Today, search engine algorithms are more sophisticated than ever. You’ve probably tried a few SEO tactics here and there. But were they part of an integrated SEO marketing strategy? Did you get the results you expected?

A solid SEO strategy is one of the best investments you can make in your brand. Nearly 70% of online experiences begin with search. As a marketer, if you don’t have a plan to become part of those experiences, you’re missing out on huge growth opportunities.

Here’s how to develop and execute one.

What is SEO marketing strategy?

Search engine optimization is the practice of improving your website’s ranking and appearance on the search engine results page. But what is SEO marketing strategy’s meaning in the broader context of your marketing plan?

The importance of SEO strategy in digital marketing is that it complements paid traffic acquisition. Most companies have a mix of paid and organic traffic visiting their website. Paid traffic comes from advertising and sponsorships, and organic traffic comes from everywhere else.

Paid vs. organic traffic

Both traffic sources have their place, but organic traffic is often considered more valuable for a few reasons. First, you haven’t paid for organic traffic directly. You’ve earned it through your branding and content strategy efforts. Those efforts do require investing resources, but that investment pays dividends over time.

Organic traffic also tends to have a higher conversion rate, because those visitors are actively seeking out your content, products or services. For these reasons, SEO marketing is seen as a long-term investment in your brand that increases in value as you keep putting in the work.

How do you develop an SEO marketing strategy?

It’s important to develop an SEO marketing strategy rather than taking an ad hoc approach. SEO is a holistic discipline - changes in one area will impact other areas. The more you can come at it with a multi-pronged methodology, the more your results with will multiply.

How to implement SEO

You could find an SEO strategy template online, but the best plan will be tailored to your market and organization. To develop and implement an SEO marketing strategy, it’s important to understand the different types of SEO and how they help you achieve your goals.

What are the different types of SEO marketing strategies?

There are hundreds of SEO tactics you could include in your plan. Most of them fall into one of three main buckets:

1. Technical SEO
2. On-page SEO
3. Off-page SEO

Each of these types of SEO corresponds to an overarching strategy. Let’s dive into the definition of each, and some SEO marketing strategy examples.

What are the three strategies of SEO?

SEO strategies are typically categorized based on where they take place. Technical optimizations take place on the backend of your website. Content strategy happens “on page” - that is, where users can see it. Finally, backlinks take place “off page,” which means somewhere other than your website. Here are some strategies of SEO to help start optimizing your website:

Strategy 1: Perform technical optimizations on your website

Technical SEO is the foundation on which the rest of your SEO strategy is built. It’s not sexy, but it holds up the rest of the metaphorical house. These optimizations might not be apparent in your content, but your readers will definitely notice them.

Wait. Technical optimizations? That sounds like a job for the web team, or even IT… right? Not quite. While you might partner with these internal teams on technical SEO, your perspective as the strategist is crucial.

You might not have the skillset to roll your sleeves up and improve that cumulative layout shift score. But your job is to understand each task, prioritize its importance, and advocate internally to get it done.

SEO Checklist

So, how can you tackle technical SEO? Because your website has so many moving pieces, we love a good checklist for technical SEO. A resource like this also helps you align with those internal teams if needed. Here are a few common first steps.

1. Improve website speed. You must immediately capture your reader’s attention if you want them to stick around. Slow load speeds are a cardinal sin of technical SEO. Use Google’s free PageSpeed Insights tool to gauge your baseline here. Some common page speed issues are large media files, unnecessary code, and large network payloads.
2. Clarify site structure and navigation. If your website has gotten convoluted over time, it might be time to do the hard work of simplifying your nav. It can be a significant undertaking, but a clear site structure helps human users and search engine crawlers understand and navigate your content.
3. Design with mobile in mind. The majority of web traffic today is on mobile devices. You’ll leave traffic on the table if your site isn’t responsive and easy to use on a phone. Think large buttons, clear content hierarchies, and mobile-friendly links.
4. Improve accessibility. Your users are different types of people on different types of devices. They could be accessing your website with a screen reader or smart device. They could have a slow connection. To ensure accessibility, use proper headings, image alt text, color contrast, and other meta tags.

