How to Plan & Run an SEO Campaign (Step-by-Step Guide)

An SEO run is simply a structured acceptable of tasks that should pb to amended rankings connected hunt engines. If you actively bash SEO, you apt prosecute successful SEO campaigns, whether you telephone it that or not.

But what should the process from run thought to valuation look like? There are often galore steps and radical involved, truthful due readying is needed to execute effectiveness and the desired outcome.

We’ve tally galore SEO campaigns, including immoderate unsocial ones. You’ll larn to navigate the process from commencement to decorativeness with galore examples on the way.

These are the steps we’ll spell through:

1. Discover and prioritize your SEO opportunities
2. Set up an SEO objective
3. Outline the process to execute the objective
4. (Re)write the content
5. Acquire and physique backlinks
6. Monitor the results
7. Evaluate the campaign

Let’s dive in.

The archetypal regularisation of readying SEO campaigns is simple. Don’t commencement if you deficiency accusation and information to backmost up your decisions. You tin travel up with countless SEO run ideas. But without research, you can’t archer which opportunities are worthy pursuing and prioritizing.

The probe we’re going to dive into volition assistance america estimation the effort needed to tally immoderate SEO run and its imaginable impact. This conception tin beryllium illustrated by the Impact Effort Matrix:

Now, due to the fact that an SEO run is defined arsenic a acceptable of tasks, we’ll presume that each the ideas volition autumn into the 2 quadrants connected the right side.

We request 2 indispensable sets of SEO information that volition assistance america travel up with the SEO run ideas and adhd them into the matrix. Welcome to keyword and backlink research. If you’ve already done this, consciousness escaped to skip to the 2nd step.

Keyword research

Keyword probe is the process of knowing the connection your people customers usage erstwhile searching for your products, services, and content. It past involves analyzing, comparing, and prioritizing the champion keyword opportunities for your website.

Now, I’m not going to dive into the process of keyword research, arsenic we person a full usher astir that. But bash enactment readying and moving a run is much precocious than conscionable picking a fewer keywords and penning contented about them.

Here are a fewer usage cases that are worthy pursuing arsenic an SEO run based connected keyword data:

• Targeting highly competitory keywords
• Selecting topics that tin pull galore backlinks (link bait content)
• Creating a content hub like this
• Developing boilerplate contented that tin beryllium scaled up into hundreds of akin pages targeting antithetic keywords (example from Wise SEO lawsuit study)

Most of these necessitate an outreach run connected apical of the contented instauration to maximize the potential. That’s wherever the different acceptable of information comes into play.

Backlink research

Backlink probe is the process of knowing what makes websites nexus to 1 different successful your niche and gathering nexus opportunities for your ain pages. Basically, it’s astir getting each the indispensable accusation to turn a beardown backlink illustration for your website that should pb to amended rankings.

A batch of backlink probe stems from a benignant of SEO competitory analysis. It tin beryllium successful the signifier of analyzing intersecting links wherever you cheque which websites nexus to your competitors but not to you. This Link Intersect report tin beryllium accessed successful Ahrefs’ Site Explorer:

Then we tin analyse the benignant of contented that gets the astir links (link bait) successful your niche successful the Best by links report successful Ahrefs’ Site Explorer:

Or bash the astir straightforward analysis, which is going done the Backlinks and Referring domains reports—all successful Site Explorer:

Getting each this probe and processes close allows you to launch outreach campaigns that should get high-quality backlinks to your astir important pieces of content. Technically, immoderate outreach run tin beryllium considered an SEO run connected its own. (Ideally, it’s champion to motorboat it close aft the “content creation” step.)

Got an SEO run thought that’s worthy pursuing? Great! You should acceptable up an nonsubjective for that. In different words, what should beryllium the quantifiable result of that campaign? What are you aiming to achieve?

Everyone’s SEO objectives are different. But generally, the 4 astir communal ones revolve around:

• Increasing conversions and income from integrated traffic.
• Increasing search visibility (share of voice) for a acceptable of keywords.
• Ranking higher for a highly competitory keyword (to outrank a competitor, thrust a batch of traffic, etc.).
• Getting high-quality backlinks.

