Advice for Working as an In-House SEO
Let’s face it, working as an in-house SEO is not the easiest thing in the world. As an in-house, you have to deal with many things that other SEO’s and marketing types simply don’t. Over zealous management, check. Unrealistic expectations, check. Lack of understand about what SEO is and how it works, again big check. The list goes on and on. So what are the things that you need to do as an in-house SEO to meet management’s expectations.
SEO Reporting and Analytics
I really can’t say enough about making sure that your reports match what the company expects. Simply reporting on traffic, keyword rankings, backlinks, pages indexed, etc… will not get you to where you want to be or convey the value of your work to senior management. As a matter of fact, I’ve seen this type of monthly report land many in-house SEO’s at the unemployment office (myself included). What I mean by this is matching your report to what the business’ KPI’s.
If you’re not sure what the KPI’s may be, listen to what metrics your fellow marketing co-workers are reporting on in the big meeting and try to match them. If they mention sales, then you should try your best to match what your contribution was to the bottom line. If your metric is pageviews, report on how many pageviews your SEO efforts provided. Email leads, phone leads, etc… report that in your monthly reports. Leave the backlinks and pages indexed at the end of the report, after all, that only matters to SEOs.
Sometimes, getting your reports to match these KPI’s can be extremely difficult. Many times the analytics tracking is simply not set-up to show you what you need to know. In these cases work with the analytics manager to gets these reports set-up. Yes, this unicorn exists, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Don’t let them tell you it can’t be done.
You should never assume that management understands that a #1 ranking for (insert keyword here) means you gave them a whole lot of sales. Chances are, they will not make that connection.
Getting your SEO projects done
Ok, so you’ve got the reporting piece taken care of, now you need to get some real SEO done. Now how do I get the project or product manager to get my projects completed? Again, this is a very tricky item. First off, you need to get some buy-in with these people. They need to be your #1 fans. Find out what their pain points are and tell them how SEO can help them. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t. If it doesn’t work, find some aces in the hole to cut through the red tape.
My Ace in the Hole – Cutting through the red tape
Even if you get buy in with product/project management, it doesn’t hurt to find that ace in the hole. What I mean by this is find a sympathetic developer, web-designer, and/or network engineer that can sneak some of the basic SEO items in. Most employee’s want to do what’s best for the business to see it succeed, even if this means doing some things that management doesn’t necessarily need to know about.
You need to find that go-to person that can get that 302 redirect changed to a 301, that person that can get those title tags tweaked for you, or that guy that can change that robots.txt file from DISALLOW: / to just DISALLOW: (yes, I’ve seen that). This can be the difference between success and failure. I can’t tell you how many times these people have helped me out and I can’t thank them enough.
Dealing with the dreaded in-house PPC guy (aka Mr. Perfect)
Yeah, I’m jealous. There’s usually no love lost between the in-house SEO and the in-house SEM. While these two should be living together in harmony, what usually happens is that they are stabbing each other in the back at every turn. Why does this happen? The SEM manager was probably there before you were and has had a celebrity status, they view you, the SEO, as a threat. If you succeed, they may lose their celebrity status and some budget (which will pass to SEO). After all, they cannot compete with your high ROI and near $0 cost per lead/sale.
So how do you deal with this person? I really don’t know. It’s best to avoid them like the plague, only occasionally trading stabbing glances as you pass in a meeting.
In reality, the two really support each other. A listing in the organic search results actually leads to higher click-through on the paid listings, thus boosting their conversion. NOTE: I’ll see if I can find the white paper that supports this and post it later. As an SEO, you really need the SEM manager. They can provide you with quite a bit of keyword data that you can’t get otherwise. They will have data on which keywords work best and which don’t. This can save you a lot of effort on potentially targeting the wrong keywords.
Find what works for you
In the end, each business and situation is different. Listed above are some suggestions (some comical) that you can use to help you succeed as an in-house SEO. I’ve based these on some past and current experiences.
So what are some of your suggestions?