How To Build An SEO Strategy

A well-structured SEO strategy is the backbone of any successful digital marketing campaign. Whether you’re aiming to boost organic traffic, increase conversions, or outrank competitors, having a clear, step-by-step approach is key. But where do you start? 

In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to build an SEO strategy from the ground up – covering everything from keyword research and technical audits to content optimisation and link building.

Key Takeaways – How To Create An SEO Strategy

• Month 0 (before you start) – conduct basic technical & content audits keyword research, set up tracking tools, and create a plan for the first few months of the campaign.
• Month 1-3 – actional all tasks that are likely to have an immediate SEO impact. Optimise high priority landing pages, create new pages where needed, and action any technical issues that may be impacting ranking.
• Month 6-12 – start to think about attracting a wider range of traffic. Start writing blogs, improving internal linking, and boosting your E-E-A-T.
• Month 12+ – action any remaining tasks that may not have direct impact on website traffic and rankings, but may boost user experience and domain authority. This includes link building, CRO optimisations, and low-priority technical elements like implementing alt text. 

Set Up Tasks – Month 0

Month 0 – sometimes called a set-up month – is something that many business owners skip. I know you might be keen to crack on and improve your organic traffic, but you’ll set yourself up for success by laying a good foundation. 

The tasks in Month 0 will help you benchmark your progress, prioritise the most impactful actions, and identify quick wins that can be implemented immediately.

Outline Your SMART Goals

How does SEO align with your wider business objectives? Setting SMART goals ensures that your SEO strategy is focused, trackable, and tied to real business growth. It’s no good just saying your goal is to “improve your organic presence”, your goals need to be SMART. This means:

• Specific: Clearly define what you want to achieve.
• Measurable: Ensure your goal can be tracked.
• Achievable: Set realistic goals based on your current situation.
• Relevant: Align SEO goals with your actual business objectives.
• Time-Bound: Establish a deadline to track progress, such as within 3 or 6 months.

So, instead, a more useful SMART goal might be to “Increase organic traffic to our key service pages by 25% within six months by improving on-page SEO.”

Learn more about crafting the perfect campaign goals in this blog: Devising Your Marketing Plan For The Year Ahead

Set Up the Relevant Tools & Platforms

There are various tools required for optimising, auditing, and reviewing SEO metrics so we’d recommend getting these set up early on for accurate data collection.

At a minimum, this should include:

• Google Analytics
• Google Tag Manager (don’t forget to set up event/conversion tracking)
• Google Search Console

If budget and time allows, consider setting up additional tools such as:

• A technical SEO tool such as Screaming Frog or Sitebulb
• A keyword rank tracking tool such as Advanced Web Ranking or Semrush
• Reporting software such as Looker Studio

Assess Your Current Situation

Before making any changes to your website, you need to understand where your website currently stands so that you can accurately assess the results. You should audit three key areas:

• Current Keyword Rankings – Export your ranking data from Semrush or Google Search Console. How many keywords do you rank for in the top 3, 10, or 20 positions? Considering your target audience, do you rank for the right terms to capture their traffic?
• Site Health – Conduct a technical SEO audit to uncover any critical errors affecting your site’s performance. Use tools like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb to identify broken links, duplicate content, and crawl errors. Additionally, run a mini site speed review using Google PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse to ensure your site loads quickly and efficiently.
• Content Audit – Review your existing content to determine its effectiveness. Identify pages that perform well, those that need optimisation, and any gaps that require new content. Look for outdated information, thin content, or pages that lack relevant keywords. Ensure that all content aligns with user intent and provides value to your audience.

Make a note of each of the identified tasks. Later on in this blog, we’ll outline which tasks should be prioritised in months 1-3, and which should be delayed until after the first sprint. 

Keyword Research & Mapping

Considering the findings on your keyword and content audit, you should have now identified some key areas to target. From here, you’ll need to conduct thorough keyword research which will eventually guide your content strategy. 

