Knowing what to do to your website is only a part of what the required knowledge for search engine optimisation campaign is. Another set of tasks you need to know about involve the chronology of your entire SEO plan. It’s important to know the goalposts and check points for your site’s SEO, both for checking how your plan is progressing and keeping tabs on what you should be doing.

There are five specific stages for your search engine optimization plan that you should pay particular attention to. Some of these only occur once, but some of them are ongoing.

1. Initialisation. This is an exceptionally important stage. If you want your SEO to coast along nicely for the next couple of years, it’s important to lay down some good foundations in the initial stages.

Note that it’s possible to have to pass though the initial stages of SEO several times. This is generally due to a search engine optimisation plan not being maintained properly. It’s helpful sometimes to think of your site’s SEO as a car. Without proper maintenance, a car will eventually break down and have to be completely overhauled to work again. SEO is much the same, although it generally happens quicker with your website.

2. Monthly analysis. It’s easy to get entangled in too-frequent analysis of your SEO plan. After the initial stage is over, it’s best to stick with a monthly analysis of the various elements of your SEO strategy. This will differ from site to site, and your search engine optimization company is likely to give you a few pointers as to the things you should check on. The most commonly important ones are bounce rate, click-through rate and time on page, as well as the monitoring of link acquisition goals and other SEO tactics.

It’s a good idea to monitor both progress since the previous month and your progress since the SEO began. Doing the latter can help put your advances into perspective.

3. Weekly evaluations. While it’s important not to get tangled up in statistics, it’s a good idea to keep track on a weekly basis. Weekly evaluations are just about checking in on how your SEO is being implemented.

4. Individual meetings. How do you know how well different areas of your SEO plan are going? The only real way is to meet with the people in charge of them. It’s important to touch base with your link building team, content team and your SEO company every week or two weeks.

5. Monthly team catch-up. There are likely to be a lot of people involved in your site’s search engine optimisation. The importance of keeping in contact with all of them cannot be overstated. It is vital that everyone involved in your SEO know what the others are doing. It is possible to hold rankings back through miscommunication. Open communication, on the other hand, can result in an incredibly efficient campaign.