The ABC SEO Blueprint
James McInally

A Complete Plan For Building An SEO Campaign.

Updated April 2023.

SEO is horses for courses. Every website has a different starting point, different goals and a different strategy. Strategies may change, but the process for undertaking SEO should be the same. So, exactly what is the SEO process? And, how do you undertake an SEO campaign?

There are as many ways of doing SEO as there are SEO’s out there, but not all of them are methodical (or sensible) in approach. We thought we’d publish how we go about our SEO campaigns, highlighting the main elements and tasks, and the order in which we do them.

Please find our ABC SEO Blueprint below. Some of the points might not apply to your campaign, and you might like (or have) to undertake things in a slightly different order. And that’s okay. It’s merely a blueprint, you have to add the SEO bricks, mortar and floorboards.

The blueprint won’t tell you where to get links, what content you need or how to do an audit – information and guides on those are freely available out there. What is does do is outline, is a sensible, pragmatic process, and what main elements you need to do to undertake an SEO campaign from start to finish (if SEO is ever finished!).

The ABC SEO Blueprint

  1. A is for Audit

There are lots of free tools and resources out there that explain audits. The most common things include spidering the site, testing speed and servers, checking domains, redirects and security.

  • Comprehensive technical audit of the website.
  • Competitor and sector research.
  • Keywords and SERPs (search engine results pages) research.

  1. B is Benchmark

A snapshot of various metrics as a starting point for measurement including keyword rankings, backlinks, traffic and social followers. You need to benchmark, otherwise, you won’t know if what you’re doing is having an impact (good or bad).

  1. C is for Clean Up

You’re only as good as your weakest link. If you have any poor backlinks holding you back, it doesn’t matter how many good links you build or how much amazing content you add to your site. So, clean up any poor backlinks, either by removing if you can, uploading a disavow or blocking the inbound link using a 410 (pronounced four-ten) ‘this page is gone’ server message.

  • Technical optimisation of code and content
  • Off-page clean, including removal, disavowing or blocking of poor-quality backlinks.

  1. D is for Devise & Deploy

Plan your overall link-building and content strategy as well as any other online marketing strategy (pay-per-click, social media, content etc.)

  • Deploy low-hanging fruit tactics (quick gains)
  • Start content strategy based on keyword research (if required)
    • Current content evaluation and realignment
    • New content, blogs, articles, and media (videos, sound, infographics) if needed
  • Start link building strategy (if required)
    • Target competition links
    • Manufacture links with own content (text, documents, media)
    • Social Signal building

  1. E is Evaluate

If you don’t measure, you don’t know what’s working and what’s not. And, you can’t adjust.

  • Track rankings, traffic & links acquired
  • Adjust, retarget and refocus if needed

We’d love to hear what you think and how you go about your SEO campaigns.