SEO prioritization: How to focus on what moves the needle

If you feel like you’re being pulled in different directions with your SEO program, you aren’t alone.

How do you know where to focus first for the most impact? And when that’s done, what do you do next?

It can be challenging to decide which SEO tasks to prioritize because they all impact the end user in some way – but some more than others. This is where discernment comes into play.

This article will help you build a path to get your SEO program organized from point A to point B and figure out how to prioritize tasks to get ROI quicker.

Frameworks for identifying high-impact SEO opportunities

When every SEO task feels urgent, knowing where to focus first can make or break your strategy. These three frameworks can help you prioritize what moves the needle.

1. Technical SEO audit

A technical SEO audit is your roadmap for identifying and fixing the issues that directly impact search visibility and user experience.

The right audit reveals the most urgent technical barriers to ranking – and helps you prioritize based on impact.

But not all audits are created equal. Here’s a breakdown of the different types:

Basic SEO audit

This is where automated software scans your site and flags common SEO issues. While the insights can be helpful, they come in a generic, one-size-fits-all report.
This type of audit is ideal if you’re working with a tight budget or just want to get a basic overview before bringing in an expert.
It’s never a bad idea, but it won’t provide an in-depth analysis.

Mid-level SEO audit

Here, you can expect a professional SEO specialist or vendor to go beyond automated reports and offer additional insights that software alone might miss.
While these can pinpoint issues that require attention, they may not provide detailed solutions.
This approach is useful when you need to identify potential problem areas but aren’t ready for a full-scale SEO strategy.

Comprehensive SEO audit

This is a full technical audit conducted by experienced technical SEOs.
This deep dive involves top-tier tools, data analysis, and an in-depth website and SEO review by skilled analysts specializing in technical SEO and business strategy.
Tools assist the process, but the real value comes from expert analysis, which makes it a time-intensive but highly valuable investment.

Knowing these key differences in audits can help you make an informed decision before you invest.

Dig deeper: Technical SEO: Don’t rush the process

2. The Eisenhower Matrix

The Eisenhower Matrix is a powerful tool for prioritizing tasks by urgency and importance.

Applying it to your SEO strategy helps you determine which tasks need immediate attention and which can wait.

To get started, divide tasks into four quadrants:

Quadrant 1: Urgent and important

These are the critical issues that directly impact rankings and user experience.
For example, this could be a slow site or fixing a misconfigured robots.txt file that is blocking search engines from crawling and indexing key pages.
Whatever tasks you put in this category will be non-negotiable. Addressing these items can sometimes have an immediate impact on your ability to compete.

Quadrant 2: Important but not urgent

These will be the longer-term strategies that build sustainable growth.
For instance, maybe developing a long-term content strategy focused on topic authority and evergreen content falls here.
These efforts don’t require immediate attention but are essential for long-term SEO success.

Quadrant 3: Urgent but not important

This bucket is for handling tasks that are time-sensitive but don’t significantly influence rankings or user experience.
This could be something like responding to a minor Google Search Console alert about a non-critical issue.
While these tasks may not have a high impact, taking care of them prevents minor issues from accumulating into big projects.

Quadrant 4: Neither urgent nor important

Anything that falls into this category is something you avoid.
One example might be spending hours tweaking meta descriptions that already meet best practices without significant SEO gains.
These activities consume time and resources without delivering meaningful results.

Using the Eisenhower Matrix helps your SEO by enhancing:

Clarity: Identify and fix what demands attention now versus what can wait.
Efficiency: Prioritize the highest ROI tasks without getting bogged down.
Focus: Stay aligned with business goals, eliminating distractions.

3. The Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule)

The Pareto Principle suggests that 80% of outcomes come from 20% of efforts.

In SEO, focusing on the most impactful tasks helps you drive faster, more meaningful results without spreading yourself too thin.

Keyword targeting

It’s common for a small subset of your keywords to drive most organic traffic.

Instead of spreading your efforts thin across all keywords, focus on optimizing the ones that deliver the most value.