Our favourite way to do this is by using the Keyword Manager Tool on Semrush.  Consider these three areas when choosing which keywords to target:

• Search Volume – How many people are searching for this term each month?
• Keyword Difficulty – How competitive is this keyword, and how hard will it be to rank for?
• Search Intent – What is the user looking for when they search this term? Does it align with your content?

Learn more about finding the balance between search volume and keyword difficulty in this helpful blog: Which Keywords Are Best To Target?

Once you’ve identified the best keyword opportunities, list them out, focusing on 10-20 priority keywords to start. Then, match each keyword to a relevant page on your website. This keyword will guide the optimisation of that page.

If you find keywords that don’t have a suitable page yet, note them down—these are opportunities for new content creation. This process of assigning keywords to specific pages is known as keyword mapping, ensuring every key term has a dedicated, optimised home on your site.

Create a 3-Month Roadmap / Sprint

A well-structured, but flexible roadmap will help guide your SEO efforts while allowing room for adjustments. By working in 3-month sprints, you can focus on the most impactful tasks while regularly reviewing progress.

Using insights from your audits and keyword research, outline the most pressing SEO tasks. This is likely to include landing page optimisation, title tag & H1 optimisation, and new page creation. Not all tasks will have the same impact, so it’s essential to prioritise them by the quickest impact on your bottom line. Find out more about this below.

Don’t forget to allow time for implementation, uploads and reporting. At the end of your 3-month roadmap, you can analyse the results so far, and adjust the next 3-month roadmap accordingly. 

So, why a 3-month roadmap? Due to the ever-changing nature of SEO (and marketing in general!), you don’t really know what position your website might be in any further than a few months down the line. By working in 3-month, or quarterly sprints, you’re able to focus on the most impactful tasks within a very manageable timeframe. Then, you can review your progress and amend your task list as each quarter ends, allowing you to maintain momentum.

High Priority Tasks – Months 1 to 3

Once the set-up tasks have been completed, high-priority tasks should always be completed first before all others. These are the tasks that are the most impactful and should be tackled first to lay the foundation for SEO success. These include quick wins (such as title tag optimisation) and critical fixes that could prevent your site from ranking.

Title Tag & H1 Optimisation

Optimising title tags and H1s can be one of the quickest ways to see results at the start of an SEO campaign. Rewrite the H1s and title tags based on your keyword mapping, optimising the high-priority pages/keywords first (i.e. product pages, category pages, or your homepage, not pages like blogs or your ‘about’ page)

High-Priority Site Audit Fixes

High-priority technical fixes are anything that may stop your site from being indexed by Google, which may affect your ability to rank for target keywords. This may include, depending on what was identified in your initial audit:

• Submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console & Bing Webmaster Tools
• Fixing any pages mistakenly marked as ‘no index’
• Redirecting any 4xx errors to relevant working pages
• Reviewing & optimising your website for mobile – this can have a big impact as Google ranks a website mobile first

Landing Page Optimisation

Begin the landing page content optimisation or content creation focusing on key pages outlined in the keyword mapping document (start with keywords that have the highest traffic potential, or ones that the client has indicated earns lots of revenue). Generally, high-priority pages will include product or service pages, category pages, and your homepage. Things to consider when optimising your content for search engines include:

• Ensure the H1, headings, and body content include primary and secondary keywords
• Ensure the content is relevant to the keyword, and there is enough of it
• Internal links to relevant related pages
• Add and review the use of strong call-to-actions
• Optimise or create relevant FAQs
• Add social proof (such as reviews and case studies)

New Page Creation

If you’ve identified relevant target keywords that you don’t currently have pages for on your website – now is the time to create them! The newer pages you may want to create for your website may include but are not limited to: 

• Location landing pages
• New products
• New product categories 
• Sub-services

SEO Insight: The reason we’ve put landing page optimisation above new page creation is because newer pages generally take a bit longer to rank well, and may generate slower results compared to optimising an existing page. Find out how long it takes new content to rank by clicking this link.

