How We Work: The Process That Gets SEO Results

In today’s digital world, having a strong online presence is vital for any business. Search engine optimisation, or SEO, is the key to making your website more visible to potential customers.

This guide breaks down our proven six-stage SEO process, showing how each step works together to improve your search rankings, increase traffic, and drive business growth.

Introduction to Search Engine Optimisation
Illustration of Google search results page highlighting the importance of website ranking in SEO.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the foundation of any effective digital marketing strategy. It focuses on improving your website’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords, which boosts both the quality and quantity of your traffic. Ranking higher increases your business’s visibility to potential customers, making it easier to attract and grow your audience.

SEO is crucial for businesses aiming to build a strong online presence and connect with their target market. By understanding how search engines operate and what users search for, you can optimise your site to meet both user needs and algorithm requirements. This not only draws more visitors but also helps attract those more likely to convert.

As a rapidly growing sector in digital marketing, SEO is forecast to reach $122.11 billion by 2028, underscoring its vital role in driving business growth across multiple platforms.

A solid SEO strategy gives your business a competitive advantage in crowded markets. It is an ongoing process requiring regular technical optimisation and adaptation to search engine algorithms, which assess relevance, authority and user experience.

Ultimately, effective SEO improves online visibility, connects you with more potential customers, and supports sustainable growth through organic traffic.

Our Unique 6 Stage SEO Process
Website technical audit report showing site speed, mobile usability, and crawl errors.

At Approved Business we have a unique 6 stage search engine optimisation (SEO) process. Each stage of our process has been honed for optimum efficiency, reflecting the ongoing nature of SEO work and the various tasks involved. This is how we get you the best possible SEO results in the quickest time.

Stage 1: Gathering Information
The first step in our SEO process starts with learning about your business directly from you. Through our onboarding questionnaire, we gather the key details that make your business unique. If we need further clarity, we’ll arrange a follow-up call to ensure we’ve got the full picture.

Next, we dive into data. We audit your website using tools like Google Analytics and other data sources to understand your current online performance, highlighting what’s working well and where there’s room to improve. From here, we establish clear goals, with the primary aim of improving your rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs), boosting visibility and enhancing site speed to drive long-term growth.

At this stage, we also begin developing your SEO strategy. This includes staying up to date with industry best practices and algorithm updates, so our approach remains agile and effective. Ongoing SEO knowledge is essential to adapt to industry changes and ensure our strategies remain effective. We consider both organic and paid search opportunities, with a focus on understanding search intent and the long-term value of organic traffic.

To strengthen your strategy, we carry out competitor and niche analysis, identifying who’s ranking well in your sector and why. We also conduct keyword research to understand how your target audience searches for information, ensuring your content aligns with their needs. By understanding what your competitors are doing right, we can pinpoint ways to give your business the edge. Effective SEO strategies should also consider other search engines, as different platforms may have their own tools and methods for crawling, indexing, and ranking websites.

All of this feeds into a tailored, multi-channel SEO and digital marketing plan. You’ll have access to detailed workbooks that outline our approach step by step, so you can track our progress and understand how each element contributes to your online success.

Building on this foundation, the next step is a thorough audit of your website’s technical aspects and content elements. This ensures we identify all the areas that need improvement to make your site fully optimised for search engines and user experience, paving the way for successful SEO implementation.

Stage 2: Technical & On-Site SEO Audit
Once we’ve built a clear picture of your goals and competitors, we move on to a full audit of your website.

This begins with a deep dive into your site’s technical performance. We identify any issues that might prevent search engine crawlers from properly accessing, interpreting, or indexing your content.

Technical SEO is crucial at this stage, if your site can’t be crawled effectively, it won’t appear in search results. Our audit covers everything from site architecture and URL structure to internal linking, navigation, and page load speed. We also review key technical elements such as site architecture, URL structure, page speed, structured data, and security, as these are essential for crawlability, indexing, and overall search engine ranking.

We also check for mobile-friendliness, HTTPS security, structured data, and other elements that impact user experience and search performance. With mobile-first indexing now standard, ensuring your site performs well on mobile devices is a top priority and a crucial aspect of technical SEO.

Next, we run a comprehensive page-by-page quality audit using our bespoke tool, which combines insights from Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Ahrefs, Semrush, and more. These SEO tools help us uncover opportunities for improvement and ensure every page is contributing to your site’s overall performance.

We also take into account other websites and search engines beyond Google to broaden your site’s reach, and we assess how each page supports indexing and discoverability. Optimising on-site elements, including metadata and title tags, improves crawlability and ranking, and helps search engines understand the content and relevance of your site. This doesn’t just help with visibility, it also enhances engagement and conversion potential.

Once the audit is complete, we provide a clear set of actions. Our team, or your own developers if you prefer, can then implement these updates to ensure your site is structurally sound and fully optimised for search engines.

Stage 3: Keyword Research and Analysis
This stage is arguably the most important part of any SEO process. It ensures your website targets the right keywords in the right places to rank highly for what your customers are searching for. Understanding search queries and user search intent is fundamental, as it guides keyword research and helps ensure your content aligns with what users are actually looking for. Optimising your website for the intent behind each search query is crucial for improving relevance and visibility in search results.

