SEO Strategy: Instructions & Tips for Long-Term Planning

The basics of strategy development in SEO

Before we show you how to develop your own SEO strategy, let's first discuss the most important basics: What do you have to consider from the start to build up not only short-term rankings but sustainable visibility?

The right framework for your SEO strategy

An SEO strategy doesn't just fall out of the sky, it must be developed within a clear framework. First, this includes taking stock: Where is your website currently located? What are the potentials? What are the technical requirements? And what resources are available?

The strategic framework is then defined. This includes:

• Defining the target group and its search intent
• Selection of relevant topic clusters
• Prioritize based on economic impact
• Definition of technical, content and structural requirements

These key points form the foundation on which all subsequent SEO measures are built. Without this framework, your strategy won't be sustainable and will fall apart when you first encounter a problem.

Align business goals with SEO

SEO only works really well if it contributes to your business goals. For example, if you want to expand your market share in a specific region, your local visibility must increase. If you want to increase your online sales, you need transactional landing pages with high conversion power. Because not every increase in visibility is automatically a success. It is particularly important whether you attract the right users and whether they end up doing what you hope for: buy, request, book. This is the only way to create a holistic SEO plan that is embedded in your overall online marketing strategy and works synergistically with other channels, such as SEA, social media or email marketing.

Step-by-step guide: How to develop an effective SEO strategy

Regardless of whether you are at the very beginning or want to optimize your existing strategy: Below we will show you step by step how to develop a well-thought-out and effective SEO strategy and thus lay the basis for achieving top positions on Google and Co.

Step 1: Analyze current SEO status → SEO audit

Before you get started with your SEO strategy, you should first holistically analyze the current state of your website with a comprehensive SEO check or off and on-page audit. This allows you to identify weak points and potential in all relevant areas: technology, content, structure, user experience and visibility. With this clear overview, you therefore know exactly where you stand and can then prioritize targeted measures. However, you should not only use tools, but also manually check and evaluate the results in the context of your target group and business goals. Areas that should be in focus:

Engineering and crawling

• Are there any technical barriers such as broken redirects, 404 pages, or blocking robots.txt entries?
• What is the mobile display like? Is it in line with the mobile-first approach?
• Are the Core Web Vitals correct: load time, interactivity, visual stability?
• Are canonical tags used correctly to avoid duplicate content?

Content & structure

• Is there outdated or thin content?
• Are pages logically structured, well linked internally and accessible with a maximum of 3 clicks?
• Which pages have orphan status (no internal links)?
• Is there duplicate content, e.g. due to product variants, filters, or pagination?

Visibility & performance

• How many keywords are currently ranking and in which positions?
• Which content brings organic traffic and which doesn't?
• Are there pages with a high bounce rate despite a good ranking?
• How does the domain rank in the visibility index compared to the competition?

Offpage factors

Offpage SEO is also part of a complete audit. This is about the question: How is your website perceived from outside?

• How strong is your backlink profile? (number & quality of referring domains)
• Are there toxic links that could damage the ranking?
• Who links to you and to which content?
• How connected is your website compared to competitors?
• Is your brand mentioned in another marketing channel (social signals, co-citations)?

Step 2: Define goals and KPIs

If you want to improve your website, you need measurable goals. But without an SEO strategy, it is unclear what “success” actually means. Is it about more visitors? More sales? A higher conversion rate? Before implementing your SEO measures, you should therefore define exactly what you want to achieve. Of course, at the core of every SEO strategy is aimed at one thing: building and maintaining visibility in search engines. But there are many operational goals behind this, which you should specifically define. These include:

• Boost organic traffic
• Improve rankings of relevant search terms
• Increase visibility in SERPs
• Reduce bounce rate
• Increase retention and reading time and user interactions
• Generate qualified leads or sales
• Increasing organic traffic
• Increase the number of referring domains (backlinks)

Which KPIs are really relevant?

Each objective includes measurable KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). These help you objectively evaluate your SEO efforts and to recognize at an early stage whether your measures are having an effect. But not every KPI is equally important for every project. It depends much more on your goals, industry and target group. For example, if you're in a highly specialized B2B segment, the absolute number of visitors is often less important than their quality. A well-placed article that appeals to just the right target group and leads to high-quality leads will therefore bring you more than a thousand irrelevant visitors. Your KPIs should therefore always be in the context of your business model in order to be able to provide real insights. What could that look like? Below is an overview of the most important SEO indicators and when they are particularly relevant:

• Visibility index: Shows how present your domain is in Google search results.
  → For comprehensive SEO projects, e.g. for online shops or large portals, where many keywords and pages are rated at the same time.
• Number of top 10 rankings: Indicate how many keywords on your website rank in Google's top 10.
  → For pages that specifically optimize for many relevant search terms, such as content hubs or advice portals.
• Organic traffic per page: Shows how many visitors a single page receives from organic search results.
  → If you want to evaluate the success of specific content, such as blog articles, product pages, or landing pages.
• Conversion rate from SEO traffic: Measures how many SEO visitors perform a desired action (e.g. purchase, login, download).
  → Particularly important in e-commerce or when generating leads, because traffic alone is useless if it doesn't convert.
• Number of pages indexed: Shows how many pages on your site were included in the Google index.
  → Especially important for large websites with many sub-pages, such as online shops or news pages. A decline here may indicate technical problems.
• Bounce rate: The percentage of users who immediately leave your site without clicking any further.
  → For landing pages or blog articles, a signal of relevance and user intent, so that a high bounce rate indicates inappropriate content or long loading times.
• Crawl budget load: Indicates how efficiently Google crawls your site.
  → Particularly relevant for large websites with many URLs, because if Google doesn't visit all pages, important content could be left out.