Google Business Profile Setup & Optimisation

If you’re a business that operates in a specific locality (for example, if you own a physical store, or you’re a service provider only serving one particular area), then setting up a Google Business Profile should be a priority task. It is super quick to do, and could impact map pack rankings, gaining you more local custom. 

Create a profile to start with if this doesn’t already exist. If you operate in more than one location, create a profile for each area with a physical address. Include keywords in the business summary, add social media and website links, and ensure your opening hours/contact details/product & service listings are correct.

Find out more in our helpful blog: Why Optimise Your Google Business Profile?

Medium Priority Tasks – Months 6 to 12

Once the high-priority fixes and optimisations are complete, you can shift focus to medium-priority tasks. These tasks still impact SEO but tend to take longer to show results. They often involve refining technical elements, enhancing structured data, and improving site-wide content strategy.

Medium Priority Technical Fixes

While these tasks may not deliver immediate ranking boosts, they are essential for strengthening your website’s SEO foundation in the long run. Here’s what we’d recommend you look at at this stage of your SEO campaign:

• Auditing and optimising canonical tags
• Fixing cannibalisation issues
• Reviewing and fixing ‘nosnippet’ tags
• Fixing errors on Search Console
• Removing PDFs containing duplicated content
• Creating a custom 404 page

Schema Markup

Schema markup enhances the way search engines interpret and display your content, providing richer and more informative snippets in search results. This structured data can help you take up more real estate on search results, potentially increasing click-through rates and attracting more relevant traffic. 

At a minimum, you should implement:

• Organisation Schema (then the most relevant sub-category of Organisation Schema, such as Local Business Schema)
• Business Schema

If you’d like to learn what impact structured data (schema) has on your website’s ranking, read this helpful blog: Is Structured Data a Google Ranking Factor?

Internal Linking Optimisation

Internal linking is really something that should be done on an ongoing basis, rather than a ‘one-and-done’ job. However, if you haven’t optimised for internal links yet within your SEO strategy, now is a good time to review the entire linking structure on your site. 

There are numerous benefits to improving the internal linking between pages on your website. These include but are not limited to:

• Directing users to purchase or contact pages
• Passing on page authority to other pages on your website
• Encouraging users to read other content, keeping them engaged for longer
• Helping crawlers better understand and navigate your website
• Helping Google understand the topic of each page, through anchor text

Internal links and backlinks can transfer something called ‘link juice’ (aka page authority). Learn more in this blog: What is Link Juice in SEO?

Blog Content Strategy & Creation

Creating blog content is one of the most effective ways to rank for a wider range of keywords, bringing more traffic to your website. However, a lot of blogs rank for informational terms, so a lot of the time, it will boost your brand awareness, but may not directly bring in sales. That being said, having lots of ranking blogs helps Google to see you as an ‘expert’ and ‘authority’ in your field, which may, in turn, boost rankings for service pages. 

To find blogs to write about, you could follow the pillar strategy method. Start by identifying a few core themes or topics in your niche, and do some keyword research to find every possible user query under the umbrella of your chosen topics. Then, write and upload the content, ensuring that you link back to your main pillar page/blog, and internal linking to any related content. 

Ensure you leverage things like social media and email marketing to drive traffic to your blog.

Existing Blog Optimisation

We know that optimising old content often yields quicker results compared to uploading completely new pages, which is why it is important to optimise any existing blog content alongside new blog creation. Only do this for blogs with search volume potential, though, as you don’t want to waste any time! When optimising old blogs as part of your SEO strategy be sure to add or update:

• H1s, title tags, & meta descriptions
• Content, adding more if necessary
• Images & multimedia elements
• Author bios, adding one if there isn’t one already
• FAQs & call-to-actions

Learn more about the impact of blog optimisation on SEO rankings in this helpful article: Is Blog Optimisation Worth It?

