How to Create an SEO Workflow for Content Success
Effective SEO Workflows
Effective SEO workflows are essential for driving organic traffic and ensuring your content is successful across the funnel.
In this guide, we will discuss:
- What SEO workflows are
- The key players involved in creating and maintaining them
- Highlighting the many benefits of using SEO workflows
- The different kinds of SEO workflows you can use.
Complete guide to SEO workflows - YouTube
Complete guide to SEO workflows - SEOTesting
Table of contents
- What is an SEO workflow?
- Why do I need an SEO workflow?
- Who handles an organization’s SEO workflow?
- What are the benefits of using an SEO workflow?
- What are the different types of SEO workflows?
- Tools to help you manage your SEO workflows
What is an SEO workflow?
An SEO workflow is a set of steps that you can follow to achieve a specific result. These come into effect when working on SEO campaigns.
SEO workflows can be over-reaching, listing out steps for an entire SEO strategy. Or they can be more relaxed, listing different steps for each SEO tactic.
Examples of industry-standard SEO workflows include:
- Creating new content
- Publishing new content
- Optimizing existing content
- Refreshing existing content
- Running SEO tests
In essence, an SEO workflow is a guide. It lists the steps you need to take to get to where you need to be.
Why do I need an SEO workflow?
The short answer is that you do not need an SEO workflow. But they are very useful for businesses to have in place.
Ensuring you have a good SEO workflow in place is crucial to many business types. This is because it allows them to:
- Become more efficient
- Keep processes in place no matter who is working in a team
- Train new starters in a more efficient way
The above things are crucial as an SEO team grows.
The basic principles of SEO never change:
- You still need to be publishing great content
- You still need to be building links from authoritative websites in your niche
- You still need to follow the basic principles of E-E-A-T
- You still need to have a good technical SEO foundation
Having the relevant SEO workflows in place will help keep you focused on the task at hand. That task is ranking your website and earning more revenue.
Who handles an organization’s SEO workflow?
It depends on a few different factors:
- The structure of your marketing team
- How many people work within your organization
- The structure of your SEO strategies
We can make the argument for one person to be responsible for creating and maintaining them.
SEO strategies include the following tasks, performed on a regular basis:
- Performing regular analysis of current campaigns and competitors
- Planning and setting-out new campaigns
- Tracking the results of past and present campaigns
- Execution of different tactics within your campaigns
An SEO Manager or a Marketing Manager should lead these tasks at the management level. If you lack an SEO Manager, use your Marketing Manager. This manager should create and maintain your SEO workflows.
What are the benefits of using an SEO workflow?
SEO workflows offer many benefits, including:
- Clear workflows help when you create new content, update old content, or reach out for links.
- Staff members can follow a set process.
- Managers gain time to focus on key goals.
- Helps small companies with limited resources.
What are the different types of SEO workflows?
There are different types of SEO workflows for different businesses. Most businesses will use content in some way, shape, or form. We focus on the different content SEO workflows.
New Content Workflows
A consistent publishing of new content supports a strong SEO strategy. An SEO workflow for new content could include:
- The team does content research and writes a brief.
- The team approves the brief.
- The writer drafts the article.
- The team reviews the first draft.
- The writer revises and creates a second draft.
- The team reviews and approves the second draft.
- The team publishes the content.
Content Optimisation Workflows
An SEO workflow for content optimization might look like this:
- Find low quality content.
- Identify missing content or questions.
- Conduct a content gap analysis.
- Re-write the content. Add missing information.
- Publish the updated content.
- Request re-indexing with Google Search Console.
Content Quality Review Workflow
Here’s a simple content quality review workflow:
- Identify low-quality content.
- Decide if you will refresh or delete each piece.
- Add the refresh jobs to your content calendar.
- Complete the refresh tasks.
CTR (Click Through Rate) Optimization Workflow
A workflow for CTR optimization could look like this:
- Identify pages with a low CTR.
- Find queries with search volume to improve CTR.
- Compare meta titles, descriptions, and page titles with competitors.
- Re-write these meta tags.
- Publish the changes.
Content Strategy Workflows
SEO workflows can guide your entire content strategy, detailing your research stage, content distribution, and management.
Tools to help you manage your SEO workflows
Consider using a project management tool like Monday, Asana, or Trello, along with a strong set of SEO tools such as Ahrefs and Semrush for tracking rankings and conducting research.
Wrapping things up
Effective SEO workflows help you rank higher and grow your business. They give your team a clear plan and show each person what to do. By using the right tools, you can make these workflows easy to follow, leading to long-term growth and stronger performance in the SERPs.