Negotiating ad buys was as simple as cutting the seller’s price in half. Paid search could be left on cruise control with an Amex plugged into the account for weeks on end. Flash ads were brand new and ad networks were just starting to take off. Social media was limited to discussion forums and blogs had only just begun to gain exposure.

Yet, for all of that newness, if you were a web-based business back then, each of these areas was top of mind and mission-critical to your success. Sure, learning SEO meant working live with your sites. It meant asking questions in a forum, editing your code and watching for results.

Even today, this same formula holds true for a lot of SEOs. In many ways, ten years on, we’re not really farther ahead in our jobs in terms of the mechanics of what we do. Tools abound today to make tracking data easier, for sure. Back then we had…well, I had Webtrends and AWStats.  That was the extent of the “seo tools” available then.

When viewed from 50,000 feet as an SEO, not a lot seems to have changed around the “what we do”. Sure there are new technologies, but technical SEO is still technical SEO. Keyword research is still keyword research.

What has changed is the business and political landscapes. As more businesses began to understand the value of the results our work could bring, there began an increase in interest in our field. Job opportunities flourished and the entire industry of “seo training” came to be.

Out of the increase investment around training, or maybe because of it, came higher expectations from business owners and executives. The critical take away then, and this remains true today, is you have to set expectations realistically.

Time and again, I hear from folks still struggling to hit unrealistic goals because a VP wants it to be so. As for the Execs, well, they need to realize the work done in search marketing often borders on the fundamental, which usually means big, expensive changes to publishing platforms.

Executives and business owners need to remember that cycling through SEO analysts because each fails to deliver on unrealistic goals is hugely expensive, counterproductive and usually leads to missed opportunities. Most businesses end up realizing there are things they simply don’t know.

The result of making decisions when you don’t have all the information is that more work needs to be done later.  When your SEO analyst, Manager or even Director tells you a new CMS is needed, realize they are trying to do the best for the company. Yes, it’s expensive and time consuming to make the change. But had you known the actual cost of that cheaper system years ago was a loss of search traffic today, you’d have likely made a different decision then.

SEO-focused staff needs to understand that in every business there is a need to balance resources against work. SEO is not the only group at the table looking for money and people, so understanding the focus of the company, the larger picture and each groups goals can go a long way to helping your SEO program understand the realistic limits they will face.

If that means scaling back work, so be it. But fighting for more all the time and building plans based on “more people and more money” that never materialize, is simply a waste of time.

There continues to be debate as to where in a typical organization an SEO team should sit. It seemed clear to me a decade ago that Marketing was the logical location. SEO is a marketing function, so the team sits in the Marketing organization.

Fast forward to today and experience has taught me a glaring truth. It doesn’t matter where SEO sits. What matters is how much support they have form other organizational owners.

Does HR understand hiring for SEO work is different from traditional marketing and has different skill sets? Does the IT team support the ongoing work the SEO team will need them to execute on? Is the Editorial layer in sync with why keyword research is so fundamentally important?

The real take-away on this point is influence. If positioning your SEO team inside Marketing gets you the most influence, then do it. If more influence exists when SEO lives inside the IT or Development groups then put them there.

That influence to get changes made matters more than any org chart. If we’re all in place to build a successful business, then position your teams to maximize the influence they can wield over projects that matter.

After 10+ years of performing SEO in small and large environments, I’ve seen first-hand examples of everything mentioned above. Looking back on every major issue I can recall, I clearly see none were really big. Too many times, small things we thought were big distracted from getting work done.

Don’t get caught in this trap – stay focused. Stay focused on the goal, not the work. The goal is what matters. The work fills in the blanks along the way.

Moving On…

In July, it will be 4 years since I wrote my first article for SEL, focused on networking for inhouse folks, and why it matters so much. That article was about networking and why it was important for inhouse SEMs. Networking still matters a great deal today, and to that end, I’m going to wrap this article by letting readers know that this will be my last article as an inhouse SEM.

In fact, your networking just improved a notch. Sad as it is for me to leave behind a decade+ of inhouse SEM work, I’m moving to a new role with Bing on Janaury 24^th.

I’ll be managing the Webmaster & Developer outreach for Bing moving forward, which means all of you just got a friend inside Bing! It’s been an amazing ten years growing my career and I owe a lot of thanks to a lot of people along the way.

