Creating a 3-tiered SEO Department

 

Search Engine Optimization is a fast-growing field and is quickly being recognized as one of the top ways for companies to ensure a maximum ROI in a reasonable time space.  However, like the early days of the web, most companies realize that they need Search Engine Optimization, but do not know how to go about obtaining a strong, dedicated team to drive organic traffic.  So what's involved in creating an SEO team, anyway?

First, it's important to take a look at everything that the SEO team should NOT be.  Often times Search Engine Optimizers get mixed in with the website development crowd, and while the two can definitely be seen as related, they should be kept mutually exclusive.  To this effect, they are also not a dedicated marketing machine either; though they can definitely be seen as an effective ROI marketing tool.

It is my professional opinion that an SEO team should be in a category all its own.  Yes, it is a form of internet marketing, and yes, HTML and web development knowledge (of varying degrees) is required for a successful strategy, but they cannot stand on those merits alone.  The best approach to take would be to create a department strictly for SEO, and to have them in direct contact with your marketing team, web development team, and perhaps even public relations team.

So now that we know where an SEO team should fit into the corporate structure, how do you go about building a team?  What do you look for? Who is considered good talent and right or wrong for the jobs?  The way I have seen things done (successfully) in the past was to take a 3-tiered approach, consisting of content writers at the bottom level, link builders in the middle, and an SEO "commander" at the top.  Allow me to explain:

The Content Writer

The content writer is the front line of the SEO operation.  It's no mystery to anyone following the craft (art?) of SEO that fresh, relavent content is a key factor to rankings in Google.  In order to best take advantage of this theory, it is important to get someone on your team who can be a creative writer by nature.  In an employee, look for things like communication degrees, creative writing skills and work examples, perhaps even some public relations background.  

Content writers are going to be the driving force of efforts once the website is optimized.  Blog posts, unique articles, and fresh, optimized content is the name of the game in this position.  A small company (-$5m / year) would only need 1-3 content writers creating content on a consistent basis.

The Link Builder

No mystery to this one: the link builder's job is solely to build quality links that are relevant to the company website.  Link wheels, social networking and bookmarking efforts, blog posts, article submissions, back-link monitoring, all of these things are an integral part of a link builders job description.  It is important to note that, while rare, it is very possible to train a content writer to become a link builder - but it's very rare the other way around.  Often times, I have found that the organizational skills generally required by a link builder can be taught to a content writer.  But getting a typically rigidly-structured brain of a link builder to wrap his or her head around creating fresh, quality, unique content on a continual basis may yield lower-than-anticipated results.

When interviewing for a link builder, look for basic HTML experience (no brainer), and perhaps some creative writing, and people who have high organizational skills, and are not afraid to put together a spreadsheet of efforts.  The link builder is really the grind-worker of the team, and should be hired in enough numbers to coincide with the effort of the content writers.

The Commander 

The center of the SEO-Strategy nexus; the commander spends considerably less time getting their hands dirty with content writing and link building, and much, much more time honing the craft and focusing the direction of the team.  SEO is an ever-changing field, and your company would do well to invest in a competent commander to keep up with the rapid changes and expanding on the latest theories.

The commander of the SEO team should also have excellent communication skills, as it is their job to report to you (the hiring team) the findings, trends, recommendations, and optimization tips found by the SEO team.  They also need to be able to have direct access to the content writers and link builders for somewhat obvious reasons.

They will be the ones who go to conferences, reading newsletters, monitoring the website analytics, identifying trends, directing the team, producing web logs and reports, conducting weekly/monthly staff meetings, distributing SEO reports to management, and monitor the Google Webmaster account.  On top of that, they'll also be responsible for putting together the team, planning a 1 and 3 year SEO strategy plan, identifying budgets and goals, and build support for a recommended yearly budget.

If done properly, the 3-tiered approach to an in-house SEO department has the ability to generate vast amounts of online exposure in multiple facets of the internet, thus generating (hopefully) a fantastic ROI that will put the traditional marketing team to shame.  Best of luck!

Chris Culos