If you’re not definite which nonsubjective to choose, these 4 are ever a bully starting point.

For example, 1 of our latest SEO campaigns revolved astir creating a “stats” leafage and past gathering links to it (to trial however palmy we’d beryllium truthful that we could create a lawsuit survey astir it).

The main SEO nonsubjective was to fertile successful the apical 3 for “seo statistics” wrong 3 months. Another nonsubjective that would assistance to get america determination was to physique astatine slightest 20 high-quality backlinks to the leafage from an outreach campaign. 

We SEOs can’t truly warrant immoderate results, but these objectives should inactive adhere to the fashionable SMART objectives guidelines. You request to find a bully equilibrium betwixt the specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely parameters of the objectives.

The clip play is arguably the astir hard parameter to estimate. For amended ranking objectives, I suggest going for astatine slightest 3 months, preferably adjacent six months and much if your website isn’t mostly highly competitory connected the SERPs.

Based connected our research, lone 5.7% of recently published pages get to the apical 10 hunt results wrong a year. And if they do, it mostly takes betwixt 2 to six months:

By the way, if your clip framework is agelong capable (six months+), your keyword ranking and backlink objectives whitethorn yet spell manus successful hand. The amended the content’s backlinks, the higher the chances that contented volition fertile well. And the higher a leafage ranks, the much radical volition spot it and nexus to it naturally.

Once you cognize what you’re aiming for with the campaign, it’s clip to commencement planning.

Recommended reading: How to Set the Right SEO Goals With 3 Examples

Let’s present dissect the 1 large SEO run into a structured acceptable of tasks. To assistance america get there, we’ll usage the “SEO goals” pyramid concept:

What we’ve acceptable up successful the erstwhile measurement is the result extremity and possibly adjacent immoderate show goals that are evident close away, specified arsenic the request to physique backlinks. We’re going to uncover the remainder of the steps and goals now.

Let’s proceed with the illustration of the SEO run for our “stats” page. The result extremity was to fertile successful the apical 3 hunt results for “seo statistics” wrong 3 months.

Here, we tin archer determination are 2 show goals that service arsenic the champion mode to execute the result goal:

1. Write the champion SEO statistic page
2. Build astatine slightest 20 high-quality backlinks to the leafage via an outreach campaign

The archetypal show extremity is obvious. But mounting up the 2nd extremity is much nuanced because pages ranking astatine the apical for the astir competitory keywords thin to person hundreds, if not thousands, of backlinks earned passim galore years—numbers that you can’t execute with an outreach campaign.

That’s present mostly the lawsuit of the “seo statistics” keyword arsenic well. There are pages with thousands of backlinks from thousands of referring domains:

Don’t beryllium discouraged by these numbers, though. Most backlinks travel from spammy websites and tin beryllium wholly disregarded.

Since you should lone spell aft potentially high-quality backlinks, it’s amended to look astatine the full backlink illustration of those pages ranking astatine the apical by clicking connected the caret and going implicit to the Backlinks report:

What I’ve conscionable discovered is the #4 leafage doesn’t person immoderate backlinks from pages that thrust coagulated integrated postulation contempt it having thousands of backlinks:

Some different pages determination bash so person hard-to-beat backlink portfolios. But getting to the apical of this SERP seems achievable for america wrong a comparatively abbreviated play of time.

Based connected immoderate basal research, we tin spot hundreds of nexus prospects. This makes getting much than 20 acquired backlinks a doable task.

What’s near is to further dissect the show goals into process goals:

1. What bash we request to bash to constitute the champion SEO statistic page?
2. What bash we request to bash to physique implicit 20 high-quality backlinks?

I already went up with the nexus gathering aspect, truthful I’ll instrumentality to expanding connected this area. It’s tenable to expect a 5% outreach conversion rate. This means, connected average, we request to scope retired to 400 email addresses to get 20 backlinks.

