Exactly what is SEO Project Management?

A typical SEO project involves handling a lot of moving parts. For agencies, this can be challenging, because projects are happening simultaneously at different stages and levels. Before we dive deep into the essence of SEO project management, we must understand the scope of SEO. Today, SEO is a key component of any effective digital marketing strategy. It involves identifying what keywords and phrases your target audience uses when looking for products or services.

How to Manage SEO Projects Effectively

As a SEO project manager, you oversee activities to achieve specific campaign goals. Managing SEO projects requires effective management skills, human resources, communication, and collaboration. As well as the ability to balance the fundamentals, such as: scope, time, cost, and quality. 

SEO Project Management Best Practices

It is important to follow SEO project management best practices for achieving project success, which are:

• Develop a business case for your SEO project
• Create a brief for the SEO project
• Plan your SEO campaign
• Establish a routine and schedule
• Identify and correct setbacks when they occur
• Watch your project closely to avoid scope creep

Furthermore, you should have a thorough knowledge of the techniques used at each stage of a website promotion. Among the techniques used in SEO advancement are:

• Technical,
• Semantic,
• Partnership SEO strategies.

Technical Optimization Vs Semantic Optimization

Technical SEO Results in Higher Organic Rankings

To achieve a higher organic ranking, a website must meet the technical requirements of search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. To gain a higher organic ranking, a technical audit of your website needs to be performed. Upon completion of the audit, a recommendation regarding next steps can be made.

How Important Are Technical Audits To Seo Projects?

A technical SEO audit examines things such as crawling the site, indexing it, internal linking, error pages, redirected pages, loading, and page structures.

Among the Basic Technical Considerations Of The Seo Project are:

• Crawling: Firstly, search engines look at the robots.txt file to determine what they can access. In cases where there are restrictions, the engines skip the restricted folders and go straight to the authorized ones;
• Indexing: Google, Bing, and Yahoo will search for the pages to visit, and then store (index) them in their databases. Your sitemap.xml helps search engines index a site faster;
• loading time: in search engine results can be tricky when a page takes a while to load. Keep in mind, with the emergence of the new projects by Google and Baidu, namely Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and Mobile Instant Pages (MIP), the mobile versions of the sites will become more important than the traditional versions with computers;
• Internal Linking: In search engines, the internal links of a website can influence a page’s ranking, because they allow the pages to be indexed quicker.
• 404 Error pages: A user finds your site, but does not find a particular page. The server then sends a response code 404, telling the user what happened.
• Redirected pages: web pages that are not indexed by search engines should not be linked to a site’s network. Such pages should be removed as soon as possible. In like manner, you should only show search engines healthy URLs (responding in 200, in HTML, etc.).

Content Is The Basis Of Semantic SEO

On the other hand, Semantic SEO builds more meaning into your content. Search engines rely on context to understand queries and obtain relevant results. Similarly to Technical SEO, a website audit is the first step in identifying effective keywords and questions surrounding the topic you will write about. Content must also meet certain conditions to be relevant to search engines, such as the length, density, and internal network, etc.

The Benefits Of Semantic Seo Are Significant

• Boost organic search and keyword rankings
• Improved content quality signals to Google crawlers.
• Increased searcher trust and authority, because search engines see your brand as an independent entity with expertise in a core subject.
• Expansion of internal linking

A content strategy requires time, energy, and money. In conjunction, developing back-links and pooling resources between two or more organizations creates success for all parties. Below is an overview of how an SEO project is implemented

What Is The Purpose Of Creating A Brief For An Seo Project?

A SEO Project brief will help your team accomplish the tasks and meet the expectations of your clients. Here are some key benefits to creating an SEO project brief:

• Establishes clear expectations regarding the SEO results of the project
• Reliable estimate is based on accurate information
• Provides documentation of key project resources, such as roles and responsibilities and technical considerations.

An Seo Brief Should Include The Following Six Elements:

1. Project Scope
2. What are the SEO expectations?
3. Who owns the organic success of the site?
4. A effective Document System
5. Key resources
6. Draft state and approved state

Project Scope

An effective scope statement provides all stakeholders with a clear understanding of why a project is initiated, and defines the key goals of the project. An agency can’t put together a strategy without knowing what you’re hoping to achieve.

