A solid SEO roadmap is essential for every search strategy to be successful.
An SEO roadmap is a plan that you use to organize and keep your SEO strategies on track. It is a plan that you use to organize your SEO strategies. It lists the tasks and techniques you will use and when and how they will be implemented. This is a great way to make sure your team is on the same page and ensure that your strategy delivers the best results.
You have two options when it comes to your enterprise goals:
- Evaluate your search visibility, review the site and links, identify quick wins using the data and then start implementing them one at a time.
- First, align your overall strategy with company goals. Next, develop processes that maximize your time and effort to achieve those goals.
Both methods work, but the only one allows you to provide the best search experience possible for users consistently and at large scale.
This post will show you how to implement an SEO strategy within your company.
Learn how to create SEO strategies that deliver consistent results.
Let’s start by understanding the scope and purpose of an SEO plan.
What is an SEO Roadmap?
SEO Roadmap is a document that helps marketers and website owners plan their SEO strategy. It is created by considering the goals of the site, its audience, competition, current rankings, and more. With this document, marketers can create a more effective SEO strategy that maximizes results.
A Marketing Roadmap is a document that helps marketers and website owners plan their marketing strategy. This document is created by considering the goals of the site, its audience, competition, current rankings and more. With this document in hand, marketers can create a more effective marketing strategy that maximizes results.
SEO Roadmap vs Marketing Roadmap: Both documents are made for different reasons and have different objectives. A marketing roadmap is meant to help with planning a marketing strategy, whereas an SEO roadmap helps with planning an SEO strategy.
Why bother developing a SEO Roadmap?
After all, you know how to execute the strategy. You are also familiar with how to implement each element, and what to do when. Then why not create an SEO roadmap?
There’s two reasons to make an SEO plan:
- To answer questions about the strategy from other stakeholders.
- Future-proofing the strategy. The strategy will be affected by any major organizational change, such as the hiring of new staff to expand the SEO team and the loss of key stakeholders.
It will serve as a guideline and point of reference in both cases. The roadmap will help you explain your reasoning or show new people how to execute the strategy.
An SEO strategy has an average close rate of 16.2% , compared to 2.3% for traditional marketing.
These numbers are not just a result of luck. To craft a strategy that delivers results, you need a blueprint. This blueprint is known as an SEO roadmap.
Continue reading to learn how to create a 2023 SEO plan that will generate revenue for your company!
Tip:Want to know how your site ranks in search results? No more wondering with our SEO Checker. You can get a free SEO audit and tips to help you improve your rankings by trying it out. It takes only a few seconds.
Determining the Day-to-Day Components to Your Strategy
Many SEOs and digital marketers find terms such as ” strategic” and ” Project Progress” intimidating. I can see why.
They believe that both terms are closely related to the solid SEO roadmap.
This strategic document outlines what you should do and how to get high results consistently.
A roadmap is a tool that helps everyone stay on the same page and reduces the chance of making mistakes. It informs all stakeholders interested in SEO progress of your actions, plans and procedures to meet them.
An SEO plan will typically focus on these aspects of your work.
- Current status of your SEO efforts
- You can achieve great results quickly by using quick wins.
- Keyword and topic research
- Audit results (content and technique)
- Upcoming SEO initiatives
A solid roadmap will define every core tactic you are using and break them down into workflows and standard operating procedures.
How to make a SEO plan in 2023
An SEO action plan is the best way to implement and manage an SEO strategy that increases your search engine rankings , and drives traffic to you website.
How to make a SEO plan for 2023
- Think about your business goals
- Choose your SEO techniques
- Think about the tools and resources that your team will require
- Designate a team member for each task
- Create a timeline to keep you team on track
- Measure your website’s performance
1. Take into account your business goals
Your SEO strategy should assist you in achieving your overall business goals. Are you looking to get more people to visit your website? Do you want to help more local shoppers locate your store?
Consider what you are trying to achieve. Next, think about how your SEO strategy can help you achieve those goals.
2. Choose your SEO techniques
After you have thought about your business goals, select your SEO tactics. You want to select SEO strategies that will help your achieve your goals, as we discussed above.
You can use a variety of SEO strategies, including:
- Local SEO
- Keyword implementation
- Content creation
- Link Building
- Voice Search Optimization
- Mobile-friendly Optimizations
- User experience optimizations
- Page speed improvements
You can implement a local SEO strategy to increase foot traffic to your physical location.
Perhaps you are looking to improve your brand recognition and drive traffic to your site. A SEO content strategy will give you more chances to rank higher in search results for your targeted audience.
3. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)
A standard operating procedure (SOP) is a series of steps that describe how to perform a particular, routine task.
A SOP usually refers to the completion of tangible tasks such as updating a website. They are almost never used to describe the process for achieving a particular objective.
SOPs should be understood as a guideline. Once an organization has established how employees should approach a task, it should be followed exactly each time. These SOPs can be thought of as checklists.
That’s why I think so many people are offended by them.