Author Profile Creation

Having trustworthy experts showcased on your ‘About’ and blog pages are a brilliant way to showcase E-E-A-T elements to Google, which may in turn improve your website rankings. Here are some key elements to include:

• A full name & job title
• A professional headshot
• Info on experience and relevant credentials
•  Link to their LinkedIn profile or professional website
• A reference to any certifications, degrees, or media appearances
• If applicable, list awards, recognitions, or affiliations with industry bodies
• Author schema markup

Learn more in this blog: Are Author Pages Important for SEO?

Low Priority Tasks – Months 12+

Low-priority tasks are those that provide marginal gains or impact user experience more than rankings. These are best tackled once the bulk of your SEO strategy is in place and performing well. While they may not directly boost rankings, they can still help with click-through rates, user engagement, and accessibility.

Low-Priority Technical Tasks

Technical tasks considered ‘low priority’ are those that are unlikely to have impact on rankings or take a lot of budget to implement. They include, but are not limited to:

• Rewriting and redirecting URLs that are too long
• No indexing pages with thin/no/outdated content (unless they are impacting crawl budgets – then it would be a high priority!)
• Removing content pulling in via iframes
• Disabling TLS 1.1 or older
• Optimising site speed, if your site speed score is fairly good currently

Optimising Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions aren’t a direct ranking factor, but they do impact click-throughs to your website. If any pages are missing meta descriptions, now is the time to add or optimise them if you haven’t done so during content optimisations. Start with the pages that are likely to bring you the most sales and leads, and work your way down from there.

Find out more about HTML attributes and meta descriptions in this blog: What Is Metadata In Layman’s Terms?

Link Building

Whilst many SEOs will prioritise link building before anything else, we’d actually disagree with this approach. Link building is incredibly time-consuming, and often won’t impact your bottom line. Even if you have some incredible backlinks to your website, but naff, irrelevant content on your site – Google probably won’t reward you with rankings. Hence why link building is best done after 80% of your site is optimised. Then, you could try:

• Guest posting
• Generating new directory listings
• Broken link building 
• Digital PR (such as press releases or larger digital PR campaigns)

Stuck for outreach ideas? Try conducting a competitor backlink audit. This will help you spot potential opportunities for your outreach, as you’ll be able to see where a competitor has guest posted or promoted their website to gain backlinks. You may be able to spot a few broken backlinks, where you could offer an alternative link to the journalist (aka your own!).

If you’d like more methods for building high quality backlinks to your website, check out our helpful guide: What is Link Building?

Conversion Rate Optimisation

Whilst conversion rate optimisation – also known as CRO – falls slightly outside the realm of SEO, it is still an important factor for success. After all, what’s the point of bringing traffic to your website if it won’t convert?

• Review & streamline your main website navigation
• Adding a pricing page
• Implementing more CTAs (within blogs, service pages, etc)
• Adding testimonials
• Adding a chatbot to the site
• Gating key resources behind lead generation forms

Looking for more CRO quick wins? Check out this helpful resource: Why CRO is Important in SEO

Alt Text Optimisation

Alt text is used to describe images on a webpage, helping search engines understand the content of the image while also improving accessibility for visually impaired users. 

While important for user experience and minor SEO benefits, alt text is considered a low-priority task because it is not a major ranking factor for standard search results. Not only that, but search engines (and their AI technology) are becoming better at interpreting images even without alt text, though it’s still best practice to include it!

Learn more about the impact of optimised alternative text in one of our recent blogs: How Much Does Alt Text Help SEO?

Tailored SEO Strategies With the Help Of Wildcat Digital 

Ready to take your SEO to the next level? Follow our step-by-step guide and start implementing these strategies today. Want an expert to do it for you? At Wildcat Digital, we craft data-driven SEO campaigns tailored to your business goals. Get in touch with our team to see how we can help you punch above your weight online!