Templates
SEO Issue Prioritisation Template
A scoring sheet that produces an order you can defend, without pretending to forecast traffic you cannot predict.
Run a fresh DomainLens audit and use the report as your priority list.
The tier comes before the score
Score nothing until you have tiered. Some findings block others, and no scoring formula should be able to rank a content improvement above removing a noindex directive from the page it applies to.
Assign a tier first, then score within each tier. The tiers are dependency; the score is efficiency.
| Tier | Definition | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Blocks indexing entirely | Do immediately, whatever the effort |
| 1 | Structural, affects many pages | Batch and ship together |
| 2 | Content on pages near visibility | Highest return per hour |
| 3 | Content elsewhere | Continuous, ongoing |
| 4 | Polish | Only when tiers 0–3 are clear |
The scoring columns
Confidence is the column people leave out and the one that keeps the sheet honest. A high-impact fix you are guessing about should not outrank a modest one you have verified.
| Column | Scale | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Pages affected | 1–5 | 1 = one page, 5 = a whole template |
| Traffic at stake | 1–5 | Existing or plausible traffic on those pages |
| Proximity | 1–5 | How close to a threshold — position 11, or just failing a vital |
| Effort | 1–5 | 1 = config change, 5 = architectural |
| Confidence | 0.5–1 | How sure you are this is the cause |
| Score | Computed | (Pages + Traffic + Proximity) ÷ Effort × Confidence |
A worked row
Finding: Product template canonical points to the category path
Tier 1 Pages 5 Traffic 5 Proximity 3 Effort 2 Conf 1.0
Score = (5+5+3) / 2 * 1.0 = 6.5
Finding: Missing alt text on blog images
Tier 4 Pages 3 Traffic 2 Proximity 1 Effort 2 Conf 1.0
Score = (3+2+1) / 2 * 1.0 = 3.0
# Tier decides first: the canonical fix ships before any
# tier 4 work regardless of the scores.Why a formula at all
The argument against scoring is that it dresses judgement up as arithmetic, and that is a fair criticism of most SEO scoring sheets. The reason to use one anyway is that it makes the judgement visible: when a finding ranks low, the columns show exactly which assumption produced that, and anyone can argue with the number rather than with your instinct.
That matters most when the list is contested. A developer pushing back on a fix and a stakeholder pushing for their favourite page are both easier to answer with a row than with an opinion, and if their argument is good the row changes.
The formula is deliberately crude for the same reason. Anything more elaborate implies a precision that does not exist, and the point is ordering findings relative to each other rather than predicting outcomes.
Rules that keep it useful
The last rule is what stops the sheet becoming a backlog nobody reads. See how to prioritise SEO fixes for the reasoning behind the tiers.
- Group by cause before scoring — forty broken links from one template is one row.
- Never score a finding you have not verified; put it in a "to investigate" list instead.
- Record a "not doing" column with a reason, so the same items stop reappearing.
- Re-score after each cycle rather than working a stale list.
- Cap the active list at what the team can actually ship in a quarter.
- Why not just use impact and effort?
- Because it lets a formula rank a content tweak above unblocking indexation. Tiers enforce dependency; the score orders within a tier.
- How do I estimate traffic at stake?
- From existing traffic on the affected pages, or comparable pages. Relative ranking is achievable; precise forecasts are not.
- What is the confidence column for?
- To stop unverified guesses outranking verified findings. If you are not sure something is the cause, the score should reflect that.