Strategy 2: Follow a keyword-driven content strategy

On-page SEO encompasses everything from your topic to keywords to embedded media. If technical SEO is the house’s foundation, on-page is everything inside it - from the furniture to the trendy wallpaper. And solid on-page SEO starts with a thoughtful, keyword-driven content strategy.

To get your content strategy rolling, follow these steps:

1. Identify your content niche. Think about your target audience. What keeps them up at night? What problems interrupt their daily flow? Aim to create content that alleviates their pain. And remember: Your goal isn’t to directly sell your product. It’s truly to help your audience and establish your authority in the space.
2. Research keywords. Find out what your audience is searching for and how they’re talking about your niche. There are lots of free tools out there for keyword research. You’ll also benefit from some good old-fashioned digging around. Snoop on your competitors’ blogs, SERP snippets, and ad copy to see the terminology they’re using. Read customer survey results and forum threads to learn exactly how your prospects speak.
3. Create high-quality content. You could read a whole book on producing quality content. But at its core, high-quality content is easy to read, educational, entertaining, insightful, and credible.

Utilize E-E-A-T

One framework to help make sure your content stands out as credible and valuable is E-E-A-T. Coined by Google in 2014, E-A-T stood for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. In December 2022, Google announced the addition of another “E” to the framework: experience. E-E-A-T content exhibits:

• Expertise: The person who created the content is an expert on the topic.
• Experience: The creator has some degree of experience with the topic.
• Authoritativeness: The creator and the website hosting the content demonstrate authority.
• Trustworthiness: The creator and the website are reliable and credible.

Optimize for Keywords

Of course, you didn’t do all that keyword research for nothing. Each piece of content should also be optimized around a focus keyword. That means using the keyword and related terms throughout the body of the content. Try to anticipate and answer readers’ most common questions about the keyword.

Finally, put your technical SEO hat back on for a bit to make sure the focus keyword is naturally woven into these areas:

• Title
• Slug
• Headers
• Meta description
• Image tags when relevant

Executing a well-planned content strategy is an impressive feat. It takes hard and soft skills: creativity, intuition, quantitative analysis, and technical savvy. Accomplish this, and you’re more than halfway there.

Strategy 3: Acquire backlinks

Acquiring backlinks is part of your off-page SEO strategy. What are backlinks? Simply put, they’re links from external domains to your content. Search engine algorithms view backlinks as an indicator that other users find your content helpful.

The best way to earn backlinks that will help boost your content’s ranking is to ask for them. This might sound simple, but it requires a thoughtful plan to get the results you want. 

Backlink Outreach

So, sit down and create a plan to optimize your outreach efforts. Your backlink outreach plan should look something like this:

1. Identify popular, authoritative websites where your audience hangs out. Look for sites publishing content that’s related to the topics you write about. You might be tempted to target big-name publishers, but niche sites can be just as effective here. If you’ve done your research to identify a great fit between their audience and your content, you’ll likely see a higher success rate with smaller publishers. That means more backlinks with less legwork.
2. Look for the best way to contact whoever’s in charge of their digital content. Finding an individual is the best approach here, because relationships will turbo boost your link-building efforts. In fact, the best time to form a connection with the content manager for a target publication is before you need a backlink. But if your content is ready to go and you need backlinks, like, yesterday, cold outreach can still be effective.
3. Reach out to your contact with a personalized message. Introduce your content with a summary and spell out how it benefits their audience. Then, suggest a specific spot and anchor text for a link to your content. Personalization is absolutely key - if you copy and paste the same message to five different publishers, it’s obvious. Take the time to build relationships.
4. If your contact does place your backlink, return the favor whenever possible. Are there opportunities to link to their content on your site? If not, is there any other way you can help promote the publisher?

Some tools, like SEMRush, even have backlink builders you can use as a starting point.

