Optimizing for Search is Crucial in the Business World

Businesses attempt to build websites, content, and sometimes even the business name in order to optimize for search. This is done because a majority of organic traffic comes from search. Businesses try to use tools like SEO Software, to solve for organic search complexities, while not understanding how ranking factors work.

SEO Consultants and Agencies can provide a fair perspective based on the limited information you provide for them, but having someone within the organization that understands the purpose of your business is invaluable. Perspective is everything and their

For most businesses, organic search is the main source of organic traffic to your website, because search engines are so prevalent for buyers walking down the funnel. You already know that. According to a report from BrightEdge, “51% of all website traffic comes from organic search.” That alone supports integrating SEO into a business‘ overall marketing plan, but if you needed more incentive BrightEdge also reports that “over 40% of revenue is captured by organic traffic.”

The days of a cookie cutter approach to SEO are over. You can no longer have one process that can be applied directly to every type of client. Agencies are also businesses and providing customized service for every client will quickly become costly.

When SEO was more about the purchasing of anchor text links, there was far less need for complex changes from the client’s side. SEO in 2016 is far more technical and any supporting content marketing requires significant input from marketing, branding, PR and product teams.

An in-house team is built from the ground up to support the unique issues facing that company and have a far bigger chance of providing a return on investment.

Getting SEO advice implemented is a big challenge, especially with large enterprise clients. With an internal team, you can break down the ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality and find a way to get SEO implemented quicker.  

When you compare an outside agency that meets with their client sporadically against a team working together in the same office every day of the week, it’s clear who has more power to get changes actioned.

Good SEO campaigns need support from the head of marketing and above. Without approval from the leadership team, it’s likely that SEO won’t receive the support from the wider business.

An internal SEO team can build strong relationships and educate the wider team on the benefits of SEO. In comparison, an SEO agency will have to rely on pre-existing relationships and the monthly or quarterly meetings with department heads.

There are many benefits to working with a search marketing agency, but it is inevitable that you will never be that agency’s sole focus. One of the benefits of bringing the function in-house is the ability to focus on your site and business needs to gain a really detailed understanding of what is happening.

Search is getting more, rather than less, complicated. In some respects (such as outreach) it is also getting much harder. As such, the role of specialist agencies that complete specific tasks as part of your strategy become vital.

One of the biggest challenges for SEO in 2016 is producing high-quality content that is relevant to your brand. Agencies spend a lot of time trying to understand business but there is a limit to how much time they can spend with each client.

In-house teams sit with the wider business and can uncover opportunities that an agency might miss. They will find it easier to uncover knowledge and talent within the business that can be leveraged to create content that stands out from competitors.

Talking about the budget is an extremely important consideration.

Without the right budget, you can’t build the right team.

And the right team requires the right amount of money (budget) to function correctly.

You wouldn’t build a house without first assessing all of its costs right?

Just like that house, any successful SEO plan has a solid foundation that it must be built from if it is going to bring in the results that you seek.

There is almost never a right or wrong way to assess budget, so long as it is a top consideration of your SEO plan.

But, the absolute wrong way to assess budget is throwing your money away unnecessarily and hoping the results will stick.

Just like that house, if you throw your money into a foundation that sucks, the SEO plan will suck as well. The only difference is that that house is not going to result in significant detriments to the company’s overall bottom line

The size of your company and the politics at play within an organizational hierarchy are serious considerations as well.

Company size can have a significant impact on the outcome of your SEO plan.

Here’s how:

Say you have a large company where all of the different divisions are managed by individual managers. Each manager is in charge of their specific division’s portion of the website, which forms itself into a cohesive whole.

Implementing a large-scale SEO plan of attack is possible, but difficulties arise when SEO campaigns are not scaled properly and they do not result in the results that are expected of the campaign.

If you have a smaller company, you can likely get away with implementing an SEO strategic vision without the involvement of management and politics at play in an organizational hierarchy.

Smaller companies with smaller teams and larger budgets are more nimble than their behemoth counterparts, and they can keep up with SEO updates and changes as needed more effectively.

You must also consider the strengths and weaknesses of leaders involved in current positions on the SEO team.

For example, the SEO Specialist may be a great IC (individual contributor) but not necessarily a great PW (people wrangler).

The Web Developer may be a great PW (people wrangler) but not a highly performing IC (individual contributor).

These strengths and weaknesses are important assessments to make if you are to make changes to your SEO team in certain areas.

You wouldn’t take someone who has barely any experience in SEO at all, and make them into an SEO manager, would you?

The same could be said for taking a programmer who only has one year of experience, and making them into a software development manager.

Sure, they may have significant experience in writing code, but their experience with many of the skills required for success up the various rungs of the corporate ladder could be severely lacking.

If you’re a larger company, you don’t want to find this out after they have been put in charge of a larger project and the project fails.

Back view of a developer using a laptop with SEO icons– stock image