The folks here at SEL have been great even before there was an SEL. Simply amazing folks who I’m pleased to say I know. To everyone else, I’ll simply say thanks. Don’t be surprised if, at the next conference party, a drink suddenly comes your way on me.

See you from the other side gang. Keep up the great work!

Again this year SEMPO has run the Industry Salary Survey. Started a few years back, this survey is a great tool coming into the new year to help explain to your uplevel managers and Human Resources exactly what your skills are worth. In past years, the survey was split into In-House and Agency versions.

This year they have been combined into one survey, though the two individual tracks have been preserved, of course. Before you go all clap-happy, though, get a grip. The industry is maturing, and while there are still plenty of opportunities available, businesses are much savvier today about understanding what they need and how to hire this talent.

Gone are the days were you could buzz-word your way into a slick position with a company. Today’s businesses want to see quantifiable results and will be looking for clear proof of not only past successes, but also of your time in the industry.

Wondering if that online SEO training you were thinking of taking has any value? Chances are it’ll carry some weight in your interview, so look at it as investment in your career.

And speaking of training, choose your training program carefully. There still exist a lot of options online today, not all of which are created equally. Look through what’s covered carefully and try to understand how useful the topics covered will be in your future work.

If you see a program covering more than SEO – consider this, as paid search, social media management, link building and more all matter to today’s businesses. Here’s a primer list, in no order, of places to check out training options:

• MarketMotive
• SEMPO Institute
• Online Marketing Summit
• Bruce Clay
• SEOMOZ
• SMX Workshops
• SES Workshops
• Pubcon Workshops

There are dozens more, and this list is only meant to give folks a starting point. I’ll suggest a quick trip to your engine of choice to look for more training options and options for deeper focus in specific areas.

Try to look at businesses which offer a series of training options, covering the widest range of online marketing options possible.  Buying courses through them will likely result in a better overall training package, and might even save you a few dollars. The bottom line — you should shop around and match what will be covered to your needs.

The goal with the SEMPO Salary Survey data was to have data available early in the New Year. So check in and make sure your membership is up to date to see the full results. The data in that survey might just be the best news you’ve seen all year.

Please be careful, though, when sharing this information within your company. Most businesses want to know if they are compensating their employees equitably, but few enjoy when employees threaten to quit if they don’t get a raise. In fact, most businesses are not equipped to deal with significant budget hits mid-year, so timing is critical.

Getting adjustments to salaries made is a budgeting exercise, among other things. Be sure to start conversations at the right time to influence budgets. Without this critical timing and influence, it’ll be tough for your boss to convince the company to find more money for you, no matter what a survey says.

The main points of all this are basically as follows:

• Training programs matter more now than in the past to most businesses
• Don’t sweat the actual program – sweat the details covered in the program
• Try to find all-encompassing training programs – seo, ppc, social, etc.
• Businesses are savvier than ever about hiring online marketing talent
• More businesses are starting to align salaries with skills & experience
• SEMPO Salary survey data comes out soon

Now, on an entirely lighter note, it occurred to me the world needs yet another take on the Twelve Days of Christmas. These are the things that pop into my head while thinking of salary surveys and employment trends in our industry. So without further ado, I present…

The 12 days of Christmas, SEO style:

• 12 editors writing unique content
• 11 engineers fixing bad URLs
• 10 trusted inbound links for every page
• 9 pages of fresh content every day
• 8 dedicated bodies to do social media work
• 7 days a week of SEO focus
• 6 solid keyword research tools
• 5 useful social media management tools
• 4 reliable back-link checking tools
• 3 easy ways to validate sites in WMTs
• 2 full sets of Webmaster tools
• and one SEO Easy Button

Hokey, I’ll admit, but my next thought is heartfelt, I assure you.

I’d like to offer a big thanks to everyone who reads our contributions here at Search Engine Land. It’s great to be able to share with folks and the feedback is always appreciated. Here’s to an excellent, profitable 2011! And thanks for a simply amazing 2010. See you next year.

Having the right people in the conversation is obvious and critical. As your company size grows, though, it’s not always easy to understand who is doing what, thus making it much less clear who should be in the room. When asking yourself if the conversation is happening on the right level, I’m not only referring to corporate hierarchy, but also levels of knowledge on the topics being discussed.

