Having a good balance of planned tactics and actions versus the need for agile methods to pivot when needed is often the best approach to staying current and proactive.
Quarterly
Technical Issues Auditing
Assuming you have covered technical issues at the beginning of your SEO focus and are also watching for any that trigger red flags in daily and weekly monitoring, it is important to take a broader look through an audit each quarter.
This audit should include a review of reported issues in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
Plus, comparison to benchmarks and standards for site speed, mobile usability, validation of structured data, and the aspects that aren’t often looked at on a more frequent basis.
On-Page Issues Auditing
Without an audit process and even with frequent monitoring, things happen on websites.
A code update, database update, plugin/extension update, or publishing content can cause duplicate tags, duplicate content, or even missing on-page elements.
A quarterly audit of on-page issues that can be conducted using a wide range of free and subscription third-party tools is important.
There are tools that will even send alerts and factor into the daily process if something changes, like a meta description being wiped out.
Regardless, having a solid tools stack and process for quarterly evaluation and comparison to the previous audit is important to ensure that the results of the audit and any fixes needed are noted and made into the tactical plan.
Link Profile Auditing
Overall, the SEO plan likely includes some form of link building.
Whether that is through attracting links with engaging content or a more focused plan of research and outreach, it is likely a part of the ongoing tactics (or should be considered if it isn’t).
Investing time and effort into the tactics makes it important to have visibility of the overall link profile and progress.
This might be a performance metric tracked in the monthly reporting phase, but quarterly should be audited in a deeper sense.
Evaluating the quality of links, the number of links, the diversity of sources, the relevancy of linked content, comparisons to competitors, comparisons to benchmarks, and period-over-period comparisons are all important aspects to ensure that the plan is performing as intended in the area of backlinks.
Plus, if not caught through daily or monthly efforts, any spammy links or negative SEO attempts can be caught here and addressed through the disavow process, if applicable or if it makes sense for your situation.
Local Listings Audit
Once local listings management is in maintenance mode, there won’t be a frequent need for major changes with NAP (name, address, phone) data or inconsistencies in listing data.
However, that doesn’t mean it won’t happen and can be “set it and forget it.”
An audit using third-party tools to ensure accuracy and consistency of data is strongly advised at least quarterly.
This audit can identify issues that can be addressed on a one-off basis as well as provide guidance on performance and any needed changes to the content, reviews, and other aspects of the listings themselves beyond the basic NAP data.
If any third-party data sources or listings were missed, Google Business Profile data could be overwritten with inaccurate listing info.
Even if nothing changes with your management of listings, data can change and needs to be monitored at a minimum.
Yearly
Measure Performance
When running annual plans for SEO – and even when not on annual agreements or evaluation cycles – taking an entire year of data and evaluating it is helpful to advise strategy and find measurable ROI calculations.
SEO is a long-term process that aims to achieve the most competitive positioning and visibility possible in search engines. It is a valuable investment of time to look at performance data over 12-month spans, compare it to previous periods, look at benchmarks, and celebrate successes.
Even if you don’t have annual budgets or agreements with outside partners/providers, taking an annual step back and looking at performance and the effort like an investment rather than an expense is important.
Planning Strategy & Tactics
In addition to reviewing yearly performance data, you should also plan your goals, strategy, and tactics for the next year.
Even though the plan could change a week into maintenance, having a plan and setting a target are key to measuring progress.
Without a plan and using past learnings and a realistic view of the resources being invested in the coming year, there can be a gap between expectations and reality.
It is best to sort this out before getting months down the road.
Conclusion
To reiterate what I noted earlier, SEO isn’t about just following a basic checklist of best practices. It is getting harder and harder to be successful at.
I look at the changes based on AI, Google’s algorithms, and fragmentation in the search market share as an opportunity.
When we have clear goals defined for our strategy, build out the tactics needed to get there, have solid assets (websites, content, etc.), can measure it, and stick to it with a schedule that doesn’t get sidetracked by other priorities or hats we wear, we can get there.
Our annual plan or “checklist” is custom to us with a cadence of daily, monthly, quarterly, and yearly when it comes to things we do, so we can see SEO all the way through to ROI in both short-term and long-term applications.
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