How to Work with an SEO Team

As an SEO Strategist at a New York City Digital Marketing Agency, I have had the opportunity to work with an array of clients in a variety of different verticals. Some clients being unicorn companies, some one-man teams, and others your typical startup or mid-size company.

While the relationship, knowledge of SEO, and responsibilities might change from client to client, the intention is the same; to increase their organic traffic.

Oftentimes, clients have worked with a paid media team, or a web development team, but SEO is new to them. Even more often, they know they need it but don’t fully understand SEO.

For these reasons, we will outline exactly what an SEO team does, and how you can work with an SEO team to make the relationship successful.

What Does an SEO Team Do?

An SEO team, or Search Engine Optimization team, optimizes a website with keywords to increase the website’s search ranking to bring in more organic traffic.

The relationship will typically start with the SEO team performing a website audit. The audits’ purpose is to essentially benchmark where the website was when the engagement started and to outline exactly what should be fixed on the website.

Typically, a website is either not optimized or semi-optimized, so the next step is to perform keyword research to identify the opportunity keywords to target, and then to write the meta tags which will be added to the website by developers.

Once the meta tags are optimized and implemented, the SEO team will then optimize all of the copy on the website with the same keywords used in the meta tag of the page being optimized. Optimizing the copy supports the title tags and reaffirms to Google which keywords to index that particular page for.

Once the website is optimized and in good standing, the ongoing process is to create blog content targeting new keywords and to build links back to the website through the process of link building.

What Does an SEO Team Need Access to?

The SEO team will need access to a few things to get started optimizing the website. The first is Google Analytics. Google Analytics allows digital marketers to analyze a website’s traffic. In terms of SEO, an SEO team can analyze a user’s behavior on the website and then optimize the site or prioritize tasks based on the data within Google Analytics. We can also make data-based decisions moving forward based on the analytics we see in GA.

The second is Google Search Console. Google Search Console allows SEO teams to see additional data on how the website is performing within the Google search engine. Also, we can see which pages are 404 errors, if there are critical manual actions against the site, and can submit new pages to be indexed.

Lastly, we typically like access to the website itself. Oftentimes, we can quickly implement changes, dive deeper into the setup of the website, or make the optimizations ourselves.

How Can I Best Assist an SEO Team?

There are two ways a client can best assist an SEO team. The number 1 way to best assist an SEO team, is to quickly implement the work!

Countless times we finish the SEO tag writing or write a new blog, but the client will not implement the work. This creates a bottleneck that ultimately delays results and then looks bad on the SEO team.

The second way is to be patient! SEO takes time. Typically, you will see great results around the 6-month mark (and sometimes sooner) but you cannot rush the results! SEO is a long-term play. The key is to stay consistent and be patient.

To Sum It All Up

Working with an SEO team is one of the best ways you can improve your website and your search engine visibility. Work with your SEO team, not against them. Help them succeed and they will 100% do everything to help you succeed! We want to see growth; we want to see success.

Do you have a question that was not answered above? Or would you like to speak with our SEO team about your website? Reach out by filling out a free consultation form!