I recently sat in a meeting attended by folks from many levels – managers on through a couple of VPs. When I wrapped up a sidebar conversation with an SEO Manager about 301 redirects, the VP sitting next to me turned to me and said, “I know you were speaking English, but I have no idea what you just said.”  We all had a bit of a chuckle and I explained that what was needed from them was sign off on time & dollars to manage work. That they understood clearly.

Seems like every meeting I attend is stacked with all manner of folks. Titles largely don’t matter here at Microsoft in our day-to-day work, but asking someone if they know SEO is a dangerous move. Some say, “No” outright. Others come back with the non-committal, “Some, but I’m still learning…”.  Some even brazenly state “Yep, there’s not much more for me to learn”. No matter their own perceived level of knowledge on the topic, I always start conversations assuming they know very little. Those who do know offer the right signals of knowledge and we move deeper, quicker.

For those who didn’t know the topic so well, they get to safely learn new things, or graciously save face as the slow approach lets them build their comfort level easily. At all times, though, I’m watching, learning and tweaking my presentation, questions and delivery to get to my goal – answers to my questions. Actions against my needs.

Last week, I attended a training session called “Precision Questioning & Answering”. True to its name, it taught skills to dig deeper into topics to fully understand what’s being discussed. It highlighted skills around digging deeper when someone offered a vague or undefined statement. When asking when the new rel-canonical tags will be implemented, a response such as “Next month…” would elicit further, refining questions like “What date; early in the month or later?”

While that example is obvious, throw cultural variances into the mix, sprinkle in differing personalities and set the oven to full-on hidden agendas and you have a recipe for disaster. This training is designed to develop your nose for reading between the lines and digging deeper to get to the truth. Highly useful skills for an in-house SEO to possess.

On the answering side, we come full circle. A VP looking for a project update will not want, or even necessarily understand, that 19 page email with every detail. You need to know that this person needs a clear sound bite to take to their audience. You also need to know that if you don’t craft that sound bite carefully, it may be taken out of context, so choose your words wisely. Still, you need to be concise.

The overall point here is that one critical factor in you being successful in getting SEO work complete, is factoring in your audience and bending to their needs based on how they ingest data. Some people love detail. Others love bullet points and summaries. Knowing the difference across your audiences may mean the difference between getting your work moved forward, or it being forgotten.

Sentimental Me

Tracking, measuring and understanding user sentiment is one of the holy grails of social media. Every business desperately wants to know what their clients and customers think of them, their products and their services. Reasonably, they believe that understanding this “communal feeling” towards their business and its offerings will yield clues they can use to their advantage. This is little different from the days of sitting in the sandbox wondering if, maybe, the new guy liked you, perhaps he’d share his cookies with you.

These days, a multitude of tools exist to help your inhouse effort in tracking sentiment via social spaces. If you have the budget, maybe Radian6, Scoutlabs, Hubspot, Sysomos or Buzzstream might meet your needs. Those seeking the no cost path may be served by Google Alerts, Addict-o-Matic or Netvibes (tip of the hat to Marty Weintraub for the condensed list.)

While I’ve personally heard of every one of those above, I only have hands on experience with Google Alerts…and I can state that relying on this service to alert you to instances of your targeted keyword being noted is fine. If you’re OK with “sometime” updates, as opposed to “real time” updates. Don’t get me wrong, Google finds the references, and communicates them to you, it’s just that there can often be a time lag, so it’s clearly not capable of supporting your entry into a conversation in near real time.

And that’s my point here. Tracking sentiment is all well and good. Many executives and managers love to see the graphs and glow or glower, depending on how the sentiment flows. The real value, though, is in doing something with the data. All the reports in the world won’t help you engage. That’s where your company needs to step forward with a detailed plan on what to do with the data. How are you going to translate those sentiment reports into action?

This is where real time or near real time tracking comes into its own. Showing up late to a conversation about your business is, in some cases, better than not showing up at all. By showing up during the conversation, though, you can now influence the sentiment. Yes, this will take time, effort and manpower. Folks like to think that at this stage in the earth’s history, we can automate, short-cut and generally find ways around investing our time into something. Sorry to disappoint you, but the best way to change someone’s mind from negative to positive is still to talk to them, understand their issue and offer to fix it. There is no automated system that can manage this, to my knowledge.

