It will be necessary for our strategy to satisfy our basic definition of SEO as a minimum. Yet to receive the distinction of being the Killer strategy we need to go a little above and beyond the call of duty. In the descriptions below I have tried to avoid too much specificity so as to keep the discussion on a conceptual level. My hope is that this will inspire discussion and further refinement of SEO methodologies.

The following features describe the essentials of the killer search optimization strategy.

Research: The foundation any effective SEO strategy is comprehensive research.

The research effort should have three primary goals:

a)Identification of targeted audiences and the search phrases that will be targeted in order to reach them.

b)Important factors that will influence the campaign. For example competitive factors, industry trends, etc.

c)The development of an optimal strategy to achieve targeted visibility.

Some essential aspects of the research effort include:

Targeted search phrase research (keyword research):

The success of entire campaign will be dependent upon the strength of the keyword research. Ideally keyword research will draw upon many resources and take into consideration a broad range of factors to identify the search phrases of greatest value and strategic advantage.This can include: semantic analysis, topical integrity improvement, industry vocabulary building and a great deal more.An understanding of modern search engine textual analysis strategies is essential.

Website Analysis:

The purpose of this phase is to obtain a complete view of the current state of your web site; especially those factors which are not readily observable yet can significantly influence the outcome of the campaign. Factors such us user transparent code structures, hyper-link associations, etc.Areas of investigation could include:website credibility, usability/accessibility review, inherent user value, business efficacy, design quality, architecture, etc.

Competitive Analysis:

The two-fold purpose of this phase should be:

• Identification of your primary (targeted search phrase) competition and a thorough investigation of their business. Identify competitor strategies, strengths, weaknesses, upcoming developments, etc.
• The identification of unique industry-specific variables that can influence rankings. This is primarily a function of topical community analysis.

MWR Strategy:

This phase is concerned with directing visitors towards a Most Wanted Response. The most wanted response being the ideal action that visitors will take once they arrive at your site. Often this involves a review of the marketability and sales effectiveness of the website with an emphasis on improving usability, implementing effective conversion strategies and developing visitor loyalty programs.

Optimization: This is where all that research is put to good use. The optimization procedure should produce a final product that is an authoritative and valuable resource within its topical community. The website must also be highly relevant for targeted search phrases; this requires an understanding of search engine document analysis and sorting techniques. Some of the areas addressed by the optimization process should include:

• Text Optimization: Text improvement and optimization that improves the relevancy of a given web page for its targeted search phrases, without compromising the value to human visitors.
• Code Optimization: including user transparent code like Meta data.User visible code and document architecture. Intra-document connectivity and hyper-link optimization.
• Site Augmentation: Including the development of essential components such as site maps, error pages, robots.txt files and more.
• Implementation of your MWR strategy: This should include developing strategies for testing and tracking.

Management: Ongoing support and management is an essential component of any effective SEO strategy.Campaign management should include an ongoing strategic approach to citations development. Reciprocal linking does not count. Some common approaches include publishing linked content, writing product reviews and most importantly developing exceptional content that attracts links.

A comprehensive approach to ongoing management will also include some sort of reporting that effectively summarizes campaign progress.

A relatively new consideration in campaign management is reputation management which is concerned with monitoring the Internet for potentially damaging statements, sensitive information, parody websites and other activities which could compromise online reputation.

How Does Your Strategy Measure Up?

The above features describe the essential qualities of a Killer SEO Strategy: An SEO campaign built to perform and keep on performing.Does your strategy measure up?