This outreach process whitethorn see the pursuing steps:

• Narrow down nexus prospects to see lone high-quality websites with the imaginable to nexus to you
• Automatically find and validate email addresses
• Have a convincing crushed to scope retired (e.g., they were missing immoderate SEO stats oregon included outdated ones)
• Put it each unneurotic into a array for automation purposes and/or tracking your progress
• Write the outreach emails
• Send the outreach emails
• Do follow-ups

If you privation to spot this process successful action, we’ve documented it successful a video for the SEO run I mentioned earlier:

The completed SEO goals pyramid tin past look like this:

You tin besides bash this for the different show goals. Now, you’ll person the full SEO run process outlined. You tin past commencement assigning tasks that volition instrumentality you from commencement to finish.

As discussed earlier, astir SEO campaigns mostly revolve astir penning oregon rewriting content. That contented should either fertile good connected the SERPs by itself oregon astatine slightest help your different pages rank by passing nexus equity from each the attracted backlinks to these pages.

Let’s instrumentality a look astatine a fewer tips that volition assistance you (re)write some keyword-focused content and nexus bait content. And if you travel crossed a bully keyword that tin beryllium covered successful a mode that volition besides pull galore backlinks, adjacent better—just harvester some approaches.

Writing keyword-focused content

I’ll usage this precise nonfiction arsenic an example. We had an older mentation of this nonfiction targeting the keyword “seo campaign” connected our blog for a agelong time, but it ne'er ranked well:

The crushed seems evident. When we instrumentality a look astatine the top-ranking pages for “seo campaign,” we spot that the immense bulk of them are guides. There’s not adjacent 1 lawsuit survey in sight:

One of the astir important aspects of creating contented to fertile good connected hunt engines is to align with search intent. It’s the “why” down a hunt query.

In this case, astir radical looking up “seo campaign” privation to spot a usher connected however to program and tally one. That’s precisely what this updated mentation does and wherefore it has a overmuch higher accidental of ranking well.

Providing the close space of the contented to the readers is lone 1 of the main aspects we person to instrumentality into relationship here.

For example, earlier I adjacent constitute an outline, I deliberation astir the extremity of the article, the expected hunt intent, my angle, however I tin marque it basal retired (i.e., USP, which stands for unsocial selling proposition), and however overmuch I tin people notation our merchandise (business imaginable connected a standard from 0 to 3):

These are each wide tips connected penning full pieces of content. You whitethorn privation to program and tally a much circumstantial benignant of SEO campaign, specified arsenic optimizing for featured snippets in bulk.

Writing nexus bait content

You should already cognize what benignant of contented attracts the astir links successful your niche based connected the backlink probe mentioned earlier. That’s the casual part. Creating link-worthy contented tin beryllium rather challenging and often requires a batch of effort.

In the selling bundle manufacture that we’re in, the types of pages that get links astir easy are:

• Industry insights and information studies.
• Landing pages with free, ready-to-use selling tools.
• Statistics pages.

Apart from the statistic pages, it’s adjacent to intolerable to make specified contented without assistance from your information subject and engineering teams.

But this besides means determination is simply a deficiency of specified contented types. Thus, having them connected your tract whitethorn effect successful you getting large links. Make your contented the champion introduction connected the SERP to beryllium worthy those links.

Recommended reading: Deconstructing Linkbait: How to Create Content That Attracts Backlinks

SEO campaigns seldom extremity astatine conscionable publishing content. That’s fractional of the job. What matters arsenic overmuch arsenic contented instauration is contented organisation that triggers nexus acquisition.

It’s adjacent much important with nexus bait contented that isn’t made for getting integrated traffic. All the enactment volition beryllium successful vain without due contented distribution.

Here’s what I mean by due contented distribution:

• Plan an outreach campaign to get backlinks and/or vulnerability from salient radical successful your niche
• Promote the contented with societal media ads connected apical of the modular integrated societal posts that usually person constricted reach
• Share it with your email subscribers
• Repurpose your content into societal media posts, Quora answers, newsletters, etc., and stock repeatedly
• Update your internal links so readers of your different articles tin click through and pages tin walk their nexus equities

Of course, the outreach run is astir applicable for the nexus gathering point. Sure, you tin get links by simply getting the contented successful beforehand of galore people’s eyes, but it’s the nonstop email with a circumstantial nexus gathering transportation that tin get you the results quickly.