Enter your social media program. You can now jump in and influence the situation, if you are seeing conversations in near real time (think within 30 seconds or so of a Tweet, FB post, etc.). There is a lot needed to back up a successful engagement, but without this first step, you’ll be showing up to customer conversations long after the customers have left.

By their very nature, conversations in social tend to be fleeting. Your window to communicate is dictated by the customer and how long they happen to be online at that moment. If you are not alerted to the conversation and ready to respond immediately, their sentiment is left for all to see. In cases where this is positive, you’ve nothing to worry about. But, with increasing numbers of customers turning to the online world to voice concerns, complaints and issues, those untended negative sentiments can leave a lasting trail that will haunt your business for years.

During a recent marketing podcast I participated in, one of the questions we grappled with was does social media help companies solve problems, or does it simply expose how broken your other customer touch points are. If a customer is left to feel lashing out on Twitter is their only recourse, how much of that is the customer being lazy (not calling, not visiting a store, etc.) and how much of that is a failure on the business’ part (dead-end phone systems, no customer service reps to talk to, apathetic staff)?

Manage Expectations Before They Manage You

I think the first step in managing expectations is to start inside your company, with your management & executives. If you’re lucky, they will already understand social spaces, human psychology and the bigger concepts around sentiment, branding and how fickle customers can be. I’d say most managers in business today understand most of that mix, some understand all, but most are missing key data around social.

Start with them so they understand what your program will be capable of. What type of data will it yield and what type of work items will emerge from that collected data.  Be clear around response times, and even if responding is part of the program. If responding to users is part of the program, management better get ready to fund some head count. Talking to customers takes time and effort. Better be ready to empower people to give the right responses to customer complaints, too, which might facilitate a review of the overall customer service program.

As your program gets into a grove with customers, it’ll start to shape their own expectations as well. You could post a notice on your website telling customers what to expect when they engage socially with you, but the proof is in the real-time responses. Nothing builds positive sentiments like resolving a customer’s issue almost immediately. Even just acknowledging their problem one-on-one socially can often change the entire tone of the conversation.

I firmly believe that managing expectations within your company will be the bigger challenge. The results of investing in a social media response program are not often measured directly or quickly in revenue. Still, if you have an investment in brand, beefing up your social response program should be seen as protecting the brand investment. For those struggling to establish a brand, use this as a way to leverage yourself past your competitors. Bigger companies often struggle with moving quickly enough, and you know what? Good customer service still builds loyalty…and links, too.

A few weeks later, I found a use for those new followers. I reached out for feedback on behalf of Bing around their recently-introduced and updated webmaster tools. Plenty of folks responded, the feedback was valuable and applied to future work. Value established, I took a keener interest in social programs overall.

I’ve always felt there was value in social in terms of building links to support your SEO efforts, but other practical applications of social programs have recently proven the broader value of simple human interactions.

Last summer, I had a very positive experience with Comcast’s social program via Twitter. Within minutes of pinging @comcastcares, a local rep reached out to me to discuss the issue. A few tweets later and I had a truck enroute to investigate the issue. I was impressed. While the latest update on Comcast apparently includes the news that the gentleman who started that social program for them has left the company, I had need to ping them last week. Response times were just as fast, so obviously the program has survived the exit of its originator.

With this new interest in social programs driving my own social posting habits, I recently came across a social program that won an award from the Guinness folks. No, not the beer company; the records company. The Xbox folks earned recognition from the Guinness folks for their effort. (Disclosure: I work for Microsoft.) The “Elite Tweet Fleet” at Xbox managed, in a seven day period, to answer 5,000 queries in an average time of 2:42. WOW! Please see Social Media Examiner for the full article.

Imagine the feeling of loyalty built in Xbox fans when they know they can reach out directly, any time, with problems or ideas and share them directly with Xbox. That’s the kind of connectivity to brand that users crave and brands are constantly trying to foster.  Trouble is, most brands back up the idea with weak sauce. They don’t staff it well, they don’t focus the team on customer service, they simply miss on execution. Xbox is enjoying high customer interaction, which inevitably builds brand affinity. They’re also saving money on support costs as their Tweet Fleet is 10 reps strong. They work crazy hours to ensure they are available when gamers are gaming. What a novel idea. Be there for your clients.

