An effective SEO strategy must evolve over time to account for changes in your business and the broader digital landscape. An annual review is key to keeping your approach fresh and results-oriented.
This article outlines the critical internal and external elements you should evaluate when updating your SEO plan, from website changes to competitive changes and algorithm updates.
You can evolve your SEO strategy with ongoing shifts in priorities and changes that are reflected in a dynamic SEO roadmap, or you can develop a more defined annual or semi-annual process.
For this article, we’ll work under the assumption that this is an annual review to determine if priorities have changed over the past year (ie waterfall, rather than agile, for those who think that way).
Internal items to review
A year is a long time, and things can change internally, be it processes or priorities.
Before we change our SEO strategy based on an external factor, we want to make sure that the brand and company can support it, and that it’s important to the business.
Implementation of your SEO strategy
Start by auditing what has been successfully implemented or projects passed – from the first iteration of SEO strategy translated into tactics through an SEO roadmap – and what has struggled.
If possible, you’ll also want to see what impact those changes had. This will allow you to start mapping out the particular elements that affect your website and potentially your industry.
Your website
As one of the key elements of your SEO strategy, you need to understand any changes to the backend of your website.
If you’re lucky, you’ll be familiar with it anyway, because you’ll be embedded as part of the development team or in their workflow and on good terms with the product or program owners.
You also need to understand what has changed on your website from a content perspective. Several enterprise-level SEO tools have changelogs as part of their software, or you can use tools like:
Hexomatic Sken.io visual ping
Otherwise, you may be able to use the “Last Modified” or “Last Modified” history in your CMS if these fields are registered.
Your products/offer
Your product and your company are also undergoing changes. Perhaps this year there has been a fundamental shift from focusing on product A to launching and supporting product B.
Or maybe the company’s goals, objectives and mission have changed and it’s less focused on getting new customers and more on retaining existing business.
This could fundamentally change both the content strategy and the technical approach of the website and should also inform an evolution of your SEO strategy.
Your processes
Maybe a process has been improved and a lot of work unlocked that you haven’t been able to do in the last year, or potentially the other way around.
While not exhaustive, these are good places to start to understand how things under your control have changed over the past 12 months and how they are likely to change over the next 12.
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External elements
Understanding external changes involves evaluating factors outside of your control. Determine if immediate action is needed or if it is better to address the problem before it becomes critical.
This may lead to a broader business discussion that requires leadership approval, so be prepared for a potentially time-consuming process.
Google algorithm updates or feature changes
This goes without saying, but it’s worth saying: SEO strategies, to some extent, will always be reactive.
While a good SEO strategy will be nearly impervious to changes in Google’s algorithms, evolution comes in anticipating and acting on future changes in the way people search. It’s seeing things that might be a small consideration now, but you see the threads get bigger, like the “Experience” in EEAT or Google’s SGE.
What are your competitors doing?
Although I am a follower of the infinite game in business, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay attention to what’s going on in your market. Instead, it means not measuring your success by it.
If you find that most of your market has turned to writing long-form thought leadership content, it’s at least worth keeping in the back of your mind. But whether you develop your SEO strategy to address it depends on your broader goals.
Understanding the market landscape is different from reacting to it, and any evolution of your SEO strategy must be informed by an accurate and timely understanding of the market in which you operate.
chaos
A recommendation that has always stuck with me from Ian Lurie’s various strategy papers is the one of consider the chaos.
What if a new channel came along and disrupted the market? What if there was a global pandemic? What if you have great media coverage? What if the iPhone had a split launch? What if Samsung had to recall its phones?
This thinking exercise stretches your strategic muscles. It also helps you understand extreme cases and assess the resilience of your processes and tactics. Note how these extreme cases would require you to shift or completely change your strategy.
Look to the future
Your SEO strategy evolution should include:
Updating SEO goals and objectives. Change the strategic pillars that are internal or external reactions. Add new strategic pillars based on the market landscape.
Armed with this up-to-date information, you are well-positioned to evolve your SEO strategy and future-proof it by keeping the document alive and well-loved.
The views expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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