SEO is fundamentally creative. I’m convinced of it. The creativity lies hidden under loads of data, technical tasks, and more metrics than anyone requested. However, at its core, good SEO, like all marketing services, relies on empathetic creativity.

The challenge this year was to formulate a holistic SEO strategy encompassing content creation and technical SEO. It needed to be repeatable across clients, regardless of their website’s maturity. I started researching and was flooded with information, opinions, and well-meaning guides. Twelve months is too short to master SEO. This is something people take their lives to develop. But as a fractional marketer, I had the advantage of testing the SEO strategy with multiple clients, accelerating the learning process. While the strategy needs refinement, I know relying on empathetic creativity will create a powerful SEO strategy unique to 512Financial.

Keywords: The Creative Core

At its foundation, SEO is about content, and content is supported by keywords. Keyword research remains challenging, regardless of experience level. While AI tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, and ChatGPT provide a fantastic starting point, it’s not enough to be effective. Finding keywords that describe the client and resonate with the audience is the creative heart of SEO. Keywords demand empathetic thinking about audience needs and search behaviors. Part of a well-developed SEO strategy is understanding what the audience is searching for.

The client keyword lists built year over year reflect how I use keywords have changed. Early entries contain general industry keywords with high volume and high-ranking difficulty. More recent additions show a strategic shift toward core messaging and customer perspective. These targeted keywords feel unique to the client. While these keywords may not have as high volume as earlier entries, they are a better fit for the client since ultimately, a human and not the algorithm will decide which sites to visit.

The Intuitive Site

Understanding that the end user is human is also vastly helpful when working on the technical side of SEO. While some tasks appear straightforward—implementing meta titles, redirecting broken pages, optimizing load times—the sheer volume of needed optimizations can be overwhelming. Prioritizing these tasks can seem arbitrary. Who determines if a page load is fast enough? Keeping the end-user experience in mind provides the needed context for technical SEO prioritization. The primary reason for technical SEO is to ensure website functionality and enhance user engagement. When visitors land on a site, the goal is to encourage exploration while eliminating bad experiences.

This year, I worked on two sites at vastly different ends of their lifecycle. One was recently launched with only a home page, while the other has over 800 published pages. The new site required careful architectural planning. Each blog written impacted SEO and traffic numbers. It was easy to implement best practices to support future growth. The established site required back-end maintenance and redirects. This process revealed hidden gems. Pages buried or unpublished with a large volume of well-developed content. Technical SEO may not seem creative at first glance but it can connect back to content creation. Using empathy for the end user experience is a powerful way to prioritize technical SEO.

Making Sense of SEO

At 512Financial, the lean marketing team manages various responsibilities across multiple clients. I was tasked this year to develop an SEO strategy, but it was not my sole focus. I needed to develop an efficient task management system and a way to clearly communicate SEO progress to my team and clients.

Implementing an agile framework proved invaluable to the SEO strategy this year. Agile requires tasks to be broken into the smallest steps to work incrementally and iteratively to stay flexible. In this framework, the lack of SEO task prioritization was an advantage, and the high count of tasks involved was welcome. Monday.com enabled systematic task categorization and sprint planning while providing transparent progress tracking for clients.

Consistent reports quarter to quarter provide valuable comparison but halfway through the year, I realized the format needed to change. Initially, the focus was on organic traffic and keyword rankings, which some consider to be vanity metrics. There was low interest in these reports since it was difficult to show progress and make sense of the numbers. The new report format highlights the value of the work being done. A simple “Done and Doing” section recaps completed work and outlines future plans. A concise quarterly summary explains key metrics, strategic adjustments, why they matter, and how we’ll improve them.

Looking forward

I’m excited to see the results of this year’s work unfold. SEO is a long game, and 2024 was an incredible learning experience. A new SEO tactic in 2025 that we’ll try is finding the intersecting interests of my clients and their audiences. We’ll develop blogs and knowledge pages that connect client expertise with their audience. It may seem overly simple, but after running after keywords with high volume all last year, I’m curious about a more human approach to topic selection and if it’ll lead to more meaningful conversations.

Check out our case study to see real results: Strategic SEO Case Study