SEO Analysis. A Key to Successful SEO Campaign
What is SEO analysis?
Any SEO (Search Engine Optimization) campaign should start with SEO analysis which is the essential of any SEO work. So what SEO analysis actually is?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Analysis of a website is an analysis of on-site and off-site elements in order to define its positions with Search Engines and get clear understanding of the reasons why a website obtains such positions. It is usually followed by recommendations on how to improve its positions in search engines for targeted keywords.
We have to admit that no definition can give true understanding of the subject though. We still do hope that you will learn more about SEO analysis from this article and it will help you to make a decision if you need SEO analysis or not.
What SEO Analysis Gives and Gives not
Since you care about your website's positions with search engines whatever reasons you have for it (more sales or better exposure of your website) you sooner or later will have to do SEO. The right start with your SEO work can guarantee success for your SEO efforts.
SEO analysis is the right start. Though SEO analysis by itself won't improve your positions it will provide you with the right direction to concentrate your SEO efforts on. With SEO analysis you will learn more about the situation on the market you are in, what positions you have with your market and how to improve them.
SEO Analysis Components
Deep SEO analysis includes the analysis of many factors. Some of them are within your website and some are off but all of them are of vital importance for the positions you have with search engines. Must have components of a good SEO analysis are as follows:
Competition Analysis defines your competitors, their positions with the market, the strategies they use. Websites' owners are usually sure that they know their competitors though it's not always true as their sources are word-of-mouth, personal connections, customers feedback and not a professional research. That's why it may be possible (and it is likely) that a website owner has missed some of strong competitors which is inadmissible when finding out the right SEO strategy for your own website.
Semantic Analysis is working up a list of keywords which are relevant for your website. A list of keywords should include about 100-400 keywords and keyword phrases and not a short list of 10-20 phrases as many webmasters think.
Website Visibility Analysis tells about the positions you have with different search engines for different keywords. In other words it tells you for what keywords your website is ranked well and for what not so well.
Website Structure Analysis. Website's structure should be clear for search engines to obtain best possible indexing. It is critical that a Spider (a robot search engines use to index websites) can reach every page of your website you want to be indexed.
Link Popularity Analysis and Structure represents the quantity and quality of the links your website has within other websites. Search engines often use link popularity as part of their ranking criterion that's why you should constantly monitor and improve your link popularity.
SEO Strengths and Weakness Analysis is a report on what is good and what is bad on your website from SEO point of view. Actually it tells you on what areas you should concentrate to obtain better positions with Search Engines. (+and what should be fixed or removed from a website in SEO purposes)
A good SEO analysis is usually followed by recommendations on how to improve your website positions. The recommendations can be divided into two types: on-site recommendations and off-site recommendations.
Recommendations on Website Optimization Improvements (on-site recommendations) include suggestions on what can be changed with your website (meta-information, content area, website structure, etc.) to achieve better ranking with SERP.
Recommendations on Link Popularity Improvements (off-site recommendations) is a set of suggestions on what links and within what websites you should get in order to reach better rankings. Of course, there are some other off-site factors which influence your positions but Link Popularity is the only area you can really influence.
What to Expect from SEO Analysis? Defining Directions
SEO analysis is to provide you with the information only obtained with a professional research. It won't automatically improve your positions with Search Engines but it will provide you with a map so you could define the right direction for your SEO work not to waste your time, efforts and money of course.
SEO analysis is the first and most critical step with SEO so it's of extreme importance to make it in a professional manner in order to get the best possible results for your further work.
SEO analysis is actually a foundation for an SEO campaign. There's no need in professionals for your SEO campaign since you have a detailed SEO analysis as all the rest of SEO work can be easily accomplished by any webmaster basing on the results of SEO analysis only.