What is SEO Project Management?

According to BrightEdge, over half of all website traffic comes from organic search.

Statistics like these prove why investing in SEO is so important. But SEO is a complex, ever-changing field. SEO campaigns involve countless moving parts, which makes them difficult to implement and manage. 

If you want to climb to the top of the search results, the key is adopting an SEO project management approach. What is SEO project management? How will it benefit your company?  

What Does SEO Project Management Mean?

The term “project management” refers to the process of planning, organizing, and managing tasks involved in a project. The goal of project management is to effectively use your resources to make sure each task is completed correctly and in a timely manner in an effort to move a project toward completion.

SEO project management is the process of applying this project management approach to your SEO efforts. It involves managing all of the human resources, deadlines, workflows, and tasks involved in an SEO project. 

What is SEO Project Management

Why is SEO Project Management Important?

Taking an SEO project management approach to your SEO efforts can provide many different benefits, including:

  • Makes managing SEO campaigns easier. Taking the project management approach can keep your SEO efforts organized and provide structure to your SEO activities. This makes managing complex, multi-faceted tasks much easier. 
  • Helps you prioritize. This approach will allow you to see the big picture so you can prioritize your tasks and allocate your resources more effectively. 
  • Improves productivity. Keeping your tasks organized and establishing clear workflows can help your team work more efficiently. 
  • Provides visibility into your SEO work. Taking this approach will allow you to show your client all of the tasks that are involved in a specific SEO project. This way, your client will understand what you are working on and how much work goes into your SEO efforts. 
  • Eliminates repetitive, manual tasks. Part of effective project management involves automating the repetitive, manual tasks involved in a project. Eliminating these tasks will reduce errors and free up your team’s time so they can focus on more complex tasks.
  • Ensures consistency. Having a project manager oversee your team’s efforts will ensure that your team follows the same processes and procedures every time they complete SEO work. As a result, your team will produce consistent, high quality work. 
  • Allows you to grow your business. Effective project management will improve your team’s efficiency and allow them to take on more work without feeling overwhelmed. This gives you an opportunity to grow your business without needing to hire additional employees. 
  • Meet deadlines. Managing your SEO efforts will allow you to plan out tasks and resources in advance to ensure you can meet tight deadlines for your clients. 
  • Achieve more SEO goals. Effective project management keeps your team focused on the end goal of every project so they don’t get caught up working on small tasks that won’t affect the end result.

These are some of the many reasons why taking an SEO project management approach is so crucial to your business’s success.

What is SEO Project Management

What Does An SEO Project Manager Do?

The SEO project manager is the individual who is responsible for overseeing the completion of the SEO project. This may sound simple, but it’s much more difficult than it seems.

Before a project begins, the SEO project manager must clearly define its goals. The project manager may set these goals based on the client’s expectations and their own knowledge of how SEO works. 

The project manager is also responsible for creating a plan for the project. This involves answering these questions:

  • What SEO strategies should be involved in this project? (Content creation, link building, on-page SEO, etc.)
  • What tasks must be completed to reach this goal?
  • When does the project need to be completed? When should each task be completed to meet this project deadline?
  • Who will be responsible for completing each task involved in this project?

After outlining the plan, the project manager must communicate with all of the different parties who will be working on the project. It is the project manager’s job to make sure that all of the different parties understand the goals of the project and the role they play in achieving these goals.

The project manager’s work is not over even after the project has been outlined and tasks have been assigned. At this point, the project manager must closely monitor the progress of the project. The project manager is responsible for ensuring that tasks are completed on time and correctly. Tracking the status of the project helps the project manager stay on schedule so the team can meet the project’s deadline. 

Ultimately, it is the project manager’s job to keep everything running smoothly. If a problem arises at any point in the project, the project manager must work with the appropriate parties to address and resolve it. The project manager may also be tasked with communicating with the client throughout the entire project. 

Tips for Effective SEO Project Management

Successfully managing SEO projects is a challenge. Follow these tips to effectively manage your SEO efforts:

  • Be open to a more structured approach. To adopt a project management approach to SEO, you need to be comfortable with adding more structure to your SEO efforts. You can no longer choose which keywords to target at random or work without deadlines. If you aren’t open to this approach, your efforts to manage your SEO projects may not be effective.
  • Get to know your team. An effective project manager must understand how each team member prefers to communicate, how they work best, and their strengths and weaknesses. Having this knowledge makes it easier to clearly communicate, delegate work, and lead your team. 
  • Be respectful of your team’s workload. A good project manager would never ask someone on their team to take on a project that they simply don’t have the time to handle. If you need to assign something to a person who is already overwhelmed with work, offer to take another task off of their plate to free up some of their time. 
  • Discuss the project with the client. It’s best to talk to the client about the project before assigning any tasks to your team. This gives you a chance to learn more about your client’s goals and expectations. Make sure you relay all of this information to your team so everyone is on the same page. 
  • Be willing to adjust. Don’t be afraid to make changes to your workflows or project plans if needed. A good project manager is willing to make adjustments to improve efficiency. 
  • Use SEO project management software. Don’t rely on spreadsheets to keep track of your SEO projects. Streamline your SEO efforts by using a project management tool to keep track of your work. 
What is SEO Project Management

How to Find the Best SEO Project Management Tool

The right project management tool can make or break your SEO efforts. There are many project management tools to choose from, but some are better suited for SEO project management than others. When evaluating your SEO project management tool options, look for these key features:

  • User-friendly: A number of people may work on your SEO projects, and some of them might not be very tech-savvy. This is why it’s so important to choose an SEO project management tool that is easy for everyone to use, regardless of their skill level.
  • Customization: No two SEO teams or projects are alike. Find a tool that gives you the power to customize your workflows, templates, and other aspects of your SEO projects.
  • Automation: Choose a tool with automation so you can eliminate the manual, repetitive tasks that waste your team’s time. 
  • Integrations: SEO teams rely on various tools to perform their work, including Gmail, Dropbox, Google Analytics, and SEMRush. Instead of switching back and forth between these tools, look for a project management tool that integrates with them. 
  • Start-to-finish project management: The best project management tools allow you to manage every aspect of the project from concept to completion. This includes time tracking, invoicing, and reporting. This way, you only need one tool to complete all of the work involved in a project.
  • Communication: Communication is key to the success of your SEO project. Look for a tool that allows your team to easily contact one another to ask questions, leave feedback, or provide more information on a specific project.
  • Client access: Find a tool with a client interface so you can manage client approvals, billing, and invoicing directly through the project management software.

The search for the best SEO project management system is over. Gryffin was built by digital marketers for digital marketers, so it is designed with all of the key features you need to effectively manage your SEO campaigns. Learn more about how Gryffin can help with your SEO project management by starting a free 14-day trial today.