… let’s think about search engine optimization.

As the new CMO of Acme Corp … one of your goals this year is to improve your website’s search engine result pages (SERPs).

Based on past experience, you know that organic traffic converts higher than paid traffic.

You also know that organic traffic is far more sustainable and it will give Acme a competitive advantage long-term.

Where do you start:

The first thing you have to do is conduct a comprehensive onsite SEO audit of your existing website.

You need to view your website meta data, URLs, keywords, links, and pages as if you are Googlebot.

Wikipedia defines Googlebot as:

“Googlebot is the web crawler software used by Google, which collects documents from the web to build a searchable index for the Google Search engine. This name is actually used to refer to two different types of web crawlers: a desktop crawler and a mobile crawler.”

What Tools Do You Need:

• 1. Screaming Frog SEO Spider Web Crawler
  2. The Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors
  3. Google Search Console

Screaming Frog is a powerful and flexible website crawler that gathers important onsite SEO data to allow you to make informed decisions.

Screaming Frog has a free version (up to 500 URLS) and a paid version (more URLs + advanced features).

After crawling the Acme website … you find several critical SEO issues with several web pages, 404 pages, lack of meta data, and more.

The next step is to prioritize the onsite issues you discovered based on The Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors.

The Periodic Table of SEO is produced by Search Engine Land. It has become a globally recognized resource to conduct onsite SEO audits and understand the elements of a successful SEO strategy.

After downloading the Periodic Table of SEO, you notice that it has been modified and updated since the original version from 2011. So you print it out, grab your favorite beverage, and study the periodic table for an hour or so.

After studying it, you are now equipped with more SEO knowledge than probably 90% of SEO professionals. And you use this new found knowledge to rank and prioritize the onsite issues found by Screen Frog.

The last step of your onsite SEO audit is to learn what Google thinks of the Acme website.

So … you log into Google Search Console.

Google Search Console is a collection of tools to help webmasters, marketers and SEO professionals monitor their website performance on Google. Some of the features include information about your search engine placements, search traffic, pages with errors, load speed, backlinks, and much more.

Next Steps:

• 1. Collect and organize the research you’ve obtained from the onsite SEO audit and present it to your team
  2. Determine if the existing Acme website can be salvaged or if you should build a completely new Acme website
  3. If the former, then start resolving the issues based on priority; if the latter, then start planning process immediately