It’s this quality, however, that allows them to improve SEO strategies. Mitul, our co-founder, pointed this out in an previous post.
It is crucial to replace inconsistency by a measured, directed effort.
Only when all teams, which are often spread across the globe, approach SEO tasks the same way, can an organization achieve its goals at scale.
SOPs are designed to maximize the impact of marketing team’s actions on SEO.
4. Think about the tools and resources that your team will require
Next, you need to decide what resources and tools are needed to implement and manage your SEO strategies.
Your strategy’s success depends on SEO platforms. These tools can provide a solid foundation for your strategy to generate revenue from the start.
Let’s suppose you are looking to implement an SEO content strategy. To help you find the most valuable keywords for your campaign, you can use keyword search tools like Google Trends
To get ideas for your next piece, you can also use a free post-idea generator. Use a free readability test to determine if your content is easy to understand and read.
5. Each task should be assigned to a specific member of the team
After you have determined the SEO strategies that you want to use, and the resources and tools you need to do so, the next step is to assign team members to each strategy or task.
Let’s say you want to implement multiple SEO strategies, such as content, local SEO or technical site optimizations. If this is the case, it’s important to identify who will implement these implementations in your roadmap. This will ensure that everyone in your team is on the same page, and everyone understands their roles.
If you are creating SEO content, you can designate who will edit and publish the content. You can also assign web design optimization team members to optimize your site navigation, and others to make your website mobile-friendly.
6. Workflows
The workflow, on other hand, identifies all the stakeholders involved in the project and their responsibilities as well as the timeline for completion. It is basically a structure for a variety of SOPs that helps to achieve a specific goal.
An example of an SEO workflow would be creating authoritative content and optimizing it for greater relevancy.
For a SEO roadmap, both SOPs as well as workflows are crucial.
The work of one department does not always have an impact on search visibility. IT and content teams might be required to assist with simple tasks like changing a webpage.
Link building includes outreach, quality content, and the creation of backlinks. The IT team can also fix many technical SEO problems.
However, good results can only be achieved if all SEO stakeholders are clear about their roles and responsibilities and complete tasks to the same standard. This is precisely what SOPs, workflows, and other tools help to ensure.
Let’s now take a look at some most common SOPs and workflows for SEO.
7. To keep your team on the right track, create a timeline
It is crucial to establish a time frame for your SEO strategy. This gives you and your team a deadline that will help keep your work on track.
First, pick a time frame for your roadmap. This could be anything from a month to more than a year, depending on which strategies you choose to implement.
Then you can further segment your timeline into phases. You can, for example, set a time frame to publish 30 pages of SEO content each quarter.
You may not be able to implement all of your strategies simultaneously. Instead, prioritize the tasks that have the greatest potential to drive revenue for the company and then move on to the less urgent tasks.
8. Continuously monitor your website’s performance
Last step to creating your SEO strategy roadmap is to create a schedule to monitor your website’s performance.
You must constantly improve your SEO strategy to make it successful. To improve your SEO strategy, you will need to monitor the performance of your website in search results continuously.
You can track your SEO results to understand better which strategies and techniques produce the best results. You can then identify and optimize your strategies to drive maximum results for your business.
You can track your SEO performance with a variety of tools and platforms. Google Analytics easily tracks your web traffic and valuable audience data.
Advanced marketing technology can also be used, such as our revenue-driving software PulseNest Marketing Management. Pulsenest allows you to analyze the performance of your website in search engines, including your keyword rankings and the source of your web traffic.
Common SEO Standard Operating Procedures
You know that SOPs are steps needed to complete a task. They are crucial to the success of your strategy.
Here are some examples of common search engine optimization SOPs that will help you understand how they work.
Example #1: Optimizing New Blog Posts
Many digital marketers don’t optimize their articles for SEO. Before any blog posts are published, another person, possibly an SEO expert should review the target keyword to identify the semantic terms that can be added to the copy.
This will ensure that the content marketing strategy is in line with SEO best practices.
Google Search Console alone will not provide you with strategic semantic terms, but a list of keywords driving traffic. You can also use Content Fusion, which automatically uncovers semantic insight based on deep-learning algorithms.
Here are some must-use topics to use when searching for “things you can do in Florida”.
(Terms to be used in content that uses the keyword “things you can do in Florida” )
Potential interlinking opportunities should be identified by the SEO. You can either do it manually or use a dedicated platform.
Recommended reading: Internal Link Workflow: How to Optimize Your Site and Increase Site Authority
Ensure that keywords are correctly placed in title tags, meta descriptions and other elements of blog posts.
Repeat this process for each piece of content.
Example 2: Adding a new page
This simple guideline is for content creators in your company.
- Use relevant keyword research tools to identify and analyze the target keyword. This helps them identify their target audience and uncover long tail keywords.
- Optimize meta tags to ensure correct optimization and length.
- Verify that the correct schema and canonical tags are used
- Add a page or two to the sitemap.
Example 3. Example #3.
An SEO should also be consulted when removing existing content.
- Check out the target keywords in your content.
