TL;DR
- SEO projects can be tough to get approved when the audience may not be as familiar.
- There are lots of ways to get approvals, but is there a formalized process that can be reused?
- Utilize this template to help push through larger projects that can have big impacts.
One of the toughest parts of SEO is getting approvals. Much of what we do in our day-to-day work seems obvious to us, but it is not to everyone, especially stakeholders who never worked in SEO or digital marketing. So how do we get approvals for larger projects that require investments in terms of money, time from the teams and more? I utilize an SEO Project Proposal Template that breaks down everything needed in an easy-to-digest format.
Project Proposal Walk Through
Cover Page
- Logo – Helpful to include your logo in the header of every page for a sense of professionalism and branding.
- Headline – Capture your audience’s attention. They should know exactly what you are looking to accomplish here. Try to keep it short and sweet.
- Project Description – Introduce your project in a sentence or two. This area can help support the headline if it is a more complex topic.
- Date – Self-explanatory, can help keep track of past initiatives.
- Issued By – Company Name.
- Representative – Who at the company is the lead here? Who is presenting?
Introduction & Background
- Intro Paragraph – What is the goal and purpose of this project? What are we trying to accomplish and why does it matter?
- List – What are the high-level steps of this project? Summarize the project in an easily digestible format for those who don’t have the time to read the entire proposal.
- Wrap-up Paragraph – Bring it home and summarize the project and explain the breakdown is listed below.
Overview & Goals
- Pages – What pages or sections of the site will this project touch?
- Purpose – What is the project? What are you looking to do? What will be optimized? What is the issue? How is optimization going to help? Why should stakeholders care?
- Opportunity – How does this help? How does this give the company/website an advantage?
- Objective – What is the task at hand? What is the goal?
- Success Metrics (KPIs) – Always need to have some sort of measurement of success or it will never get approved.
- Estimated Impact – What is the expected outcome? Similar to KPIs, but can be a bit more high-level (user satisfaction, improved crawlability, etc.).
- Considerations / Blockers – This is an important section. What could slow this project down? Bring it up early to try and get in front of it as opposed to reacting when it happens.
- Investment – Probably the most important section for stakeholders. What will this cost? Actual dollar figures help, but any breakdown of time and money needed will go a long way.
- Team Members – Who is involved? Figuring this out early will help the project go smoothly. Everyone has stuff going on, the sooner they can prepare, the better everyone will be.
- Approvals – Who needs to sign off? At what stage do they need to sign off?
- Timeframe – Also very important, when can we expect this to be done? When can we expect to see results?
Scope
- Example – This is where I like to include a real example. This brings it home, showing exactly what you want to accomplish instead of hoping people can visualize it.
- Looking to create CTAs for blogs, create a quick one to illustrate what you are trying to accomplish.
- Looking to change the navigation? Make some slight tweaks or use Miro to illustrate what you are looking for and include a screenshot.
Competitive Analysis
- Competitor Example – Similar to above, show similar examples of what you are trying to accomplish from the competition.
- Even if it is not an exact competitor, maybe someone is doing what you are trying in a different vertical. Screenshot and highlight this is a strategy we are looking to mimic and this is why.
Project Topic Resources
- Further reading for anyone curious.
- This is where you can cite sources to help further your point.
- Finding trusted sources can help any request that doesn’t have immediate data to back it.
SEO Project Resources
There is a lot of work we as SEOs do day to day that doesn’t need a full proposal. This template is for any larger projects that span multiple teams and will impact the website. There are lots of ways to present projects to stakeholders, this is just one of them. I have had a lot of success with this and feedback has been positive about how it is easily digestible. If anything is missing or additional areas you suggest please reach out to me on Twitter!
If you are looking to get involved in larger SEO projects, here are some helpful resources:
- The ultimate guide to SEO project management for digital agencies – More agency-specific, but helpful for anyone involved in SEO.
- How to Create an SEO Strategy – Build out an SEO strategy, with a template. Some larger portions may require proposals like this!
- 4 Tips for Better Managing Multiple SEO Projects At Once – If you are proposing larger projects for SEO, you are likely juggling lots of tasks. Learn how to manage those!
About Me
I am mainly using this site as a portfolio to create content that can help others in the industry. I have learned so much from people in this field and I want to do my part to help as well. I will continue to create processes and free templates that can hopefully help anyone in SEO and Digital Marketing. If there is anything you are looking for or have questions about please reach out to me on my Contact page or on Twitter!
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