Include the SEO Guy as Part of Your Marketing Team

Search engine optimization (SEO) is unlike any other form of marketing and it shouldn’t be compared to traditional marketing methods. SEO is a direct marketing vehicle, not paid advertising (print, television, online banner ads and so forth). While SEO may seem like something reserved for web designers and other tech personalities within your company, it is actually a critical component of your overall marketing campaign.

If you’re company is large enough to have a well-staffed marketing department, you probably have an expert for everything – the PR guru, the creative mastermind, the man behind the strategy curtain. Each of these experts work together to create the most comprehensive marketing campaign that covers all the bases. The PR guru grabs headlines left and right for your company, the creative mastermind develops witty content and eye-catching images, the brains behind the strategy fine tune exactly what needs to be done to achieve maximum benefit.

But where is the SEO guy?

Chances are he’s in a corner cubicle next to the web developers, working as an afterthought to the rest of the marketing team. But that SEO guy could be one of the most valuable members of your marketing team, even if you don’t realize it. SEO is really 80% marketing and only 20% technical web skills. It takes a firm understanding of marketing and branding to successfully implement SEO. SEO experts usually have the writing skills of a good copywriter, but also understand the way the search engines view content. It’s that useful combination of skills and knowledge that make you in-house SEO guy so important.

Just about everyone, from multi-national corporations to the local mom-and-pop pizza joint, has a website. And each of those websites are competing for the very limited space at the top of the SERP. How does a site get there? Through SEO.

A company’s SEO expert takes everything that everyone else on the marketing team is doing, and makes sure it gets the attention it deserves from the search engines. A brilliant video has a hard time getting watched if it isn’t being pulled in to match a user’s search results. The best designed website in the world won’t keep any visitors if the content doesn’t meet user-expectations. These are things the SEO guy is responsible for.

Because the web is constantly growing, search engines are routinely updating their algorithms and the way consumers use the Internet is continually changing, your in-house SEO expert is there to make sure your website (and subsequently your brand) don’t get lost in the changing tides. Social media, local search, mobile search, content marketing – the rules seems to change every day. An SEO expert is going to steer your company through the clutter and help bring your site out on top.

In order to get the most out of your marketing efforts, one hand needs to know what the other is doing. The PR guru needs to know what anchor text to include in their online press releases, the creative mastermind needs to understand how their ideas will translate across several platforms, and the strategy architect should include SEO tactics into the marketing plan. Don’t leave your SEO guy out.