SEO strategy development: making success measurable through structured planning

So that your SEO strategy doesn't just work on paper, you need a clearly structured action plan. This functions like a navigation system: It shows you where you are, where you want to go and what specific steps are necessary to do so. Instead of simply “optimizing straight away,” it's best to rely on a roadmap with clearly prioritized tasks, responsibilities, milestones, and deadlines. This gives you an overview at all times, even with more complex projects. Realistic time management is particularly important: SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. Therefore, plan at least 6 to 12 months in advance, ideally broken down by weeks or months.

Step 3: Analyze competitors' SEO strategies

Before you start optimizing your website, you should also analyze what your competition is doing in the SEO sector. Why It's simple: In many cases, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Instead, you can learn from what is already working well for others and do it better in a targeted manner. A comprehensive competitor analysis shows you exactly which strategies, keywords and content make your competitors visible on Google and where you can achieve real competitive advantages with comparatively little effort. tools such as SEMrush, Ahrefs, Sistrix, Ubersuggest, Backlink checker and even manual research using Google search provides you with valuable insights. For example, you'll learn:

• Your competitors' top 10 keyword rankings
• Which pages generate a particularly large number of organic visitors
• Which content formats perform well (e.g. guides, product comparisons, FAQs)
• How the internal link structure is structured
• Which backlinks point to their content, including domain authority and link quality

Backlink building as part of your SEO strategy

Backlink profiles in particular provide exciting information about working types of content. If a particular subpage receives many high-quality links, this is a strong indication of its relevance and attractiveness. So check: What makes this page special? What added value does it offer? Could you revisit this topic with a better structure, more depth, or additional media (e.g. videos, infographics)? Another option is to compare the visibility index: Has your competitor made significant gains in a short period of time? Then it's worth analyzing what has recently changed on their side. New content may have been published that is tailored exactly to the user's intent, which you can publish in a larger or more precise version. However, the aim of this analysis is not to copy your competitors, but to surpass them. With the right insights from competition monitoring, you can specifically uncover content gaps, identify new keyword opportunities and achieve better rankings in the long term with a well-thought-out content strategy.

Step 4: Keyword research as a basis for relevant content

Keyword research is part of every successful SEO strategy. A distinction is made between two types of terms: short tail and long tail keywords. Shorttail keywords such as “Schuhe” or “Handwerker Berlin”, for example, have a high search volume, but are also highly competitive. Longtail keywords such as “women's running shoes size 39” and “Handwerker Rohrbruch Berlin-Mitte”, on the other hand, have a lower volume, are often easier to rank and bring in more targeted traffic. Both are therefore justified and it is the mix that counts. However, it is important that you tailor your content exactly to the search intent of the users. This is usually easier with long-tail keywords because they are more specific.

There are numerous tools to choose from for well-founded keyword research, such as Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest, AnswerThePublic, Ahrefs, SEMrush and Sistrix. With tools like these, you can easily identify relevant search terms, analyze search volume, and assess competition intensity. In addition, you should always check the Google search results yourself, in particular the “related searches” and autocompletion. These provide valuable information on related terms and issues.

Step 5: Develop an effective SEO content strategy

As part of your SEO strategy, it is also important to create or reprocess the appropriate content. To do this, carry out a competitor analysis (if it hasn't already done so) and in particular look at what content is ranked by similar providers and where opportunities could lie. You can also use tools like AnswerThePublic or Google Search Console to identify questions that your target audience is asking to get more ideas. It is best to assign each topic to a specific intention, such as definition, comparison, instructions, purchase advice, etc.

SEO content vs. user-centered content: The right mix is decisive

A common misconception is that every SEO text is automatically a good text. In reality, the opposite is true: Only content that is aimed at search engines and your target group at the same time brings real success. Nor is every topic suitable for SEO, such as internal FAQs or confidential content. However, your content should ideally take into account at least a few of the most important SEO aspects. These include approximately

• Include appropriate keywords and semantic terms.
• clear structure based on frequently asked questions.
• Use visual elements such as tables, lists, examples.
• The search intent: It is always the focus. Does the user want something explained, compare, buy or understand? Adjust the content type accordingly.
• Every text should fulfill at least one goal: to inform, convert, or link.

