Service
SEO Strategy
Where the opportunity actually is, what it is worth, and the order in which to go after it.
A keyword list is not a strategy. The useful work is deciding which searches are winnable at your current authority, which pages should exist to serve them, and what has to be true before any of it pays off. The output is a roadmap with a sequence and a reason attached to each step.
- Keywords in Google's top threeSee the case study
- 95 → 1,025
- Keywords ranking #1See the case study
- 14 → 321
Why it matters
What is at stake.
Most SEO budgets are spent on the wrong searches: terms with volume but no buyers, terms owned by government sites and directories, or terms the site cannot win at its current authority. A strategy decides where effort will actually return something before any of it is spent.
It also sets the order. Some work unblocks everything behind it, and doing it first is often worth more than doing more.
Workflow
How the work runs.
Each step builds on the evidence from the one before, and every finding is checked against the live site before it becomes a recommendation.
01
Business and customer
Start from what the business sells, who buys it and what an enquiry or sale is worth, so every later decision is weighed against revenue rather than traffic.
02
Keyword discovery
Expand services and products into the real searches people use, then filter out irrelevant, off-market and low-intent terms before scoring anything.
03
Competitor gap
Find which competitors actually rank, what they rank for, and where demand exists that nobody covers yet, verified against live search results.
04
Value and winnability
Score each opportunity on commercial value, intent and how winnable it is today, and group keywords into the pages that should own them.
05
Roadmap
Turn it into a sequenced plan: what to fix, build and publish first, what it unblocks, and how progress will be measured.
Results
What it can bring.
- Effort focused on searches that bring customers, not only visitors.
- A clear page architecture with one page owning each search.
- Quick wins identified alongside the longer-term plays.
- A roadmap your team, or I, can execute without guessing what comes next.
Typically includes
- Keyword research and clustering
- Competitor and SERP analysis
- Search demand and value analysis
- Page architecture and content map
- Prioritised SEO roadmap
In practice
How a strategy took a site to 1,000+ top-three rankings
A global HR and payroll platform: keywords in Google's top three grew from 95 to 1,025 in six months, on searches worth up to $111 a click.
Common questions
Questions about SEO Strategy.
- What is included in an SEO strategy?
- Keyword and competitor research, an assessment of which searches are winnable and valuable, a page architecture that assigns each search to one page, and a prioritised roadmap stating what to do first and why.
- Is an SEO strategy useful for a new website?
- Yes, and it is cheapest to do before the site is built, because the page structure can be designed around real demand instead of being corrected later.
- How do you choose which keywords to target?
- By commercial value, search intent and how winnable each search is at the site's current authority, not by volume alone. Irrelevant, off-market and low-intent terms are filtered out first, and every remaining keyword is assigned to exactly one page.
- How do you analyse competitors?
- By finding the sites that actually rank for your target searches, which are not always the businesses you think of as competitors. Their rankings, content and links show where demand is proven, where they are weak, and which searches nobody covers yet.
- How long does it take to build an SEO strategy?
- It depends on the size of the site and the market. A focused strategy for a smaller site can take a couple of weeks; a large site or several markets takes longer. The timeline is agreed before the work starts.
- What happens once the strategy is ready?
- The roadmap is put into action in the order it sets. I can implement it, work alongside your team, or hand it over with a walkthrough. Progress is measured against the baseline taken at the start.
Need help with SEO Strategy?
Describe what is happening on your site. You will get a direct answer about what I think is going on, how I would approach it, and whether it is work I should be doing.
Or email directly
hello@ivanseo.com