Use SEO tools to identify the top-performing 20% of keywords that bring in most of your traffic and conversions.
Prioritize pages that rank between Positions 5 and 20 for those high-value keywords. These are low-hanging fruit that can move up with improvements.
Expand content for high-value keywords by answering related questions and creating supporting content.

Content focus

Most of your website’s traffic and engagement likely comes from a handful of high-performing pages.

Instead of endlessly creating new content, invest in improving the 20% of pages that already generate the most traffic and leads.

Identify your top 20% of pages by traffic and conversions using analytics tools.
Revamp those pages by updating outdated content to enhance optimization and engagement.
Create supporting content to build topical authority around your best pages.

Technical fixes

Technical SEO can feel overwhelming because there’s always more to fix. But, a small subset of technical issues typically has the most impact on site performance.

Focus on fixing the top 20% of technical issues that cause 80% of your performance problems.

Prioritize high-impact fixes like:

Resolving crawl errors so search engines can access your site.
Improving page load speed for user experience and rankings.
Fixing broken links to avoid losing link equity and frustrating users.
Optimizing usability to retain visitors and improve your ability to compete in the search results.

Dig deeper: Prioritizing SEO strategies: Where to focus your efforts

Having a framework for approaching your SEO program helps you stay organized.

Within that framework, you must consider how you will execute both short-term wins and longer-term strategies.

Balancing long-term strategies with quick wins

To succeed in SEO, you must balance short-term wins with long-term growth.

Quick wins can show immediate improvements, but foundational efforts are what build lasting authority.

To achieve the best results, it’s important to defer resources to both.

Quick wins

Quick wins are tactical SEO tasks that can be implemented quickly to produce noticeable results.

These tasks usually involve optimizing existing content or resolving certain technical issues.

They may not require large investments of time or resources but can lead to meaningful improvements in rankings, traffic, or user experience.

What constitutes a quick win?

Tasks that are simple to implement.
Things that address known website performance issues.
Fixes that improve both search engine visibility and user experience.

Examples of SEO quick wins include:

Fixing technical errors, like resolving 404 pages, broken links, and crawl issues.
Improving site speed.
Optimizing existing content by adding internal links, updating outdated information, or including relevant keywords.

Quick wins are valuable because they deliver early signs of progress. This helps build momentum and gain stakeholder buy-in.

However, relying solely on quick wins isn’t enough to achieve a sustainable SEO program.

That’s where long-term strategies come in.

Long-term strategies

Long-term strategies require more time and effort but are key to creating a strong foundation.

These strategies help your website become more authoritative, trustworthy, and relevant in the eyes of both search engines and your audience.

Examples of long-term strategies include:

Content creation that targets important keywords and answers user questions in-depth. Try SEO siloing to build authority around a topic.
Earning backlinks through your high-quality content and partnerships.
Refreshing top-performing content to make sure it remains evergreen and relevant. I recommend spending 50% of your content resources on maintaining older but high-performing content.
Continuing education so you can stay ahead of the curve. Consider annual SEO training with additional learning opportunities throughout the year. Search evolves fast, and you want to be able to forecast what’s coming up so you can start working on it early.

Foundational efforts don’t deliver instant results, but as your site’s authority grows, you’ll see compounding benefits with higher rankings, more traffic, and increased user trust.

Fast gains, lasting growth: Crafting a balanced SEO plan

A good SEO roadmap should include both short-term quick wins and long-term projects. But where to start?

Here’s one scenario: You could focus 70% of your time on quick wins early on to show immediate results and 30% on long-term efforts.

Over time, you might adjust the balance to a 50/50 split as your site becomes more stable and foundational work becomes a bigger priority.

Dig deeper: 3 quick SEO wins to kick-start growth next year

Focus on what matters most for lasting results

Prioritizing your SEO strategies is the key to driving meaningful results.

SEO isn’t about doing everything at once. It’s about doing the right things at the right time.

When you focus on high-impact tasks and continuously refine your approach, you’ll build a more competitive search engine presence that pays off for years to come.