Good SEO Strategy VS Bad SEO Strategy

When I started working as an SEO consultant in a marketing agency, I had to start creating “SEO strategies” basically from day one.

How did I make them?

Easy-peasy lemon squeezy.

I ran massive SEO audits, checking over 50 different ranking factors, including things like “does the site have at least one broken 404 link?” Then I’d organize the findings into a roadmap, sorted by priorities: 1, 2, and 3.

“Priority 1” usually meant optimizing titles and <H1> tags.
“Priority 2” was fixing a bunch of redirect chains – sometimes 30 at a time.
“Priority 3”? Core Web Vitals – back when they weren’t even part of the algorithm.

It took me years to realize that fixing every technical issue from an audit isn’t a strategy. It’s maintenance. It’s cleanup. It might even be useful.
But one thing it’s definitely not? A good SEO strategy.

What Strategy IS

According to Richard Rumelt, the author of the brilliant book Good Strategy Bad Strategy:

Strategy isn’t about big visions or lofty goals. It’s a clear, actionable plan for tackling real challenges and achieving specific objectives. A good strategy requires solid analysis, sharp focus, and disciplined execution.

What Strategy IS NOT

Many businesses and SEO specialists still confuse tactics, aspirations, or generic actions with actual strategy. But having a to-do list or a goal isn’t the same as having a strategic plan.

Here are a few things that are not SEO strategies:

• Creating a generic SEO checklist
  
• Setting a vague objective like “rank #1 on Google”
  
• Installing an SEO plugin and calling it a day

Let’s break down why these don’t qualify as real strategy.

Framework for a Good SEO strategy

A good SEO strategy (like any solid strategy) is built on three essential parts:

• Diagnosis – identifying the core challenge
• Guiding Policy – outlining the general approach to overcome it
• Coherent Actions – implementing a set of aligned steps to solve the problem

Let’s take a closer look at each of these elements.

Diagnosis in SEO strategy 

A diagnosis defines or explains the nature of the challenge (obstacle). A big part of the strategy is just trying to figure out what is going on. Not deciding what to do, but detecting the fundamental problem and analyzing the situation. Diagnosis classifies the situation, links facts to patterns, and suggests that some issues are more important than others. 

When the situation is classified, it opens a door to understanding how similar situations were dealt with in the past. Its purpose it to simplify the situation and let us focus on more important parts. 

In my work, I usually follow these steps to diagnose the situation:

1. Technical Audit
I start by checking crawling and indexing to see if anything is blocking the website from receiving SEO traffic. If I find any major issues, I document them and make sure they’re reflected in the diagnosis.

2. On-Page Review
Next, I look at the essential on-page elements, like titles, headings, metadata, to catch any major errors or violations of SEO best practices.

3. Strategic Analysis
Once the audit is done, I move on to strategic analysis. At this stage, I typically perform:

• Keyword Research and Architecture Review – to identify gaps in the site’s structure and keyword coverage
  
• Content Gap Analysis – by comparing performance against 10+ competitors to see which keywords we’re missing or underperforming on

After identifying the key weaknesses, I dig deeper to understand why we’re not ranking for certain keywords or why our positions are lower:

• Are we missing key pages?
  
• Is our content high quality and relevant?
  
• How strong is our website authority?
  
• Are there overlooked technical improvements?
  

The outcome of the SEO diagnosis should include:

• Major technical and on-page errors
  
• Strengths and weaknesses based on competitive and market analysis
  
• Missed keyword opportunities (clusters or topics)
  
• A few core insights into why we’re underperforming and where the biggest opportunities lie

Guiding Policy in SEO strategy 

A guiding policy is a general approach to solve the main problem. It gives direction without going into too much detail. It helps simplify the situation, choose what to focus on, and make sure future actions are consistent.

In SEO, the guiding policy comes from the diagnosis. If the main issue is weak content or missing topics, the policy might be to build better, more complete content hubs. If the issue is technical, then the focus might be on fixing crawling, improving site structure, or working on speed and performance.

A good guiding policy also helps decide what not to do. For example, it might mean focusing on a few important keyword areas instead of trying to cover everything. Or it might mean holding off on link building until technical problems are fixed. The goal is to make sure all actions, like content, tech, authority, are working toward the same goal.

It’s not about listing every step, but about setting a clear direction so everything that follows makes sense and works together.

