Effective SEO Project Management: Tips, Tools & Cases
SEO project management is one of the most in-demand services for businesses with an online presence. But when it comes to practice, it becomes obvious that SEO task management is significantly different from traditional project management. You need to know not only the best practices to run the project but also have technical knowledge in the SEO area.
Fortunately, today there are many modern tools that allow you to automate many processes and simplify the issue of analytics. Having the right skills and software will help you achieve top results. Below you will find tips and everything you need to be successful in SEO project management.
Key skills for an SEO project manager
In order to run an SEO project effectively, it is important to have a number of specific skills. Despite the availability of various tools, which we will talk about later, it is necessary to acquire a number of competencies and special knowledge in this area. Here is a list of the skills you need for effective task management for SEO that will help you achieve success in an SEO project.
Knowledge of SEO basics
The presence of knowledge and practical skills in SEO promotion is the key to success in this business. Before you start collaborating on a project, you need to know all the basics of SEO. Plus, you have to know the ways to use these tactics in practice since it would be ineffective to manage a project and monitor the successful completion of certain tasks without understanding how it happens and how it should happen.
Experience with modern tools for SEO promotion
How can you evaluate the work of a Google Analytics specialist if you do not know how to use this tool? The answer is obvious. For effective work and project management, it is important to be able to use the tools and constantly test new and innovative solutions for SEO and teamwork. By the way, the use of online tools for collaboration can scale up productivity by 30%. This approach will improve the project execution process and automate many routines.
Self-management
In order to effectively manage SEO projects, it is crucial to learn how to manage your time. As the saying goes, a top manager differs from a manager in that they aren’t guided by another manager. What’s more, SEO project management implies the management of both the project from a technical point of view and team members.
The inability to manage work processes and your time will lead to chaos among your team. You have to learn how to optimize your time as efficiently as possible and meet deadlines. Self-management in this matter will allow you to effectively manage the project execution processes and manage the entire team.
Organize meetings
There are a lot of SEO tasks to cope with, and that’s why the whole team of different specialists usually works on website promotion. The key to successful teamwork is timely communication and a clear setting of tasks. And when the manager explains the task for each employee, then there is a higher likelihood of achieving the project’s goals. For this reason, it is vital to organize simple communication between the team and create effective workflows for each of the team members. Frequent meetings and constant control over the implementation of tasks are what every manager needs to successfully manage SEO projects.
Growth mindset
Unfortunately, SEO promotion is not an area where you can get your desired results in a few hours. SEO experts need a lot of time to objectively evaluate their performance, plus a lot of time goes to testing new strategies and optimization of the existing ones.
For effective management of SEO projects, it is vital to prepare a long-term plan for the implementation of strategies with realistic deadlines. Focus on long-term rather than short-term results, which may subsequently cease to be effective for your project.
Create quality content
Today, most SEO experts talk about the importance of content quality as well as quality backlinking management, and they are ultimately right. The balance of content quality, the corresponding behavior factors, and backlinks is the key that can lead to high rankings in search engines. If earlier the emphasis was on attracting search engines using keywords, today it is necessary to focus on content that will be most useful for users and grab the attention of readers.
Therefore, when creating a strategy for any SEO project, it is worth remembering the importance of the content strategy and its quality. You need to find an experienced writer who can generate quality content regardless of the scope of your project SEO.
Analytics and reporting
The project manager will undoubtedly have to face the need for analysis and reporting. Reporting may be required by senior management and the client, plus the analytical insights can help develop a forward-looking project implementation plan. An analytical report is a picture of what results from your actions bring and how effective your actions are in the context of project implementation. Therefore, for effective management of SEO projects, analytics is key.
Top SEO project management tools
Now that we’ve talked about the soft skills needed for SEO project management, let’s dive into the nitty-gritty of SEO project management tools. The right tools will allow you to organize teamwork, analytics and automate many processes. Below you will find some top tool recommendations.
- Trello: Trello is a popular tool for teamwork without effort. The platform uses Kanban boards to create a workflow to post tasks, set priorities, add comments, lists, and attachments, and more. Today this platform is often chosen for managing SEO projects due to its efficiency and ease of use.
- Monday: This software is ideal for teamwork. Here you can organize all your tasks within a project in one place. You can set deadlines and monitor the progress of your tasks. The platform is easy to use and ideal for overseeing SEO projects.
- Google Tools: The easiest and most effective tool you can use to organize easy teamwork are tools from Google. You can create any documentation, organize workflow with the help of Classroom and hold meetings with your entire team. This is a good option for those who need to plan and organize online meetings on a tight budget.
- LinksManagement: LinksManagement offers an option to purchase backlinks. With its help, you can get a complete solution on building a backlink profile, which is a key aspect of the strategy for almost every SEO project. There are many services in the framework of link management that allows you to delegate and automate SEO routines.
How to create an SEO project management plan
An effective project always starts with proper planning. Planning is one of the key management tasks, and when we talk about SEO projects it is still relevant. The manager needs to disassemble the project into small parts, that is, break it down into tasks and subtasks, and then appoint a person responsible for the implementation of each of them. Below you will find a short plan of action to help you in this matter.
Set goals
Remember to always set achievable goals. It is necessary to consult with clients since the main goal of each project is to satisfy the needs of your client and the key needs of the business area. For example:
- Increase traffic X times in a month
- Achieve top ranking according to keyword X
- Reduce the bounce rate by X times
What’s more, often SEO projects have multiple goals at once since the website owners strive for top SERP positions, high conversion rate, low bounce rate, prolonged dwelling time, and so on. So you will have to create a tactic for each goal and assign a team member to achieve it.
Get to work
After highlighting the goals, it is worthwhile to start developing a framework for team collaboration. In this case, it is worth paying attention to:
- SEO tools
- Establishing communication channels with the team and the client
- Setting progress monitoring milestones
- Setting deadlines
- Obtaining up-to-date analytics
- Allocating the budget
- Assigning team members for each task
- Task scheduling, prioritizing, and automatization
Delegate tasks
The distribution of tasks between the team is an important point in project management. To obtain the desired results, it is worthwhile to carefully approach the distribution of tasks, taking into account the knowledge and skills of each member of your team. It is also worth remembering a clear statement of tasks and the importance of constant monitoring of performance and timely assistance to each member of the team.
Performance analytics
The last important point in the effective management of SEO projects is analyzing the performance. Visual, relevant, and data-driven reports help you get a detailed picture of what you get as a result of your actions. Analytics is a kind of guide that helps to identify all the weak points and get new vectors for effective action. Staying updated on your project performance metrics is the best practice to create an effective strategy.
Final thoughts
Devote your time to learn how to manage SEO projects since this is one of the demanded services directions on the digital marketing market. Get started step by step, learn SEO basics, proceed with testing your knowledge on practice, share your achievements in your portfolio and develop your talent as a manager.
Tags: Business Reputation Marketing, Reputation Management, Reputation Marketing.