Linking to your content from your own social channels is also an effective piece of your backlink strategy. You can use one 800-word piece of content to generate a whole slew of social media content. Listicle? Repurpose each list item as its own separate social post. Long-form educational piece? Each subhead topic can be its own post, and you can pull the most salient points out as quotation graphics.

What kind of SEO trends to look for in 2023

Technology is advancing faster than ever, and marketing professionals are always at the forefront of new trends. In 2023, look for SEOs to shift their focus to:

• Voice search and conversational queries. To address the rising use of voice search, Google introduced LaMDA, an AI-based feature that better understands conversational language. Consider how your audience’s search terms might differ if spoken aloud vs. typed out.
• AI-generated content. Marketers are already using AI as an efficient way to synthesize research and build content. This will continue to be a hot topic as search engines seek ways to find the most accurate and valuable content, and bump it to the top of search results.
• Video integrated into SEO strategies. Google will continue to incorporate video results into the SERP. And, you’ve probably heard the news that Gen Z is relying on TikTok as their go-to search engine. Going forward, brands will start incorporating video into more of their SEO content to stay relevant.
• Continuous scroll on the SERP. “The best place to hide a dead body is page two of the Google search results.” HuffPost published a piece with this title in 2014, and it rang true for nearly a decade. Luckily, in December 2022, Google introduced continuous scroll on desktop - meaning users no longer have to click to see a new page of results. While this does give lower-ranking results a better chance of click-through, we still recommend shooting for the top ten.

What’s not changing in 2023?

There’s one thing that won’t change in 2023 or anytime soon, and that’s the heart and soul of SEO marketing strategy: user experience. A strategy built on understanding your audience and investing in insightful, high-quality content will never go out of style.

While testing new tactics is important, keep your focus on a technically-sound website, keyword-driven content, and relationship-based backlink plan. By building a solid foundation with these three SEO strategies, you can keep your content alive and well on page one of the SERP.

Picture this: your product is revolutionary. Your expertise, irreplaceable. Your target market? Hundreds, thousands, or even millions of potential buyers.

And none of them are making it to your website.

Why? Because despite your best intentions, you haven’t included search engine optimization in your marketing plan. You’ve been focused on advertising, email, and referrals. These strategies are great, but they have one thing in common: a limited scope. They only go as far as your ad budget, your email list, your promoters.

If you’re looking for a marketing strategy with unlimited potential to scale, look no further than SEO. Here’s an overview of the most effective techniques to include in your SEO strategy.

What are search engine optimization techniques?

Search engine optimization techniques are methodical approaches to improve your visibility in the search engine results page (SERP). How do the experts use SEO techniques in digital marketing? Let’s start by exploring the role SEO plays within your marketing plan.

Why SEO is important - in simple terms

What’s the importance of search engine optimization in digital marketing? Simply put, SEO helps you get the most value out of your content marketing.

Most organizations create digital content as part of their marketing strategy. Creating thoughtful, high-quality content takes a lot of effort and resources. Imagine pouring blood, sweat, and tears into amazing content… and then not taking steps to make sure your audience sees it. Your career as a content creator won’t last long.

SEO is one of the most effective ways to get eyes on your content over time. Sure, you can run ads to send traffic to your content. But organic traffic is typically considered more valuable because of its higher conversion rates.

Plus, when you turn your ad campaigns off, that paid traffic stops flowing. In contrast, an investment in building up SEO traffic is forever. (Okay, maybe not “dystopian future” forever. But it’ll provide value for a long time.)

What are the three types of search engine optimization techniques?

We often divide search engine optimization techniques into three main categories: technical, on-page (content), and off-page (backlinks). Developing all three categories helps make sure your strategy is well rounded. Here are some SEO techniques and tools to help you build your plan.

Technical optimization

A solid SEO foundation starts with technical SEO. Why is technical SEO so important? Search engines seek to promote websites that provide a good experience. There are some technical elements that, to algorithms, are “table stakes” for a good user experience.

Here are some of the most important technical factors and how to optimize them.