We conduct thorough keyword research to identify the most effective primary and secondary keywords for your niche. By analysing search volumes, user intent, and the types of search queries your audience uses, we select high-potential keywords that can drive relevant traffic to your site. This also guides content optimisation and site structure, ensuring each web page is optimised for relevant search queries and matches exactly what users are looking for.

For local businesses, optimising for local search is essential. We focus on targeting geographically relevant keywords to help your business appear in nearby search results and attract local customers. We prioritise Google searches given its dominance, but our approach can be adapted for other sites and search engines too.

Competitor analysis is also a key part of this stage. We review your competitors’ keyword strategies to identify any gaps or missed opportunities in your own keyword targeting, making sure your site covers all important topics and search queries relevant to your field.

The Growing Role of AI in SEO
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the SEO landscape, influencing how businesses optimise their online presence. Modern search engines use advanced AI algorithms to better understand website content and user intent, ensuring that search results are more relevant and personalised than ever before.

AI-powered SEO tools now assist with a range of tasks such as keyword research, content creation, technical audits, and performance analysis. These tools help streamline processes, making SEO efforts more efficient and data-driven. Additionally, AI-driven chatbots and virtual assistants enhance user experience by providing immediate, accurate responses to queries, which can boost engagement and signal value to search engines.

To stay competitive, it’s vital for businesses to understand how AI shapes search engine algorithms. AI analyses vast data sets to uncover user behaviour patterns, guiding the creation of content that resonates with audiences and ranks well. As AI technology evolves, continuous learning and adaptation are essential to keep your SEO strategy effective and aligned with the latest search engine updates.

By embracing AI-powered SEO, businesses unlock new growth opportunities, enhance search rankings, and maintain visibility in an ever-changing digital environment.

This evolving AI landscape directly influences how content should be created and optimised, which leads us naturally to the next stage of our process.

Stage 4: Content Audit, Strategy, and Creation
Using all the insights gathered so far from research and audits, we manually review your website content for performance and search rankings. Website content is crucial for page SEO, as it helps search engines crawl, index, and understand your site, boosting visibility and rankings.

We assess whether existing content needs tweaking, rewriting, or if it’s performing well as is. Optimising individual website pages and web pages ensures search engines grasp the purpose and value of each page. Each web page's content and HTML structure contribute to search engine rankings, so a comprehensive page-by-page strategy is essential to enhance visibility and relevance in search results. Internal linking, such as from blog posts, enhances site navigation and indexing.

Content marketing supports SEO by producing valuable, relevant material that engages your audience. If new or updated content is needed, our content strategists plan it carefully using tools like Google keyword planner, considering branding, funnel mapping, user intent, keywords, metadata, and site structure.

Internal links within content help search engines understand your site’s structure and page importance. Local SEO elements are integrated into content planning to improve rankings in local search results.

Stage 5: Promotion
The first step in this phase is to review where your website is currently promoted, including directory listings and backlinks from other businesses and websites. We check these links for legitimacy and duplication, removing any harmful ones to clean up your online profile.

With a clean backlink profile, we begin link building, typically through guest posts and editorials on relevant sites within your niche. This helps build your site’s authority, creating pathways for both search engine crawlers and potential customers to find you.

Backlinks are vital for establishing trust and authority in the eyes of search engines, playing a key role in improving your site’s rankings. Off-page SEO refers to all activities performed outside your website, such as acquiring backlinks, increasing social media activity, guest blogging, and earning reviews, that influence your site’s authority and visibility in search engine results. Off-site SEO activities, such as link building and brand presence, are essential for boosting your search visibility.

We also distinguish between paid search and organic SEO - paid search drives quick, targeted traffic, while organic SEO builds lasting authority and trust. Together, these form a comprehensive search engine marketing strategy.

Stage 6: Evaluation
Evaluation is not a one-off exercise. Instead, we revisit and audit your website monthly to check for and fix any technical or backlink problems. We also provide you with a detailed monthly SEO report complete with ranking performance, organic traffic statistics, and insights into search engine algorithms. Tracking your rankings in organic search results is a key measure of SEO success, showing how your site is performing in unpaid listings.

Our reports track search rankings as a measure of progress and improvement. We measure SEO performance regularly through research and analysis, which helps us make data-driven decisions and improve your overall SEO efforts. Tracking organic search traffic is a key metric for understanding the effectiveness of your SEO strategy.

Our reports also highlight the impact of SEO on search results and business growth, helping you see the tangible benefits of your investment. Achieving and maintaining SEO success requires ongoing effort, including mobile optimisation goal setting, and evaluation of various ranking factors. Regularly measuring SEO ensures your strategy remains effective and aligned with your business goals.

Following the completion of your campaign journey with us, you also receive a wrap-up report that details the overall results including organic reach, traffic, leads, sales, and your ranking progression.

These easy-to-read and understand reports not only show you exactly how far your website has come in terms of SEO but provide a guide to what your next steps should be as well. Search engine optimisation is an ongoing process that involves continuous improvement of your website’s visibility and rankings.

Let's Talk SEO Results
Marketing team reviewing website analytics to improve search engine optimisation strategy.

Whether you’re starting from scratch or looking to sharpen your existing strategy, Approved Business can help you take the guesswork out of SEO. Our six-stage process delivers transparency, tailored support, and tangible improvements in visibility, traffic, and conversions. Partnering with an experienced SEO specialist can further enhance your business's SEO results and provide expert guidance throughout the process.

Get your free SEO report today and discover what’s possible for your business.