How to Have a Productive Conversation with Your SEO Team?
When it is about SEO, there have to be two focal points – maximal efficiency; and maximum value for money. Whether you are the head of your internal SEO team or the director marketing with the client who is looking to hire the services of an SEO agency, you need to ensure that the core SEO team is aligned in the most optimized manner for the most productive results. Often, the parameter to gauge the productivity of the SEO team is about the organic traffic the site is getting and the conversions that are happening from this traffic. However, an efficient SEO team leader and his team would address this topic more holistically and assess things like majestic citation flow and trust flow, Moz domain authority, Moz page authority, Moz Spam Score, organic impressions, organic CTR, besides ranking on primary and secondary keywords.
Ways to have a productive conversation with your SEO team
SEO is a handshake between the client and the SEO agency
The first thing that your SEO team needs to know is that the client has a crucial role to play during SEO and hence, the client’s team needs to be involved at every step by the SEO agency. You need to tell your SEO team that they can be at their productivity best when they engage with the client’s team. This is because it is the client that has expertise in his industrial domain and therefore can assist the team in understanding and identifying the unique selling points of the business. They are the experts in their field – so, the SEO team needs to respect the same and take their assistance.
Be it the client’s sales team, marketing, or PR departments, the SEO team from the agency should be in constant touch with one another.
Ensure that everyone is on the same page
Whether you are the head strategy maker or the big boss, or the backend developer, frontend developer, the copywriter, analyst, designer, or the team lead, every member of the SEO team must be on the same page.
What it necessarily means is that there needs to be an equal commitment from all members, top-down. As a leader or the boss, you cannot come across as someone not involved with the project. On the other hand, the team members should not be involved in mundane jobs like report preparing or being asked for regular feedback. This will divert them from the work-in-hand. The overall atmosphere in the team, in such cases, is the development of a cold distance from the main objective of the project – which in the end, is not healthy for the project.
At the other end of the scale are team leaders who thrust unrealistic goals and strategies onto the SEO team. In this case, too, the team members will be disgruntled with having to work on something that has no significance or meaningful impact.
Goals should be set at regular intervals and need to be SMART
It is always advisable to go in for short-term specific goals that address the needs of the clients as per priority. This way the topmost topics are addressed meaningfully which makes the entire process realistic and futuristic.
So, what you need to tell your SEO team is to stay focused and work in small chunks, rather than going after the bigger goals and making everything overly complicated. When a big-sized project is broken down in manageable pieces, the work becomes easy for the agency SEO team as well as the client in-house team.
A flexible approach is essential
With an SEO project you need to make sure that you have a flexible approach so that when things do not go the expected way or the results deviate from the desired results, the team on either side can make adjustments accordingly.
The strategies that are made at the onset of the project are always based on forecasted figures and requirements. But, things can change anytime because there is nothing that can be predicted with certainty. During such times, there needs to be comradeship and collaborative efforts from both sides to handle the issues impromptu and steer the result in the right direction.
Responsibility delegation is critical
As a team leader, you need to know the specialty of each of your team members and accordingly assign them tasks. This way you will be able to optimize on individual capabilities and productivities.
For example, if a member is good at keyword research, you need to assign this specific job to him for the best results.
Avoid unnecessary meetings
Meetings tend to decrease the productivity of team members to a great extent. Most such meetings tend to get boring and usually not meant for everyone from the team. By involving only people who matter and are required for the meeting, you are allowing everyone to use their time productively.
Let everyone work on their own. Give them the freedom to decide and strategize without being interrupted or having the fear of being ridiculed. Empowerment is an important element in building a productive team.
Also, empower them by giving the right tools
It is important to give your team the right tools so that they can work seamlessly and consistently. Also, it is important to ensure that each member of the team gets enough time to work and produce results.
Today, there are many advanced tools that the team can use to offer productive results.
Ensure that your team is trained and abreast with the latest trends in the SEO niche
In the gamut of digital marketing, things are moving at a random speed. There are regular updates from search engines; there are changing trends that are relevant for their social media platforms; and other such regular changes. The ideal way is to keep your team educated and trained to be on the top of the latest trends in the niche.
Conclusion
It is teamwork that can make or break the SEO strategy. Collaborating with the client is also equally important. Taking this partnership to another level; ensure that the communication channels are always open for productive results.