SEO Firms/Freelance - What do you do first!

You got a new client signed up - what is your very first consideration to start their strategy.

For myself I crawl the site (using Maxamine - website management software).

This allows me to do a number of things (without doing anything).

1. download their entire.

2. view their website in 3 dimensions -- according to internal link pop pages with most in/out links, in links, out links (all internal)

3. view any reference for broken links or missing pages (internal)

4. view any reference for broken links all their external links (external)

5. view all Javascript links

6. view all meta titles and their link relation with other pages

7. identify all page not linking back to mainpage

8. view page html (or any page extention) file size

9. identify major link corridors

10. by acquiring log files can superimpose current traffic pattens, corridors. click in and out pages

11. drag and drop redesign to maximize the websites link construct - finding and improving link bottlenecks, as well as appreciating improvements to sites breadth of topic, and new theme areas.

A thousand page site can be done in an hour. Admittedly I don't know how I would manage without it.

But obviously people do -- what do you do first?

Wow - am I reading this right... 12 month subscription to maxamine $5,999 a one time report $1500

Please tell me it doesn't cost you that much

Their website does mention a desktop version, but strangely it doesn't mention a price, just 'call us to arrange a live demo' - lol, please tell me you're using a different 'maxamine' ;)

It does look like it would be really cool, and a huge help on large sites, but surely there has to be something cheaper out there???

If there isn't anything cheaper out there, I know a really good programmer coming up to the end of his current contract, we could start on one next week ;)

As for the main topic of this thread - I'm still learning SEO and haven't jumped into my own business just yet (although it could happen relatively soon)... my first step so far (and admittedly this is only based on relatively small sites), is to:

1) Do a keyword density analysis on the home page - not really to see the actual densities, but to see what keywords it is most likely to appear with and do a few searches to see where the site is listed currently.

2) Examine page structure and navigation, see what major restructuring changes might be needed, get an idea of how much work is involved.

That's probably the basic bits... things could diverge quite significantly after that depending on what those two points bring up.

I wouldn't base too much on this though - that's my starting strategy based and refined after a whole three sites - lol ;)

I think that's 1 URL as well.

I think that the first thing that needs to be done is talk to the client... maybe this would be part of the "strategy plan" choice. To be most effective the SEO should understand the goals of the business and not just start promoting the site blindly. Some products have different profit margins, some have different times of year that they are best sold (and a smart retailer can rotate merchandise in and out of higher PR portions of his site depending upon what sells best at a particular time of year). So if you really want to have a happy client try to get an understanding of their business and goals before you start tweaking code and changing the link structure. Also a discussion about keyword would be important - the business owner probably has a better idea than you do about what terms people might type in when they search for a product. If she/he has a walk-in store they probably hear those same terms when the customer asks for the product.

actually none of those options... I usually:

1) surf around the site. I wan't to see what they are doing now and how they are doing it. Without the big picture there no point goint on to stage 2.

2) and after that talk to client about objectives and goals. Do they want sells, visitors, registered users, what they want to promote etc.

Having looked at the page and titles I would want to know if this client is currently optimizing for the right keywords. Wordtracker and other keyword research tools would be my first point of call.

At first check the Page and titles how Webby said. Check for Metas and Backlinks (pr).