Impact × Effort (prioritization)

Impact × Effort is an audit recommendation prioritization system where priority is calculated using the formula: Priority = Impact × (1/Effort). Five levels: 1-NOW (high impact, low effort: like adding BLUF in 5 minutes), 2-SOON (medium impact, low effort: like creating a comparison table in 15 minutes), 3-PLAN (high impact, high effort: like writing a case study requiring research), 4-LATER (low impact, low effort: like fixing meta description), 5-SKIP (low impact, high effort: like completely rewriting an article).

The system ensures copywriters start with changes delivering the biggest effect for the smallest work investment — it's optimization of the optimization process. For example, adding BLUF (impact 9, effort 1 → priority 9) should be done before writing a case study (impact 8, effort 7 → priority 1.14).

In practice, after a CQS audit, sort all recommendations by Impact/Effort priority and execute the first three from the '1-NOW' category. This delivers the fastest CQS growth with minimal effort. The Impact × Effort system is especially useful when optimizing many articles with limited time.