- You can decide whether to redirect the URL or point it at the 404 page.
- The page should be removed from the sitemap.
- It is best to remove all internal links that point to it.
These SOPs don’t take too long, as you can see. They guarantee that no matter who is assigned to a task, they will complete all necessary actions.
Why is a SEO roadmap necessary?
An SEO roadmap is necessary for many reasons, including:
- Keep your SEO strategy on track and organized
- To make your strategy a success, you must build a solid foundation
- Answering questions from your management or team about your SEO plans
- Keep your team on the same page regarding their goals and tasks
- To drive consistent revenue, optimize your SEO plans
Your SEO roadmap is basically your SEO plan. It contains all your plans, including strategies you want to implement and tasks you must complete to reach your goals.
You won’t make any revenue if you don’t have a plan.
Common SEO Workflows
Example 1. Analyzing SEO Performance
Any marketing strategy needs data analysis. An SEO team should use the following tools to assess a site’s performance and analytics:
- You can extract traffic using different criteria (e.g. Most popular page or source. A junior member of the team could accomplish this.
- They could also access and download impressions and clicks data from Google Search Console and their SEO platform.
- To analyze search results by different criteria, they could also use a rank tracking software.
- This data could be sent to an SEO analyst who will analyze it and compare it with the competition.
- An SEO strategist will use their insights to determine the next steps.
Example 2. Example #2.
The workflow would start with an SEO analyst reviewing crawling and indexation issues.
The next step is to create a list with your top priorities. The first step is to establish a goal for your company. What are you hoping to achieve by addressing these mistakes?
If you are concerned about conversions, consider the most important pages.
Next, identify the issues that will be the easiest to resolve and provide the greatest value for SEO. These tasks should be a top priority for your IT department so that they can address and resolve technical issues and improve the user experience.
Example 3. Update the Content
This workflow may involve multiple people within your company – an SEO manager, an SEO analyst and a content writer.
The following is an example:
- SEO Analyst – Identifies under-performing content, content gaps; recommends improvements that will positively affect performance metrics.
- SEO Manager evaluates and approves on-page optimization. Then, the SEO Manager implements the changes to the live site.
- Content Writer uses various tools to identify ways to improve content and create new copy.
- Editor evaluates the new copy.
Once the approval has been granted, the SEO manager will confirm that the workflow is in order and then push the content live.
Before you start any of these workflows, make sure to set a timeline. In the last example, this workflow might look something like the following:
Task | Responsibility | Timeline |
Create a project report to identify underperforming content and improve it. | SEO Analyst | 1 Day |
Approve the project. | SEO Manager | 2 days |
Find ways to optimize content and create new copy. | Content writer | 3 Days |
Assess new copy. | Editor | 1 Day |
Change the content of a page. | SEO Manager | 1 Day |
Assess on-page optimization, and then publish to a live site. | SEO Manager | 1 Day |
How to create a road map for SEO
Consistently applying SOPs and workflows is the only way to create a SEO strategy that will help you achieve your goals at scale.
This is how SEO can be maximized while reducing potential errors.
It is only the beginning to identify and implement SOPs and workflows. They must be continuously monitored once they are completed to ensure quality outputs.
that doesn’t produce desired results is, in the end, nothing more than a distraction.
Ensure that you are constantly reviewing and improving your SOPs and workflows. Pay particular attention to:
- Their impact on your work. Recognize and fix any processes that are slowing down or hindering your strategy.
- Delivery timing, especially for workflows. Certain steps may require more time than what you have allocated in your workflow. To find the best solution, measure and adjust them.
- Role relevance. Sometimes, a division in responsibilities within a workflow can look great on paper but prove to be problematic in practice. Interview everyone involved to determine if there is a mismatch in roles or if they are doing their jobs in the wrong order.
How to use an SEO Roadmap within an Enterprise Organization
A well-defined SEO strategy can make a big difference in any company’s success. However, it is important to use it.
To use the free SEO roadmap template in your company, click here
I recommend that the roadmap be accessible to all stakeholders and not just SEOs.
You’ll be able to reduce friction between non-SEO colleagues who have to learn complex search engine optimization processes.
In most cases, a simple spreadsheet listing all aspects of the SEO strategy and the planned activities per month is the best format to use.
It will be very easy to use by most stakeholders, and it will also make reporting simple.
702 Pros allows you to create a SEO strategy that generates revenue.
Do you need help creating an SEO strategy to outdo your competitors and drive more traffic? We can help.
702 Pros is an Award-winning SEO agency specializing in creating customized SEO strategies that deliver amazing results for our clients.
With our top-tier seo services, we have helped clients generate over $3B in revenue in the last few years.
Conclusion
A strong SEO strategy requires consistent application of standard operating procedures. Our free template will make it easy.
SEO Roadmap Template
Only when all the teams involved in specific SEO projects are aware of what to do, when it should be done, and how to succeed, can an organization achieve maximum visibility on a large scale.
You can now start to define and implement SOPs and workflows within your organization. Digital marketing efforts should be related to all departments!