• Website speed. If your site takes too long to load, users won’t spend any time consuming your content. Google knows that, so site speed is one of the most critical technical SEO factors. You can use Google’s free PageSpeed Insights tool to get a report on your core web vitals. This will help you identify opportunities for improvement. Some common page speed issues are large media files, unnecessary code, and too many HTTP requests.
• Structure and navigation. A straightforward infrastructure will help people and search engine crawlers understand your website. One of the best ways to assess your site’s navigability is to have someone new try to navigate it. Send them on a scavenger hunt to find popular features, and listen to their feedback with an open mind.
• Mobile-friendliness. In 2017, the desktop-to-mobile traffic scale tipped - and today, more than half of all online traffic is on mobile devices. For this reason, search engine algorithms incorporate mobile-friendliness into their rankings. Using a responsive design, large text and buttons, and mobile-specific design options can help folks use your website on a variety of devices.
• Accessibility. Speaking of variety… your website must be accessible to a variety of people and device types. Some users might be using a smart device or screen reader to consume your content. Others might have a slow connection. To ensure accessibility for all, structure your content with proper header tags, provide descriptive alt text, use high color contrast, and write thoughtful titles and meta descriptions.

Keyword-focused content

Next up: on-page SEO. Creating content that meets quality standards and focuses on a strategic keyword is no easy task. Here are some steps to follow.

1. Keyword research. Before you write a single word or design a single graphic, you must start with research. There are a variety of keyword research tools to help you uncover what your audience is searching for. You can also roll up your sleeves and do your own digging around. Check out your competitors’ blogs and ad copy to see the kind of language they’re using. Mine customer feedback to learn how your audience speaks.
2. Create content with quality indicators in mind. High-quality content is easy to read, educational, entertaining, and insightful. Make sure readers can scan it and get an idea of the key points. Google has also shared the E-E-A-T framework it uses to evaluate content quality. Look for ways to demonstrate expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness in your content.
3. Optimize your content for your focus keyword. If you’ve done thorough keyword research and written quality content, your focus keyword should fall into place. But be sure it’s woven into your piece’s title, URL, headers, meta description, and image tags.

All content techniques are not created equal. There are good and bad tactics. Let’s explain, in short, a “white hat” technique. Creating content that’s helpful to readers is considered white hat. There’s no ulterior motive. You’re genuinely setting out to rank the highest by creating the best content.

Now to explain, in short, a “black hat” technique. Usually, if your intention is anything other than being helpful, you’re probably leaning toward black hat. Techniques like keyword stuffing, sneaky redirects, and buying links are becoming outdated as search engine algorithms learn to sniff them out.

Link acquisition

Now that your website meets technical standards and you’ve published excellent content, your next step is to earn backlinks. What are backlinks? They’re simply links to your content from external websites.

Follow these steps to get backlinks to your content:

1. Target websites where your audience is hanging out. These websites should be publishing content that’s related to the topics you write about.
2. Find an existing piece of content on the website where a link to your new piece would fit. Keep in mind, the fit will need to be very strong. If it’s a stretch, the publisher is unlikely to add your link. So it’s important to be thoughtful on this step.
3. Seek out the person in charge of digital content for the site, and reach out with a personalized message. Summarize your content and spell out how it helps their readers. Suggest a location and anchor text for the link.

What are the 5 SEO factors?

There are five main factors to consider as you’re building and executing your SEO strategy.

1. Strong technical foundation

Search engine algorithms grow more sophisticated every year. At the same time, the bar for engaging user experiences is higher than ever. Think virtual tours, live streams, and augmented reality.

If your website’s technical infrastructure is lacking, Google simply won’t consider ranking your content. There’s too much competition providing a better experience.

2. Keyword-optimized content that’s matched to search intent

We talked about keyword research, but what about search intent? Consider the different types of SEO keywords your audience might use. Determining whether each keyword is informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional will reveal the searcher’s intent.

