What is the first step in creating an SEO strategy

The first step in creating an SEO strategy is conducting a thorough competitive and keyword research analysis that directly ties to your client's business goals. You need to understand what search terms their potential customers are actually using, what volume of searches exist for those terms, and how difficult it would be to rank for them. Start by identifying 10-20 primary keywords that align with the client's core services or products, then expand into related search queries and long-tail variations. Use tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Moz to assess search volume and keyword difficulty. More importantly, you need to analyze the top-ranking pages for each keyword to understand what Google currently rewards. Look at content type, word count, backlink profiles, and how comprehensively these pages address user intent. This competitive analysis reveals whether targeting these keywords is realistic given the client's domain authority and content resources.

Simultaneously, conduct a technical and content audit of the client's existing website. Crawl the site with Screaming Frog or a similar tool to identify on-page issues like missing title tags, broken links, crawl errors, and page speed problems. Review their current content inventory and assess which pages have ranking potential and which need improvement or consolidation. This audit shows you what's already working and what's broken before you build your strategy on top of it.

With this information gathered, you can now map keywords to pages and identify gaps where the client lacks content that matches search intent. This is where your strategy actually takes shape—you're not guessing about what to optimize for. You're making evidence-based recommendations about which keywords to target based on search demand, competition level, and the client's realistic ability to rank. This foundation lets you present clients with a prioritized roadmap showing which keywords to target first, what content needs creation or improvement, and why those specific targets matter for their business. Without this groundwork, you're building an SEO strategy on assumptions instead of data, which wastes both your time and the client's budget.