Free SEO Plan Template (with Video Tutorial)

1. Enter keyword ideas

Keywords are the words and phrases that people type into Google to find what they want. Unless you target a keyword with some popularity, there is no point in ranking first because you won’t get traffic.

To find keywords worth targeting, you need to do keyword research.

If you’re new to the process, start by entering a broad topic related to your industry into Ahrefs’ free keyword generator. It will find the top 100 keywords based on monthly search volume that contain your term.

For example, if you have a website about coffee, you might enter “coffee”:

Choose from this list five keywords that might make sense for your business to target and record them in the template:

TIP: Keep in mind the “commercial potential” of your chosen keywords

“Commercial potential” refers to how easy it would be to present your product (or any third-party product you’re promoting) by covering a keyword. This is important to consider because, for most websites, the purpose of ranking content on Google is to make money.

Here’s the scale we use to judge the “commercial potential” of a keyword:

2. Record search intent

Search intent is the reason behind searching on Google. In other words, what is the researcher looking for? Unless you create content that aligns with search intent, you will have a difficult time ranking for your target keyword.

How do you know what users are looking for? See the current top 10 search results. The content types AND formats you see here are usually a good indication of what people want.

Here are the most common content types:

• Blog post
• video
• Product page
• Category page

Here are the most common content formats:

• Practical guides
• Step by step tutorial
• Reviews
• Comparisons
• Listicles
• Opinion pieces

For example, if we check the results for the “best coffee makers” in the US with Ahrefs’ free SERP checker, almost all of them are listicle-format blog posts:

If we do the same thing for “coffee table with storage”, they are all product category pages of e-commerce stores:

Record the results for all five keywords in the template. If you’re unsure about a keyword, choose “unsure.”

3. Choose the best keyword

For each of the five keywords on your list, ask yourself two questions:

1. Can I create the type of content users are looking for?
2. Would ranking that type of content be profitable for my business?

Choose the keyword with the best balance of traffic and earning potential and register it in the template.

If you have difficulty answering the above questions, read the advice below.

Can I create the type of content users are looking for?

Let’s say you run a blog about coffee and one of your keywords is “coffee table with storage.”

You’ll remember from above that all the high-level results were product category pages of online stores. So, in this case, the answer to the question is “no” because it is not possible to create this type of content on a blog.

However, the answer would be “yes” for the keyword “coffee maker with grinder” because all the high-ranking results are listicle blog posts.

Would ranking that type of content be profitable for my business?

Let’s follow the example of the coffee blog…

If the keyword is “coffee maker with grinder”, the answer is “yes” because users want a list of the best products. You can monetize your product recommendations with affiliate marketing.

If the key word is “how much caffeine in coffee,” the answer is “no” because it would be difficult to recommend any product or service naturally in the content itself. People just want a quick response.

4. Plan your content

It’s not enough to create the type and format of content people are looking for. You also need to make sure it covers key subtopics.

How do you know what they are? Look for commonalities among the top pages.

For example, if we check the subheadings of the first two pages at the top of the ranking for “best coffee machines” with the Ahrefs SEO Toolbar, we see that both have sections on the best drip coffee machines AND best pour over coffee makers:

You would definitely want to talk about these three things if you targeted the keyword “best coffee machines”.

If you are an Ahrefs user, you can find key subtopics more easily using Keyword Explorer. Just enter your target keyword, go to Related terms report and toggle to view keywords that pages higher in the “top 10” “also rank” for:

Search this list for keywords that appear to represent subtopics and record the top 5 in the template:

You also need to think about how to make your content unique and demonstrate expertise.

There are some ideas in the model. Select the one you intend to use or add your own:

For example, in my expert collections guide, I covered all the subtopics that searchers would expect to see, such as What are AND because they are important. But I also shared my opinion that expert roundups aren’t worth it, as are the results of a couple of Twitter polls I did.

5. Publish and optimize your content

Most “optimization” happens during the content creation process. However, there are some things worth doing to ensure your content performs at its best.

Follow the checklist in the template:

6. Plan link building efforts (if necessary)

Links are one of Google’s strongest ranking factors, so you’ll probably need to have some chance of ranking high for any remotely competitive keyword.

Unfortunately, getting them can be Very stimulating.

If you’re completely new to all of this, the easiest place to start is by publishing guest posts on a few sites in your industry. This isn’t the trendiest tactic, but it works (which is probably why it’s the third most popular link building tactic according to this 2022 survey).

Here’s an easy way to find sites to propose with Ahrefs Content Explorer:

1. Enter a generic keyword or phrase related to your niche
2. Select “In Title” from the drop-down menu
3. Run the search
4. Set your language to “English”
5. Go to the “Websites” tab.

You’ll see a list of the top 100 websites with content on your topic based on estimated search traffic:

Watch this for blogs and you may be able to publish a guest post.

For example, coffeeaffection.com it’s clearly a blog and receives around 426,000 monthly search visits:

For any site you want to pitch, you’ll need to explore it to find the right person to contact (usually the publisher or owner, depending on the size of the site). If their email address isn’t on the site, you can use an email search tool like Hunter to try to find it.

Record the sites you want to propose, the recipients you will target, and their email addresses in the template:

7. Track your results

Google Search Console is a free way to monitor your page performance for your target keyword. Just go to Search performance report, then filter by target URL and keyword.

If you want to see actual ranking positions rather than averages (which most of us do), sign up for a free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT) account, then go to Organic keywords report in Site Explorer and filter for the target keyword. You should see its actual ranking position.

In any case, don’t get too obsessed with the rankings. Daily fluctuations are perfectly normal, so weekly checks are more than sufficient.

Both tools above show past data, but if you want to record rankings for your records, you can do so in the template:

Ranking new pages is vital to SEO success, but it requires a lot of work. That’s why we also recommend running a content audit to find existing content that you may be able to easily improve rankings for. These are often opportunities within reach that require little effort.

Alternatively, if you already have an existing page in mind that you want to improve SEO for, read our step-by-step guide to ranking higher on Google.