Collaborative SEO is the only real form in today’s competitive world.
Long ago, SEOs did whatever it took to rank. DIY efforts worked as competition was scarce and search engines were less sophisticated.
What SEOs bring to the table in the modern, ever-evolving digital marketing landscape is a deep knowledge of how search engines work.
SEOs should help others best leverage assets. They integrate best practices across a company. This creates ‘win-win’ or “buy one, get the other nearly free” scenarios beyond the results other marketers achieve.
SEOs can initiate projects, with good forecasting, but they’ll still rely on others to create. Therefore, an SEO acts like a product manager.
This explains why most SMBs find SEO lacking. SEOs need cross-functional teams. Small businesses need generalists eager to get a lot done. Furthermore, they have far less to gain from SEO due to a small footprint.
Here are just some key collaborations:
Web developer: functionality like tools that fulfill search intent and building key SEO features into page templates are essential. Depending on the CMS, the web developer may be needed for HTML changes like structured data implementation as well. They can troubleshoot complex JavaScript issues for page speed, search engine crawlability & more.
Content writer: good SEOs have some writing skills, such as those needed to improve on-page SEO elements like titles & meta descriptions. However, SEOs don’t compete with content or copywriters in their understanding of the business alongside writing compelling content & copy. SEOs can recommend keywords & other structural improvements but shouldn’t dictate much beyond this.
Web designer: user engagement is essential for organic search success. Engaging imagery above-the-fold along with a great site experience will limit clickbacks to search results that in turn harm search rankings.
Analyst: Good SEOs leverage analytics like GA4 for organic traffic & other user engagement metrics, SEO tools like Google Search Console or a platform for keyword tracking, GTM for conversions from organic search and so forth. However, analysts bring a far greater depth of knowledge here that can lead to powerful insights, using platforms like Tableau.
Social (Organic): Social media provides another source of backlinks, while raising awareness for key organic pages. It also provides context to include keywords on various key sites, building topical authority.
PR: This is natural linkbuilding. However, SEO best practices like ideal anchor text, proper landing pages, evaluating opportunities based on SEO factors and so forth can get overlooked without collaboration here.
UX/UI or CRO: Improving organic conversions is ultimately what matters in marketing, and these specialists can improve this best.
Many other specialists matter too.
Paid media/PPC/SEM can provide specific data on keywords that convert.
Sales & partnership teams foster relationships leading to guest blogging, testimonials with backlinks & more.
Events can help to ensure backlinks on their marketing sites.
Traditional print marketing can encourage visitors to key organic pages.
Marketing automation & email marketing nurture organic leads for conversions.
Brand ensures that SEO plays well with the company’s goals as a whole.
Account managers & project managers both help to communicate SEO insights in clear ways, while ensuring that productive work actually gets done.
Leaders within companies, when SEOs make good cases in SEO forecasting, can use their power to get promising work going.
In short… SEO must be a team sport!