When people think of SEO project management, they usually think of SEO and sales. Nothing else. 

They forget that managing SEO projects is much more than that.

It includes marketing, operations, SEO audits, strategy, copywriting, graphic design, web development, keyword research, on-page SEO, content briefs, link building, and so on. 

There’s a lot of moving parts. And, as you’ve probably experienced (or at least will soon experience), it’s very difficult to manage. 

However, it can be simplified. 

To make it more manageable, we need to take a step back.

A step back into the basics of SEO project management.

What is SEO Project Management

SEO project management is the approach to strategising, managing and deploying SEO campaigns.

This usually includes all aspects of SEO, from technical to off-page and on-page.

Roles of an SEO Project Manager 

An SEO project manager has three important roles. These include: 

• Strategising: Creating an SEO plan that can meet results within a certain timeframe, such as increasing organic traffic by 20%. 

• Organising: Turning the strategy into an actual plan, such as who will perform certain tasks and what will happen after they have completed the task. 

• Managing: Making the actual plan a reality, managing the different entities and assets needed to meet your goals within a certain timeframe. 

Why Does Project Management Matter in SEO? 

SEO projects take a while. It’s not something that happens overnight. Because of this, proper management needs to be in place to keep it organised (both for companies and SEO agencies). 

The length and sheer number of moving parts is what makes SEO project management difficult. You may have to manage a few different copywriters, a developer, and maybe even an SEO specialist.

All, of which, have different roles and jobs that are completed in different timeframes.

Certain jobs may even require jobs to be completed before they start the next.

For instance, keyword research will need to be performed by the SEO specialist for the copywriter, or written assets will need to be created before the SEO specialist seeks backlinks, etc.

And without proper management. It’s not efficient. It’s not efficient regarding time, money, and resources, which, in turn, will create poor results. 

How to Build a Successful SEO Project Management Plan 

Now you know the foundations for SEO project management, creating a plan is much clearer. And where does it start? By setting goals. 

Set Clear SEO Goals 

Before anything, you need clear SEO goals. This will map out your entire plan from start to finish. It’ll also help establish KPIs. 

Without question, the best way to do this is by setting SMART goals: 

• S - Specific: Increase organic traffic to the company blog. 

• M - Measurable: Achieve a 10% increase. 

• A - Achievable: The goal is based on last quarter's strategy, which increased traffic by 6%. 

• R - Relevant: Increasing traffic will contribute to the overall company goal of generating more leads within the first half of the year. 
• T - Time-Bound: Achieve this 10% increase within the next three months. 

With this goal, we have a clear objective. Get more organic traffic to the company blog. We don’t have to look at anything else. We only need to plan and execute on a plan to generate more traffic. 

Plan Realistic ROI Targets 

You then need to set a budget for this goal.

This is very subjective. 10% more organic traffic on a site generating 10,000 visitors a month is much more affordable than a website generating 1,000,000 visitors a month.

It also depends on various other factors, such as competition and industry. Some industries are more expensive than others to play in. It’s just how it is. 

That being said, with SEO, you should have at least a break-even goal with an extended time frame.

For example, we’ll spend $5,000 on SEO over the next 6 months and have a breakeven within 12 months. Anything after the 12 months will be profit, you can calculate an SEO ROI off this.

Establish KPIs 

After, you need to establish KPIs that you’ll measure to achieve your ROI targets and goals. 

With SEO, you can focus on thousands of different KPIs. From CTR to traffic, conversions, on-page time, etc. But you don’t want to focus on everything. If you focus on everything, you focus on nothing. 

Because of that, it’s best to focus on a few important metrics. Maybe 3-4 relatable metrics. For instance, the number of ranked keywords, the number of keywords in the top 10 search results, the traffic volume of ranked keywords, and CTR. 

With the example, you know how many keywords are ranking, the keywords that are performing well, the estimated traffic they can bring, and the traffic they bring. 

As you can see, all of these KPIs point to one thing - traffic - which is our SMART goal. You’ll also want to do the same for different goals. 

1. Outline Actionable Steps 

You now have a goal, an ROI target, and KPIs to follow. You now need to plan the actionable steps to achieve them.

Going back to the goal of increasing traffic by 10%, you need to think of different ways to achieve this. 

Typically, there are two ways. Create new content or improve the SERP rankings of current content. Both will increase traffic, but creating new content will take longer to rank and will also cost more. 

Depending on your goal, you’ll choose either or.

Because we want to achieve this in three months and we already have content, the most efficient way of reaching our goal is to improve the SERP ranking of current content. 

Creating Actionable Steps

We’ve now established that improving the SERP ranking of current content is the most effective and affordable way to achieve our goal. Now, you need to think about the steps to make this happen. 

These steps may include: 

• Optimise content 
• Improve content 
• Consolidate “thin” content 
• Increase backlinks to content 
• Improve technical SEO (Page speed, crawl depth, schema, etc.) 

After you’ve determined the steps, then list the people you need to complete these steps:

• Copywriter
• Copy editor 
• SEO specialist 
• Web developer 

You now have the actionable steps, and people are required to complete them.

You now need to look at capacity. Consider how many of each person you need to meet your project's deadline.

If it’s a very large project, you may need assistant managers. For example, a content assistant manager will manage the outcome of the copywriters and copy editors. 

2. Create Task Templates 

You now have the actionable steps to complete your goal. You now need to systemise it to improve project management and outcome. 

The best way to achieve this is by creating task templates. Task templates that offer some type of consistency across the project. 

Going back to our actionable steps above, we need a copywriter, copy editor, SEO specialist, and a web developer. These are some task templates we may want to create for them. 

3. Assign Task Ownership 

You now have a good understanding of who’s needed and what templates they need to follow. You can then assign tasks to your team members. 

When assigning tasks, using project management software is beneficial to ensure project transparency, but a shared Excel sheet can also do a good job. 

Think about friction and how to remove it. Make each assignment flow smoothly into the next so it works like a wheel. You don’t want your copywriter to wait for your SEO specialist, who then needs to wait for your web developer and so forth. 

4. Choose the Right SEO Tools 

You also need to choose the right tools. Tools that help you manage, report, and improve your SEO project.. 

The tools you choose will depend on your goals, resources, and budget. However, here are some ideas of the available tools. 

5.Track Resources and Results 

Lastly, you need a strategy to track resources (time and budget) and results (SMART goals). This will allow you to understand the effectiveness of your strategy. 

There are plenty of tracking and reporting tools you can use. However, for tracking, we recommend Google Analytics. We like to call this the “single source of truth”. 

You can use many different tools for reporting. You may do this via an Excel sheet or Google Data Studio. It depends on who you’re reporting to and at what scale. 

Either way, you need to track what’s going on. How your budget is being used, its effectiveness on your smart goals, etc. It’ll give you a much better understanding of whether you need to change your strategy or not. 

Final Word: Get Organised, Get SEO Results! 

After reading the above, you should have a better understanding of how to manage an SEO project. 

Without question, SEO project management isn’t easy. There’s a lot of moving parts.

And for the most part, a lot of these moving parts aren’t in a traditional office setting. 

You may have a web developer from the UK, a copywriter from Australia, and an SEO specialist from the USA, which can make it difficult.

However, proper planning and preparation can make the process much simpler and traction-free.