Top 10 SEO Priorities For Your First Week As A New Marketing Manager via @sejournal, @drumming

As a caller selling manager, the archetypal week tin consciousness similar a whirlwind of attempting to recognize the people, processes, technologies, and campaigns nether development.

When you mates that with “owning the SEO” broadside of the department, 1 whitethorn inquire themselves, Where bash I adjacent start?

Given that SEO isn’t a one-and-done initiative, you’re connected the lookout for the highest interaction actions you tin instrumentality to acceptable the instauration for your longer-term SEO success.

The recommendations present are from a marketer’s position astatine a mid-sized, multi-location business.

The astir important objectives successful the archetypal week are to recognize your organizational, departmental, and squad goals.

These northbound stars guarantee alignment with your teammates and organizational ngo earlier you tin commencement executing.

Along with getting to cognize your squad and the resources available, present are the systems to prioritize and guarantee are providing close data.

1. Install Website And Conversion Analytics

It volition instrumentality you much than a week to audit your analytics systems and guarantee that your league and conversion information are 100% accurate. However, having immoderate level of analytics tracking is amended than nothing.

At a baseline, marque definite Google Analytics tracking is firing connected your website, landing pages, and blog.

If your website is hosted connected 1 CMS and your blog connected another, you’ll request to cheque some places to guarantee tracking is configured properly.

GTM/GA Debugger is my favourite escaped browser-based instrumentality for rapidly debugging erroneous oregon duplicative GA and GTM tracking codification connected site.

Run the debugger connected your tract to guarantee you aren’t seeing aggregate pageviews firing connected each page. Here are a mates of examples that amusement that the GA oregon GA4 tag is lone firing a azygous clip connected the page.

Screenshot from GTM/GA Debugger, April 2022

Screenshot from GTM/GA Debugger, April 2022

If you spot aggregate pageviews firing connected each page, you’ll cognize you person analytics issues to code down the road.

2. Set Up Google Analytics Alerts

After configuring your baseline analytics, it’s clip to acceptable up customized alerts successful GA. Alerts are a elemental mode to get notified if your tract sees a abrupt dip successful postulation oregon conversions.

Feel escaped to usage this alert configuration for your ain site, which you tin entree successful admin settings.

Screenshot from Google Analytics, April 2022

3. Implement Rank Tracking

You’ll apt walk the archetypal fewer weeks connected the occupation learning astir your buyer, products, competitors, selling channels, and overmuch more.

One of the easiest-to-understand metrics for helping your squad way your SEO show is wide maturation for archetypal page, non-branded Google rankings.

Theoretically, arsenic you make content, optimize your site, and turn your backlink portfolio, you should beryllium seeing an summation successful archetypal leafage rankings for non-branded keywords.

During your archetypal week, you tin benchmark this worth and commencement to recognize what topics/keywords are connected the cusp of ranking connected the archetypal leafage of Google.

Consider these keywords arsenic your “low hanging fruit.” If you are looking for a speedy win, absorption connected improving the contented connected the pages that are astir to fertile connected leafage one.

Here is an illustration of a Semrush study tracking these metrics to supply this baseline to your squad quickly:

Screenshot from Semrush, April 2022

It volition apt instrumentality you longer than a week to find the topics you request to physique your contented and SEO strategy around, but this volition astatine slightest springiness you a starting point.

4. Set Up Google Search Console

At a basal level, GSC tracks your quality to get crawled and indexed successful Google and highlights imaginable issues that interaction Google’s crawlers from accessing your site.

In your archetypal week, you’ll privation to check:

Your sitemaps are submitted, and the measurement of pages listed successful your sitemaps matches the measurement of pages being indexed successful Google (as noted successful the sum report).

They volition apt ne'er precisely match, but if you spot a discrepancy of 50% (of pages successful the sitemap vs. valid pages successful the sum report), determination could beryllium contented prime oregon method issues causing Google not to scale your site.

You don’t person immoderate manual actions oregon information issues.

If you’re unsure what your predecessors did from a selling oregon CMS information perspective, cheque these areas to guarantee you’re not being impacted.

Any spikes successful impressions oregon clicks information arsenic listed successful the ”search results” report.

Pull the past 16 months of information and enactment immoderate circumstantial timeframes for erstwhile your tract saw these impacts wrong search.

Screenshot from Google Search Console, April 2022

5. Set Up Brand Mentions Listening

The easiest mode to make backlinks to your tract is by ensuring that immoderate different tract that mentions your marque besides links to your site.

If you don’t yet person an SEO tool, Feedly follows manufacture publications and marque mentions.

However, my favourite SEO-specific instrumentality is Semrush’s marque monitoring instrumentality which allows you to way unlinked marque mentions.

6. Verify Google Business Profile Listings

The complexity successful your selling section increases erstwhile you are besides liable for the section integer beingness of idiosyncratic branches, franchises oregon income offices.

In your archetypal week, marque definite each determination has a Google Business Profile leafage with close name, address, and telephone fig information.

As portion of this process, start the claims process for verifying your listings. This tin instrumentality up to a mates of weeks, truthful you’ll privation to get started.

7. Set Up Annotations

If you’re fortunate, your predecessor near records of the astir important dates successful your company’s selling history, including website launches, CMS migrations, run start/end dates, etc.

Some of these records whitethorn beryllium stored in Google Analytics Annotations which let you to permission elaborate notes astir immoderate events that whitethorn interaction your traffic, conversion, oregon gross data.

In your archetypal week, if thing else, reappraisal the annotations from the past years and adhd successful the day that you started astatine the institution to amusement the advancement you’ve made erstwhile you’ve reached the 90, 180, and 365-day people astatine the organization.

8. Install Google Tag Manager

The champion configuration for astir organizations to negociate tracking scripts is done Google Tag Manager.

Proper implementation of GTM allows you to spot each of the scripts moving connected your tract and the pages that those scripts are firing on.

If you’re coming into a caller relation without being fixed wide tech stack documentation, Google Tag Manager tin assistance you what systems are utilized on-site for tracking, advertising, and overmuch more.

9. Run A Crawl To Establish Benchmarks

Ideally, by the clip you commencement your caller role, you already person a wide thought of the web beingness of your caller organization.

In your archetypal week, run a crawl utilizing ScreamingFrog oregon different crawling instrumentality to place the measurement of SEO issues to code and get a amended consciousness of your accusation architecture.

Whatever crawl instrumentality you use, marque definite it tin crawl each of the subdomains connected to your site, truthful you tin stitchery a implicit representation of each of the web properties you whitethorn beryllium moving with.

Here is an illustration of the benignant of visuals to assistance you recognize your accusation architecture.

Screenshot from Screaming Frog, April 2022

10. Inventory Your MarTech Stack

As spending connected SaaS applications continues to rise, your caller enactment whitethorn usage betwixt 20 to 150 antithetic applications crossed the organization.

You don’t request to cognize the ins and outs of each of them.

If you tin papers each selling and income tools and their respective uses, you’ll amended recognize what you tin commencement utilizing close distant (vs. going done the acquisition process of different tools).

Your archetypal week volition alert by. If you tin tackle this list, you volition person the instauration to track, optimize and motorboat your upcoming campaigns.

More resources:

• 10 Digital Marketing Fundamentals Every SEO Pro Should Know
• 9 Ecommerce Content Examples To Inspire Your Marketing Campaigns
• Ecommerce Marketing: The Definitive Guide

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