1 - Website analysis and goals

Determine Website goals. Is the goal to
- Drive more traffic to the site
- Sign up to newsletter
- Make purchase online
- Entice people to call
- or fill out a form

Very often different pages within the site will have different goals, and these need to be kept in mind throughout the SEO process.

Analyse current site
- Is the site cached/indexed by Google, MSN or Yahoo.
- What is the PR of the current site.
- What keywords are currently ranking high in the search engines for the site
- How long has the website been online.

2 - Conduct Keyword Research

- Brainstorm a list of keyword phrases with the help of client.
- Using the above list, provide client with real monthly searches made for those keywords.

Case study-
Clients website is a b2b business directory, so we know how many searches are made worldwide per month for the keywords with the word business in it. This Highly targeted list is sent to client, whose job will be to weed out irrelevant phrases and rank the relevant ones in order of importance to their business.

note : the above list is a shortened version.

3- Develop and mark competitive keywords.

The list of keywords will be analysed further to determine its competition within the search engines, if competition is too high the keywords will be marked, and client will be notified.
ROI is the key here, you do not want to spend months and months on optimisation just to get a few more hits.

Make Selection of Final Keywords

Once this new "short list" is compiled, it's time to brainstorm with the client on which 2 or 3 phrases to focus on within the copy of each page of the site. The home page of the site should usually focus on the main 2 or 3 phrases that encompass the general theme of the site. Inner pages should each focus on 2 or 3 more specific phrases. If the pages already have some copy to work with (say 150-250 words or more), take a look at the existing words on each page and see which 2 or 3 keyword phrases in your short list will fit best with the current copy. If pages of the site don't have much copy to begin with, or if there is no specific focus on any given page, a rewrite from scratch will be necessary.

4 - Incorporate Keywords into Copy

Once the keyword phrases are chosen for each page of the site, it's time to get down to the nitty-gritty and start utilizing them within the copy. If you're rewriting from scratch, be sure your copywriter understands which phrases need to be used, what the goals of the site are, and who the target market is. Obviously this information will affect how they write the copy, so the more they know, the more accurate your copy will turn out. If you're lucky enough to be able to work in the necessary keywords, that's your next step. Once your copy is finished and approved, you should now have a number of pages focusing on 2 or 3 keyword phrases each.

5 - Optimize HTML Code

You're now ready to optimize the actual HTML code. Optimizing the HTML code includes creating Title tags, Meta description tags, Meta keyword tags, hyperlinks, and possibly headings & image alt attributes. All of these are factors in helping the search engine spiders to properly classify your site, with some being more important than others.

When your code is optimized, it's time to upload your new pages to your server.

6 - Submission

- Make sure site is complete. You may not be accepted otherwise.
- Submit to search engines relevant to your industry
- submit to directories relevant to your industry

Don't bother submitting to Google etc, concentrate on quality link building as it works better.

7 - Build Links

- Create a page for your link partners

The next step is to begin your link-building campaign in earnest. As with directory submissions, I prefer to wait until the site is in perfect condition before starting to request links. You can certainly get started researching link partners before the SEO is complete; however, the better your site is, the more likely others will be willing to link to it. Link building can be done in a quick burst, but should also be an ongoing process. You should always be on the lookout for sites that are a good fit with yours and contact them about exchanging links.

8 - Be Patient

At this point, the only thing left to do is wait for your rankings to roll in! If you've paid for inclusion with the search engines and directories that offer this, you'll start to see results within a week or 2. If the rankings aren't as high as you'd like them to be, I recommend not changing anything for at least 3 to 6 months.

You'll need to give your link-building campaign time to kick in, as well as simply give your new site time to age in the engines' databases.

That's all there is to it! Pretty simple, eh? Did I miss anything? Do you have another process? With thousands of SEO firms out there, I'm sure everyone has their own tried-and-true methods. The one I've outlined here has served me well for many years, and I'm sure you'll find it will do the same for you if performed correctly. However, there's always more than one way to skin the SEO cat, so if your method differs a bit and it's working for you, don't worry about it!

Finally - Check positions regularly.... further optimise if necessary.

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