SEO Project Management and Timelines

An SEO campaign is seldom a one-time effort. To create a continuous and strategic SEO campaign, a website has to go through different SEO sprints and campaigns. This ensures a continuous growth and increase in traffic and conversions.

Website Development

When an SEO campaign starts, the first thing an SEO does is see if the website is in compliance with basic SEO principles.

This audit is usually called an On Page Optimization Audit. The SEO checks if the website has the correct Meta Tags (such as Title Tags, Meta Description), SEO optimized images, sitemap, H1/H2s and many other necessary SEO elements. Furthermore, an intensive crawl takes place where the SEO checks the website for errors such as for bad links. A more detailed audit takes place when the SEO checks the utilization of the keywords that are necessary in order to capture the right target audience. On Page Optimization is one of the most intensive processes of an SEO campaign in the beginning. And as they are many things to be considered, they usually come in batches. Many of the On Page Optimization recommendations will also include the creation or improvement of sections such as a blog and its categories based on a keyword research.

Below is an example how a timeline for an SEO campaign could look like:

All of these On Page Optimization recommendations have to applied, which can be only done by web developers. And this is why the first high level sprint of an SEO campaign is actually a development play.

Content Production

Once the SEO framework for content has been implemented on the website, the SEO team will recommend content based on keyword research and market demand. The development aspect above will be an on-going process, and so is content production. Content production is an important aspect of online marketing. Without on-going content production, all online marketing efforts will not be successful.

Analytics Deep Dive

After 6-8 months, every SEO campaign will complete an intensive analytics report. A deep dive analysis will reveal which sections of the website such as articles and categories are or are not driving traffic and why. Based on the newly retrieved data, SEOs are able to determine which new sections, categories or content pieces have to be created on the website – and also which parts of the website need to be revamped in order to provide content freshness. This process typically leads to collaboration with web developers and content teams to create additional website sections.

Creative

Good news! Every SEO campaign comes to a point when the 20% is completed. This is when all On Page Optimization processes have been applied, meaning the website shows no errors and has no SEO weaknesses left to fix. Also, the content and SEO team will work in tandem after completing a number of website pages together. When this phase has been reached, a constant traffic growth can be seen. As content production should never stop, the more content created, the more traffic generated. However, not all SEO campaigns share the same results. The market changes: competitors get stronger and the target audience behaves differently after influenced by various market factors.

The responsibility of an SEO is to find new and creative ways to drive the right traffic to the website. The creative process is always based on a competitor and market teardown which reveals new opportunities for SEO. Either it’s a new engaging widget that could be beneficial, a new group of pages targeting a new audience, or a GEO funnel that hasn’t been used before – the main objective in the creative process is to find something valuable that drives even more traffic than before. On top of all SEO endeavors, the creative SEO process should always be tailored to the website’s specific space, target audience & personas and product. Other than packaged SEO with standardized processes, BLUE MEDIA believes that only an individual and tailored SEO campaign can provide a creative process to boost an SEO campaign to the next level.