SEO strategy template with a worked example

SEO strategy template

An SEO strategy sets out which searches a site should be found for and the technical, content and authority work needed to rank for them. It is owned by the head of SEO and agreed with the leaders of marketing, ecommerce and the engineering team that maintains the site.

Horizon: 1 year4 priorities · 10 outcomes

Use this template

What this sEO strategy template includes

ContextThe situation, the challenges to solve, and what is deliberately left out.
Current performanceWhere organic search stands today.
Keyword themesThe groups of searches to target and the page that should rank for each.
Technical prioritiesThe site issues that hold rankings back, in order of impact.
Content planThe pages to create, update or consolidate.
Links and authorityHow the site will earn links and mentions.
Priorities and measuresThree to five priorities, each with an owner, outcomes with a baseline and target, and the initiatives behind them.

SEO strategy example

A complete sEO strategy for a fictional organization: online furniture retailer selling sofas, dining and bedroom furniture direct to consumers.

Worked exampleSEO strategy

Organization	Online furniture retailer selling sofas, dining and bedroom furniture direct to consumers (140 staff)
Ambition	Put our category pages on page one for the searches that sell furniture, so organic search earns a third of revenue and paid shopping ads carry less of it.
Horizon	1 year

Context

Where we are and what we are choosing

Revenue is $58 million from about 7,500 orders a month at an average of $640. Paid shopping ads bring 46% of revenue and cost $5.4 million a year. Organic search brings 410,000 visits a month and 24% of revenue. Of 62,500 indexed URLs, 38,000 are filter combinations with near-identical content and 14,000 are discontinued products. Category pages load their product grid in the browser, so crawlers see 12 of 60 products. Only 9 of our 120 priority category terms rank in the top 10, and 41% of mobile URLs pass Core Web Vitals.

Challenges

Crawl budget is spent on 52,000 thin or dead URLs while the 420 category pages that should rank are half-invisible to crawlers.
Category pages have no copy and product pages reuse manufacturer descriptions that appear on a dozen other retailers.
We have 1,850 referring domains against a median of 6,200 for the five retailers that outrank us, and most of ours point to the home page.

We will focus on

Category and subcategory pages, where commercial searches land and 70% of organic revenue is earned.
Indexing discipline: a small set of pages worth ranking, each fully crawlable.
Links earned through our own sales and returns data, aimed at category pages.

We will not

Decor trend and inspiration articles. They attract visits but convert at 0.05%, and the 310 existing posts will be consolidated instead of added to.
Indexable pages for every filter combination. Only the 600 combinations with proven search demand get a static page.
Replatforming the storefront this year. Rendering and speed will be fixed within the current platform, at the cost of some workarounds.

Current performance

Monthly organic visits	410,000 a month, a third of all sessions. 262,000 are non-brand. Organic visits convert at 0.44% and bring $1.16 million a month in revenue.
Ranking keywords	48,000 keywords rank in the top 100 and 3,100 in the top 10. Of 120 priority category terms, 9 are on page one.
Referring domains	1,850, against a median of 6,200 for the five retailers that outrank us. Only 14 category pages have five or more referring domains.
Main weakness	Crawl waste and rendering. 52,000 of 62,500 indexed URLs are thin filter pages or discontinued products, and category product grids are rendered in the browser.

Keyword themes

Theme	Search intent	Monthly searches	Target page
Sofas and sectionals by type	Commercial	410,000	Sofa category and subcategory pages
Dining tables by material and size	Commercial	165,000	Static filter landing pages
Small-space furniture	Commercial	120,000	Curated collection pages
Measuring and buying guides	Informational	95,000	Guide hub linked from each category
Fabric and material comparisons	Commercial investigation	60,000	Material pages linking to filtered categories
Brand and product names	Navigational	210,000	Home page and product pages

Technical priorities

Render the product grid on the server for all 420 category and subcategory pages, so every product and link is in the initial HTML.
Set faceted navigation rules: 600 high-demand filter combinations become static, indexable pages; the other 37,400 are set to noindex, dropped from sitemaps and internal links, and blocked in robots.txt only after they have left the index.
Handle 14,000 discontinued product URLs: redirect to the successor product or parent category, and keep the page with alternatives where it has external links.
Bring largest contentful paint on mobile category pages from 3.9 seconds to under 2.5 by resizing hero images, preloading the first row of the grid and deferring third-party scripts.
Add valid product, price, availability and review structured data to all 9,400 product pages. It validates on 55% today.
Rebuild breadcrumbs and related-category links so no category page sits more than three clicks from the home page.

