Create a prioritization plan for SEO work

SEO has no shortage of things to do. The challenge is rarely finding work — it's deciding what to do first. Without a clear prioritization framework, it's easy to spend time on tasks that feel productive but don't move the needle. This article walks you through how to think about prioritization across the three areas that matter most right now: technical and on-page SEO, content optimization, and authority.

Why prioritization matters more than ever

Search has gotten more competitive, more nuanced, and less forgiving of wasted effort. Google's ability to evaluate content quality, relevance, and authority means that doing more doesn't automatically mean ranking better. The SEO programs that compound over time are the ones that consistently work on the right things — not the most things. A good prioritization plan gives every task a reason to exist and keeps your efforts focused on outcomes your business can actually measure.

What is the highest impact SEO work right now?

Before diving into categories, it helps to understand what Google is rewarding in the current environment. The highest-impact work tends to fall into three buckets:

1. On-Page and Technical SEO: Making sure your site is healthy enough to be crawled and indexed properly

2. Content Optimization: Making sure your existing content is the best possible answer for the queries it targets

3. Relevant, Authoritative Content: Making sure new content you create serves a clear search intent that aligns with your business goals and ICPs' pain points, challenges, and jobs to be done

Let's break down a general prioritization framework for each of these:

How to prioritize technical and on-page SEO

Technical SEO is the foundation everything else sits on. If Google can't crawl, index, or understand your site, no amount of great content will save you. That said, not all technical issues are created equal — a slow image on a low-traffic page is not the same as a critical page being blocked from indexing.

Prioritize technical work in this order: indexing issues first, then crawlability, then page experience, then everything else. In SEO Gets, the Indexing tab gives you a clear view of pages at risk of de-indexing and URLs that aren't being indexed at all. Start there before addressing anything else.

For on-page SEO, the highest-leverage work is almost always on pages that already have some visibility. Improving a title tag or meta description on a page with 10,000 monthly impressions and a 1.2% CTR will deliver more impact than perfecting the on-page elements of a page nobody visits. Use CTR benchmarking data to find these opportunities and prioritize accordingly.

How to prioritize content optimization

The fastest wins in content optimization come from pages already in Google's consideration set. Two reports tell you exactly where they are: the Content Decay Map and Striking Distance Keywords.

Start with decay. Pages losing clicks, impressions, or position still have authority and history working in their favor — a focused refresh almost always outperforms creating something new. Prioritize "Critical" pages first, with extra urgency on anything tied to conversions or revenue. Then move to striking distance. Pages already ranking in positions 3–20 are close to winning — a targeted update is often all it takes to push them to page one. Work through these in order of traffic potential, focusing on queries tied to your ICP and bottom-of-funnel content.

Together, these two reports give you a clear, data-backed optimization queue that delivers results faster than anything you could build from scratch.

What to prioritize when creating net new content

New content should pass a simple test before a word gets written: does this page serve a specific job that a real member of your ICP is actively trying to get done? The highest-value pages you can create map directly to moments where your ICP is evaluating solutions, comparing options, or solving a problem your product addresses — think feature pages, comparison content, use case pages, and solution-specific landing pages. Beyond bottom-of-funnel content, prioritize pages that build topical authority in areas your ICP cares about most, organized into topic clusters so every new page contributes to a measurable goal rather than just adding to your page count.

Tighten your focus to manage the scope of work required

Before you prioritize anything, decide what you're prioritizing for, such as:

• A single domain

• Or better, a targeted portion of the site

• Scoping out priorities for a single content group helps focus your work even further

• If you're focused on addressing issues that impact an idea (or set of ideas), you can prioritize by topic cluster

OR

• Indexing issues

• 3xx/4xx errors

• URL restructuring

• Content decay

• Low-hanging fruit ranking opportunities

This matters because a mixed backlog is hard to address. You can't really get in the zone to complete work efficiently. A blog refresh, an index issue, and a cannibalization problem might all be important, but they serve different goals. Narrowing your scope makes the next steps much easier.

Build your action plan

Once your scope is clear, collect opportunities from a few reports instead of relying on instinct. In SEO Gets, the best starting points are:

1. Striking Distance Report for keywords that are already close to page-one wins.

2. Content Decay Heatmap for pages that used to perform better and may need an update.

3. Keyword Cannibalization Tool for pages competing against each other for the same terms.

4. Index reporting if your priority is fixing index health before creating more content.

You don't need a huge list. Start with 10 to 20 realistic opportunities. A short list is easier to prioritize and complete. You'll avoid analysis paralysis and maintain focus on closing out tasks.

Prioritize quick wins first

The fastest wins usually come from pages and queries that already have traction. SEO Gets' striking distance report is a strong place to begin because it helps you find queries that are already within reach.

