Prioritizing SEO initiatives within a roadmap

Justin McKinney, Director of SEO, Content, and Social Strategy at Aspiration, delves into SEO roadmap prioritization and RFP success strategies. Before diving into roadmap development, it's crucial to evangelize SEO and organic growth throughout your company. A clear and cohesive strategy sets the stage for constructive discussions with stakeholders when prioritizing initiatives within the roadmap. Today, Justin discusses prioritizing SEO initiatives within a roadmap.
About the speaker

Justin McKinney

Aspiration

 is a little camera shy

Justin is Director of SEO, Content, and Social Strategy at Aspiration

Show Notes

  • 01:39
    Aspirations focus on sustainability and climate action
    Aspiration is a financial technology company that offers similar products to other FinTech companies, like checking and savings accounts, debit cards, and investment options. What sets them apart is their focus on sustainability and climate action.
  • 03:23
    SEO roadmap development
    This process starts with understanding the business goals and marketing objectives, followed by conducting website, content, and competitor audits and keyword research. Finally, create a customized SEO plan that aligns with business goals, and prioritize the most impactful activities.
  • 05:26
    Balancing best practices and business needs in an SEO roadmap
    Ensure the website is indexable, content is visible to search engines, and performance metrics are satisfactory. Then, focus on identifying growth opportunities that align with company goals, ensuring SEO efforts contribute to revenue, leads, etc, rather than just website health.
  • 06:56
    Evaluating new investment areas for an SEO roadmap
    Before incorporating new efforts, assess the potential market impact and necessary resources. Calculate projections to determine the initiative's return on investment, ensuring it aligns with business goals and is worth pursuing over other priorities.
  • 10:24
    Facilitating SEO roadmap prioritization discussions
    Before roadmap development, educate stakeholders on SEO and your strategy, evangelizing SEO and organic growth at the company. Then, adopt a prioritization model that is aligned with existing frameworks used by other company teams like product, engineering, and brand.
  • 14:06
    Refining prioritization models
    Models should be used as a starting point, not the final decision-maker on prioritization. Adjust inputs based on discussions with leaders across product and engineering to ensure outputs make sense mathematically and align with stakeholder expertise on the biggest priorities.

Quotes

  • "SEO must be supporting company growth, and not just web health and maintenance. It must be accountable for generating revenue, leads, etc." - Justin McKinney

  • "Before roadmap development, it's vital to evangelize SEO and organic growth within the company. Educate stakeholders upfront to streamline discussions and focus on initiatives rather than explaining basic SEO principles." - Justin McKinney

  • "Prioritization models are tools, not ironclad systems. Use collective brainpower to tweak them for outputs that mathematically make sense and align with your expertise's biggest priorities." - Justin McKinney

About the speaker

Justin McKinney

Aspiration

 is a little camera shy

Justin is Director of SEO, Content, and Social Strategy at Aspiration

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