Introduction to Technical Debt
Today’s question cuts to the heart of resource management for SEO: how do you prioritize SEO fixes when technical debt keeps piling up and you can’t get dev resources? In this article, we’ll look at different prioritization methods and what you can do when you have more work than support to do it.
What Is Technical Debt?
Technical debt refers to long-standing issues with a website that have grown due to poor management or "quick-fixes" that have not stood the test of time. In SEO, technical debt signifies any code-based issue that fundamentally affects optimization efforts. Typically, these are issues that cannot be fixed by the SEO function alone but require the input of front or back-end development teams.
Prioritization Matrix
To prioritize the work, you should look at three core aspects: the associated risks of the work not being completed, the potential benefits if it is, and the likelihood of it being implemented. You may even want to create a matrix that details the overall score of a technical item. Then, use that to prioritize them. Discuss each item with the stakeholders whose teams will need to be involved in its implementation.
Risk
Start by calculating the risk to the business if this work isn’t carried out. Consider aspects like financial risk, i.e., "If we don’t carry out this work then our product pages will be no-indexed. Currently, X% of revenue from those product pages is generated by organic traffic and therefore by not completing this work we risk $Y of revenue each year." It could also be a risk to the website’s performance. For example, by not fixing a Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) issue across a group of pages, you may risk conversions as well as rankings.
Reward
Consider the positive implications of carrying out this work. Look at how implementing these fixes could affect revenue, conversion rate, customer satisfaction, or even how it could save money. For example, "We know that we have a lot of duplicate pages that are not generating revenue but are repeatedly crawled by search bots. We know that every time a bot crawls a page, it costs us $X in server hosting costs; therefore, if we remove those pages we can save the company $Y each year."
Implementation Likelihood
When what you are asking is actually an extremely involved, expensive project that the development team doesn’t have the capacity to do, then it won’t get done. Discuss your activities with stakeholders who understand the true requirements of the work, from the teams involved to the hours of work it will take. From there, you will have a greater understanding of how easy or quick this work will be.
Prioritization Method
Once you have assigned a score under each of the three categories for all of the technical debt fixes that you want to have carried out, you can prioritize the work based on the sum of all three categories’ scores. The higher the score, the higher a priority that work is.
Additional Ways To Get Dev Resources
Just because you have prioritized your fixes, it does not mean your development team will be keen to implement them. There may still be reasons why they are unable to carry out your requests.
Discuss The Work With The Team Leader/Product Manager
The biggest hurdle you may need to overcome is usually sorted through communication. Help your development team understand your request and the benefits of carrying out these technical fixes. Meet with the tech team lead or product/project manager to discuss the work and how it might fit into their workload.
Batch Issues In One Ticket
A tip for getting more of your work through the development queue is batching requests into one ticket. If you group together items that need to be worked on across the same group of pages, or template, it will mean developers can make multiple changes at once.
Show The Value Of Your Work To The Development Stakeholders
Show the value of your work to the stakeholders’ goals. So, in the instance of the development team, think about how your suggested fixes might benefit them. Find out what their KPIs or goals are and try to position your work to show the benefits to them.
Get Buy-In From Other Teams
On that note, look at getting buy-in from other teams for your work. When the activity you have proposed will not just benefit SEO, but also CRO, or PPC, then it may generate enough support to have it prioritized with the development team.
Conclusion
Managing technical SEO debt is never as simple as keeping a to-do list and working through it in order. Internal resources are often limited, competing priorities will arise, and most likely, you need the help of teams with very different goals. By weighing risk, reward, and implementation likelihood, you can make more informed decisions about which fixes will have the most impact. Just as important is how you communicate those priorities. When you position SEO requests in terms of broader business value, you increase the chances of securing development time and cross-team support.