Content plan

Action	Pages	Why
Update	120 priority category pages	Add an intro, buying considerations and FAQs to pages that have no copy and earn most of the revenue
Create	600 static filter landing pages	Capture long-tail searches that combine type, material, color and size
Update	Top 1,000 product pages	Replace manufacturer copy with our own dimensions, materials, care and delivery details
Create	40 measuring and buying guides	Answer pre-purchase questions and pass internal links to categories
Consolidate	310 blog posts into about 90	Overlapping trend posts compete with each other and with category pages

Links and authority

Approach	Digital PR built on our own data: an annual report on sofa returns by fabric and size, delivery damage rates and what buyers measure wrong. Add a trade program for interior designers and product loans for home shoots. No paid links or guest post networks.
Target sites	National and regional home and interiors publications, newspaper home sections, interior designers' portfolio sites and suppliers' stockist pages.
Monthly goal	35 new referring domains a month, at least 4 from national home publications and at least half pointing to a category or guide page.

Priorities and measures

Priority 1Owner: Technical SEO Lead

Stop wasting crawl on pages that should not exist

Five in six indexed URLs are thin filter pages or dead products. Until that is cleaned up and category grids are crawlable, content and links will underperform.

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
Indexed URLs that are thin or discontinued	52K URLs	2,000 URLs	Q2 2027
Mobile URLs passing Core Web Vitals	41%	85%	Q3 2027
Product pages with valid structured data	55%	98%	Q2 2027

Initiatives

Ship server-side rendering for category product grids
Apply the faceted navigation rules and submit clean sitemaps
Redirect or retire the 14,000 discontinued product URLs
Add an SEO check to the release process for template changes

Targets are illustrative. Adapt them to your baseline before you start.

Priority 2Owner: Head of SEO

Rank category pages for the terms that sell furniture

Only 9 of 120 priority terms are on page one, and category pages carry no copy. These pages earn most organic revenue, so they come before any new editorial content.

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
Priority category terms ranking in the top 10	9 terms	55 terms	Q4 2027
Monthly non-brand organic visits	262K visits	420K visits	Q4 2027

Initiatives

Rewrite the 120 priority category pages with intros, buying considerations and FAQs
Launch the 600 static filter landing pages in three batches, starting with dining tables
Rewrite the top 1,000 product descriptions with our own measurements and care details
Consolidate 310 blog posts and redirect them to guides or categories

Targets are illustrative. Adapt them to your baseline before you start.

Priority 3Owner: Digital PR Manager

Earn links that point at categories

We have under a third of the referring domains of the retailers above us. Our returns and delivery data is something home publications cannot get elsewhere.

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
Referring domains	1,850 domains	2,250 domains	Q4 2027
Category pages with five or more referring domains	14 pages	70 pages	Q4 2027

Initiatives

Publish the annual sofa returns report and pitch it to 60 home and regional publications
Open a trade program for interior designers with a profile page and a link back
Reclaim unlinked brand mentions and fix 400 broken inbound links to old product URLs

Targets are illustrative. Adapt them to your baseline before you start.

Priority 4Owner: Ecommerce Director

Shift revenue from paid shopping ads to organic

Paid shopping ads bring 46% of revenue at rising cost. Organic growth only matters if it becomes orders and reduces that dependence.

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
Monthly revenue from organic search	$1.2M	$1.8M	Q4 2027
Revenue from paid shopping ads	46%	40%	Q4 2027
Organic conversion rate	0.44%	0.48%	Q4 2027

Initiatives

Add delivery time, fabric swatch requests and financing options to category and filter pages
Reduce paid bids on terms where a category page holds a top three organic position, after a holdout test
Report organic revenue by category each month next to paid spend for the same category

Targets are illustrative. Adapt them to your baseline before you start.

Blank sEO strategy template

The same structure with a prompt in every field. Copy it, or download it as a Word or Excel file.

Your planSEO strategy

Organization	[Describe your organization in a few words, with its size]
Ambition	[One sentence on where you want to be at the end of the plan]
Horizon	[How long the plan runs, for example 12 months]

Context

Where we are and what we are choosing

[Where things stand today: the facts that make this strategy necessary]

Challenges

[A problem the strategy has to solve]
[A problem the strategy has to solve]

We will focus on

[Something you are choosing to concentrate on]
[Something you are choosing to concentrate on]

We will not

[Something you are deliberately leaving out]
[Something you are deliberately leaving out]

Current performance

Monthly organic visits	[Your monthly organic visits]
Ranking keywords	[Your ranking keywords]
Referring domains	[Your referring domains]
Main weakness	[Your main weakness]

Keyword themes

Theme	Search intent	Monthly searches	Target page
[Theme]	[Search intent]	[Monthly searches]	[Target page]
[Theme]	[Search intent]	[Monthly searches]	[Target page]
[Theme]	[Search intent]	[Monthly searches]	[Target page]

Technical priorities

[A technical fix and the pages it affects]
[A technical fix and the pages it affects]
[A technical fix and the pages it affects]

