Trying to establish a more consistent SEO structure within your organization?

Wish every SEO fire had a more standardized, easy-to-follow solution?

We know – no two days in SEO are the same.

However, finding a consistent approach that provides meaningful impact is surprisingly easy.

And – it works whether you’re in-house, an agency, or a freelance consultant.

On March 23, I moderated a sponsored webinar presented by Jamie Indigo and Michelle Race from Deepcrawl.

In describing SEO as a dance, they provided a four-step process for handling challenges head-on as they arise and preventing SEO fires before they start.

Here is a summary of the webinar.

To access the entire presentation, complete the form.

Step 1: Get More Visibility On Your SEO Issues

We cannot fix what we cannot see, so it’s vital to ask some fundamental questions when approaching SEO problems:

  • What am I looking at?
  • Where am I looking?
  • How can I see something?

To dig deeper, you also need specific criteria and questions to ask yourself:

  • Does expected site behavior match real-life behavior?

[Discover the tool that gives you visibility into behaviors] Instantly access the webinar →

  • Are there new data sources available?
  • Have you leveraged all URL prefix variants?
  • Is some critical information is only available in a prefix or domain property?
  • Can I look at data sources in new ways?
  • Is there new data available in old favorites?
  • Can I combine datasheets for enhanced insights?

Step 2: Start Diagnosing

Once you see the problem, you can now measure it.

To be a great partner of the dev team and other stakeholders in the dance of SEO, you’ll need to consider these:

  • Don’t start on the wrong foot: Avoid only sending issue headings and exports of affected URLs.
  • Learn the steps: Thoroughly investigate, identify, and understand each step to resolve.
  • Make sure your partner knows the moves: Use various tools to diagnose, replicate, and demonstrate issues.

[Discover the best tools for great teamwork] Instantly access the webinar →

When you’re presenting the problem to other team members, be sure to mention these other factors and questions to consider when you’re diagnosing SEO:

  • Know what causes the problem?
  • What is being observed?
  • Can it be measured?
  • Are specific templates affected?
  • Is there consistent behavior?
  • Do all sections of the site behave the same?
  • Have you tried using Chrome DevTools to locate the issue?

[How to use DevTools to find the exact code causing the problem] Instantly access the webinar →

  • What does Pagespeed Insights report?
  • Can you provide information from Console URL Inspector?
  • What data does Deepcrawl Analyze provide?

Step 3: Master Iteration

Now that you’ve learned the steps, here are some factors and questions to look at to adequately demonstrate to your partner:

  • Where do I look to see the issue? (data source)
  • What is the element?
  • How is it measured?
  • How does it break? (Repo steps)
  • How do you help the team understand?
  • Know who to assign and alert.
  • Execute best practices when creating a ticket.

[See the importance of breaking tickets into actionable items] Instantly access the webinar →

  • Create user stories.
  • Demonstrate how to reproduce.
  • Add acceptance criteria.
  • Provide testing strategies.
  • Provide environment: UAT.
  • Provide all device/platform information.
  • Visual repo steps.
  • Acceptance criteria.
  • List out what is required.
  • Provide conditional criteria if needed.
  • Provide developer resources.
  • List out how to test if successful.
  • Provide testing URLs.

How to keep your SEO rehearsals focused:

  • Constantly refine and improve.
  • Stay updated with ticket progress.
  • Understand the development cycle.
  • Record when fixes are rolled out.

[Overcome SEO challenges] Instantly access the webinar →

Step 4: Monitor Your SEO Effectively

To glide effortlessly on the SEO stage, you’ll need to know how to monitor by answering these questions:

  • What should be monitored?
  • What has changed?
  • How do you stay aware of new issues?
  • How do you create regular crawls?
  • Are you able to monitor multiple projects?
  • How do you set up log monitoring?
  • How should you report on search console coverage?
  • How do you monitor CrUX data over time?

[Dig deeper into monitoring] Instantly access the webinar →

Moving your company towards an effective SEO project management process doesn’t require a complex dance.

4-Step SEO Waltz: Tackle SEO Challenges Head-OnDeepcrawl, March 2022

With this simple framework, you can now deal with all types of SEO challenges, which pivots between engineering and UX, between product and the whim of search engines.

[Slides] 4-Step SEO Waltz: Tackle SEO Challenges Head-On

Here’s the presentation:

4-Step SEO Waltz: Tackle SEO Challenges Head-On from Search Engine Journal

Join Us For Our Next Webinar!

Google Algorithm Updates & Local SEO: 6 Top Tips From Experts

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Discover what Google looks for when ranking a business in our next webinar on April 4 at 2 p.m. ET. 

Image Credits

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal