How to Develop an SEO Strategy: From Goals and Current Performance to Execution

An SEO strategy should begin by defining the business outcomes the website should achieve, whom it serves, and the topics and search touchpoints where it will compete. Next, assess the website’s current state and prioritize work based on expected impact, staffing, time, and budget. It is not just a checklist of publishing content, building links, or modifying the website, but a plan that connects goals, trade-offs, measurement, and execution.

Define outcomes and audiences before choosing the work

Semrush’s strategy framework includes six decisions: goals, audiences, topic areas, positioning, touchpoints where the brand should appear, and measurement. Keyword research, competitive analysis, content, links, and technical optimization should all support these decisions rather than simply add to the workload.

• Goals: What business outcomes should search visibility deliver? Measurement should align with those outcomes.
• Audiences and topics: Whom does the website serve, where do they look for answers, and which queries should the website compete for?
• Positioning and trade-offs: What credible expertise or strengths does the website offer, and which topics will it avoid competing on for now?

For example, the fictional customer service software company in the source material chooses to serve midsize businesses evaluating platforms, focus on comparison queries, and measure results through qualified demo requests. This provides clearer direction than “publish four comparison articles per month”; publishing volume is part of execution, not the strategy itself.

Establish a baseline from the website’s current state rather than guessing from total traffic

Before setting priorities, assess current performance. Semrush’s enterprise SEO audit recommendations cover technical health, a content inventory, rankings and organic traffic, conversions, and AI visibility. This is an assessment framework for enterprise websites, not a requirement for every website to conduct checks on the same scale.

Google’s Search Console documentation explains that search performance can be viewed by query, page, and country or region. When traffic falls, investigating the decline first can help prioritize work rather than immediately increasing publishing volume.

• Content inventory: Which pages already exist, are outdated, or do not yet cover target keywords?
• Technical checks: Do the affected pages have crawling or indexing issues?
• Performance baseline: Record traffic, rankings, and conversions for relevant pages or sections to enable comparisons after changes.

Factor impact, cost, and collaboration needs into the schedule

Prioritization should consider not only expected benefits but also costs and available resources. Semrush lists indexing issues and website speed as examples of work that may take priority. Actual priorities must still reflect the website’s problems and business goals; these examples should not be treated as a fixed sequence of tasks.

The execution checklist should also specify who will handle each task and whose approval is needed. For example, changes to code or templates involve the engineering team, while content updates may fall to the content or marketing team. According to the project planning recommendations in the source material, the task list and schedule should be discussed with the team and agreed upon before commitments are made. Only then does the strategy move from “what we want to do” to a resourced plan with trackable progress.