Before begining a SEO Campiagn, one of the most critical things you can do to maximize its success is research; and lots of it. The internet itself is the primary source for the information you'll need to properly plan your SEO strategy.  This time consuming yet priceless research is going to provide the foundation for the optimization of your website, and I can't stress enough just how important this step is.

Here are some of the basic questions that will help you get started.

1. What are you trying to do with your website? Are you promoting services or are you selling product(s)?
2. Who is interested in this service or product? Is its usefulness limited by certain consumer factors such as age, geographic location, income, industry or even gender? Make a list of who it may be useful to and who can be ruled out
3. Where are you capable of offering your product or services? If you're selling a product online, chances are you're capable of offering it worldwide by shipping it. On the other hand, if you are offering a service you'll most likely be limited by a certain geographical area depending on your individual business and the material requirements that are nessecary to complete the job.
4. Who is your competition? You need to ask yourself that question on a local, regional, national and even global level. However, if your service can only be offered on a local level, then you'd only need to look at your local competitors.
5. What do you offer that your competitors don't? What makes you better? What are the factors, from a non-biased point of view, that will help a prospected customer choose you instead of your competition?

Take note of your answers to those questions, as they'll be a big help in researching and deciding your exact SEO strategy later on. Remember, the whole purpose of SEO is to be visible to consumers before your competitors. However, being #1 on Google for the search term "Roofing Company" does your business no justice if you're only capable of serving a 30 mile radius in northern Texas. If that were the situation, you'd be better off appearing anywhere on the first page for the term "roofing repairs northern texas" since it focuses on a certain aspect of roofing (a geographical area) that's relevant to your company. We will get into all of this a bit later - just keep in mind that with SEO, every little detail about your business has the potential to strengthen your results.

Now that you've asked yourself some of the more important questions, it's time to begin some actual research.

1. Start by visiting the websites of your toughest competitors, however, don't get in over your head. Choose competitors who are on the same level as you. Take notes of what they're doing on their website such as special offers, customer testimonials, comparisons, and what general audience they seem to be targeting.
2. From a consumer perspective, try to find your competitors strong points as well as their weaknesses. Would you do business with them? Why or why not? Do they have a specialty? Do they offer a niche category of product or services that most in the industry don't?

At this point, you will have some general ideas as to what your competitors are up to. Compare and contrast this information with some of the basic information about your business from the 5 previous questions. Things should become a bit clearer now as to what the intentions are for your website. You should have a solid grasp as to who your target customer is, their general location, and what exactly it is that you're offering them. Let's move on.

The next step is SEO keyword research. In the following article on keyword research you'll be using the information you've accquired to briefly study your competitors websites. This allows you to figure out where your business fits in and what keywords/phrases have the highest probablilty of bringing you an increase in web traffic.

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