Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is revealed below as a hierarchy of needs – a pyramid of inter-dependent and complimentary fundamental requirements.

SEO: A Hierarchy of Needs

Like Maslow’s (1954) hierarchy of psychologicalneeds, it is helpful to view the SEO campaigns fundamentals as a pyramid.

Referring to SEO’s hierarchy of needs can be of enormous practical use. It can form the basis of planning – each level constituting a project milestone. And in the implementation phase, the structure can serve as a simple but powerful checklist – ensuring that the key strategic priorities of the campaign are delivered by the plan.

The most fundamental elements of all – analytics and research – are represented as the foundation or base of the pyramid. These elements are vital. They must be addressed first and should be revisited continually throughout a properly organised search campaign.

Next in the planning (or implementation) cycle, content, keywords, architecture and design are delivered – their composition carefully based on intelligence gained from analytics and research – ensuring that campaigns are properly targeted to achieve results and deliver ROI (return on investment).

Then the site is ‘optimised’ for users and search engines. Page elements are checked, ensuring they are in line with the original analytics and research undertaken at the outset.

Finally, links are built – representing in many ways the culmination (and theoretically the most powerful) element of the SEO campaign. It is important to remember that on-site optimisation and link-building are only effective if they are built upon intelligence gained through analytics and research – the foundation of the campaign.

Social media signals are increasingly important in Search Engine Optimization. Thus the final, crowning component, perfecting the campaign, is the implementation of social media campaigns. These should be designed to yield maximum engagement and implemented so as to generate the types of signals search engines increasingly use to help determine the topic and importance of every page on a website.

Like the marketing process as a whole, SEO is cyclical and continuous in nature. Effective campaigns do not end – they evolve. Every layer in the SEO pyramid needs to be continually addressed and revisited, often simultaneously, alongside all the others.

But more importantly, SEO must be properly integrated into broader marketing strategy – ensuring that every channel, every plan and every tactic supports and compliments all the others – contributing effectively and strategically to the campaign and the brand as a whole.

For a London SEO Agency delivering properly integrated, strategic search campaigns, look no further.