SEO Project Management for Successful Processes #TheInbounder

SEO Project Management for Successful Processes #TheInbounder

SEO Project Management for Successful Processes #TheInbounder from Aleyda Solís

SEO Project Management for Successful Processes #TheInbounder

1. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti SEO PROJECT MANAGEMENT 
 FOR SUCCESSFUL PROCESSES (OR HOW TO GET OUT OF THE SEO UPSIDE DOWN) #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti

2. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Successful SEO processes can drive relevant, 
 scalable and profitable results over time #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti SEO processes can be full of delightful surprises

3. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti They can drive cost-effective relevant, 
 scalable and profitable results over time #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti

4. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti You feel cool and your client or boss thinks that too…

5. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti And for really good reasons #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti

6. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti But sometimes there might be unexpected 
 experiences along the way… #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti

7. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti With catastrophic results #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti

8. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti It’s like if all of the sudden you’ve entered the upside down #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti

9. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Like this #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti

10. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti In many occasions this doesn’t even happen because of 
 your SEO analysis or understanding, but execution issues… #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti

11. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Due to lack of resources, flexibility and support #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti

12. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Most of the SEO processes failures are not even caused by SEO challenges, but 
 SEO project management issues

13. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti It’s painful and they put your work at risk

14. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti It’s time to look closer at the causes to understand 
 how to avoid them right from the start and through the SEO process…

15. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Start by establishing an SEO qualification process to only work on projects where there’s a real fit, the critical conditions are met and agreed from the beginning

16. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti “The developer told me that the ‘html was their responsibility’ and won’t agree on doing any changes” To avoid this…

17. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti To avoid this… “I sent the recommendations but there isn’t budget to develop content for all of these category pages”

18. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti To avoid this… “The client expected us to get involved in the outreach for the content we optimised, but that’s something we don’t actually do and wasn’t included.”

19. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti To avoid this… “We had agreed on results by this date but everything was put on hold until the new design is released in a couple of months”

20. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Attract clients and projects requests that are a better fit 
 by establishing your specialisation and USP in the industry Countries + LanguagesSEO Area Technical SEO, International SEO, Link Building, Content Marketing, etc. English speaking markets, Latin America, etc. SEO Status & Background ScopeBusiness Size + Type One-off analysis, on-going, consulting, Hands-On implementation, etc. SMBs, Startups, Multinational, B2B, B2C, etc. Existing SEO knowledge and experience, past SEO processes experience

21. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Budget Timing Resources RestrictionsFlexibility Set minimum requirements to use as filters in your 
 lead qualification process Minimum required spent per project. Expected schedule to start the project, to implement changes, to see results, etc. Are there data, technical, content and promotion resources to implement potential changes? Are they internal or external? Are there any business, marketing, technical, content or previously known SEO related restrictions that might affect the process? Is there flexibility in the existing technical, content and promotional platforms and practices to implement changes? Goals Reasonable goals for the type of company and characteristics

22. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Set reasonable expectations w/ the client and document conditions in the agreement that should be signed by them Expectations Team Coordination AgreementFailure Set clear expectations of what to expect and involvement required through the SEO process stages. Define the team to be involved from the client with specific responsibilities as well as a main contact point who own the SEO project internally. Agree on communication, documentation and channels to be used to coordinate and manage the process. Specify what will happen if at some point there’s a failure to meet any of the specified conditions. Include in the contract all what’s expected to be provided by the client in order to achieve results as well as the rest of conditions.

23. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti The person signing & approving the project should become 
 the internal SEO champion and need to have internal “power”

24. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti If these conditions are not met, then is better to say no to 
 the project as having success with it will be highly challenging

25. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti You can also refer the project to better fitting providers 
 or suggest other marketing actions

26. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti If you’re in-house you can propose to work along other marketing areas to fill the gaps to achieve the desired results

27. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti If it’s feasible, you can also develop a test or pilot project to 
 make a case about requiring different conditions for it

28. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Your SEO projects will likely have the required resources for success now!

29. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Develop your SEO analysis & deliverables to be actionable, solution oriented and prioritised based on the established goals

30. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti To avoid this… “They spent the first 3 months implementing the less important changes and we won’t be able to see results soon”

31. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti To avoid this… “They implemented the specified changes but in the wrong pages”

32. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti v#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti To avoid this… “They ended-up building the links to pages that are blocked and non- indexed”

33. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti To avoid this… “The implementation has been on hold for months because it was not clear they needed content support for it”

34. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Always start with a complete audit to understand the business & site status in context vs. competitors Your Site Technical Configuration CRAWLABILITY & INDEXABILITY Content RELEVANCE Links POPULARITY Your Competition Current Organic Search Performance Audience Search Behavior & Industry Potential

35. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Take screenshots of every identified issue scenario to document it, showing how to find and fix it https://marker.io/

36. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Give also examples of how other sites are already doing it right, especially competitors ones, as it will incentivise action #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti

37. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Prioritise the different issues and opportunities based on how critical towards growth and easy to implement they are Add the new, updated URLs with right name convention They are meant to be ranked so should be indexable and differentiated with specifically relevant content Update links & 301-redirect to only crawl on the protocol to index & rank Unblock the new URLs to be crawled & indexed 301s should go to the relevant new URLs & stop being linked Start 301-redirecting 4xx errors to new URL destinations High High Medium High MediumLow

38. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Prioritise also those affecting the content and queries w/ the highest potential growth, profitability and lower competition #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Too Granular Existing Pages Little Existing Competition No Rankings vs. Competitors

39. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Make sure your SEO recommendations are meaningful, don’t focus on trivial, low impact, hard to implement changes #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti

40. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti As a result, develop solution driven SEO recommendations showing how to fix every issue, attaching the affected URLs

41. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Create a recommendations summary to introduce the actions, that will be also used as a reference to coordinate them WHAT WHY WHERE WHO WHEN Recommendations Importance Status Area Priority Resource Person Date Start canonicalizing and index color facets High Low Listings & product pages 1 Development TBD TBD Deduplicate & Optimize Titles High Medium Blog category pages 2 Content TBD TBD Add more content to listings w/ less than 5 products by featuring related ones Medium Medium 2nd level sub- categories 3 Development & Content TBD TBD

42. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Organise & format the SEO recommendations document 
 to make it easy to navigate, refer & share

43. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Check out my #KoozaiTV video where I share a step-by-step to develop actionable SEO recommendations bit.ly/actionableseo

44. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Use them to give SEO trainings to the relevant teams -that you can record to reuse- and create “SEO best practices”

45. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Your SEO recommendations will be easier to implement now!

46. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Follow a project communication, execution and validation workflow that fit with the business operations & project’s characteristics and goals

47. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti To avoid this… “I was never told that this change was going to be launched last week and that’s why it wasn’t validated”

48. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti To avoid this… “We’re still waiting for the approval but nobody answers and we don’t know if the message was received”

49. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti To avoid this… “They say they weren’t informed about the risks and that’s why they did it anyway”

50. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Present the SEO recommendations to the stakeholders, including the “SEO champion”, highlighting the critical areas

51. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Assess the recommendations w/ the stakeholders, agreeing on their execution while aligning w/ the existing workflow Recommendations Importance Status Area Priority Resource Person Date Start canonicalizing and index color facets High Low Listings & product pages 1 Development Maria 1/9/2016 Deduplicate & Optimize Titles High Medium Blog category pages 2 Content Matt 2/9/2016 Add more content to listings w/ less than 5 products by featuring related ones Medium Medium 2nd level sub- categories 3 Development & Content Matt & Maria 3/9/2016 WHAT WHY WHERE WHO WHEN

52. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti WHAT WHY WHERE WHO WHEN Recommendations Importance Status Area Priority Resource Person Date Start canonicalizing and index color facets High Low Listings & product pages 1 Development Maria 1/9/2016 Add more content to listings w/ less than 5 products by featuring related ones Medium Medium 2nd level sub- categories 2 Development & Content Matt & Maria 2/9/2016 Deduplicate & Optimize Titles High Medium Blog category pages 3 Content Matt 3/9/2016 Reprioritise the activities if needed based on their 
 confirmed viability and schedule vs. the expected impact

53. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Enable a test environment and allocate time and resources to validate implementations before and after they are released PRE-RELEASE VALIDATION: OK?IMPLEMENTATION YES NO YES MOVE TO NEXT ONERELEASE NO FIX POST-RELEASE VALIDATION: OK?

54. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Although aligning w/ existing workflow and development method, set for frequent SEO releases to see results sooner https://zapier.com/learn/project-management/project-management-systems/

55. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Agree on the relevant & reasonable SEO KPIs and overall goals once the SEO roadmap is established, not before GOALS X % Conversions Growth in N Months w/ Y% Increase every M Months KPIS ConversionsTrafficRankings IndexabilityCrawlability X % Traffic Growth in N Months w/ Y% Increase every M Months X % Ranking Share Growth in N Months w/ Y% Increase every M Months Links

56. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Give also different potential results scenarios in case the most fundamental recommendations are not followed seomonitor.com

57. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti The different teams involved in the SEO execution should also make them part of their own goals to get their support

58. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Agreed on the Project Management tools and channels to be used to coordinate & report the activities, KPIs & goals

59. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti It’s critical to choose one that fits w/ the development 
 model & workflow, that is used by the team involved

60. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Which might not only be just one, but a combination of them

61. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @oraintihttp://zapier.com/ Most of the popular project management tools now 
 also offer third-party integration via APIs via Zapier

62. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Including SEO tools like Deepcrawl, allowing us to send the data to project management tools or get notifications https://t.co/9MXbtcGu3z

63. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti If it’s viable to choose, specify which are your desired project management functionalities and to be addressed needs Tasks Management Team Collaboration FUNCTIONAL NON-FUNCTIONAL Usability Security Performance Availability Accessibility Cost Multi-Device Messaging System Dashboard Reports Alerts Calendar integration Time Tracking … … Reliability

64. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Use this project management tools cheat sheet to select 
 those that fulfil your requirements, to test them http://bit.ly/2ESpxDP

65. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Once selected, be consistent and share all the updates, deliverables and communicate w/ the team through them

66. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Set weekly/bi-weekly update calls to clarify doubts soon
 and update the team about any issues and process status

67. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Remember you depend on them to make things happen, 
 so be empathic and friendly when giving any input

68. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Your project communication, execution and validation workflow will likely be more efficient now!

69. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Establish a monitoring & reporting system that allows you to track & inform about the process progress, implementation status and goals results, as well as to make decisions

70. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti To avoid this… “We have no idea what caused that 
 negative rankings and traffic impact”

71. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti To avoid this… “The test environment was open for a few weeks and got indexed and ranked”

72. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti To avoid this… “They now have allocated 90% of digital marketing budget to PPC despite SEO being the one that drives 90% of conversions”

73. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Start tracking each of the established KPIs before starting 
 the SEO related releases, and set for frequent updates ConversionsTrafficRankings IndexabilityCrawlability Links Google Search Console Deepcrawl/Botify/Ryte/Sistrix Google Search Console CognitiveSEO/Majestic/Ahrefs/Sistrix Google Analytics SEOMonitor Google Search Console SEOMonitor/AWR/Accuranker #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti

74. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Use a monitoring system that facilitates the correlation between your actions, rankings, traffic & conversion results seomonitor.com RANKINGS SEARCH VOLUME CONVERSIONSVISITS ENGAGEMENT

75. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Create a dashboard to use for day-to-day monitoring, 
 aggregating the top KPIs, to share w/ the team for updates cognitiveseo

76. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Set alerts to be informed of any technical, content or link related changes that will influence the site SEO status littlewarden.com + cognitiveseo + seomonitor

77. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti As well as notifications when there are drastic rankings 
 and organic traffic or conversion changes

78. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Avoid missing them by configuring zaps to send 
 them as messages and archive them in your PM system

79. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Share monthly reports during “formal” follow-ups w/ execution, KPIs & Goals status and proposed next steps Recommendations Importance Status Area Priority Resource Person Status Launch Date Comments Details in Basecamp Start canonicalizing and index color facets High Low Listings & product pages 1 Development Maria In Progress 2/5/2018 basecamp.com /url/here/ Add more content to listings w/ less than 5 products by featuring related ones Medium Medium 2nd level sub- categories 2 Development & Content Matt & Maria Launched 2/2/2018 basecamp.com /url/here/ Deduplicate & Optimize Titles High Medium Blog category pages 3 Content Matt Pending TBD Unsolved platform bug basecamp.com /url/here/ SEO Implementation Status Results vs. Expected Goals Next Actions to Improve Results KPIS STATUS 1. Overall traffic and conversion growth have increased more than projected, however the results come from non-priority and lower competition products categories, still that will hit ceiling soon, for which further optimisation actions are in process for top ones. 2. Obtain platform vendor support in order to implement pending task No. 3 of high priority towards growth 3. ….

80. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Remember that SEO is iterative/incremental, if you identify that something is not working, be flexible to pivot

81. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti#seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Your monitoring & reporting system will effectively inform about the process progress as well as easily allow to make decisions now!

82. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti It’s time to get rid of that demogorgon #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti

83. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti With the help of #SEOPM #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti 1. Better Project Qualification Process that guarantees support 2. Easy to follow, actionable SEO Recommendations 3. Efficient communication, execution & validation workflow 4. Effective monitoring system to follow progress & make decisions

84. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti And get out from the upside down #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti

85. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Find all the #SEOPM resources here #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti aleydasolis.com/en/seo-project-management/

86. #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti Let’s go! #seopm at #theinbounder by @aleyda from @orainti