Traditional SEO methodologies have always been high-yielding and website-centric. You basically do your research to find the right keywords, trick out your website, follow all the “white hat” rules to make it as competitive as possible, and then focus on creating optimized content and backlinks. If your page shows up in the top 1-5 organic search results, you’re going to net all manner of organic traffic to your website. If you’re ranked further than that, smell you later, brother.

I’ve gathered together ten common questions you might ask of a traditional SEO – and my responses.

1. Who are we optimizing for, anyways?
   1. Google. They own 83-85% of the organic search market.
2. Which keywords do we use?
   1. Anything that is low in competition and high in traffic – and relevant to what you’re selling or talking about.
3. Which pages do we optimize?
   1. ALL THE PAGES.
4. What backlinks do we generate?
   1. As many as you can. But don’t over-tax yourself. Pick 10-15 optimized pages, and keep linking to those.
5. What site structure do we use?
   1. Look at what your competitors are doing, but generally, your menu should correspond with your afore-mentioned 10-15 optimized pages, which should also be your broadest categories/targets.
6. Are our robots working properly? And are we indexing?
   1. I hope so. Have your tech guy look at it.
7. Which CMS should we use?
   1. It depends, but if you’re a small- or medium-sized business, I advise staying away from the expensive, proprietary stuff. WordPress is beautiful, customizable, and open-source friendly.
8. Is our website organized correctly?
   1. Hopefully it’s on the main page and hopefully you don’t worry about this too much. Most of your customers are coming in the “back door” via search.
9. Which meta data do we use?
   1. This changes all the time (thanks, Google). Typically H1, H2, title, and meta desc.
10. Is our content properly optimized?
    1. Does it include keywords? Does it include proper meta data? Have you included images or embedded video? And most importantly: is it entertaining?

Now, what about social SEO — the new SEO? I’ve framed the same 10 questions and revised the answers to apply to social. Bear in mind, with social, you’re not developing your SEO around a website that appeals to one search engine’s algorithm. Instead, you are developing your SEO around content, which is distributed across many search engines (the various social media networks are each search engines, with different algorithms).

1. Who are we optimizing for, anyways?
   1. The signature seven: Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+. Some are better for sharing images, video or written content, so it really depends on the type of content you have available to share. If it’s a picture or video, include keywords in title and descriptions where possible. If it’s a Tweet or a blog, put those keywords in the Tweet, headline and “body copy” where applicable.
2. Which keywords do we use?
   1. Anything that is low in competition and high in traffic – and relevant to what you’re selling or talking about. You can use the same kind of words you’d use for traditional SEO.
3. Which pages do we optimize?
   1. Every post (whether a Tweet, Instagram upload or Facebook post) should be considered a “page.” Go ahead and optimize all of them, as long as you don’t compromise the storytelling aspect of your content.
4. What backlinks do we generate?
   1. As many as you can. Use your social network of choice and drive back to your website or blog if you like. This will help supplement traditional SEO as well (traffic factors when it comes to ranking).
5. What site structure do we use?
   1. Doesn’t matter at all. If you post to your website, make sure you’re posting to all of the signature seven as well. If were you, and I’d be distributing based on content type (written, image, or video).
6. Are our robots working properly? And are we indexing?
   1. Doesn’t matter. But, Twitter indexes most favorably.
7. Which CMS should we use?
   1. Doesn’t matter, you aren’t using a CMS per se. But, you can use a CMS to “start” your content distribution, and then use automation tools such as Zapier/IFTTT and Buffer to automate cross-posting across all of the signature seven social networks.  Remember to develop your content around the lowest common denominator (Twitter – because of its 140 character limit).
8. Is our “social handle” organized correctly?
   1. Your profiles should be filled out with as much written content and keywords as possible.
9. Which meta data do we use?
   1. Doesn’t matter anymore (unless we’re talking about a website). On social networks, tell stories and include keywords.
10. Is our content properly optimized?
    1. Is it getting posted, regularly? Make it fun, make it different — and it will work for you.