A business website is one of the most important marketing tools for any brand. In 2023, few companies can succeed without a strong online presence since customers spend much of their buyer journeys online. If there is no place for them to discover what a company offers, then it can be challenging to grow the size of the customer base.
Improving your organization’s online presence relies heavily on search engine optimization (SEO). When you type a question or query into a search console like Google, it returns many pages of results. Unfortunately, only the first few results on that page will receive any organic traffic. If you are near the bottom of page one or on any page after, your chances of getting clicks are minimized.
An SEO initiative can increase your website’s authority in the eyes of the search engine, causing your page rankings to increase and more organic traffic to head to your website. However, tackling an SEO project has to be done the right way for it to be successful. The following SEO project management guide lays out the steps you should follow for an optimal experience.
“Improving SEO” is not enough of an objective to guide this marketing project. It is not specific enough. The more specific you can be with your business goals for this project, the easier it will be to track progress and analyze the results. Maybe you would like to increase organic traffic to your website by 50% in the next year. Lay out SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) to have a clear benchmark for success.
You can choose to handle an SEO project in-house, but this might be an initiative that is better left to the experts. Effective SEO strategies change all the time as search engine algorithms and consumer needs shift. Agencies that work exclusively in this field are better equipped to implement an effective strategy for improving SEO and moving up the search result rankings. Search for link building companies or digital marketing agencies that specialize in optimization so that your efforts are more effective.
An audit of your search engine optimization so far will be critical before pursuing the rest of the project. You need to see where you are before you can decide where you are going. This is one of the reasons why working with a specialized agency is beneficial, as they can conduct a more thorough SEO audit that reflects all the weaknesses and strengths of your current strategy. This stage should measure things like content strategy, technical on-page aspects, keyword usage, competitor research, and backlink profile analysis.
What changes will be pursued for this SEO project? How will you balance teamwork and collaboration to achieve the various objectives of the initiative? Deciding what changes will be made is the most important part of the project management process. If you decide that the website lacks backlinks from other authoritative websites, then a strategy will be needed for outreach. Improvements to technical aspects like meta descriptions, image optimization, and mobile utilization may also be needed. In many cases, SEO improvements require a holistic approach to website changes rather than one specific initiative.
Key performance indicators are measurements that should be determined early in the project process. These KPIs should be specific and easily measured so that you can track progress. Common SEO KPIs include clickthrough rates, page rankings for specific keywords, and organic traffic. However, it should be noted that progress often takes a while with search engine optimization. You cannot expect to jump to the top result after a month of changes. Many digital marketing agencies work with companies for at least six months before they expect to see improvements.
Now that you have some data to work with because of the KPIs you have been tracking, you can further refine the SEO strategy that was created in Step four. You may discover that some initiatives are working while others or not. Maybe your progress tracking revealed new areas that could be improved. Effective SEO is an ongoing initiative, so once you commit to this type of project, it never completely ends. Even if you reach all your objectives, maintaining your new position will require ongoing work because other companies will want to surpass you in the search results.
Perhaps your website never shows up on the first page of search results, even for local online users. This means your current SEO strategy is very weak. It will take time to build up the site’s authority so that people can find it organically at the top of the search results. You will need to do a lot of research into potential keywords and the competitors that are positioned ahead of you. You will also have to wait for a while before the results may change.
Hopefully, this guide will provide you with a roadmap to success that will have your website showing up at the top of the page with research, patience, and effort.