SEO Roadmaps

An SEO Roadmap is a type of digital marketing plan that sets out a series of interconnected activities with the end objective of improving your website’s visibility on major search engines. An SEO Roadmap is usually produced following a Technical SEO Audit, where your web property is analysed and its issues are identified. A roadmap logically sorts these issues and sets out a plan for fixing them.

Certain issues with websites may need to be tested in isolation, to understand the impact that fixing them has on the site’s performance. Therefore, some roadmaps may be heavily focused on technical tests, measuring the impact of this activity, then rolling out further refinements to the original tests. Other roadmaps may be focused on content development, user experience improvements, backlink acquisition or a range of other related areas.

A clear journey towards better search visibility

Optimising a website to appear prominently in Google’s traditional organic search results is getting harder to do. Paid ads, local pack results, featured snippets and knowledge graph results are just a few of the many types of search results that take up above-the-fold space on a typical results page. Securing a front-page position on Google is no longer a guarantee for generating clicks.

With an SEO Roadmap in place, you can mitigate these challenges by clearly outlining the work involved to exceed the competition and stand a better chance of winning the clicks.

Download my SEO Roadmap Template

I have written SEO roadmaps for dozens of clients over the course of my career. Every SEO plan is different as no two clients are the same. However, I usually break down each map into six main categories which you can see below or by downloading the following Excel template.

N.B. This template is just an example of the types of tasks that might appear in a roadmap. Some roadmaps might contain a lot more granular information, whilst others may be entirely focused on one area such as Technical SEO. The numbers in this document indicate the hours that may need to be spent on a certain task.

Most clients that I work with will usually have the following sections included.

Website Essentials

This section covers all the basic steps that need implementing before embarking on any SEO work. For example, installing Google Analytics and Tag Manager.

Technical SEO

This section is where the suggested technical tests are outlined. For an international client, it might include setting up & deploying hreflang markup then testing and fixing issues.

Content Optimisation & Development

This is where opportunities to improve existing content are outlined and where the strategy for developing new content is defined.

UX & Conversion Rate Optimisation

This section outlines the preparation and implementation tasks for user experience improvements.

Backlinks & Off-Page Optimisation

This is where the planning and promotional activity tasks are defined to help the site reach relevant influencers.

Local SEO

This is where work specific to ranking in Google’s local pack is defined. Some clients may not require this section at all, however, as Google’s local pack results are generated via a completely different algorithm, it warrants a separate roadmap.

Get an SEO Roadmap for your business

If you’re interested in having an SEO roadmap designed for your business, I can help. To begin the process, I’d recommend purchasing a Technical SEO Audit (more details here). This will identify all the issues with your site that need to be fixed. Once the issues are identified, the SEO strategy and roadmap can be formulated. Contact me today if you’d like to discuss this in more detail.