Matching your content to search intent is crucial for delivering a good experience. Think of it this way. If you’re searching for “where to buy running shoes” (a transactional keyword), you probably don’t want to read a 2,000-word article about the histories of the top athletic retailers. You want a clearly-structured list of places to shop highlighting the pros, cons, and price points of each.

3. On-site interlinking

Interlinking the content on your website helps search engines understand the structure of your website. It also keeps organic traffic on your site longer by helping them discover content related to what they’re currently reading.

For example, let’s say you mention a concept in one piece of content, and go into detail on that concept in another piece. Someone reading the first piece won’t know that additional information’s available unless you link to the second piece.

4. Backlinking

Backlinks are important because search engines assume that if lots of third parties link to your content, it must be good. Basically, it’s like Google is reading the reviews for your content before deciding to rank it.

5. Helpful content

Bottom line: The most important thing is to make your content helpful to your reader - and that goes beyond using a keyword in your content here and there. Your content should offer new insights, original research, and fresh perspectives.

What is search engine optimization? (and an example)

Now that we’ve explained search engine optimization techniques and strategies used to rank your website, let’s talk about how paid tactics fit in. We’ll also look at an example of how all these strategies fit together.

What are SEO and SEM? (with examples)

SEO refers to the process of optimizing your content to rank higher. It’s an organic tactic - meaning the only investment is the time it takes. Search engine marketing is the opposite side of the same coin. It refers to paying for an ad placement at the top of the SERP.

Both SEO and SEM can help you achieve your content marketing goals. They can complement each other. Here’s an example.

Let’s say you’re an online retailer specializing in running shoes. Your organic SEO goals will typically fall near the top of your marketing funnel. You might use SEO to gain organic traffic searching for informational keywords like “how to choose a running shoe.” This will help you establish your brand as an authority. If your audience finds your content helpful, they’ll think of you when they’re ready to buy.

To win traffic searching for transactional keywords like “buy XYZ brand running shoes,” you’d likely be more aggressive. Those users are more likely to bring immediate value to your company by making a purchase.

However, the line between when to use SEO and SEM easily blurs. Many brands use SEM to pay for top-funnel traffic if they know those users will be profitable down the line. For example, a user searching “best running shoes under $500” is still in the research phase. But they’ve indicated they’re willing to spend a lot on shoes. Even though they’re not ready to buy, it might be worth it to pay for their eyeballs on your content.

Here’s another example. Maybe your blog has a high-converting pop-up that invites readers to get email notifications when their favorite shoe brands go on sale. Since a user on any piece of content could convert, it might make sense to pay for search traffic, even on informational keywords.

Reach your audience for years to come

Marketers sometimes hesitate to invest in SEO because they may not see an immediate ROI. While SEO won’t get you instant traffic like ads, it’s a worthwhile pursuit that will benefit your company for years to come.

And once your content starts gaining traction, your results will snowball. As your site starts ranking higher in the SERP, you’ll earn more backlinks. You’ll look more credible and authoritative to Google. And suddenly, your organic traffic will skyrocket.

The problem is, to get these results, you have to start somewhere. As the (modified) proverb goes: The best time to start SEO was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.

By using the techniques and tactics we’ve covered, you can start creating optimized, high-quality content that will build evergreen value for your brand.

Prospective customers simply are not finding your product or service by using their smartphones to search. Worse, your competitors seem to have a crack SEO team at work. They've cornered the search engine market using keywords that strike at the heart of your business model. This is intolerable, of course, because you’re the best at what you do! Countless potential customers are being led horribly astray.

Deep breath. Awareness of a problem has taken hold. This is the necessary first step.

You’ve already taken the steps of committing to the process of improving your online performance through learning more about SEO, digital PR, geotagging, the primary types of keywords, website analytics, and more. However, as you began digging into the details, it became clear that no one person can possibly accomplish everything needed to improve — and retain — higher rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs). You ultimately arrive at the realization that you need to hire more staff.

With that realization, you’ve taken the necessary second step — one that is frequently the most challenging. Very likely, the investment required to construct a search engine optimization (SEO) team from scratch seems daunting.

