In my years of working with clients, agencies, and teams, one of the biggest epiphanies I’ve had is the importance of over-communicating. When I say “over-communicate,” I don’t mean sending excessive emails or overwhelming people with information. Instead, I mean providing absolute clarity in tasks, expectations, and performance reporting in a way that is helpful to them.
Too often, projects stall, SEO initiatives fail, or businesses miss opportunities—not because of lack of effort but because of poor communication. Below are the key lessons I’ve learned about over-communicating and how managers can use these insights to improve collaboration, execution, and stakeholder engagement.
1. Set Clear Expectations for Tasks
One of the biggest mistakes I see in SEO and digital marketing is assuming that technical teams—developers, product managers, or IT staff—know what needs to be done. Just because someone is a developer does not mean they inherently understand all best practices.
???? Never assume knowledge – Spell out precisely what is needed.
???? Provide references – Link to Google or Bing documentation, CMS manuals, or internal best practices.
???? Use test cases – Give multiple specific examples of what success looks like.
For instance, you need a developer to implement redirects after a website migration. If your request is vague, they may use a 302 redirect instead of a 301, which is problematic for SEO. You eliminate confusion by providing clear instructions—”Implement 301 redirects for all moved pages, as per Google’s guidelines”—.
Pro tip: Structure your tickets as testable user stories if you work in Agile or sprint-based development. Instead of saying, “Ensure canonical tags are properly implemented,” specify, “For each of these test pages, I expect to see a self-referential canonical in the page source.”
2. Communicate Effectively with Stakeholders
Many professionals stop communicating when they’re not hitting KPIs or when progress is slow. This is a mistake. Also, when senior stakeholders start missing meetings or disengaging, they often don’t see value in the meeting and what’s being reported. This is a question I always ask teams when I am engaged to improve performance. If key decision makers are repeatedly absent from meetings, there is obviously something more important to them so you need to up the value of the meeting.
The Solution: Reports That Tell a Story
Traditional reports often contain raw data but lack context. Executives don’t have time to sift through spreadsheets; they need clear takeaways.
One method we used successfully in my agency was what we called the Opportunity Realized Matrix (initially the “No Bullshit Report”). Instead of generic ranking reports, we presented:
? Projected opportunity – Here’s the expected traffic if we capture 5% of the search volume for these key terms.
? Current performance – Here’s where we started, and here’s where we are now.
? Delta and impact – We’ve realized X% of the opportunity, translating into $$$ in revenue.
By presenting progress this way, clients and stakeholders saw the direct business impact of your efforts rather than a flood of numbers and long lists of things you have done. This transparency kept them engaged and demonstrated the value of continued investment.
3. Manage Expectations in Project Execution
SEO and development projects often fail due to unrealistic expectations. When prioritizing tasks, we need to consider two key factors:
- Search impact – How much will this move the needle?
- Resource impact – How much effort does this require?
If something is high-impact but low-resource, prioritize it. Conversely, if a task is high-impact but high-resource, manage expectations accordingly.
A real-world example:
An SEO agency put in a ticket for the dev team to “fix” 44,000 broken links with a ticket titled “Fix Broken Links.” The IT team ignored the request for months because it sounded overwhelming. Trying to accelerate the tax, I dug deeper and found 30,000+ of these links were due to a URL change in the global header and footer—fixing them required just one update to the script that contained the links rather than tens of thousands of manual changes. After clarifying the ticket, the team made the change that afternoon. The problem wasn’t the effort but how the request was framed.
Takeaway: Frame requests in a way that makes them executable, not overwhelming.
4. Write Better Stories in Reporting and Task Management
Poorly written tickets and project briefs are one of the most significant sources of inefficiency and delays in SEO projects.
Here’s a classic example of a vague SEO task that led to 21 failed attempts:
“The following canonical format should be used on every page.” and they provided and example from Google as the example.
The intent was to implement dynamic canonicals where each page used its own root version. Unfortunately, the developer, who did not know any difference, interpreted this as inserting a static tag on every page, leading to the same canonical added to every page, and the majority of the website had been removed from the index before the error was caught. Had the request been structured as a clear, testable requirement, with examples and links to references the issue could have been avoided from the start.
5. Use Video and Soundbites to Keep Leadership Engaged
Executives don’t have time to read lengthy reports, and many insights get filtered out before reaching the top. I introduced video reporting, a game—changing technique that provides short, digestible updates with key takeaways.
How to Do It Right:
3-5 minute highlight videos – Record a quick summary of wins, challenges, and next steps.
- Three wins – What worked, what is the key stat of revenue or performance, or do you have any insight?
- Three challenges – What’s blocking progress, and what problem did we identify?
- Three will-dos – Key tests, next steps, insights or unique actions.
I started doing these after realizing senior leadership at a Fortune 100 company had no idea of our success and challenges. They were not reading our 30-page reports and 20-tab Excel. Clients and stakeholders actually watched these videos, and we started seeing executives repeat our insights in meetings—proof that the messaging was getting through.
If you want to improve stakeholder buy-in and retention, experiment with Loom, Camtasia, or other screen recording tools to deliver reports in a way that resonates.
Final Takeaways: Over-Communicate for Success
If I had to sum up my communication epiphany in a few rules, they’d be:
Detail ticket instructions & break them into key actions – Don’t assume people know how to execute.
Provide references – Avoid guesswork by linking to trusted documentation.
Create reports that tell a business story – Data should lead to insights and action.
Use video for executive communication – Make insights digestible and engaging.
Frame requests for execution – Ensure that tasks are scoped to make them feasible.
The more you over-communicate with clarity, the more successful your projects, teams, and client relationships will be.