Look for work where:

• the page already ranks and needs improvement, not a full rebuild

• the query is close enough to winning more clicks with better optimization

• the page supports an important business topic, service, or conversion path

These are usually easier to move than brand-new content ideas because Google already understands the page and query relationship.

Prioritize pages that are losing momentum

Not every priority should be a new opportunity. Some of your best SEO work comes from protecting traffic you already earned.

Use the Content Decay Heatmap or review pages that need updating to find content that is slipping. If a page used to perform well and now trends down, that often deserves attention before you create something new.

These pages are good candidates when:

• the page covers an important topic

• the content is outdated or incomplete

• the decline affects a page or group of pages you care about most

For a deeper page-refresh workflow, use How to find pages that need updating or improving.

Fix internal conflicts before adding more content

If two or more pages are competing for the same keyword, creating another page usually makes the problem worse. That's why cannibalization cleanup often belongs near the top of your plan.

The SEO Gets Keyword Cannibalization Tool helps you spot these conflicts and surfaces a priority level so you can focus on the most important ones first.

Move these issues up your list when:

• multiple valuable pages target the same topic

• rankings or clicks are split across similar URLs

• you're unsure whether to merge, redirect, or retarget pages

Cleaning up overlap often makes the rest of your content plan clearer.

Group related work so you can prioritize themes, not just pages

Page-by-page prioritization breaks down fast on larger sites. SEO Gets gives you two useful ways to zoom out:

• Content Groups for collections like blog posts, product pages, SaaS landing pages, or pSEO pages

• Topic Clusters for grouping related content by topic and then filtering by popular, growing, or decaying performance

This helps you answer bigger questions, like whether an entire topic needs work or whether one content type is underperforming.

If you manage multiple clients or a large site, theme-level prioritization is often more useful than comparing single URLs across the whole account.

Rank each item by impact, effort, and confidence

After you gather opportunities, sort them with a simple scoring method. You don't need a complicated framework. A practical plan usually scores each item on:

• Impact: How much upside could this create if it works?

• Effort: How much time will it take to fix, refresh, merge, or create?

• Confidence: How strong is the signal from your SEO Gets reports?

A striking distance page with clear upside and low effort should usually outrank a speculative new page that needs research, writing, design, and internal links.

When two items look similar, prioritize the one that:

• supports a more important business page or topic

• can be completed faster

• removes a blocker for other SEO work

Turn the ranked list into a real plan

Once you've scored the work, turn them into a short action plan for the next cycle. Keep it small enough to finish.

A simple weekly plan might include:

1. 2 to 3 quick-win optimization updates from striking distance keywords

2. 1 to 2 decaying pages to refresh

3. 3-5 cannibalization issue to resolve

4. 1 larger content or index-health project if capacity allows

This gives you a mix of fast wins and deeper fixes without letting one kind of work take over your backlog.

Review the results and reprioritize

Your prioritization plan should change as performance changes. After you ship the work, check the same reports again and look for movement.

Use shared annotations if your team wants a visible record of when work was published or updated. If you need to share the plan or results with clients, you can also use shared links to give no-login access to dashboards.

Then repeat the process:

1. collect fresh opportunities

2. remove completed items

3. re-score what's left

4. build the next short list

That's how prioritization stays useful. It becomes an ongoing system, not a one-time spreadsheet exercise.

A simple prioritization roadmap

Use this order as your starting point. Adjust based on your site's specific situation, but the logic holds for most SEO programs.

Phase 1 — Fix what's broken: Resolve indexing issues and pages at risk of de-indexing. Nothing else matters if your pages aren't being seen by Google.

Phase 2 — Protect what's working: Identify your highest-value pages — the ones tied to revenue, leads, or retention — and make sure they're healthy. Check for decay, cannibalization, and CTR underperformance on these pages before anything else.

Phase 3 — Maximize what's close: Work through your striking distance keywords. These are the fastest ranking wins available to you because the page already exists and is already close. A focused update is often all it takes.

Phase 4 — Resolve what's competing: Audit for keyword cannibalization and clean up any overlap. Two pages fighting for the same query is wasted effort on both sides.

Phase 5 — Build what's missing: Now create new content — but only for queries where no existing page can reasonably compete. Start with bottom-of-funnel pages and work upward.

Phase 6 — Monitor and iterate: Set up content groups and topic clusters in SEO Gets to track performance across your priority areas. Review weekly, annotate every change, and use the data to decide what moves to the top of the list next week.

The goal of a prioritization plan isn't to do less — it's to make sure everything you do has basis and a measurable outcome attached to it. Work the phases in order, stay close to your data, and your efforts will start to compound in the right direction.

Next, go deeper with striking distance keywords, page update opportunities, or cannibalization cleanup.