SEO in 7 Days
Do you want to improve your ranking in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)? By spending 20 minutes a day over a week you can complete the most essential SEO tasks. Get out your diary or calendar and mark out 20 minutes a day starting next Monday. Here are the tasks to perform each day:
Monday – Website Objectives
Get your pen and paper ready! Today is about thinking of what you want to achieve with your Website. Make a list of why you have your 
Website, who you want your target audience to be and where they are located. Write out a few SMART objectives and keep them next to your computer as all the work we do over the next six days will target achieving these objectives.
Tuesday – Website Content and Context
Look at your website analytics (e.g. Google Analytics) and compare the results to your objectives. Make changes to your Website to align with your objectives e.g.
- Is one of your objectives to target a certain country? If so then perhaps you need a country TLD or you need to host in the target country.
- Do the prominent keywords differ to those on your objectives? If so then look at your content and reword it accordingly.
- Does your Site have a high bounce rate? Perhaps you need more links to other relevant content on your Site below any Posts or Pages.
- Are visitors spending just a short time on your Site? Add a relevant video in the sidebar as watching a video increases the time spent on a Site.
Wednesday – SEO Meta Data
If you don’t have unique and relevant ‘Title’ and ‘Description’ meta for each Page and Post then you need to add these. If you use WordPress then install and configure an SEO Plugin such as ‘All in One SEO’. Don’t worry about the ‘Keywords’ meta as Google, Bing, Yahoo and the other major search engines ignore these data.
Thursday – Add Content
Content is king! You can do everything in the world but if you don’t have content that people are searching for then everything is in vain. It is critical to add relevant and original content frequently (at least weekly). Remember, the more content you have the more likely it is that someone will be searching for terms included in your content.
Friday – Website Structure
Is it simple for a visitor to your Site to known where they are on your Site? Do your visitors find it simple to navigate your Site and find other similar content? Websites powered by WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and other good CMSs have great internal linking naturally inbuilt into the software. In addition to using one of these CMSs to run your Site it is worth considering showing ‘breadcrumbs’, ‘Related Posts’ and tag clouds or lists. Perhaps you need a search field? If visitors to your Site find it difficult to navigate then the Search ‘bots may also find it tough.
Saturday – Social Networks and Sharing
It’s time for some off-page SEO. Sign-up for Yahoo Answers and answer questions relevant to your subject area. Add a link to an article on your Website that will help answer the question being asked. Also, ensure that your Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin and other profiles include a link to your Website. Also, make sure that there is a sharing buttons on every Page and Post of your Website.
Sunday – Add Content
As you did on Thursday, add some original and relevant content.
Improving your SERPs ranking takes ongoing SEO work. Start with the activities above and you’ll have many of the necessary basics complete!
