SEO Project Management: How To Organize Teams and Tasks?
The development of the information technology sphere is accelerating every year, and now it is not hard to imagine how diverse the current list of various IT positions is. However, many Internet professions are just beginning to come into use, and inexperienced users of the global network may find their “scary names” incomprehensible (or unusual). Suppose a person is not familiar with the basic concepts of the IT-sphere, or with SEO, etc. In that case, it will be somewhat difficult for them to immediately understand the meaning of some professions and functions that their representatives perform.
A perfect example of the above is the position of SEO Project Manager (various names: Project Manager, SEO-PM, etc.). The concept is relatively new, although it appeared many years earlier. The range of responsibilities is constantly expanding, the commitment to multitasking is increasing, and the name is changing. Even though the profession has existed for a long time, not many people understand what it means and what kind of work the specialist should perform. Let’s figure it out.
What is SEO project management?
Although the name is cumbersome, it is not difficult to understand. SEO Project Management implies the competent organization of the team’s work and the management of projects of various complexities with precise performance. As a rule, an excellent result of organized project management is implementing the assigned task within the initially specified framework (budget, time, etc.) of the customer. However, to achieve the set goals for the project, the basic concepts in the organization of a team of specialists are not enough. SEO-PM should include various techniques, methods, schemes, and tools, which will help solve multiple problems that arise in implementing the author’s idea, minimize risks, and take advantage of the opportunities provided.
👉 Check here top project management metrics.
The Importance of SEO Project Management
Search engine promotion of any website on the Internet is a long and complicated process. Some processes sometimes take a considerable amount of time and effort, and it is not easy to manually perform separate tasks simultaneously. Therefore, an SEO agency needs a well-coordinated team of specialists who know their business, each of whom will do their job. That is where the need for competent management appears.
A high-quality project management system has several advantages:
- Presence of a clearly set goal and a developed plan of action;
- Compliance with the intended target trajectory;
- Development and implementation of a chain of communications between team members;
- Distribution of responsibilities between specialists, the ability to synchronize work and create circles of mixed interaction;
- Usage of the accumulated knowledge and experience that was gained during the implementation of previous projects;
- Identification and minimization of associated risks in the course of work based on a collective discussion of the assigned tasks prevention of possible erroneous decisions;
- Development of a general strategy for website promotion;
- The ability to determine the time and money costs for all ongoing promotion work.
However, when it comes to advantages, disadvantages always suddenly appear. Nevertheless, SEO Project Management has few of them, and fortunately, they are of little consequence. In fact, they are more like nuances than disadvantages. One of them is that in addition to the ability to organize the work of a team, an SEO manager needs to have a good understanding of what website promotion is and how the process is correctly implemented. This means that in addition to management skills, you will need knowledge in SEO.
Role of the SEO Project Manager
It is necessary to understand what tasks the manager performs in the project to have a clear idea of what kind of profession it is and what responsibilities the person holding this position should perform.
Acting together can be challenging at times, given that many team members may work remotely. Therefore, the question of the competency of the organization of labor activity of the specialists in the team immediately arises. It comes along with the distribution of duties, the setting of roles, the issuance of specific tasks to the necessary specialists, and the adjustment of communicative interaction between them – for this, an SEO Project manager is needed.
You should remember that if you want to try such a profession, it will not be enough just to “manage” well. This position also assumes the presence of theoretical and practical knowledge in SEO in different niches. Typically, managers are developers, optimizers, web programmers, that is, people who were previously working in this field and, for some reason, decided to go to management to organize the work of the same specialists.
Let’s imagine a situation. You make a firm decision to start as SEO manager, and the question immediately arises: where to start, what actions to take right away, and what is my general role in the team? By the way, you should ask yourself this question in any situation, even if you are just entering this area, or you are already an experienced manager, and you are given another project to organize work in. After taking such a position, the first stage in the development of the project is to create a detailed action plan for promotion. This is necessary for clarity since a list of tasks compiled and ordered point by point is the basis without which it will not be possible to organize the team’s activities. Below in the article, you will see a couple of examples of services and tools for competently drawing up an action plan for a project. One of these is SE Ranking, an SEO reporting software, a convenient and easy-to-use report builder for SEO Project Managers.
Even if you are a novice manager, using this service will not cause any difficulties. It is enough to register and get started right away.