Coherent actions in SEO strategy 

Coherent actions are how we bring the guiding policy to life. They define what needs to be done after we’ve already answered why and how. The key is that these actions work together. They’re aligned, not random or in conflict with each other. Coordination is crucial.

At this stage of the SEO strategy, the goal is to build a backlog of actions that directly support the guiding policy. For example, if we’ve chosen to focus on technical improvements, our coherent actions might include:

• Interlinking optimization
  
• Anchor text cleanup
  
• Core Web Vitals improvements
  
• Crawl budget management
  

But it’s not just about choosing the right tasks. It’s about making sure they work together.

In SEO, coordination is often what makes or breaks implementation. For example:

• If multiple teams are making changes, lack of coordination can lead to overwritten updates or broken elements.
  
• On-page elements like titles, H1s, and meta descriptions need to follow a consistent approach.
  
• If several projects are happening at once (like a redesign or new feature launch), SEO must be embedded early, because it’s much harder to fix things after the fact.

Coherent actions mean that every effort across content, dev, product, and SEO is rowing in the same direction.

Bad SEO strategy

Bad strategy often hides behind vague language, unrealistic goals, and long lists of tasks that aren’t connected to a real plan.

One common issue is fluff – using complex or trendy terms instead of clearly stating the actual problem. Another is failing to identify the core challenge. 

In SEO, it’s easy to fall into checklist mode and running through tasks like fixing meta titles, tweaking internal links, or optimizing crawl budget. These might be valid issues, but they don’t make a strategy. A checklist doesn’t tell you what the actual problem is.

You need to take a step back and ask: What’s the real challenge for this specific website? Is it strong competition? Lack of technical resources? Poor page quality? Until you identify that core issue, you’re just patching symptoms.

Once you know the main problem, you can direct your efforts where they’ll have real impact: solving the root issue and getting the highest possible ROI, instead of wasting time on micro-optimizations.

Mistaking goals, forecast or budget for strategy

A goal is not a strategy. A good strategy is built on something you already do well or a change in the market that gives you a new opportunity. The key is to find your point of leverage.

In SEO, that might be strong existing content, a fast and flexible tech team, authority in a specific niche, or the ability to move faster than your competitors.

Your strategic goals should always focus on solving a real problem or improving a specific process, like reducing the time it takes to publish optimized content, or making collaboration between product and SEO teams smoother.

Start by uncovering the most promising opportunities. Internally, that might mean removing workflow blockers, improving how SEO is integrated into content production, or fixing legacy tech issues. Externally, it could be a keyword gap analysis, market research, or even insights from the sales team on how customer language is shifting. What matters is that you’re solving real problems, not just ticking boxes.

You don’t need a long list of initiatives. You need a short, focused list of what really matters for growth. That becomes the core of your SEO strategy.

Too often, companies confuse rolling SEO budgets or checklists with strategy. That leads to false expectations: busy teams, lots of tasks, but no real progress. Strategy is about making choices: what are we solving, what gets priority, and what do we ignore for now?

To get results, leaders – in our case SEO managers – need to identify the real barriers to progress and design a clear way to overcome them. That might mean creating new processes, changing how SEO fits into the organization, or shifting priorities across teams.

Take a common issue: SEO isn’t embedded in how content or product teams work. As a result, pages are published with little to no optimization. In this case, the strategy shouldn’t focus on optimizing individual titles. The real challenge is the lack of SEO culture. Solving that creates long-term impact. That could involve creating new guidelines, setting up an SEO review step, or providing training that scales.

The SEO manager’s job is to spot the few paths with the highest return and guide the organization toward those, instead of spreading energy across a dozen disconnected tasks.

Strategic objectives that fail to address critical issues

In SEO, it’s tempting to try to fix everything at once: improve rankings, speed up the site, fix technical issues, create new content, build links. But chasing too many goals at once spreads your resources thin and leads to shallow, disconnected efforts.

Bad strategy is usually packed with goals but lacks direction. It lists what you want to achieve, but not how you’re going to get there, or why it matters. It often includes vague language and impressive-sounding objectives that don’t connect to any real action.

A good strategy does the opposite. It picks just a few goals that are truly important and aligns all effort toward them. It connects objectives with a clear path forward and focuses on the few things that will move the needle.

The job of a strategist or leader is to create the conditions for success, not just set targets, but make it possible to actually hit them. That means prioritizing, focusing, and removing distractions.

