SEO campaigns can often seem like overwhelming and confusing projects. Especially when there are so many moving parts and much of what’s involved isn’t always obvious.

In order to help, I’ve created a complete SEO campaign diagram to help you visualize the entire process. Being able to visualize a campaign and see it in its entirety will help you get a better understanding of each stage as well as the relationships between those stages and of course operational workflow.

Whilst this diagram doesn’t include of every step within a campaign, it does include the main ones. You can find this diagram within the resources section of the training. I would recommend that you download it, print it out, and put it up in the office somewhere where you can see it.

The better you understand how this all pieces together, the easier and more effective the learning process will be.

Let’s now go through each stage and I’ll explain how the entire process works.

Client acquisition process

The starting point.

This is where we’ll be generating leads and attracting prospects. This can be done via organic or paid traffic, or even a combination of both. What matters most at this stage is that you have structure to the way in which you generate leads.

Of course, in order to establish yourself and produce consistent leads, you’ll need to have worked your way through the niche selection process, validated your niche and know exactly who you’re targeting.

Prequalify

The next step involves prequalifying the lead. This of course is the first stage of the sales process and takes place during the initial discussion when the initial enquiry is received.

The prequalification process helps us protect our time, control the conversation, and ensures we only work clients who deemed an ideal fit.

Good fit?

During the prequalification stage, we ask a series of questions in order to determine whether or not the prospect is a good fit. This should be defined by a number of key questions such as the niche they operate in, revenue, sale or lead value and current situation. If they qualify, they are considered a good fit and we move onto the next stage.

If not, the lead should be rejected or referred over to another service provider.

Sales presentation

The sales presentation is the second and final stage of the sales process and it’s where we pitch for the actual project. Even though we refer to this as the sales presentation, it’s much more than that. It’s an opportunity to demonstrate value, outline our processes, make recommendations and set expectations.

The sales presentation is a key part of the campaign process and one that you should study closely and invest time towards.

Close

The next step is closing the lead and converting a prospect into a payment client. This of course leads us into the next phase which is the client onboarding process.

Collect payment

By far the most important part of the client onboarding process, collecting payment. You must always collect full payment in advance before doing anything. No work, research, meetings or anything else should be done until payment is collected.

Send gift

As a way of thanking the client, and strengthening the relationship, sending a welcome gift is recommended at the next step. Sending a small gift demonstrates that you value the client and appreciate their business.

Client questionnaire

The client questionnaire is a document that we ask the client to fill out ahead of scheduling the initial strategy session. Remember at this point of the project, we only have a brief understanding of the clients business and their objectives, so it’s important that we gather this information so that we can get a really good understanding of everything as we begin the campaign. Don’t forget also that in addition to gathering this information, we also need to request user credentials in order to access various properties such as Google analytics, search console, and their website.

All of this information should be collected within the client questionnaire, which I recommend you host on Google drive.

Initial strategy session

The initial strategy session is the next step and should be hosted once the client has completed the questionnaire. You’ll find for some clients they might need assistance with answering some of the questions, so you can always do that during this call. You do however want to gather as much information within the questionnaire ahead of the call in an effort to save time.

What matters most during the call is outlined further in the training, however its essential that you get a good understanding of their business, their goals and objectives and focus points. You’ll essentially want to ensure that you’re absolutely clear on everything ahead of getting started.

Campaign setup

Getting everything in place for the campaign is the next step which essentially involves setting up the campaign within your project management system, uploading all necessary documentation to Google drive or a suitable alternative, confirming logins and staff access and anything else that might be required as part of campaign preparedness.

Develop initial strategy

This part of the process is where you’d spend time researching the market, reverse engineering competitors and planning out campaign strategy. You might find initially that this part of the process can be quite time intensive, however once you niche down and specialise, you’ll find this part of the process gets easier, simply because you’ll have that previous knowledge and expertise that you can carry over from previous campaigns.

Copy site to live staging environment

Once campaign strategy is understood, the site should be backed up into a live staging environment. We do this for various reasons, but namely to have as a point of reference and of course a backup. We’ll be extracting data from this backup and using it to prepare our web template which is covered in the following steps.

Be mindful that this diagram represents a productized service delivery, where we’ll using premade web templates targeting a particular niche. We do this of course to save time and create more efficiency within our operations.

Premade web template preparation

The next step is where we choose the most suitable template from our library of designs, upload it to the test server and begin the process of readying it for use. This essentially means changing all the colors for branding, uploading the clients logo, migrating and data or information over and having it ready for deployment.

Be mindful that the objective at this stage is to move quickly and reduce or completely remove any form of customization. You should be able to pull everything over from the existing site and have the new site ready within days.

Finalize layout and design

The final stage of preparing the template in readiness for deployment. This step should include double checking everything and getting the go ahead from the client to proceed. Of course, a discussion should be held to determine the best time to perform the changeover in an effort to minimize disruption.

Go live

Performing the actual migration of the new site and going live. Extensive testing should be performed at this step to ensure everything is working as intended and there are no problems. All forms of tracking should be reinstated also, such as heat map tracking, Facebook pixels and Google analytics etc.

Goal tracking

The next step of involves setting up goal tracking. At this stage you’ll want to add tracking code to track both email enquiries and phone calls. By default, call tracking should be included as part of your service offering. Once this has been setup, extensive testing should be performed, including ensuring data is being captured and that data is being displayed correctly within Google analytics and of course your reports.

Complete main content/structure

When launching a new site, you’ll find in almost every case there’ll be differences between the previous site structure and the new site structure. This will have a direct impact on content and will require your initial efforts to be focused on either deleting, consolidating, or creating new content to support the new framework. It’s important that this takes place as part of the SEO campaign and not whilst the template is under development.

Citations

Whilst the previous step is underway, citations can be actioned. This is one area where I would recommend outsourcing as its quite time intensive and a relatively low skill task. Its important to have all required business information from the client before commencing this step.

Ongoing onpage/offpage

This phase of the campaign is what I refer to as the holding pattern. At this stage of the project, the campaign is established. You’ve uploaded the new template, you’ve completed all the required content in order to populate the new site structure and now you’re essentially creating blog posts, and building links, month after month.

This cycle continues indefinitely until the campaign finishes.

Monthly reporting

At the end of each billing cycle, reporting is prepared, including the work summary sheet, site performance including earnings and keyword performance. Those three reports are prepared in readiness for the end of month strategy call.

EOM strategy calls

End of month strategy calls are scheduled and held with the client to review the reports as well as confirm earnings, cover keynotes, and answer any questions. End of month strategy calls are a great way to build strong client relationships and improve retention rates.

End campaign/campaign continues?

At this point the campaign either continues or comes to an end. If the campaign has been finalized the campaign close out procedure should be followed. Alternatively, the campaign continues, payment is processed and the cycle continues.