SEO's Structuring Your Work Week

[BeckyKey]

Hi

I wanted some feedback on how other SEO's structure their time. I feel as though I'm falling into the trap of fire fighting with tasks rather than working on substantial projects... I don't feel as though I'm being as effective as I could be.

Here's our set up - Ecommerce site selling thousands of products - more of a generalist with 5 focus areas.

2 x product/merchandising teams - bring in new products, write content/merchandise products

Web team - me (SEO), Webmaster, Ecommcerce manager

Studio - Print/Email marketing/creative/photography.

A lot of my time is split between working for the product teams doing KWD research, briefing them on keywords to use, checking meta.

SEO Tasks - Site audits/craws, reporting

Blogs - I try and do a bit as I need it so much for SEO, so I've put a content/social plan together but getting a lot of things actioned is hard... I'm trying to coordinate this across teams

Inbetween all that, I don't have much time to work on things I know are crucial like a backlink/outreach plan, blog/user guide/content building etc.

How do you plan your time as an SEO? Big projects?

Soon I'm going to pull back from the product optimisation & try focussing on category pages, but for an Ecommerce site they are extremely difficulty to promote.

Just asking for opinions and advice

[Gabe_BlueGuru]

I would recommend listing out everything you're doing on a daily/weekly/monthly basis (whichever encapsulates what you do)...you already have a great start to this. Then, for 2018, decide the things that you need to either stop doing to delegate to other people (don't worry about who that would be just yet). List out the things that you need to get to but aren't, as well.

So, that leaves you with three lists, essentially: the things you shouldn't be doing (and can pass off to someone else), the things that you should be doing but aren't, and the things that you have been doing (and will continue to do).

Present that to your boss with your recommendation for how to get the other items done (pass them off to a colleague, hire an intern, hire a part-time person). Also, include some ROI of what will most likely happen if you start focusing on those new, key areas.

And then message me and tell me how it goes.

From the sounds of it, you need to put some production management techniques in place. We all face that...

[TimHolmes]

I know how you feel, in the beginning this was a real problem for me, especially being in the industry we are in, as this makes it so much more difficult. The pace of change is staggering and there is often very little lead time for a huge change that can impact your whole task list.

I find a flexible approach works best for me, I personally, use Asana to order my Task Dashboard into manageable and categorised sections, projects, recurring tasks and where possible tasks that are in progress or have been handed off/waiting on others.

I also have a second projects and priorities matrix which grades my projects (not smaller tasks) based on business needs and the largest potential wins, this helps me to focus my time on what really matters.

Sometimes external influences do cause your projects to creep or slip, just make sure all parties involved are kept up to date to manage delivery expectations. After all Google does like to throw an algorithm spanner in the works every now and then.

It also would not harm doing a course or two in time management. Hope that helps a touch. Feel free to reach out if you want to know more.

[BeckyKey]

Thanks for your feedback, I have used Asana and I keep lists but I probably need to get better at consolidating the lists & organising them into sections like you said.

Things here can often be disorganised and something will drop in which is completely unplanned for.

How did you put together the projects/priorities matrix? We've started organising our teams tasks into whether they directly impact our KPI's & if not the tasks drop to the bottom.

We're just being pulled on by 2 different teams, their priorities and then ours & your feel like your priorities just slip way down.

I'll see what courses they have online that sounds helpful

[TimHolmes]

HI Becky, so our priorities matrix involves both our business needs with our company values. As such we score each Project (not task) out of 5 for the following :-

• Profitability
• Positive culture
• Customer experience
• Distribution and growth

The total score then dictates the order of priority for our business. We are service lead to our scoring may differ from yours, but hopefully this gives you an idea of what we do. Our projects list is also used at board level to show what we are working.

[EGOL]

Get a big white board on the wall of your office.  Along the left side draw a vertical line and label it "PROFITABLE"...   along the bottom draw a horizontal line and label it "LINKABLE".  These are the Axes of Success.

Now plot your projects on this graph at positions along these axes.  Then organize your work to do as many jobs in the upper right quadrant as possible.

[BeckyKey]

Hi

so the linkable refers to things people link back to? What if those linkable pieces of content aren't directly profitable?

So you produce a great piece of content, but it doesn't initially drive conversions right away?

[EGOL]

We have lots of content on our retail sites.

Some is content that helps visitors use/select/maintain/repair/enjoy the products that we sell.   These pages link to where the product can be purchased, where to purchase parts, where to purchase accessories, etc.   These pages bring in more traffic than our sales pages and people who arrive at the site through these pages account for a significant number of conversions.

Some is content that is related to the niche that we sell but unrelated to the products that we sell.  These pages also bring in more traffic than our sales pages and account for a significant amount of conversions.

On all pages of our site, articles, sales, category, home, etc.... we run adsense, but block the ads of our direct competitors.  These ads bring in nice money.  Do we lose a few potential buyers through these ads?  Yes, but we don't have to do any work for the income.

[Njnbiure45r4]

I also want to know about the SEO structure in terms of content especially when you are working for an E-commerce site. I'm working for an Arabic gum product and I want to increase its organic search.