What is SEO Monthly Management?

Written by Helen
October 14th, 2009

• Tweet

• Tweet

My clients often ask me what exactly monthly SEO management involves and why they need it, so I thought I’d write a quick post about it, in order to get a little bit more into details of the mysterious SEO management.

I am not alone if I say that SEO is not solely about optimizing your site. Quite the opposite actually, to make your site more search engine friendly (to rank higher and to bring targeted traffic), you (or your SEO consultant) will have to do a lot of work outside of your website. Off-site as they prefer to call it in the industry.

I know, it sounds strange but Search Engine Optimization is not 100% about your site, it’s actually only 25% about your site and the rest 75% is about your site’s representation or reputation if you want, on the web.

Yes, it is still extremely important to have your site in order, well structured and all, but this is only the beginning of your SEO journey, so to speak.

If you already have worked with an SEO specialist then you know (have heard) about title tags, meta tags and other fun stuff like that. This is usually done in the first/second step of your SEO project. The third and the most important step is the actual SEO management (monthly SEO if you will).

It’s three paragraphs already into the article, and not a word about the actual third step. Ok, here it is. This list will give you a better understanding of how it works.

Tops 10 SEO monthly initiatives (please add your thoughts in the comments if I’m missing something):

1)    First and foremost important initiative of your monthly SEO package is link building. It’s a very (and I mean it), tedious, and time-consuming task. I had a post about link building earlier, so make sure to check it out.
2)    Participation Marketing – social networking, social bookmaking, forums and chats, etc.
3)    Content development and distribution. Often involves writing articles on a related topic, or updating your site’s content. Press releases are also often used for SEO purposes.
4)    Going local. Adding your site to the biggest local portals and industry directories.
5)    Niche directories submission.
6)    Keyword research and maintenance (tracking changes of your keyword performance, etc.).
7)    Site traffic analysis.
8)    Site performance analysis.
9)    Keeping an eye on your competitors.
10)    Documenting, documenting and documenting again. It’s imperative to track the data for future evaluations.

So, as you can see, SEO is so much more than just optimizing your site. It seems like an SEO professional nowadays (and probably has been for a while now) is your online good-will ambassador (of some sort), so choose one wisely. ;)

« Email Marketing 101 | Branding in Tough Economy »