10 hard-earned lessons about annual planning for SEO

I’ve messed up annual planning often enough to know that it’s a critical time of the year.

I hope these tips help you learn from my mistakes:

First, no plan is perfect but planning is important. The planning process can be frustrating because it’s difficult and abstract. However, thinking about the upcoming year – at least big tickets – provides structure and alignment.

Second, start with the big rocks. Don’t get lost in details but first think about the 3-8 projects or outcomes that have to land. Spend a lot of time on getting the top priority projects right because the reality is that we get a lot less done than we think.

Third, factor in a slow ramp up of organic traffic when launching new projects. Launching new pages doesn’t yield traffic right away. Ideally, take past performance to predict future performance, even though it’s not perfect.

Fourth, as a leader you need to involve your team(s) when planning. Executing a plan you weren’t part of is demotivating. Defining the goals or objectives and letting your team develop a plan to get there is a good approach. Iterate with your team through a few back-and-forth rounds of feedback to get it right.

Fifth, when you’ve created a plan, build a dashboard to track the results. What gets measured gets done.

Sixth, set up a Slack/Teams channel for each big bet to keep the conversation focused. It’s easy to get sidetracked from top priorities, which means you need to stay disciplined. A dedicated channel in your communications tool of choice forces you to only work on the top priorities.

Seventh, if maintenance, platformance, or defense work is important, make it part of the plan. Give it capacity. Too many companies don’t want to put non-incremental work on the roadmap and then miss goals because they don’t have enough capacity for incremental work.

Eight, share your plan with the executives. Upwards alignment is critical to get funding and avoid hard questions.

Ninth, share your plan with peer teams. Sideways alignment is important to get support from other teams and ensure you’re not caught off guard.

Tenth, to come up with important objectives and projects for next year, keep track of your ideas and observations during the year. Nothing makes annual planning easier than already having a list of high-potential ideas.

my team is an army of one man, but appreciate it

I will save these 10 steps, to re-read them from time to time.

They are also good to follow when we talk about daily planning, both for your own team and to plan your day individually.

I myself have been practicing planning for several months.
In the evening, I plan my activities for the next day. Even if I don't always manage to do everything on the list, at least I do some of them, which without planning I wouldn't have been able to do that day. Planning allows me to focus on the important things.

The greatest advantage of planning is that it helps me accomplish tasks that I consistently postpone.
The type of activities that "I'll do it tomorrow," and then end up pushing them to the following Monday, then the next month, and even the next year, until they eventually fade away and never get done.

Something we all could implement with ease
Good one

Geasy said:

Executing a plan you weren’t part of is demotivating.

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Man, does this hit home. I've always felt this when I was the one executing, and also when someone else had to execute it for me. Thanks, being aware of this will be really helpful.