An effective SEO strategy must evolve over time to account for changes within your company and the broader digital landscape. An annual review is key to keeping your approach up to date and results-driven.
This article outlines critical internal and external elements you need to assess when refreshing your SEO plan, from website changes to competitive shifts to algorithm updates.
You can evolve your SEO strategy with continuous shifts of 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 this is an annual review to determine if priorities have changed in the last year (i.e., waterfall, rather than agile, for those who think that way).
Internal elements to review
A year is a long time, and things can change internally, whether they are processes or priorities.
Before we shift our SEO strategy based on an external factor, we want to make sure the brand and the company can support it – and that it matters to the business.
Your SEO strategy implementation
Start by auditing what has successfully been implemented or what projects have been approved – from the first iteration of the SEO strategy translated into tactics through an SEO roadmap – and what has struggled.
If possible, you’ll also want to see what impact that resulted from those changes. This will allow you to start mapping out the particular elements that impact your website and potentially your industry.