RISK MANAGEMENT IN SEO

An active and ongoing SEO project always has risk.

Table of Content

1. What is SEO Risk

Management

2. Risk Components

3. SEO Risk Event

4. Impact of SEO Risk

5. Risk Management

Process

6. Risk Management

benefits

SEO Risk Management is the practice of assessing and controlling SEO risk that affects the SEO project, process, or product.

What is SEO Risk Management?

Risk Event Impact Process Benefits

Categories

Risk Components

Website redesign during SEO ongoing projects

Migration to a new CMS

Google updates search algorithm unexpectedly

Important backlink is being devaluated

SEO Risk Event

Google's Penguin #3 Update - Oct 5, 2012

Google's Panda #21 — Nov 5, 2012

Google's EMD Update – Sept 27, 2012

Google's Panda #22 — Nov 21, 2012

Risk Categories

• Website Redesign

• Competitors follow their own SEO

strategy and bias success of your

SEO efforts• Change of Google search algorithm

• Caused by frequent change requests

or defects• Delays, dependencies, wrong

estimates or multiple critical paths

• Outsourcing, distributed teams, integration of new -- team members

Known Risks

Unknown Risks

Scope Risks

Schedule Risks

Resource-based Risks

Impact of SEO Risk Multiple pages vanish from index

Google sweeps that take websites from the top of the

rankings to off the first page altogether.

Drop in SEO Traffic after a Website Redesign:

Client won’t pay because he is not satisfied.

Context of Risk Management

Risk managem

ent

Stakeholder

management

Software

development

Knowledgemanagemen

t

IT and technical

administration

Requirements

management

Estimation and

controlling of effort

Web

development

Context of Risk ManagementStakeholder Management recognize and acknowledge stakeholder's needs, concerns, wants, authority, common relationships, interfaces and align this information within the Stakeholder Matrix.

Software development efforts estimation is the process of predicting the most realistic use of effort required to develop or maintain software based on incomplete, uncertain and/or noisy input. Effort estimates may be used as input to project plans, iteration plans, budgets, and investment analyses, pricing processes and bidding rounds.Requirements management is the process of documenting, analyzing, tracing, prioritizing and agreeing on requirements and then controlling change and communicating to relevant stakeholders. It is a continuous process throughout a project. A requirement is a capability to which a project outcome (product or service) should conform.Estimation and controlling of effort- These estimates are used to estimate the effort for a given task and, in the hands of a business user/project manager, added up to get the completion date for the project as a whole.

Risk Management Process

Identify risks

Analyze risks

Prioritize risks

Risk management

Risk monitoring

Ris

k M

an

ag

em

en

t Pla

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ing

Risk management benefits• Future problems are recognized and can

be eliminated in due time

• Incentive to deal with project more

intensely

• Incentive to deal with project

stakeholders more intensely

• Promotion of censorious thinking in

project team

• More successful projects

• Risk management as a team building

activity

• Continuous improvement of project

management

SEO DISASTER DURING A WEBSITE REDESIGN

A Steep Drop in SEO Traffic after a Website Redesign

SEO Case Studies

SEO DISASTER DURING A WEBSITE REDESIGN

SEO Traffic Dropping Twice After CMS Migration:

SEO Case Studies

SEO DISASTER DURING A WEBSITE REDESIGN

SEO Case Studies

Identify risks

Crawl Your Site. Know Your Site.

Perform an Inbound Link Analysis

The 301 Redirection Plan

SEO Technical Audits

SEO DISASTER DURING A WEBSITE REDESIGN

SEO Case Studies

Analyzing Site Reporting During a Redesign

Analyzing On-Page Optimization

Google Webmaster Analysis

Analyze risks

SEO DISASTER DURING A WEBSITE REDESIGN

SEO Case Studies

Don’t Stop Optimization During the Redesign or Migration

Focus on 301 Redirection

Keep the same URL structure as your original website when redesigning or migrating a website, if possible

Prioritize risks

SEO DISASTER DURING A WEBSITE REDESIGN

SEO Case Studies

Prioritize risks - Optimization

SEO DISASTER DURING A WEBSITE REDESIGN

SEO Case Studies

Prioritize risks - Optimization

SEO DISASTER DURING A WEBSITE REDESIGN

SEO Case Studies

Prioritize risks - Redirects

SEO DISASTER DURING A WEBSITE REDESIGN

SEO Case Studies

Finding Code Problems That Can Damage SEO

Summary – Preparing for Redesigns and CMS Migrations is Critically Important

Risk management

Risk monitoring

SEO DISASTER DURING A WEBSITE REDESIGN

SEO Case Studies

Check status of risks continuously. Risk status shouldbe part of every status meeting.

Are there new risks to be analyzed?

Has there been a change of risk priorities? Is thetop-list of risks still up-to-date?

LIST OF REFERENCES