The purpose of strategy isn’t to solve everything at once. It’s to create an approach that offers a realistic way to reach your main objective – or at least improve your position so you can get there. Sometimes the smartest move is not a quick win, but one that sets you up for long-term advantage.

Coherence, strengths, and strategic focus

Make sure to identify your strengths and build your strategy around them. Good strategy is about clarity and focus. It aligns actions with the strongest levers available and avoids spreading efforts too thin.

Start by identifying your strengths and weaknesses, then assess the real opportunities and risks. The best strategies are built on what already works (your natural advantages). In large companies, this could be budget, existing authority, or internal resources. In startups, it’s usually speed, agility, and the ability to test and adapt quickly.

Strengths can come from different places:

• Anticipation: This is about seeing what’s likely to happen before it does. That might mean understanding how buyers behave, what competitors might do, or how Google is likely to evolve. Many treat a “low” forecast scenario as safe, but the real risk is sudden drops, like losing 80% of traffic after an algorithm update. Anticipation also means recognizing habits, constraints, and slow-moving forces in your market.
  
• Pivot Points: These are moments or actions that can create outsized results. Spotting the right timing, or the right opportunity, can help magnify impact with less effort.
  
• Concentration: Focus is critical. Big results often come from narrowing down to one or two main priorities. There’s often a threshold effect, if you don’t cross a certain effort level, nothing changes. Below that threshold, even good ideas won’t work.
  

Proximate objectives

The first goal should be realistic and achievable. In uncertain situations, don’t aim too far out. Set a clear, short-term objective that the team can actually deliver on.

One key job of a strategist or leader is to take in all the complexity and translate it into something the team can act on. The more uncertain the environment, the simpler and more proximate the goal should be.

Good SEO strategy VS Bad SEO strategy table

How to create a good SEO strategy step-by-step

So, now that we discussed what is a good and bad strategy, here is the step by step algorithm to follow while creating and SEO strategy.

1. Identify the Core Challenge (Diagnosis)
Underperformance is the result, not the reason. Your first job is to figure out why the website isn’t performing. That means going beyond checklists and audits, and understanding the real barrier to growth.

Start with a solid diagnosis:

• Run a technical audit: Are there crawl/indexing issues blocking pages from being ranked?
  
• Check on-page basics: Are we violating key guidelines?
  
• Perform keyword and content gap analysis: Where are we weaker than competitors? What are we missing?
  
• Evaluate authority: Do we lack trust signals in our niche?
  
• Look at internal dynamics: Are product or content teams unknowingly blocking SEO progress?
  

The outcome of the diagnosis should be a clear articulation of the main challenge. That challenge becomes the foundation for everything else.

2. Define the Guiding Policy
Once the challenge is clear, define how you want to approach it – this is your guiding policy. It’s not a to-do list. It’s a general direction that helps simplify decisions and align future actions.

For example:

• If the main problem is poor topical coverage, the guiding policy might be to build deep, structured content hubs.
  
• If technical issues are blocking growth, the policy might focus on improving crawlability, load speed, and overall site health.
  
• If internal misalignment is the blocker, your strategy might focus on embedding SEO processes into content and product workflows.
  

A good guiding policy also helps you say no to distractions. It keeps the team focused and ensures that every decision moves in the same direction.

3. Identify the Limitations
Look at the system holistically and identify the weak points that limit growth. Don’t fix small things in isolation – remove the biggest bottlenecks.

Avoid superficial improvements. Strategy is about creating meaningful change, not ticking boxes. For example, updating meta descriptions won’t matter if your site structure is broken or your content isn’t aligned with search intent.

4. Focus on Strategic Strengths
Build around what your company can do better than others. Maybe you have speed, flexibility, a strong brand, deep product knowledge, or the ability to scale content quickly.

Good strategy presses into those areas. Ask:

• What do we do well that others can’t easily copy?
  
• Under what conditions do we tend to win?
  
• Where are we naturally strong, and where are we wasting effort?
  

5. Deepen Your Advantage
For an advantage to last, it must be hard to replicate. Strategy is about deepening that advantage, making the gap between you and your competitors wider over time.

That could mean:

• Building content that’s hard to match due to depth or experience
  
• Creating workflows others can’t replicate due to internal expertise
  
• Earning authority through long-term partnerships or high-quality link strategies
  

Don’t just chase what’s trending, but build on your foundation.

