SEO Strategy Framework

* so says me and a few others.

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1. The Purpose of the Team
   Summarises what the SEO team/department exists to become, how it plans to do it and what metrics it will be measured against. I've given an introduction to my thinking about Vision, Mission and Goals.​
    

2. Strategy on a page
   This is almost entirely inspired by Franklin Covey's 4 Disciplines of Execution. I just found it to be the most succinct and focused way of summarising our SEO strategies. It also gives a great way to ensure you've got sufficient variety of approaches thought about and presented.​ This slide is here to make it clear of the breadth and depth issues you've considered and that its not just a list of tactics.

   1. Focus on the Wildly Important

   2. Act on Lead Measures

   3. Keep an Actionable Scoreboard

   4. Cadence of Accountability
       

3. Diagnosis​
   This slide may not be relevant to those highest in business, but for your team and other stakeholders it will need to be clear that you've had a roots and branch review of current situation. This is where the diagnosis stage comes in.​

   1. SWOT - it is also vital that you include the team here. You HAVE to get their views of what's working and what's not.​

   2. The Challenges - you'll need to say, given all of our SWOT analysis and dialogue with teams, research and discovery, that you can crystallise the problem to be solved into 1 (or two if closely related) issues that the strategy aims to solve. 

   3. RAG Status on the SEO Pillars
      I've not explicitly called out 'International' or 'Local' in this framework as I believe it covers Configurations, Content and Links. Depending on the nature of your business it may also cover  Culture, Ways of Working & Resource.

      1. Culture​

      2. Ways of Working / Resource

      3. Data, Insight & Innovation

      4. Platforms

      5. Configurations

      6. Content

      7. Links

   4. Forecast RAG status over time. If you did X for each pillar, by year end the RAG status would change to a different colour. How does that pan out over the next 2 to 3 years?​

   5. Known Programmes - how SEO's challenges fit against the Organisation's programmes of work and evolution.
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4. Plan

   1. Roadmap - so you've given a top level view of what you need to tackle over the year in the pillar slides. But here you give a quarterly view of proposed activity to take you to the enhanced point at the end of the year. 

   2. Tooling & Tech - this will be greatly focus on the data & insight pillar. If resolving tooling & tech is a 'rock' then call out the current state and visualise how it needs to change.

   3. Team & Capability - give the structure, highlight the map of talent against requirements and then give the new structure.
       

5. Requirements​

   1. Call out out what budget you believe is required. You should know the tooling, tech, staff and agency costs - all have a good idea.​

   2. Also highlight which projects you may need your line manager's support on.

   3. Identify which programmes / projects require significant cross-departmental co-operation
       

6. Forecasts​

   1. Give a view of delivering the plan is likely to deliver for both sessions and revenue (or whichever metrics the organisation prioritises). Tom Critchlow suggests a median projection and a high and low boundaries to your forecasts - this is a great idea.​

   2. Give a view of how you plan to change the state of the metrics you've identified in your Goals at the start of the strategy.
       

7. Recap

   1. Essentially the "strategy on a page" slide again.​

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I'll also add some notes on presentation - Tom is far superior to me here.