiving,

where is it coming from and what keywords are being used to

find your site.

3. Keyword research - web sites are being added to the web

every day, therefore keywords that once got high rankings

may no longer work. You may have high search engine

positions for your most important keyword phrases but if

you are not receiving any traffic from those phrases, you

will need to evaluate the keywords that you have used.

Attaining a number 1 ranking for keywords that no one will

search for, will not increase your traffic.

Researching new keywords is essential to maintain good

rankings. I analyze the current keywords used on your site

and research and add new ones. Once the keywords have been

chosen, the content should be updated to reflect them. This

may include subtle changes to the meta tags, page titles

and text headings; or it could involve adding additional

sections to the site, rewriting content and reorganizing

the web site's structure. It all depends on the specific

requirements of the site and market.

4. Competitive analysis - an integral part of search engine

optimization is determining what keywords your competitors

are using. I analyze where your competitors are currently

ranked for the same keywords you are using for your web

pages. I also check how many competitors you have for each

of the major search engines. If there are too many

competitors for a particular keyword it may be better to

use less competitive keywords for your web pages or use

them in conjunction with the most popular ones.

I will also analyze the link popularity of your competitors

to determine how many incoming links they have and what the

quality of those links are. You should not link to

unrelated sites and ideally link to sites that already

attract a lot of traffic.

5. Adding fresh content - web sites that continuously

update and/or expand their content, usually experience

higher rankings than stagnant web sites. New keywords

should first be researched before adding new content. This

will help boost your traffic and rankings because visitors

will have more ways to land on your site based on the

keywords they entered in the search engines. One great way

to achieve this is to add new articles to your site on a

regular basis.

6. Web copy analysis - getting a lot of traffic to your

site does not guarantee sales. It primarily depends on how

effective your web copy is. (Read my article: " How to

Write Effective Web Copy " www.isitebuild.com/web-copy).

You want to convert visitors into sales. I analyze how your

web copy is structured on the page, what words you use, if

it is written for your visitors plus check it for spelling

and grammatical errors.

7. Boost link popularity - this refers to the amount of

other quality web sites that have links pointing back to

yours. The more quality links there are, the better you

will rank on the major search engines. I extensively

research other sites related to yours and add or exchange

links with them. This may require a links/resources page to

be added to your site.

8. Tweaking web site structure and navigation - if visitors

are having a difficult time navigating your site, reading

the content or experience broken links, then I will repair

or tweak the site to make it more suitable for your

visitors.

Conclusion - your web site should be an integral part of

your business plan. It may be the first view your visitors

have of your business. You therefore should update and

maintain it regularly so your visitors will want to revisit

and keep doing business with you.

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)

owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com.

Choose a Search Engine Optimization Plan or

SEO Maintenance Plan that fits your web site.

Visit: http://www.isitebuild.com/sitepromotion