6. Outline Coherent Actions
Now it’s time to translate your guiding policy into coherent actions – a set of initiatives that support the strategy and don’t contradict each other.

For example, if your policy is to improve technical performance:

• Core Web Vitals optimization
  
• Internal linking and anchor text cleanup
  
• Simplifying site architecture
  
• Ensuring JS doesn’t block crawlability
  

These actions should be prioritized, sequenced, and resourced properly – not scattered across teams or campaigns. Coherence means alignment. Everyone should be working toward the same goal, not pulling in different directions.

Also: actions should be coordinated across teams. SEO doesn’t exist in a vacuum: content, dev, and product must be part of the system.

7. Set Proximate Objectives Don’t aim too far out. In an uncertain or complex environment, your first goal should be realistic and achievable, something the team can deliver within a few months.

That could mean:

• Reducing time-to-publish for optimized content
  
• Doubling visibility in one key topic cluster
  
• Fixing crawl errors on priority pages
  

Proximate goals build momentum and give clarity. You reduce complexity for your team and give them something tangible to rally around.

8. Adapt, Learn, Improve
Good strategy always includes trial and error. You won’t get it perfect from day one. Monitor progress, learn what works, and refine as needed. Strategy is not static, it’s alive.

Challenges to look out for

Alright, now that the strategy is created, it’s time to start implementing it. And there might be several things to look out for.

Strategic challenges in SEO can be internal or external.
An external challenge might be strong competition, limited market opportunity, or changes in Google’s algorithm. But often, the biggest challenges are internal.

Inertia and entropy: The silent killers of SEO strategy

Two hidden forces often derail even the best SEO strategies: inertia and entropy.

• Inertia is resistance to change. In business, this shows up as reluctance to adapt to new realities, whether it’s changing search behavior, updated algorithms, or shifting internal priorities. In SEO, inertia means sticking to outdated practices, delaying technical fixes, or ignoring the need to evolve your content approach.
  
• Entropy is the natural drift toward disorder and fragmentation. It’s what happens when early momentum fades. At the start of an SEO initiative, a team may be aligned and focused. But over time, especially after early wins, attention drifts, priorities compete, and coordination breaks down. SEO becomes scattered, and progress stalls.
  

Many companies lose not because of stronger competition, but because of their own internal decay: lack of focus, unclear ownership, or leadership disengagement.

How to counter it

To fight inertia, senior leadership must be convinced that change is necessary. If executives understand that SEO is critical for long-term growth, and that outdated systems are actively hurting performance, adoption can happen quickly.

To fight entropy, you need:

• A clear, ongoing strategy, not just a kickoff plan
  
• Embedded SEO processes across teams
  
• Regular check-ins to re-align and refocus
  
• Clear ownership of execution and performance
  

The biggest threat to your SEO strategy might not come from competitors, it might come from inside your own organization. Recognizing that is the first step to building something that lasts.

Final Thoughts – Why Experimenting is Essential 

One of the most important habits in strategy is learning to think like a strategist, and that means learning to see the game from different angles. Great strategy often starts with asking:

How does this look from the customer’s perspective?
What might our competitors do next?

It’s not about copying others, it’s about developing functional knowledge: a clear sense of what tends to work, what doesn’t, and where there’s still room to explore.

Every good strategy has two parts:

• The idea (hypothesis) – a belief about what might work based on analysis, insight, and experience
  
• The implementation (experiment) – a way to test that belief in the real world and learn from the outcome
  

To stay ahead, especially in SEO, you have to do more than follow best practices. You need to push boundaries. Try new formats. Explore new angles. Shift tactics when the landscape shifts. Strategy isn’t about playing it safe, it’s about making educated bets and having a process to learn from them.

And yes, even a good strategy doesn’t come with guarantees. It’s not a checklist for success, it’s your best judgment about what’s likely to work based on what you know so far. That’s why experimenting is so critical. You’re not just optimizing for now; you’re investing in what could work next.

Also: don’t assume everything worth knowing is already known. The best ideas – the real breakthroughs – often come as insights. And insights usually show up after you’ve done the work: the research, the analysis, the reflection. They come from connecting the dots in a way others haven’t yet.

So keep testing. Keep learning. Strategy is not about certainty, it’s about clarity, direction, and the willingness to keep evolving.

* This articles has been inspired by the bestselling book “Good Strategy Bad Strategy” by Richard Rumelt