This brings me to the obvious point here, that customer service is a critical component to the folks at Xbox, and they are investing seriously. There are many ways and reasons to invest in a social program, but this example stands out as a way to get it right. This program easily adds more value to the company than it costs to run.

Now, look at your own social program. No matter its actual goal, you need to ask if it’s running at award winning levels. Working for Microsoft, I can honestly say the company doesn’t simply shovel money into projects without a plan. It’s a sure bet that the social outreach program at Xbox started small. When the positive upside appeared, more investment would have then been made.

I mention this to encourage folks to look past the cost of running a top flight social program. Yes, there is a cost, but if you have a solid goal in mind, the path can vary. Low cost need not mean cutting corners on quality. Technology makes a great partner in small social programs to help create more muscle when you need it most.

While the trend today for most companies is to outsource social programs to agencies and consultants targeting this niche, small programs can be run efficiently, though with often limited touchpoints – I’ll admit – by only a couple of folks, some RSS feeds, an app and dedicated tracking systems. I certainly think there is a place for specialist service providers to guide social programs, though many don’t add enough value to the equation for companies, balanced against the fees they charge. I feel every social program needs to provide a tangible ROI at some point, so it’s critical to loop the investment back to actions: traffic, link building, sales, brand affinity, etc.

If your program is smaller though, and a passionate person exists to use available tools ranging from a mobile phone to analytics software, a successful social program can easily be managed in minutes a day. To be fair, those minutes are real minutes, likely to accrue into an hour or more each day when you factor in pushing out info, tracking results and building reports.

Here’s the process I personally use. I’ve used this to post regularly and have attracted over 1,400 new followers in the past month.  It takes me minutes a day to post.

I use Google Reader to aggregate RSS feeds from sites I want to follow and trust. Next up, on my iPhone (GASP, I know…) I have an app called MobileRSS. When I open the app, it displays all the recent inbound posts from the feeds I follow. I then select an article of interest, click one icon to open the posting menu, and then post to Twitter. Shortening the URL is handily built right into the system. I could also select to email the article link somewhere, or post to Facebook and other locations.

This process allows me to Tweet roughly 5 – 7 times per minute, so firing off 10 to 20 fresh, relevant, useful articles to followers is easy. Slipping my own posts into the mix is as simple as following my own RSS feed via the Reader. It’s hardly a pro-grade program, but it works (currently.) While this is simply how I, an individual, posts socially – it could easily be employed by a business.  Overlaying analytics data would allow a much more complete picture of the value of your efforts, obviously.

Getting things right and having your social program wow your users does take work, but a little 1910 customer service, crossed with 2010 technology, can give you a winning edge socially, from the comfort of your office no less.

So, want to go win an award?

Food for thought

To make sure things are clear, let me plainly state – there is no SEO rap sheet in existence. It’s merely a food-for-thought idea suggested by someone on a panel of SEO experts. An idea, however, if you’re in the field of SEO, that bears exploring before you ask “What did I do wrong?” or “Why is this or that happening to my site?” I’ll go so far as to suggest each website owner act as if there is an SEO rap sheet. Letting this frame of mind guide many decisions wouldn’t be a bad thing. Remember: If you have to ask if a tactic is acceptable, chances are you already know the answer.

All websites start off innocent. We all want positive results with no negative downsides. Too often, however, in the world of online marketing, you can be lead astray. You might not even realize you’re headed down the wrong path. It’s hard to know who to trust when you are new to a topic. Worse, even experienced folks get caught by slick sales people and their fast talking ways.

Heck, you might even find yourself the unwitting victim of sabotage from within!

This hypothetical concept of an SEO rap sheet is intriguing. If we view the work we do against the desires of the engines, many times we see gaps. For any number of reasons, you may choose to do something your way, as opposed to adhering to exactly what a search engine might suggest in their webmaster guidelines (such as with Bing, Google, and Yahoo!). They only suggest, they don’t often instruct. The engines understand it’s your website and you’ll do what you want, but they do make suggestions from time to time.

