Do you ever wonder what to do next when it comes to your client’s SEO? How can you create the most impact with limited time?
When you’re getting started with SEO, the answer is easy — start by building a solid SEO foundation, working one by one through the steps in our SEO Checklist.
What comes next? How do you choose which action items will be part of your monthly SEO campaign? In this post, we’ll answer that. You’ll learn how to prioritize your efforts and drive measurable results.
Too Much Noise & Too Little Impact
Let's take a step back. Have you ever run a website’s URL through an automated SEO scanner or tool? If so, you’ve likely received a report with bright red error messages.
We did that this week with our own site’s URL. The report we received showed 124 SEO errors! Most of the red flags were something like this:
- A page’s title tag is too long.
- A page is missing a meta description.
- There are multiple H1 tags on a page.
- Missing alternative text.
- Broken links.
As an SEO service provider, it’s tempting to try to fix all of these errors as part of your monthly SEO efforts. Your client might even get a sales pitch from another SEO provider that points out these red flags.
But guess what. Fixing all of these errors isn’t the most effective use of your time. These fall under the category of ongoing SEO maintenance tasks; you’ll want to address them over time. They should only take up a small part of your client’s monthly retainer.
Why?
Because fixing all of these items won’t move the needle substantially. Trust us, we’ve tried 🙂 You could invest 20+ hours on these items and get little to no improvement in visibility from Google.
What Really Moves the Needle?
If tackling these errors and warnings won’t drive substantial growth, then what will?
The formula is pretty simple. You can move the needle by steadily taking action in each of the following four categories:
- Improving Content
- Building Authority
- Growing Trust
- Analyzing Results
If you use this SEO strategy template, managing your client’s monthly SEO becomes easier and the results improve more substantially.
Ongoing SEO Strategy Templates
Not all monthly SEO retainers are the same, because client needs differ. It’s impossible to create a one-size-fits-all monthly to-do list.
You can, however, rotate your efforts through each of these categories.
Here’s an example of a monthly action plan:
- Improve Content — Draft a blog post, get approval from the client, and publish it.
- Build Authority — Coach your client on securing backlinks through an upcoming sponsored event.
- Grow Trust — Survey your client’s reviews on Google Maps. Curate a few of them and integrate that content on web pages like service pages, eCommerce category pages, or even the homepage.
- Analyze Results — Review the results of your efforts in a monthly report. Send a summary to your client.
This to-do list can increase or decrease in length, depending on the client’s level of engagement. If a client has extra time available in their monthly retainer, for example, you might create more content or seek multiple backlinks in a single month.
Alternatively, if the client has less available time, you might need to rotate task categories each month and slow things down.
Let’s look at another example.
In this case, we have a monthly SEO customer with a local business who’s chosen our lowest SEO package. Here’s an example of a plan that includes tasks for each of the primary categories — content, authority, and trust (along with some SEO maintenance items) — over four months.
Month 1
- Improve Content — Review the homepage content. Copy the content to a Google Doc and suggest specific changes to better utilize core keywords. Get client approval, then send these changes live.
Month 2
- Build Authority — Update your client’s Google Maps listing by adding new photos. Ensure all listing details are accurate and make corrections where needed.
Month 3
- Grow Trust — Schedule a call with the client to teach them how to accumulate more reviews on Google Maps. Provide the client with the handy Google Maps review link that they can send to clients who have positive feedback to share.
Month 4
- SEO Maintenance — Scan the site for broken links and fix them. Check the Google Search Console for any errors or warnings. Respond to page not found errors by creating 301 redirects.
Be aware that your ongoing efforts might not be perfectly consistent. We’d anticipate that Month 1 (content) and Month 4 (SEO maintenance) might be more time-consuming than Months 2 and 3.
That’s okay. The goal is to average your efforts over the course of several months. Some months might have heavier workloads than others.
A Final Tip for Monthly SEO Campaign Management
Taking consistent action in the categories above will drive growth for your clients.
But don’t forget about the most important component of delivering value to your clients each month: communication.
Clear and consistent communication is paramount. It’s how we build and strengthen our client relationships and ensure a continued partnership for the months and years to come.
