SEO

SEO strategy template: build it in one sitting

A free SEO strategy template you fill in rather than download. Five questions produce a journey map, then six assignments and a seven-day schedule.

By Alston Antony

September 18, 2026

2 min read

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Most SEO strategy templates are a blank document with headings in it, which is why they do not get finished. This one asks five questions and hands you the filled-in version.

The output is one page: who the buyer is, what job they are doing, where they do it, what format that surface rewards, and what would tell you it worked. Every later step of a real SEO programme assumes you have that document, and most teams do not.

Your first deliverable

Build your search journey map

Five rows, one per job. Pick a real business: yours, your employer's, or one you know well enough to be honest about. It takes about ten minutes and every later step of the roadmap assumes you have it.

The five questions this is asking

What are people actually trying to accomplish? A problem or a need, in their words. Not a keyword. If you write a keyword here you will build the rest of the map around a string instead of a person.
Where might they first find out the solution exists? The discover job. Somewhere that returns a list of candidates, which means it is almost never your own website.
Where do they go to understand it properly? The understand job. This is the one where documentation and a screen recording beat every landing page in the market.
Where do they check whether you can be trusted? The validate job. Be specific and be uncomfortable. Name the actual subreddit, the actual review site, the actual competitor comparison.
Where does the decision actually get executed? The act job. A signup, a store install, a phone call, a walk through a door. Whatever it is, it is measurable, and it is usually the only step that is.

1 Discover What exists?

2 Understand What is this, and how does it work?

3 Compare Which of these should I choose?

4 Validate Can I actually trust this?

5 Act I am ready. What do I do?

And the part people skip: where you are deliberately not competing

Write it as sentences with reasons about buyers, not about your calendar. "Our buyers do not do visual discovery" is a reason. "We do not have time" is a confession.

Saved in your browser and nowhere else. There is no endpoint, no account and no analytics event on this box, which matters because it asks you to write down where your business is weak.

Without JavaScript this will not save or copy. The five rows still work on paper, and paper is genuinely fine: the questions are the substance, the grid is only a container.

Then the six assignments

Bigger than the journey map, and meant to be done once, properly.

The six assignments

One assignment per search job

Bigger than the three-minute exercises and meant to be done once, properly. Finish all six and you have audited your own discovery across every surface that matters to you.

1. Discover Name the need, not the keyword Write the single sentence a real buyer would say out loud before they searched anything. Then write the three queries that sentence turns into. Done when: You have one need in a customer voice, and three real queries under it.
2. Understand Audit one surface you do not control Pick the surface where buyers understand your category, and read what is currently there about you. Not what you wish were there. Done when: You can name the top three results a buyer sees, and who published each one.
3. Compare Build the comparison you are avoiding Write the honest version of you against your closest alternative, including the case where they win. If you cannot name a case where they win, you have not researched them. Done when: One comparison with at least one honest loss in it.
4. Validate Find your worst public review and answer it Search for the harshest thing publicly written about you, on any surface. Reply to it in public, on that surface, without a marketing sentence in the reply. Done when: A reply exists, and it does not contain the phrase "we are sorry you feel that way".
5. Act Fix the last step Walk your own act step on a phone, as a stranger. Pricing to signup, or Maps to directions, or store listing to install. Time it. Done when: You have a number of seconds, and a list of what broke.
6. All five Build and keep your search journey map Fill in the five rows. One job per row, one surface, one thing the buyer needs there. This is the artifact the rest of the roadmap builds on. Done when: Five rows filled, a stop list written underneath, and a date on it.

Ticks are stored in your browser and nowhere else. Nothing is sent anywhere, which matters because several of these ask you to find the worst thing publicly written about you.

Or the same work on a schedule

If you would rather have a schedule than a list, here is the same material spread across a week. About twenty minutes a day.

If you want a schedule

The seven-day search everywhere challenge

Same material, paced. Day seven is the one people skip, and it is the one that turns the other six into something you can repeat.

Day 1 Run the experiment The five-tab exercise, on a category you know nothing about. Write the five lines.
Day 2 Learn the five jobs Take your last ten searches from your own browser history and tag each with a job. Notice which job you do most.
Day 3 Sort the surfaces Six surfaces, real platform names, cross out the ones you cannot fill honestly.
Day 4 Read what others say about you Brand name plus reddit, plus reviews, plus alternatives. Write down every domain you do not own.
Day 5 Write the stop list The surfaces you are not investing in, with a reason about buyers next to each one.
Day 6 Build the map Five rows. Then check every row against what you actually found on days one to four.
Day 7 Write down the numbers One metric per surface you kept, with today’s value and today’s date. In 90 days that baseline is the only thing that will tell you whether any of this worked.

On day seven, write the numbers down with the date. In 90 days that dated baseline is the only thing that will tell you whether any of this worked.

What to do with the finished document

Take it to the surface decision next: which search channels to focus on turns the journey map into a keep list and a drop list. The model underneath both is search everywhere optimization, and the rest of the sequence is the SEO roadmap.

Frequently asked

Questions About This Article

What should an SEO strategy document contain?

At minimum: who the buyer is, what job they are doing when you want to reach them, which surface serves that job, what format that surface rewards, and the one number that would tell you it worked. Five answers. Anything shorter is a channel idea, and anything longer is usually a deck rather than a plan.

Is this a downloadable template?

No, and deliberately. You fill it in on the page and keep the output. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is emailed, and there is no gate. A blank document you download is the version people never finish; five questions with your own answers in them is the version that gets used.

How long does this take?

The journey map is about twenty minutes if you know your buyer. The six assignments are bigger and meant to be done once, properly. If you would rather have a schedule than a list, the same work spread across a week is about twenty minutes a day.

Do I need analytics access to do this?

Not for the journey map or most of the assignments. That is intentional, because a good share of people planning their first strategy do not have a site with traffic yet, and an exercise you cannot start is worse than no exercise.

Where is my progress stored?

In your browser and nowhere else. Nothing is sent anywhere, which matters because several of the assignments ask you to go and find the worst thing publicly written about you.