In the simplest terms, an SEO project manager makes sure all deliverables linked to SEO are finished by a certain date. They ensure that the SEO strategy is put into practice by the direction they have been provided. It is intended to divide the deliverables into distinct, well-defined tasks. An SEO project manager may be responsible for:
- Finishing all SEO deliverables completely
- Delegating project responsibilities to other team members and scheduling them
- Creating and keeping track of project schedules
- Creating a weekly or monthly report
Among other things, this includes assessing and analyzing the strategy’s effectiveness, putting deliverables online for the customer, creating meeting notes for the client, and much more.
Getting customers noticed on search engines like Google for terms associated with the client’s goods and services is the other primary goal of this position. The project manager also has to make sure that the client’s website sees an increase in traffic, conversions, and sales.
What Skills Do SEO Project Managers Require?
People that possess a variety of abilities will be successful as project managers in SEO.
Managing projects
Your capacity to implement SEO deliverables, collaborate effectively with account managers, manage a range of projects, and forge strong client connections are all essential to the success of an SEO campaign. It’s a great talent to be able to handle several projects in a field that’s always evolving.
Editing and copywriting
Writing and editing abilities are necessary for almost every role in digital marketing. You may probably need to proofread and evaluate some work, regardless of the size of your team. Being able to communicate effectively with clients is crucial, thus being able to create emails that they can readily comprehend is crucial.
Tool Use daily
To consistently manage your workflow, you need to employ the appropriate tools. At Power Digital, we utilize these tools to organize our workflow and manage our SEO tasks.
- Hourstack.io to measure time spent on tasks like meetings and projects
- Google Drive for document sharing and storage
- To distribute huge files, use Dropbox
- Slack for collaboration and messaging; Gmail; and Gchat
- Using Google Calendar to schedule meetings
- Asana for team members to be given tasks
- Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for reports, spreadsheets, and presentations.
Knowledge of HTML and CSS
The internet’s primary languages are HTML and CSS. The ability to produce HTML code may be highly useful for web designers or developers. For instance, a quick activity like adding and formatting text might ease the burden on a web developer who is already highly busy.
Analytics & Reporting
Data gathering and analysis skills are a need for all SEO project managers. Google Analytics is the most important platform that any project manager should master. Additionally, you will need to understand how to use the analytics tools that each organization likes to employ regularly.
Planning and Organizational Skills
Although SEO methods are distinctive and frequently challenging, I think Power Digital has a great approach for guaranteeing customer deliverables are finished on time. One of our procedures is:
Forecasting: To assign deliverables to each team member within the SEO department, we utilize an internal forecasting document. Each team member will be aware of the deliverables they are responsible for and have a month to finish as a result of this. The department head can use it to determine which workers get some additional bandwidth each month. Additionally, this procedure makes sure that each team member receives the same number of departmental hours.
Asana: At Power Digital, Asana is something we use every day. Each team member is allowed to allocate their task for the month and establish deadlines for completing each delivery. This makes sure that people are accountable for doing their tasks. When finished, they hand the project back to the account manager for one last look before delivering it to the customer.
Weekly Meetings: These are essentially mini-scrums that take place every week. These are brief meetings to discuss the workflow, the week’s successes, future training, and the week’s tasks.
Reports every month: A report is delivered to the customer at the beginning of each month that covers the deliverables finished in the previous month, the tasks scheduled for the following month, and overall outcomes from the previous month, including keyword ranking improvements, increases in traffic, and conversion rates.
To make sure that everyone is given clear instructions on what has to be done within the month, these procedures are crucial.
Communication
Any firm should place the highest priority on communication. To establish a solid rapport with your customer, you must put in much effort. You will be able to better understand and manage your client’s expectations if you develop a strong relationship with them.
Methods for enhancing client communication:
- A weekly summary email may significantly improve things. The health of your connection with your customer depends on keeping them informed about the progress of their SEO strategy. To make sure nothing is missed, provide your client updates often. Take a look at your victories in Google Analytics and highlight them using screenshots. Additionally, mention some keyword gains and let the customer know how the deliverables are progressing. This demonstrates to the customer that you are concerned and regularly keep an eye on the campaign.
- Finally, provide the schedule and objectives you will be focusing on this week.
Focus on Detail
Project managers must pay close attention to every detail. Many advertisements launch with mistakes like spelling and grammar since there are no final edits. Before submitting deliverables to the customer, take the time to evaluate them.
The understanding of content management systems
Managers of SEO projects should be familiar with the operation of well-known Content Management Systems like Drupal and WordPress. Since they are both quite similar, you can manage them both once you get a handle on one. To reduce developers’ work, you should be able to add photos as well as generate, amend, and publish material.
Positive Thinking
You may boost your happiness and confidence by adopting a positive outlook. Being a project manager requires having an optimistic mindset. Finding the good in practically everything is one of the best things a project manager can accomplish. There will always be something positive in a challenging scenario. Project managers maintain the workflow. People will compliment you when the deliveries go well, but when things do not go as expected, you must be able to handle it with a good attitude.
Leadership Qualities
As the project’s SEO lead, you are responsible for the caliber of the work that is generated. Finding the desire to carry on with the work at hand can be difficult when undertakings get overwhelming. You are accountable for maintaining a positive outlook and producing high-caliber work. This calls for you to examine the work before sending it to the customer and to step up if necessary. The disposition of the project manager spreads to the team as a whole and can impact the outcomes.
How to choose the most effective project management tool for SEO
You want to give your SEO initiatives more structure, and you are aware that the correct project management tool would be quite beneficial. However, you’re now unsure of how to locate the SEO management software that would work best for you.
We’ve gathered a few criteria you ought to consider while assessing project management software (Wrike offers all of these and more, by the way). These capabilities will help all of the projects your team is working on, not just your SEO initiatives.
User-friendly design
Everyone on your team, not just the tech-savvy people, needs to be willing to use your project management software for it to be effective. Select a platform that is simple to use and intuitive so that everyone may benefit from it.
Specialized processes
Create personalized workflows to get rid of bottlenecks. Based on the task’s state, these procedures can automatically assign a team member. As an illustration, the content team will be given the task of updating the blog entries after your SEO consultant has done recommended keywords.
A range of permissions
Perhaps you work on SEO tasks for other customers. Or perhaps the executive team at your organization would like to monitor these initiatives without having to take an active role. This is why it’s critical to choose a platform that provides a range of rights. You may give your users permission using Wrike’s access roles.
File organizing and storage
The materials and documentation for your SEO efforts will be extensive, ranging from keyword lists to competitive analysis. Find a platform that will not only store the information but also arrange it in a user-friendly and searchable fashion. Folders and labels in Wrike make effective file organization much simpler.
