Strategic SEO planning for new or existing websites

Strategic SEO Planning

Process

1. Discovery

• Business type, target audience, competitors, goals
• Current site assessment (if exists)
• Budget and timeline constraints
• Key performance indicators (KPIs)

2. Competitive Analysis

• Identify top 5 competitors
• Analyze their content strategy, schema usage, technical setup
• Identify keyword gaps and content opportunities
• Assess their E-E-A-T signals
• Estimate their domain authority

3. Architecture Design

• Load industry template from assets/ directory
• Design URL hierarchy and content pillars
• Plan internal linking strategy
• Sitemap structure with quality gates applied
• Information architecture for user journeys

4. Content Strategy

• Content gaps vs competitors
• Page types and estimated counts
• Blog/resource topics and publishing cadence
• E-E-A-T building plan (author bios, credentials, experience signals)
• Content calendar with priorities

5. Technical Foundation

• Hosting and performance requirements
• Schema markup plan per page type
• Core Web Vitals baseline targets
• AI search readiness requirements
• Mobile-first considerations

6. Implementation Roadmap (4 phases)

Phase 1: Foundation (weeks 1-4)

• Technical setup and infrastructure
• Core pages (home, about, contact, main services)
• Essential schema implementation
• Analytics and tracking setup

Phase 2: Expansion (weeks 5-12)

• Content creation for primary pages
• Blog launch with initial posts
• Internal linking structure
• Local SEO setup (if applicable)

Phase 3: Scale (weeks 13-24)

• Advanced content development
• Link building and outreach
• GEO optimization
• Performance optimization

Phase 4: Authority (months 7-12)

• Thought leadership content
• PR and media mentions
• Advanced schema implementation
• Continuous optimization

Industry Templates

Load from assets/ directory:

• saas.md: SaaS/software companies
• local-service.md: Local service businesses
• ecommerce.md: E-commerce stores
• publisher.md: Content publishers/media
• agency.md: Agencies and consultancies
• generic.md: General business template

Output

Deliverables

• SEO-STRATEGY.md: Complete strategic plan
• COMPETITOR-ANALYSIS.md: Competitive insights
• CONTENT-CALENDAR.md: Content roadmap
• IMPLEMENTATION-ROADMAP.md: Phased action plan
• SITE-STRUCTURE.md: URL hierarchy and architecture

KPI Targets

Metric	Baseline	3 Month	6 Month	12 Month
Organic Traffic	...	...	...	...
Keyword Rankings	...	...	...	...
Domain Authority	...	...	...	...
Indexed Pages	...	...	...	...
Core Web Vitals	...	...	...	...

Success Criteria

• Clear, measurable goals per phase
• Resource requirements defined
• Dependencies identified
• Risk mitigation strategies

DataForSEO Integration (Optional)

If DataForSEO MCP tools are available, use dataforseo_labs_google_competitors_domain and dataforseo_labs_google_domain_intersection for real competitive intelligence, dataforseo_labs_bulk_traffic_estimation for traffic estimates, kw_data_google_ads_search_volume and dataforseo_labs_bulk_keyword_difficulty for keyword research, and business_data_business_listings_search for local business data.

Error Handling

Scenario	Action
Unrecognized business type	Fall back to generic.md template. Inform user that no industry-specific template was found and proceed with the general business template.
No website URL provided	Proceed with new-site planning mode. Skip current site assessment and competitive gap analysis that require a live URL.
Industry template not found	Check assets/ directory for available templates. If the requested template file is missing, use generic.md and note the missing template in output.