I like milestones. They give me something to strive for and a way to measure how productive or successful an action, project, etc. has been. Today is a fairly significant milestone for me. It’s the half-way point of the year; the six-month checkpoint. Six months of 2010 have come and gone and now I’m looking at the next six months. For me, it’s kind of a pick-me-up to get moving on some projects I may have been a little lackadaisical on and an opportunity to give myself a pat on the back for other projects that have progressed quite well.

What I do…

I also use this time of year to evaluate where I’ve been putting my attention and to realign myself with my start of the year goals. Have I been neglecting family or personal time? Are there clients that are demanding too much of my time? Are there other projects that would net more income for less effort? Are there any projects that don’t align with my future goals?

Your turn…

Today I invite you to do the same. Here are a few questions to consider..

• What goals did you start the year with?
• How many have you already achieved?
• Are you on track for meeting your end of year targets?
• What adjustments could be made to ensure reaching your goals?
• Are your goals still in line with what you desire from life?
• Are you taking enough personal or family time to avoid burnout?
• Are there areas you could improve?
• What changes could you make to make the most of your time?
• Is there anything you find yourself avoiding? Is it time for a viewpoint change?
• What are the three most important things you want to accomplish in the next six months?
• What are your plans for achieving these?

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I’ve been doing search engine optimization for thirteen years. The one thing I have found to always be true is that search engine optimization should be tailored specifically to the project and client. What works for some websites, won’t work as well for others. SEO is also more than just picking out keywords and putting them on your page. It involves doing some real research and understanding the ultimate overall goal you wish to achieve with your website.

Now, I’ve definitely had my share of success creating SEO campaigns, but when it comes down to what you do, there are a few actions that are pretty much standard. To make things easier for myself, I’ve created an SEO Ready Checklist that I follow. Since this site is about sharing my secrets, I’ve included it for you to use as well. If you have any questions about terms or best practices, be sure to let me know. I’d be happy to help steer you in the right direction.

So without further ado, here’s my basic quick start “checklist” of things I do to get a site ready for a full search engine marketing program.

1. Check if there is any current analytical data being tracked for keywords and referring sites.
   • If there is, make a note of the most successful keywords and referring sites.
   • If not, install an analytical program such as Google Analytics.
2. Check if there is any data for the site being recorded at Alexa and Quantcast. I do this to create a demographic profile for the site. While keyword reports alone are a great tool to start from, knowing who your actual audience is helps determine which keywords and content ideas are going to resonate most with your target audience. This is where you marry SEO with providing content for people, not search engines.
3. Run the site through Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool. I do this in two ways. First, I have it scan the website and come up with recommended keywords and phrases. Then I use some of the more popular keywords and phrases from this report and enter those words in directly. I will also enter current keywords the site is using and the keywords that came up from the analytics reports.
4. From the Keyword Tool, and taking into account the demographic profile of the target audience, I determine the top three keywords I should target for the website. I then make a list of about 20 sub-keywords and phrases to use as a guideline for content ideas and future marketing efforts. Some of these sub-keywords usually find themselves in my meta description.
5. From my selected keywords, I create optimized page titles and descriptions for each page on the site. If the site I’m working with uses WordPress, I install All In One SEO Pack to do this. Most other content management programs allow you to customize each page title and description within the program.
6. Next, I log into Google Webmaster Tools and add the site. From there I set the geolocation and upload the sitemap. Yahoo! and Bing also offer similar webmaster tools.
7. I make a list of articles that I feel will resonate with the users of a particular website (based on the demographic information researched previously). I create an editorial calendar that optimizes when a piece of content should be published and then make sure it’s as SEO compliant as possible. Not every article is going to be “ultimately” formatted, but at the very least it should be topical to your main marketing goals.
8. Now, I will run the site through a ranking program so I can gauge progress. I use SEO Tools plugin for Firefox. I run reports about every two weeks for a three month period and make adjustments and tweaks as needed.
9. From this point forward, I work on other SEO strategies based on the client’s requests. This can range from creating link building to social media and reputation management strategies, but that’s information for another blog post.

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