Preparing the Strategy Document

Strategy Is a Narrative, Not a Research Dump

A strategy document is not research. It's a document that explains to the client, in business language: where you are now, why here specifically, what we're going to do, and what to expect. All the research should already be finished before you start writing: the completed client brief, site research, competitor analysis, technical audit, E-E-A-T audit, site structure (SILO), a content-plan draft, and a link-building strategy. The job at this stage is to pull the conclusions from all of those documents into one connected story and present it so the client understands and agrees with the priorities.

The Assembly Principle: From Data to Narrative

You're sitting on a pile of facts pulled from several different documents. The job is to build a logical story out of them, where every section flows from the one before it: who the client is → where they stand today → who's around them → what opportunities exist → what specifically we'll do → what they'll get as a result. Keep that chain in your head as you write every section.

Writing Each Section

Section 1 (the Executive Summary) is written last. You start with Section 2.

Section 2: Project Overview

2.1 Business analysis. Take the client's brief and write one paragraph: what the business is, how it makes money, who it sells to, and what genuinely sets it apart from competitors. Ask yourself: if you ran into this client on the street, how would you explain their business to a friend in 30 seconds? Write it that way. If the niche is YMYL (medicine, finance, law, safety), say so explicitly — it changes the E-E-A-T requirements and the content strategy.

2.2 Current SEO state. A table of key metrics from Ahrefs and GSC. Rule: don't list everything — only what matters for understanding the scale of the task. Every number needs context next to it: not just "DR 2.8," but "DR 2.8 — competitor median is 47, a 17x gap."

2.3 Key problems. Three blocks: technical blockers, structural gaps, content-and-link gaps. Main rule: don't list 20 items — pick the 3-5 most important in each block so the client grasps what matters instead of drowning in detail. Format for each problem: a concrete fact ("canonical is missing on 100% of pages") plus a consequence ("link equity leaks away, duplicates sit in the index"). No abstract phrasing.

Section 3: Competitive Landscape

The table. Pull it from the competitor analysis. Don't paste the entire Ahrefs table — only the key metrics: DR, traffic, keywords, referring domains, and the traffic gap versus the client. The client should see at a glance where they stand relative to the market.

The insights are the most important part of this section — the table's numbers say nothing by themselves. Your job is to pull out conclusions that actually shape the strategy. For every insight, ask "and what do we do about it?"

Aim for 4-5 insights total: one about how achievable the goal is, one about an unclaimed niche, one about a fast path to traffic, and one about a structural mistake competitors are making.

Section 4: Strategic Growth Points

Take every opportunity surfaced during research and score it on a matrix: Revenue impact × Keyword potential × Low competition ÷ Effort (each parameter scored 1-5). Sort descending — that ordering is your priority list. For every growth point, write a dedicated block covering: why this opportunity exists (a market fact or a competitor failure), what specifically we'll do (URLs, pages, content), what we expect (traffic in N months, leads, rankings), and a competitor benchmark (who's already making money on this topic, and how much). Growth points are the argument behind the entire roadmap that follows — if the client understands them, they understand why every task in the roadmap exists.

Section 5: Site Structure

Draw the URL structure as a tree. Rule: the client needs to see the logic, not just a list of URLs. Explain the hub → pillar → spoke principle and the language logic in 2-3 sentences. Add a table of new sections: URL, priority (P1/P2), action (Create / Redirect / Optimize). Call out separately anything that must happen immediately — without it, nothing else downstream works.

Section 6: Content Strategy

Start by explaining the underlying principle — not for style, but so the client understands the logic and doesn't ask to "write something about our product." One paragraph: every piece of content is a funnel element that leads toward a commercial page. Top-10 themes come from the content plan — pick only the ones that deliver maximum results in the first 3 months, each with keyword, volume, KD, content type, and funnel stage. Justify priorities with numbers, not gut feel. The content calendar covers 3 months only — anything longer isn't realistic; the client won't remember it anyway.

Section 7: Technical Roadmap

Take the technical audit and split tasks into three groups: critical (blocks everything), important (needed in month 1), and monitoring (ongoing). The key when writing this section: explain consequences, not just tasks. Not "set up canonical," but "without canonical, link equity scatters across duplicates instead of reinforcing the pages that need it" — the client should understand why it's urgent. Name the responsible party for every task (developer or SEO) — the client needs to know who implementation depends on.