Don't Allow Panic to Make Your Situation Worse

However, you should never undertake building your team in a hurry. Instead, objectively assess your efforts to date. Realistically evaluate the skills you already have on board with existing team members. Commit to starting small and building consistently over time. SEO team success requires that you play the long game.

SMB owners might decide to combine some of the roles listed below. They might hold off hiring in one area to beef up in another. You'll want to set up something suited to your unique needs. There is no “one size fits all” approach that applies to every niche. Feel free to adapt these broad categories to arrive at a customized solution for your SEO team. Plan to review progress and identify deficits at least once per quarter.

Setting Your SEO Team Up for Success

1. SEO Team Lead

As with any company-wide initiative, the buck ultimately has to stop with someone. Given the constantly shifting terrain of the SEO realm, it’s all too easy for team members to get so far down into their respective rabbit holes that they lose sight of the bigger picture. Perhaps nowhere is the frequency of this common issue easier to get out of hand than during an SEO overhaul.

Whether you call this person the “Chief SEO Executive” or “SEO Top Banana” will be a function of the nature of your business and the overall vibe of your company culture. How you title this position is far less critical than it is that it signals authority. Everyone on your team signs off on the notion that whatever this individual says….goes. Every decision this person makes is final, for better or worse. Full stop.

Ideal characteristics for this role would include a high degree of flexibility, calm demeanor (i.e., not easily agitated), strong communication skills, and the ability to play the long game consistently. This person has a well-defined game plan that includes a unified approach, frequent praise for milestones achieved, and benchmarks that can adapt to changing market conditions.

Ideally, this person also has a strong background in PR and serves as a liaison between the SEO team and PR personnel. As the PR people are working to create positive brand awareness, those efforts are likely to uncover opportunities for back-linking, referral traffic, and building up the authority of your company’s website assets

2. Digital Content Lead

This person is responsible for planning, creating, and regularly updating the Content Creation and Publication calendar. One of the most frequent mistakes that SEO team leadership makes is seriously underestimating just how much legwork is involved in this singular task. After all, the end result is a calendar display that provides a consistent view for all team members. On the surface, it doesn’t seem like much of an end product.

In this case, appearances can be deceiving. The content lead is responsible for interacting with every member of the SEO team, coordinating the production and editing of 100% original content, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of every team member, and (not least) keeping a grip on approved vacation schedules. This person is also well versed in big-picture company objectives and the keywords required to obtain them.

Whoever occupies this position should (ideally) be a direct report to team leadership. These first two positions are frequently combined into one, but in most cases, that is not an ideal structure. If you must start out this way, look to split the two responsibilities at your earliest opportunity.

3. On-Page SEO Specialist

Among marketing specialists, the on-page SEO specialist can perhaps be considered your company’s online content introvert. Of course, they are always looking outward for research and trends to help optimize internal content creation efforts, too. However, the primary focus is creating, tweaking, and constantly fine-tuning company-curated websites, social media channels, videos, and all other publicly available digital media under the direct control of your SEO team.

There is certainly no shortage of sample job descriptions for this position available online. However, key attributes to keep in mind are the ability to work well with content creators to optimize copy, revise landing pages, caption photos, edit videos, conduct research, and bring their insights to bear on pre-existing, current, and future content creation. At times, this person might recommend that precious pieces of digital content be revised beyond recognition…or deleted altogether. As you might well guess, having some diplomacy skills will prove helpful.

4. Off-Page SEO Analyst/Technician

This function is quite similar to that of the on-page SEO team specialist, but the primary focus is consistently outward. This person relies on data-driven reporting — website analytics, sales figures, impartial niche rankings, and so forth. They use these as tools for connecting with external entities that might reasonably have an incentive for creating inbound links. The off-page specialist is particularly interested in boosting the overall credibility of the company. The key concepts for this person are overall content relevance, perceived trustworthiness, and domain authority.