Content plan

Action	Pages	Why
[Action]	[Pages]	[Why]
[Action]	[Pages]	[Why]
[Action]	[Pages]	[Why]

Links and authority

Approach	[Your approach]
Target sites	[Your target sites]
Monthly goal	[Your monthly goal]

Priorities and measures

Priority 1Owner: [Role accountable for this priority]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Why this priority matters now, in one or two sentences]

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]

Initiatives

[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]

Priority 2Owner: [Role accountable for this priority]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Why this priority matters now, in one or two sentences]

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]

Initiatives

[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]

Priority 3Owner: [Role accountable for this priority]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Why this priority matters now, in one or two sentences]

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]

Initiatives

[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]

Priority 4Owner: [Role accountable for this priority]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Why this priority matters now, in one or two sentences]

Outcome	Baseline	Target	Due
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]
[Metric you will track]	[Where it is today]	[Where it should be]	[When]

Initiatives

[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]
[A project or action that moves the outcomes above]

How to adapt it

01
Fill in the baseline from your own search console and crawl data, split into brand and non-brand. Brand traffic hides how well you rank for anything else.
02
Group keywords into themes by intent and assign one target page to each. Two pages aimed at the same theme will compete with each other.
03
Order technical fixes by the number and value of pages they affect, and get engineering time committed before you publish the strategy.
04
For each content row, choose create, update or consolidate. Most established sites gain more from updating and merging than from publishing.
05
Set a monthly link goal you can meet without buying links, and say which pages the links should point to.
06
Pair every ranking or traffic outcome with a revenue or lead outcome.

How to run it

A plan only works if it is reviewed on a rhythm. This is the cadence the example assumes.

Check-in	Outcome owners update progress and confidence weekly.
Review	Priority owners review outcomes and unblock initiatives monthly.
Reset	Leadership revisits priorities and targets quarterly.

Tability keeps this cadence for you. Each priority becomes an objective, each outcome a key result with its baseline and target, and each initiative a tracked task. Owners get a check-in reminder and the plan shows what is on track.

Track this plan in Tability

Still comparing tools? See the 10 best strategy software tools.

Common mistakes

Publishing more content on a site that crawlers cannot read properly. Technical problems cap the return on everything else.
Letting filters, tags and internal search generate thousands of indexable pages nobody searches for.
Tracking total organic traffic without separating brand from non-brand or visits from revenue.
Writing blog articles for volume when the pages that earn money are category or product pages with no copy.

Questions, answered.

What should an SEO strategy template include?

It should include a baseline of current organic performance, the keyword themes to target with a page assigned to each, technical priorities in order of impact, a content plan of pages to create, update or consolidate, and an approach to earning links. Add outcomes for rankings, traffic and revenue with dates.

How long does an SEO strategy take to show results?

Plan on several months, with most of the traffic gain in the second half of a twelve-month plan. Technical fixes such as rendering and index cleanup tend to show first, once the affected pages have been recrawled. New content and links take longer to reach their potential. In this example the index cleanup is due by Q2 2027 and the ranking and revenue targets by Q4 2027.

How do you choose keywords for an ecommerce SEO strategy?

Start with commercial searches that match your categories, such as product type combined with material, size or use. Group them into themes, check the monthly volume and who ranks today, and assign each theme to one category, filter or collection page. Add informational themes only where a guide can link to products.

Should filter pages be indexed?

Only the ones people search for. Check search demand for each combination of filters and give the high-demand ones a static URL with their own title, intro and internal links. Set the rest to noindex and stop linking to them, then block crawling once they have dropped out of the index, or they will absorb crawl budget and dilute the category.

How many backlinks does an online store need?

There is no fixed number. Compare your referring domains with the sites that rank above you for your priority terms and aim to close the gap steadily. Where the links point matters too. Links that point to category and guide pages support those pages more directly than links to the home page.

SEO strategy template

Get the Word file

What this sEO strategy template includes

SEO strategy example

Context

Current performance

Keyword themes

Technical priorities

Content plan

Links and authority

Stop wasting crawl on pages that should not exist

Rank category pages for the terms that sell furniture

Earn links that point at categories

Shift revenue from paid shopping ads to organic

Blank sEO strategy template

Context

Current performance

Keyword themes

Technical priorities

Content plan

Links and authority

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Name the priority in a few words]

Get the Word file

How to adapt it

How to run it

Common mistakes

Questions, answered.

What this sEO strategy template includes

SEO strategy example

Stop wasting crawl on pages that should not exist

Rank category pages for the terms that sell furniture

Earn links that point at categories

Shift revenue from paid shopping ads to organic

Blank sEO strategy template

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Name the priority in a few words]

[Name the priority in a few words]

How to adapt it

How to run it

Common mistakes

Questions, answered.

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