Basic background information
Either prior to quoting for an SEO project or at the commencement of it we'll need various pieces of information from a client, as there are a number of factor which could be harming your current search rankings and it is important that we know about any that exist in relation to your site. They include the following:
- Duplicate content
- Multiple sites and additional addresses
- Previous seo work (including any which may not have been ethical)
- Link campaigns - previous or current
- PPC Campaigns
Duplicate content - means anything that has appeared either on another company's site, another site of yours, or on another page of your site. To rank well your content needs to be original and unique.
Multiple sites - Having either additional addresses pointing to your pages or additional sites with elements of the same content can be a problem.
Previous SEO work - may have involved techniques such as doorway pages, redirects, or hidden text, so if you suspect any of these or have any other doubts, then do tell us as early as possible.
Link campaigns - Good links can be very beneficial but links to dubious sites or schemes that are artificially boosting links for no other reason can be very harmful.
PPC - is usually neutral in effect on organic listings, but under some circumstances it can have a negative effect.
Keywords
The most important information of all is the keywords that you want to be ranked for. You should tell us about as many potential target phrases as possible. Once wew've researched them we'll discuss them with you and reach agreement on the prime targets to be optimised for.
Technical details
We'll need various items of technical information and access to your site including the following:
- FTP details in order to access and amend your site files
- Login details to your database (if applicable)
- Login details to your Content management System (if applicable)
- If you have an existing developer who we need to liase with we'll need contact details