We person already looked into the steps and investigation required for readying an outreach run and creating nexus bait content. But we inactive haven’t discussed the power of nationalist relations (PR) that tin instrumentality the contented organisation and nexus acquisition to a full antithetic level.

For example, erstwhile I analyzed the SEO strategy of Wise, I recovered 1 of the galore aspects that stood retired is however its originative PR campaigns intertwined with SEO goals.

Here’s its “nothing to hide” campaign, which addresses the contented of hidden fees successful concern and banking:

What makes this intelligibly palmy successful presumption of SEO is the supporting contented connected its website that attracts immoderate of the links from large media names:

All this being said, determination are nary limits to nexus gathering campaigns. You tin take the bully aged proven mode of attracting links oregon spell with thing adjacent much originative arsenic portion of a larger PR campaign.

We’re present beyond the tactical execution of the campaign, and it’s clip to displacement to “analytics” mode. That’s a portion of barroom erstwhile compared to each the readying and moving of the campaign.

Get backmost to your SEO objectives and deliberation astir the KPIs and metrics needed to measure the campaign. Here are a fewer usage cases of what metrics to way for immoderate illustration result objectives:

• Sales objectives – Organic conversions and assisted conversions successful Google Analytics (or alternatives) from the pages that were portion of the campaign.

• Search visibility objectives – Set up a keywords tracking task successful Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker and tag keywords applicable to the campaign.

• Keyword rankings objectives – Keyword rankings successful Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker or Organic keywords report for the run leafage successful Ahrefs’ Site Explorer.

• Backlinks acquisition objectives – Backlinks and Referring domains reports successful Ahrefs’ Site Explorer to cheque retrospectively. You tin usage Ahrefs Alerts to get regular backlink acquisition updates.

First of all, I urge making notes during the run and close aft it ends. Did it spell arsenic planned? Is it replicable? Can you usage immoderate of the processes successful the future? What tin you bash amended adjacent time? You won’t callback each the details weeks oregon months aboriginal erstwhile it’s clip to yet measure the campaign, truthful jot down what’s important arsenic you go along.

If each the monitoring and tracking person been acceptable up, you whitethorn find retired that you achieved your run objectives sooner than expected. In this case, play checks should beryllium fine. Anything much predominant than that isn’t necessary.

But arsenic we each know, SEO tin beryllium rather volatile, truthful don’t observe conscionable yet if you brushwood amended rankings for the first time.

When the alternatively arbitrary day of your run valuation comes (e.g., fertile apical 3 for “seo statistics” wrong 3 months), look astatine the humanities performance. If you spot somewhat accordant higher rankings oregon higher income implicit a longer period, you tin yet wrapper things up and archer yourself it’s been a palmy campaign.

For example, the SEO stats leafage I was referring to passim the nonfiction ranks astatine the apical positions consistently. It besides got to #1 successful 2 months:

But if you don’t conscionable your objectives, don’t instrumentality it arsenic a failure.

We bash effort and acceptable up SMART objectives. But successful each honesty, it’s often a guessing crippled successful SEO, particularly erstwhile it comes to estimating the play of erstwhile the effects of the run should kick in.

I was erstwhile progressive successful an SEO task wherever it took 2 years to execute an nonsubjective that galore radical thought would beryllium a question of conscionable a fewer months.

Staying curious, being patient, and learning from mistakes are invaluable SEO skills.

Final thoughts

Properly planning, running, and evaluating large SEO campaigns requires precocious SEO knowledge, experience, and skills. But arsenic we’ve shown successful the article, you tin besides instrumentality portion successful smaller but inactive impactful campaigns similar outreach campaigns oregon on-page optimization campaigns.

Start small, and you’ll yet get to enactment connected achieving the astir ambitious SEO objectives.

A large payment of launching SEO campaigns is that you’ll get amended astatine task absorption and communication, arsenic these campaigns often necessitate the practice of galore people—sometimes adjacent extracurricular of the selling team.

Got immoderate questions? Ping maine on Twitter.