SEO Expectations

SEO’s primary objective is to enhance your small business’s visibility in relevant search engine results. That way, your revenue, sales, and leads will increase. This task is executed by:

• Establishing goals and understanding the mission
• A thorough research process and SEO site audit
• A monitoring and reporting system
• Indicators of site health
• Transparency of SEO project
• Results

Who has Ownership of SEO Success?

No One! There are no guarantees in SEO. The most important factors that make up organic search rankings are providing relevant and accurate content, using relevant keywords, and getting clicks from other high-ranking websites. Compared with paid traffic, organic traffic tends to have higher conversion rates, since the intent for organic searches is better.

A SEO Document Management System

If you have a well-documented system, it’s easy to scale (include more clients, take on more projects). It will also be robust enough for new team members to be quickly inducted or swapped out as needed, without retraining.

Human Resource

In most SEO agencies, the first SEO hire will likely be a Director or Manager. Therefore, team size and structure should reflect the expertise to handle the number of projects you have.

Transparency Is Essential To A Seo Project

As projects expand, it is easy to overlook tasks or miss deadlines. Visibility is therefore critical to ensure everyone on the team knows about each project. In addition, SEO project management communication is crucial to a successful project.

Proposed and Approved SEO Project Briefs

As you move through the stages of a new SEO project, the brief will undergo multiple iterations. The first iteration may appear as hasty notes scribbled during a meeting to kick off the project. In the next iteration, you will likely review the initial information, ask your team for input, and include information you missed in the first draft.

As you move forward with your SEO project brief, you will have to seek approval from other project stakeholders. The approval phase is a vital part of the SEO project briefs. Because, it forces other stakeholders to agree with assumptions, expectations, and roles you have outlined, or request revisions requiring another round of approval. Once your project brief is approved, it is your compass to successful project completion.

In What Stage Of The SEO Project Lifecycle Does The Project Brief Appear?

More than half of unsuccessful projects fail due to a breakdown in communication in the project life cycle. Wasted money and resources can be prevented with effective project management. Therefore, the SEO Project Brief should be completed before SEO work begins. A SEO project brief will help you achieve the project’s goal and execute scope objectives.

The Four Stages of a SEO Project Lifecycle

Typically, project management life cycles consist of four phases: initiation, planning, execution, and closure. These stages set the stage through which your project moves from beginning to end.

• Initiation: This step involves getting a clear objective for your project, determining whether it is feasible, and identifying its main deliverables.
• Planning: The planning process includes breaking down the large project into smaller tasks, assembling a team, and creating a schedule for assignments. Create smaller goals within the larger project, making sure each is achievable within the time limit.
• Execution: Assigning tasks and organizing workflows, providing team members with task briefings, keeping project stakeholders up-to-date at all levels, and managing the budget and resources of the project
• Closure: Evaluate how team members performed, create reports for stakeholders, conduct a final analysis of the project, and allocate remaining resources for future projects

How Do I Choose An Seo Project Management Software For My Agency?

Ultimately, you need everyone on your team to use your project management software – not just your most technical members. Select an intuitive, user-friendly platform so that everyone can use it effectively. Likewise, if you are working on SEO projects for clients outside your organization, or if your leadership team needs to track these projects but isn’t required to participate, it is important to find a SEO Project Management software that offers several permission levels. Finally, look for SEO Project Management software that can not only store your keyword lists and competitive research documents, but also organize them in a way that makes them searchable and convenient.

SEO Project Management Problems and Solutions

Project Scope Creep

Often, scope creep occurs when new requirements are added to a SEO project after the project execution has begun. These changes are not always reviewed. Therefore, project members are expected to complete more tasks, deliverables, and milestones during the project execution. Solution: Develop clear expectations for each stage of the project, and outline revisions and hours if you’re billing based on milestones or deliverables.

Communication Gaps

Clear and constant communication is essential. Without good communication, efficiency breaks down, affecting timelines, budgets, quality, and can ruin the agency-client relationship. Solution: Plan your SEO project’s communication processes ahead of time. This plan will ensure precise information is available to the right person at the right time in a format that works for them, during and after the project. Set clear expectations for your team if they are working remotely. Such as how often they need to meet and which channels they should use.

There Is No Documented Process

A lack of documented processes not only makes each project inefficient and inconsistent. Solution: Once your agency has documented processes, more staff can learn and execute your agency style. This is the only way to grow as you take on more SEO clients.

Wrapping it Up

These SEO Project Management tips should help agencies achieve their SEO deliverables. The goal is to create a smooth and seamless experience for the client.