Content that brings you closer to your business goals

In addition to the SEO strategy in general, you should of course also adapt your content to your business goals: Do you want to build trust, increase sales or gain reach? Depending on your wishes, you could rely on professional advisors, optimize existing landing pages and create new ones, or write detailed step-by-step instructions on a topic from your niche and, if necessary, even promote them. But you should also keep an eye on the structure and readability. If appropriate, use bullet points, subheadings, step-by-step instructions from time to time. This not only helps with readability, but also with indexing by Google.

Extra tip: Use a multi-channel approach for maximum impact This means that you prepare content so that it also works outside of Google, such as in newsletters, social media, or YouTube.

Step 6: Strategically plan the website architecture

Well-thought-out website structure planning makes it easier for search engines to crawl, index and understand your pages thematically. At the same time, it improves the user experience, which has a positive effect on length of stay, conversion rate and ultimately your ranking. We therefore recommend that you structure your pages hierarchically: from higher-level subject categories to specific detail or product pages. This structure ensures that search engines recognize key areas of relevance, for example in an online shop for sportswear, which starts with clear main categories such as “men”, “women” or “children” and offers product types such as “running shoes”, “training pants” or “sports jackets.” Speaking URLs, simple and unique navigation paths and a logical and as flat a page structure as possible, i.e. with a maximum of three clicks to the destination, are also important.

Tools such as Screaming Frog or Google Search Console can help you identify technical vulnerabilities and prioritize pages in a targeted manner. Also use structured data (Schema.org), canonical tags (to avoid duplicate content), a well-maintained robots.txt, and, crucially, useful internal links. You should avoid so-called orphan pages, i.e. pages that are not linked internally and are therefore often completely ignored by Google. Filter URLs and pagination should also be properly controlled so as not to unnecessarily burden your crawl budget. Also, make sure that your website is consistently mobile-first, because the majority of users are mobile today. This means: No layout chaos on small screens, intuitive operation and fast loading times. The most effective measures include image compression, lazy loading, efficient caching and the use of a content delivery network (CDN). In addition to improving the user experience, all of this also improves technical performance, both clear ranking factors for Google.

Conclusion: Achieving sustainable top rankings with an SEO strategy

Whether it's technical optimization, keyword research, content planning or off-page measures: It is only the combination of these components, tailored to your target group and business goals, that makes SEO really effective. In this case, a structured SEO strategy helps you not only be visible somewhere, but exactly where your target group is looking for you. But although many companies start full of enthusiasm, let their SEO efforts fall asleep again after a few weeks and give away huge potential in the process. After all, SEO is not a project that you check off once. It is a process that grows with your company. And a good SEO strategy gives you the necessary orientation, structure and priorities. It is therefore better: Plan your measures realistically, prioritize according to impact and implement less, but correctly. In the end, it is also the small progress that pays off towards your big goal. Optimizing your website for search engines is like a puzzle: each piece brings you a bit closer to the overall picture. And the better the image, the higher your chances of clicks, customers, and conversions.

Your website deserves more visibility!

As an experienced SEO agency, we are happy to help you develop the right strategy for you and, if you wish, also assist you in all further steps, from analysis to your content strategy to regular SEO audits. Thanks to our experience from countless projects, we know exactly what is important: deep understanding of your industry, well-founded analyses and clear recommendations for action.

Get in touch with us now and let's get your website on the road to success together, with a tailor-made SEO strategy that works!

FAQ: Common questions about SEO strategy

Below you will find the most important answers to the most common questions about SEO strategy.

How long does it take for an SEO strategy to work?

SEO is not a sprint, but a marathon. You can see the first positive effects, such as better rankings of individual pages, after about two to three months. However, you should expect six to twelve months until you see full success in the form of more visibility, traffic, or sales. Depending on where your website is currently located and how consistently you implement the measures, it can take faster or even longer.

How much does a good SEO strategy cost?

It depends entirely on your goals, your website, and the resources you have. If you do everything yourself, you especially need time. If you get support from professionals, simple strategies can cost a few hundred euros, and more complex projects can cost significantly more. It is important that you regard SEO as an investment, with a long-term effect rather than a short-term advertising effect.

Do I need an SEO agency or can I do it myself?

You can also do a lot of things yourself in SEO, especially with clear instructions, tools and a willingness to learn. However, if you lack time, experience, or technical know-how, an agency can be very helpful. It ensures that you don't miss out on important opportunities and shows you how to use your budget most effectively.

What is the difference between an SEO strategy and SEO measures?

Your SEO strategy is a fixed plan for where you want to go and how you can achieve that goal. SEO measures are the concrete steps to achieve this: for example, keyword research, content creation, optimization of loading times or building backlinks. Without a strategy, measures lack direction. And without action, your strategy remains just theory.

Is SEO still important in 2025 despite AI and social media?

Absolutely. Search engines are still the place where people actively search for solutions, products, or information. Even though the type of search is changing, SEO remains the key to being visible exactly when your target group has a specific need. AI and social media are additions and not a substitute for a strong SEO basis.