Section 8: E-E-A-T

Take the E-E-A-T audit and score all four dimensions — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness — on a 1-5 scale, with a concrete fact behind every score. Top-5 improvements: whatever gives the biggest effect for the least effort. Author bylines and a team page are almost always first. Case studies are almost always last (they require client cooperation).

Section 9: Link-Building Strategy

Take the link strategy and show the gap versus competitors. Explain the logic: why this pace, why these acceptor pages, why this anchor-text ratio. Show the 3-month plan by month: pages, methods, anchors, referring-domain growth. Don't promise what you can't control — Ahrefs sometimes delays showing new links by 2-4 weeks.

Section 10: Roadmap (Milestones)

Four milestones by month. For each: work streams, concrete tasks, dependencies, and success criteria. Criteria are not "done" — they're "what we check": "0 critical errors in Screaming Frog," "all new pages indexed." Milestone 1 is always about the foundation — critical technical fixes plus the first BOFU pages; without it, every later milestone loses its meaning. The roadmap is a contract: the client sees what will be done and when. Make sure the tasks are realistic — don't schedule 30 pages of content in month one if you know your actual production pace.

Section 11: Traffic Forecast

Two scenarios: standard (base pace, standard budget) and accelerated (more content, more links) — standard is the primary one, accelerated is for a client willing to invest more. Methodology in two sentences: sum keyword volumes by cluster, apply the CTR for an achievable position, and compare against a benchmark competitor with a similar DR. Always state the conditions required to hit the forecast (technical fixes implemented, content pace held, link budget maintained) and the risks. The client should sign off knowing those conditions.

Section 1: Executive Summary (written last)

Once the whole document is ready, write the summary. It should convey the essence in 3 minutes: current state (2-3 sentences with numbers), strategic approach (3 principles), top-3 priority actions (with a timeline), and a table of target results. Check: if the client reads only the summary, will they understand what's happening, what you'll do, and what to expect?

Before Sending to the Client: Checklist

• The summary contains concrete numbers about the current state
• Every growth point is backed by a competitor benchmark
• Technical fixes are split by criticality and by who's responsible
• The content calendar is no longer than 3 months
• The forecast states its conditions and its risks
• The roadmap has success criteria for every milestone
• There are no abstract phrasings without data behind them
• The document has been reviewed by the group lead

When to Present It — and the Fallback Strategy

The strategy is normally presented to the client during OP1 (the first reporting period), roughly 2-3 weeks after the niche analysis is done — warn the client ahead of time that you'll need their time for that discussion. A Pre-Sale specialist can join the strategy defense call for extra niche feedback.

Separately from the client-facing document, fix a fallback strategy internally at project start, together with the group lead — this is not a section of the client document, it's a background plan recorded in the project's internal tracking (project diary, Monday). The primary strategy assumes the client actually implements the technical tickets. If they don't, the project loses time and by the end of OP3 there's no way to explain the lack of results — the fallback strategy switches the project onto tools that work independently of what the client's developers do.

Trigger: fixed at project start with the group lead — if the key Milestone-1 technical tickets (canonical, redirects, structural site changes — anything content can't rank without) aren't implemented within 6 weeks of being issued, switch to the fallback strategy. The 6-week default can shorten to 3 weeks for simple fixes (canonical only, say). Record the switch date in the project diary.

What the fallback strategy includes — methods of promotion that don't depend on the client's site at all:

• External content — publications on trusted platforms (Medium, industry media, Habr) with links and brand mentions. Builds E-E-A-T and link equity without touching the client's site.
• Parasite SEO — content placed on high-DR platforms that rank on their own for the target queries. Traffic doesn't land on the client's site, but the brand appears in the results.
• Link building in overdrive — if the site can't grow through content, push through link equity instead; DR growth carries over once the primary strategy resumes.
• Satellite sites — separate resources targeting high-volume queries, linking or redirecting traffic to the main domain.
• Profiles and presence — Clutch, G2, LinkedIn, industry directories. Rating and E-E-A-T signals with no site changes required.

How to tell the client — openly, without blame: "The key technical fixes haven't been implemented within N weeks. To keep the project moving toward its goals, we're switching to parallel tools. As soon as the fixes are implemented, we'll return to the primary strategy, which delivers a more durable and scalable result." The main rule: don't wait in silence — the earlier you switch, the less time is lost.