A successful SEO strategy takes plenty of time and energy to execute properly. With deliberate decisions requiring many areas of expertise to execute correctly, compiling all the necessary skills, tools and resources under one proverbial roof can be difficult for those just starting out in the game.

As search engine optimization continues to become more challenging, fewer and fewer brands are finding success in their respective niches. For those who have already made it, maintaining their dominance in various SERPs isn’t as challenging as it once was.

With all of this in mind, what exactly is necessary when building a preliminary SEO strategy for your business or brand? Today, we’ll look at some of the most important factors so you can be prepared.

Breakdowns of Your Target Audience

Regardless of how broad or specific your brand and its content may be, understanding exactly who will find it enjoyable – and how they think – is crucial to performing well in search. By pinging users with content optimized for their tastes, you stand a better chance at performing well among your target audience.

Without a proper plan that includes market research and an in-depth understanding of your audience’s likes and dislikes, you might not make the kind of progress you’d like. As such, investing in market research, surveys and other resources necessary to understanding your audience should come before any grandiose plans of dominance within SERPs.

Outlines of Specific Goals

What exactly do you want to accomplish by being ranked well in search? Being ranked at the top of various SERPs may be an initial goal, but it should not be what the effort is about ultimately. What exactly is there to gain by being ranked #1 in one or more search results?

Whether you are wanting to sell products, generate page views, garner subscribers or ultimately leverage your visibility in some other way, knowing before you begin any SEO strategy will ensure you’re taking the right steps. Even though SEO may be the cornerstone of this broader effort, you’ll also need to know how to make your content resonate with audiences in the right way. For example, generating sales will require different copy and content than generating social shares.

Visual Illustrations of Your Plan

Even if you have scoured the web in pursuit of the best strategies and goals, knowing how to link it all together can be challenging. As such, being able to aggregate all of this information into an easy-to-read and understand format is crucial for long-term success.

Visual illustrations of your broader SEO strategy can help tie seemingly disparate components together more effectively and help you better understand whether you’re making progress. Without such guides, you might wind up pinging users and visitors with the wrong content or fail to notice that you’re way off-track in terms of goals. Investing some time initially in visualizing your SEO strategy will be rewarding in the long-term.

There are arguably hundreds of individual considerations to make when planning the early stages of any SEO campaign, but laying a solid foundation is crucial in assuring everything works properly. By knowing who it is you’re targeting, what you’re wanting to accomplish and having an easy-to-understand view of your plan, you’ll more effectively improve your SEO outcomes long-term.