The flexible operating conditions of small pressurized water reactors (SPWRs) demand frequent movement of control rods, causing a serious problem of control rod wear and tear. This study focused on the optimization of the control rod travel for an SPWR. Three optimization strategies were proposed to improve the reactor power control scheme by introducing proportional-derivative, lead–lag, and incomplete differential control modules in the power deviation channel, and a weighting factor in the temperature deviation channel. The parameters of the three control modules and the weighting factor were tuned using the non-smooth optimization algorithm in MATLAB. The optimization strategies were implemented in a control simulation platform of the SPWR, based on which dynamic simulations of the SPWR were performed under typical load change transients at different power levels. The results demonstrate that the optimization strategies can significantly reduce the control rod travel of the SPWR with satisfactory control performance.