- Monthly reports track. The quarterly review decides.
- Six questions, two hours, one page of decisions at the end.
- Always include: what to stop doing.
- Bring the enquiry log, not only the analytics.
Without a scheduled decision point, SEO programmes drift: the plan from month one keeps running long after the evidence stopped supporting it. This is the agenda that prevents that.
The six questions
- What did we ship? Pages, fixes, links, profile work, with dates.
- What moved? Impressions and positions by cluster, profile actions, enquiries by source and district.
- What did not move, and why? The most important question, and the one most often skipped.
- What changed outside? Algorithm updates, new competitors, a rival's redesign, seasonality.
- What do we stop? Clusters that are not working, formats that do not convert, activities nobody can justify.
- What is next quarter? Three priorities, not twelve.
What to bring to the room
| Bring | From | It answers |
|---|---|---|
| Pages shipped, with URLs and dates | The change log | Did the work happen at all |
| Impressions for the target cluster | Search Console | Is ground being taken, ahead of clicks |
| Positions for the top twenty queries | Rank tracking | Where the movement is, and where it is not |
| Enquiries by source | Your CRM, not analytics | Whether any of it reached the business |
| Cost per enquiry, this quarter and last | Finance plus the CRM | Whether it is getting cheaper or dearer |
| What was stopped | The last review | Whether decisions are being carried out |
The change log, the Search Console export for the target clusters, the Business Profile insights, and your own enquiry log with quality noted. That last one is what turns a marketing meeting into a business one: it shows which pages produced work you actually wanted.
Deciding to stop something
The hardest part of the review, and the reason to have it. A useful test, applied to every ongoing activity:
If the answer is no and it is only continuing out of momentum, that is the decision made.
Not "it takes time" - what specifically would have moved by now if it were working.
Stopping is only real when the money has somewhere better to go.
Set the criterion in advance and apply it without sentiment: a cluster with no impression growth after two quarters, a format that produces traffic but no enquiries, a district where you cannot compete. Stopping frees the budget for what is working, and programmes that never stop anything end up spread too thin to win anywhere.
“A quarterly review that ends with a longer list than it started with has not reviewed anything. It has just added.”
The output
One page: what worked, what stopped, three priorities for the next quarter with owners, and the budget attached to each. Everything else is supporting material. If the review produces a document nobody reads, the meeting was decorative.
Frequently asked questions
Who should attend?
Whoever controls the budget, whoever owns the content approvals, and whoever does the work. Fewer than three people and it is not a review; more than five and it becomes a presentation.
Is quarterly the right cadence?
Yes for decisions. SEO moves too slowly for monthly strategy changes and too quickly for annual ones.
What if the answer is that nothing is working?
What should the review produce on paper?
One page: what shipped, what moved, what we are stopping, what we are starting, and the three things to be judged on next quarter. Anything longer will not be read before the next one.
Should the agency run the review or should we?
They prepare the numbers, you chair it. A review run entirely by the party being reviewed rarely ends with anything being stopped.
Then the quarter did its job. Either the diagnosis was wrong, the execution was thin, or the channel is not right for that service - and each has a different response.
Run the next review with us in the room
Independent reading of the numbers, and a straight answer about what to stop.
Talk to Madrid SEORelated: SEO services.