It is also worth mentioning that you are not just a manager but an SEO specialist, which means that a number of the main tasks for promotion are transferred to your competence. If the team has already recruited SEOs, then you need to distribute tasks and establish coordinated interaction between them, guiding their activities in the right direction. Regardless of the situation, several duties have to be performed:
- Niche analysis. It is necessary to conduct detailed research of the niche in which the website promotion is planned. Don’t forget about your competitors. It is also worth studying their projects with special attention.
- Compilation of the semantic core. The basis of proper SEO is a well-chosen list of keywords, which will deliver the target users to the site.
- Analytics. The manager’s task is to conduct analytics during the initial audit of the site and its subsequent promotion using various tools (Google Analytics, Search Console, etc.).
- Contextual advertising. The use of contextual advertising will also have a good effect on website promotion. It is important to work out the semantics for context and niche dependence correctly.
- Content. Development of a content plan and analysis of already written and indexed texts on the website, their quantity, quality, and uniqueness (and many other parameters) are essential tasks that must be completed.
In addition to the works mentioned above, many actions still have to be performed to achieve the desired result. By the way, the presented list is just an enumeration without priority. Each project has diverse goals and objectives. As an SEO manager, you will have to prioritize them at the beginning based on the customer’s requirements described in Terms Of References.
Organization of effective communication within the team
The main task of an SEO Project manager is to coordinate all team members and assign roles and responsibilities. This requires good communication skills. To organize effective communication, you will need a work area where all specialists can discuss the progress and implementation of the project, along with errors and problems that arise and how to eliminate them quickly. Today, there are many options for communication. For some teams, a private Telegram channel is enough for communication.
Defining tasks, budget, and deadlines
After the work area is created, you need to set specific goals for the project. Each team member should develop and submit a list of duties, agree on time costs, and decide on remuneration.
Determining the budget is a crucial and sometimes tricky moment. Before calculating it, you need to discuss how the customer assesses his financial capabilities and how much he expects at the project’s beginning and end. Remember that the budget is always calculated and agreed on with the customer at the initial stages. Your role (as an SEO Project manager) is to describe the amount of work to be carried out to promote the site, the time needed to implement it, and the salary. The customer, in turn, becomes acquainted with the conditions and, if they are suitable, he can proceed to the following stages of cooperation. If the customer is not satisfied with something, a compromise solution may be found.
Also, sometimes situations arise when the specified budget at the planning stage increases towards the end of the work. The customer may have unforeseen”wishes,” which will require additional time and payment. Such situations should be discussed in advance at the budget approval stage during agreement on the amount of work to be carried out on the project.
In addition, the received information must be passed on to colleagues, coordinated, and approved by the remuneration methods. The ideal option is hourly wages; that is, you provide a developed list of work on the project to the customer, which will indicate: process – time spent on it – payment/hour. Kanban Boards and Gantt charts are helpful in these situations. What are these?
Progress tracking and reporting tools
Many high-quality services have tools that allow you to draw up a report to demonstrate the successful completion of a particular task to the customer.
The Kanban Board is a project management method that every manager should be proficient in. It allows you to display the work progress visually, the number of assigned tasks, the specialists responsible for them, the results (completed, not completed), etc. In the electronic version, it looks like this:
The picture shows a Kanban Board from the famous Trello service. As you can see, these are the columns in which the assigned tasks are listed, the priority is divided, and the responsibilities are distributed among the specialists. It is also possible to track the current progress of work, tasks that have already been completed or are awaiting approval. There are also Kanban Boards in a physical version (analogous to a blackboard) – all processes are signed on them manually. They are usually used in offices.
The Gantt chart is excellent for creating reports for subsequent transfer to the customer. It consists of two parts and looks like this:
The part on the left (the list of titles) displays the list of tasks developed by the manager that is necessary (in our case) to promote the site. The right side shows the time spent with start and finish dates. The diagram also indicates whether the task has been completed or is in progress. The picture shows a general view of the Gantt chart.
👉 Check the best reporting tools!
Conclusions
SEO Project Manager is a fascinating, exciting, but at the same time challenging position that requires theoretical, practical, and moral training from the candidate. When choosing such a profession, please consider all the nuances described in the article.
Remember that an SEO project manager is responsible not only for himself but also for the team. It is essential to establish a mechanism for interaction and communication, correctly delegate responsibilities, and develop a promotion strategy with maximum efficiency.
Well-coordinated teamwork, performing tasks strictly in compliance with deadlines and regularly updating the customer, minimizing errors or promptly eliminating them -all these things indicate the work of a highly qualified SEO-Project manager.