If relationship building, outreach, and link building (see below), can be meaningfully compared to sales, this position can perhaps be analogous to customer service. There is likely to be a great deal of crossover between the on-page and off-page duties, but there are shades of difference in approach, which (again) is why it’s often best to split these responsibilities between staff. Your on-page people are responsible for “baking the world’s greatest cake.” Off-page expertise requires an ability to answer the question, “Why aren’t more people buying?”

5. Relationship Management, Outreach, and Link Building

On the surface, this position sounds a lot like sales, but it’s slightly more than just that. Yes, this position approaches external entities to gauge interest in collaboration, but it does not stop there. Given the fluid nature of online content — what works well one day might quite literally tank the next — this person’s responsibilities don’t end once someone cuts a check. Instead, this person maintains an abiding enthusiasm for the success of clients. They conduct regular research to share with clients to help them stay on top of SERPs and continuously enhance their reputation.

What Win-Win Relationship Building 'Looks Like'

There’s a terrific scene toward the end of the 1996 film Jerry McGuire. The title character authentically celebrates a significant victory for one of his sports clients. Across the field, another client who signed with a competing firm wonders why his agent never shows that level of enthusiasm. Separating quick sales from abiding interest marks the dividing line between sales and ongoing support. Staff in this position work for your company, yes. However, they are constantly on the prowl for opportunities that might benefit the external entities with whom they interact.

This position requires a deep understanding of the need to bring win-win propositions to the table week after week. The relationship management employee must maintain a keen awareness of what the on-page and off-page specialists do. They must understand how it can be leveraged to their client’s advantage. They must be able to speak to both highly knowledgeable SEO customers and those who need it boiled down to the most superficial level. This person must be able to explain how inbound links are most likely to come about, what can be done to boost online reputation, and more.

At the level of the SMB, relationship building might translate into better working relationships with suppliers, other businesses, customers, nonprofits, and local, state, and federal governments. In short, this person seeks to position your company such that other entities want to be associated with it, both online and in real life.

6. Technical SEO Team Support

Depending on the size of your business, you may start out with your web hosting and maintenance services being outsourced. Most SMBs do begin their online adventures precisely like that, and many choose to keep it that way. This might be perfectly acceptable in your situation and you, therefore, see no need to hire any professional “web nerds.”

Fair enough, but keep in mind that whenever you outsource anything, you enter into a queue. The level of priority you represent to that company will be in direct proportion to how sizable your account is as compared to others. Suppose that service provider has clients whose monthly recurring revenue (MRR) dwarfs that of your company. It’s not hard to guess who is going to get faster turnaround times on service requests. This sort of prioritization is to be expected, so patience may be needed.

Having a technical person or team just down the hall from your office can make all the difference in the world when it comes to the need to update the website core, scan for plugin conflicts and promulgate desired mark-up practices for both on-page and off-page SEO teams.

These people need to not only be highly conversant in what works best for SEO now, but they are also forward-looking. Suppose you’ve ever had a hosting provider send you an urgent email. They urgently inform you that you must update your site structure immediately. In that case, you know full well the value of getting advance notice. Forward-thinking does not throw your entire company into panic mode.

Play the Long Game with Your SEO Team Members

As mentioned at the beginning, there is no hard-and-fast rule for how to construct an SEO team that will meaningfully contribute to your company’s success. You can probably expect at least a certain amount of trial and error as you move forward. Copying what works for one company in your niche usually doesn’t work, either. Your unique selling proposition should be different from your competitors, so your strategy should differentiate, not blur, distinctions.

Of course, the sky’s the limit when it comes to conquering the digital realm and owning the industry you occupy through the use of custom SEO. What you probably do not want to do is hire a bunch of people only to turn around and let many or most of them go six months later. The impact of such a move will be devastating to the morale of the team members who remain.

If the staffing budget represents an initial stumbling block, better to combine a few of the roles listed above into one as a solid starting point. Just maintain ongoing awareness that it's easy to overwhelm you digital PR team. Many times burnout can creep up on even your most energetic team members without their realizing it. Be ready to add staff as need dictates, before your people begin to lose their energy and excitement.