Conquering SEO: How To Sort Tasks By Impact, Resources & Priority

The time you take to make SEO and content adjustments can leave little room for other work. Better yet, how do we know if any of our changes have even helped our site. Yes, the workload is heavy, the tasks are many, and yet there is still a better way to complete your important SEO tasks, without having to spend all of your time and efforts doing so. Ever wonder pros know how to prioritize SEO tasks?

Most Asked Question: What Tasks Will Optimize Our Site?

If you’re asking this question, then join the ranks of every SEO expert. This is a question that does not have just one simple answer, and finding that answer means knowing your stuff, where to look, and how to achieve desired results by appropriately organizing your SEO tasks by importance. Not every site or client will have the same SEO needs, so that’s why as search engine optimization specialists, we must understand which task provide the greatest results with minimal time efforts.

Besides, when has there ever been a client or site that only needs one simple task completed before results pour in?

This is where most issues and concerns come into play, as search engine optimization rarely EVER has just one simple solution. It is for these reasons; we often find ourselves delivering an incredibly long list of SEO suggestions and recommendations, with on fault being overlooked. With the multi-faceted enigma that is SEO, there is an abundance of tasks and projects that the entire subject encompasses, that most teams rarely have the resources available to get everything done. In most cases, this leaves us with hardly any progress toward completion.

How Can We Make Sure We Prioritize SEO Tasks Correctly?

Since total SEO involves teams of people, how can we make sure the changes we are making are even contributing to improving the success of the site or client? For most of us experts, we have seen this challenge and obstacle too many times and continued to see often. Luckily, over the years I’ve managed to pick up on a few things that have helped in the efficiency in which we handle SEO here.  Let’s see how to make your job as an SEO specialist easier.

Understanding To Prioritize By Impact

The amount of time we have in a day to spend on projects and tasks is limited. This means there is very little chance of getting everything completed. This is where knowing the impact of SEO is handy because if we only have enough time to complete just a few tasks, then we have to make sure we are choosing the best approach, so our teams can carry out the functions seamlessly. Where do we start?

Depending on the type of SEO audit performed, the types of suggested tasks will differ. For instance, a technical SEO audit may reveal that canonicalization, heading tags, redirect updates, image optimization and a handful of other tasks that will help the site as a whole overall, but what if your dev team is already pushing productivity limits? They may not be able to squeeze these tasks into their day-to-day routine because of time restrictions.

In order to make sure we are at least getting something done, taking a look to see what is actually hindering the site should be your next step. Depending on who you ask, Title tags are rarely at the top of any SEO’s list, but why? Sure, it doesn’t have the largest priority in the world, but just imagine if your site didn’t have them. This small change could bring forth drastic improvements.

As experts, when we recommend or make suggestions, it is our responsibility to help our SEO teams understand essential starting points, which tasks can wait, and how to determine what impact will occur. Remember, not everything is going to be a priority, even if you feel like it. Besides, everything has a role so of course, it has some level of importance. Priorities! Priorities! Priorities!

Understanding To Prioritize By Available Resources

Just like understanding the impact your changes have, knowing what resources you have available to complete certain tasks is also just as important.

For instance, last year we noticed Client A still had their site on HTTP, so we naturally suggested they transition to the more secure HTTPS. This was a super simple idea. We were thrilled to get this in motion and then we noticed that Client A did not have the extra resources to continue to manage HTTPS once the change happens.

Changing a site to HTTPS is not the easiest task to do and can run into several obstacles and errors, which could severely damage the organic traffic of your client’s site, so we quickly hit rewind to see where else we could make big improvements within our client’s budget and resources.

This suggestion did not come into play until almost a year later, once the client had established the appropriate team to handle the workload. Once we finished this change, the site experienced a very respectable increase in traffic.

What about making changes that do not require a technical team to govern the site? In another example, we have Client B. They needed our help building out their content, but did not have a team in place to approve, edit or manage the content writing process, which lead to a backlog of blog posts that remained unpublished. Can you guess who unpublished blog posts help? Absolutely no one!

Instead of building new content, we decided to go with a refreshing content technique where we established older posts that were perfect for updating, and we began to update. Since the content was already on hand, we did not have to do a ton of research, and we had the resources readily available to make these changes. These efforts resulted in traffic increasing from the newly optimized blog posts, and we didn’t even have to create new content.

In order to accurately provide precise SEO consultation, you need to understand not only your available resources, but also the resources of your client. SEO happens within multiple departments. Does your SEO efforts have the resources it needs to succeed?

Understanding To Align SEO With Business Goals

While it may seem obvious, making sure your SEO efforts are in unison with your client’s brand, voice, and marketing directive, you have to know where your client plans on going. What direction do they see their company moving in?

While making a yearlong plan for content seems like the perfect way to catch up, we have to remember that industries change, and so does SEO, which means our content strategies need to be improved semi-annually, quarterly, or even monthly to ensure you are connecting with your client’s audience.

Remember the backlog from Client B? Turns out, that the unused content that was made and never published became relevant. While the content at the time did not match the company direction, later in the year the business held an event that perfectly correlated with the unpublished content.

Even though it can’t be used now, be sure to regularly go over unused content, as you never know where it can be used in the future. Understanding the objectives of the SEO team is vital, but having a better understanding of supporting teams within the business can help clear your resource, impact, and prioritize requirements up.

Understanding Why Immediate Actions Can Fail

All too many times have I seen mistakes made when it comes to improving SEO for sites. One of the most common mistakes is taking action. That’s right, when new rules, regulations, and updates to search algorithms happen, the first thing several SEOs do, is jump right on the updates and begin immediately making changes.

Now don’t get me wrong, when Google speaks, all should listen. Did you catch that? “All should listen.” This does not mean all should react. Remember all of the short-lived updates that most of us jumped on, like authorship, Google plus, and what about when they raised the meta description cap to 300-characters. Some of these updates were here one minute and reverted back the next.

Remember accelerated mobile page (AMP)?

This was an update for publishers? YoastSEO simplified this further, making it a standard technical requirement when we build sites. Well, the problem is, is that not everyone used the WordPress CMS and those who didn’t had to hire an external developer to build out the AMP function. This proved not to be worth the cost. The effect of this update was minimal and reflected on site traffic as hardly noticeable.

Even If Google shouts it, use logic and make sure you are making the best decision to knock out important SEO tasks effectively. Before you react, be sure to take your time. Do your research and make sure you understand how to prioritize SEO tasks, to ensure the best results for your clients.