Why it matters

Most times, the gaps between an engine’s point of view and your actions are small and innocent. They rarely result in any kind of issue. If you have a dynamic URL, when it’s easier for the engine to crawl keyword rich, friendly URLs, this isn’t the end of the world. Unless taken to the extremes, it’s unlikely to hurt you. (Though making the switch to clean URLs can often help you.) Make no mistake, though, the engines are watching. They’re even trying to help you with great resources like their Webmaster blogs. Bing and Google have produced a wealth of information, and with a number of excellent industry blogs to read, you’ll never run dry of guidance on the current topics and issues facing SEO today.

The engines see all of your actions and when something really rubs them the wrong way, they remember it in relation to your domain. This is where the SEO rap sheet starts to become relevant.

For example, engines don’t like it when you buy or sell links. So think of this as a way of getting a mark on your hypothetical SEO rap sheet. Collect enough and the engine pushes back – maybe dropping your ranking, maybe de-indexing you in extreme cases. Sure, you can reach out and beg for forgiveness after cleaning things up, but what if just like in real life, that rap sheet doesn’t go away? What if that infraction remains on record?

Given that it’s all just data, and abuse can cost a search engine a lot of time and money to manage, the engines can afford to keep track of this data to make future decisions easier, faster and more efficient. If SEO rap sheets did exist, would it change your online marketing behavior and strategy?

While there are no actual rap sheets being tallied for websites by the engines, let’s face facts: if you break their rules, claim to fix your site, then are found to break the rules again, how quickly do you think the engines will trust you in the future? These systems understand the concept of “Hurt me once, shame on you. Hurt me twice, shame on me.”

Act as if it’s real

Those folks running websites should take the concept of an SEO rap sheet to heart and make decisions with this in mind. While I’m not advocating blindly following each suggestion issued by an engine, it certainly would pay to think of the crawlers as “users” and treat them as nicely as you treat humans whose money you are trying to attract. The crawlers may not directly bring wallets, as their own currency is visitors, but you definitely want them in the party, having a grand old time with everyone else.

Visualize your SEO rap sheet as a running tab. Do good, nothing hits the blotter. Do bad and things start to get tossed at the blotter. Some bad things stick and might cause you long term pain. Some bad things slide off over time, or simply never stick due to low severity. The point is that as website owners, search engine optimizers, agencies and consultants, everyone has a burden to bear ensuring that their project’s blotter remains stain-free.

In the end, the right course of action is to follow established best practices for search optimization, and listen to what the engines provide as feedback via spaces such as the webmaster blogs, and think carefully about how best to implement work on your own website. And most importantly, thinking – and acting – in terms of avoiding getting on an SEO rap sheet, means not having to pose for that ever-embarrassing SEO mug shot!

I suspect in house folks have a split view on these topics. On one hand, there are invariably people inside your company following SEO, ready at a moment’s notice to spread the news and hit the panic buttons. The flip side to this, of course, is your struggle to get folks to even acknowledge the very basics of SEO work, meaning the vast majority of employees are blind to the topic.

So what should you be doing? Start by going for a coffee.

None of us are instantly equipped with every answer, so feel free to create some space for yourself in which to digest the latest news and information. Sure, the latest industry sites are reporting changes around what Google is OK with in a sitemap (see here for SEL coverage). The natural extension for these sources is to “wonder aloud” if this means an end to the currently agreed to “sitemap protocol.”

Don’t get caught up in the hype. Those are news sites looking for eyeballs. Your job is to manage SEO, and you cannot manage work against speculation. You manage work against facts. Bottom line, this change simply provides you with more opportunities. Regardless of whether the protocol remains intact, you have more options. Get back to work, let the fringe panic over details and stay focused.

I often receive random emails from folks in my company very specifically asking about this or that sound bite someone shared with them on an SEO topic. Almost all instances require deep explanations to help the person truly grasp the context of what they were told. Most responses start by me taking a big deep breath, then digging in.

Sometimes, however, it pays to panic a bit yourself. You are the in house SEO person, so if it involves SEO, it’s your domain. Topics such as mobile SEO should get your heart beating a bit faster. The days of being able to ignore niche areas such as this are coming to a rapid end. The question left to you now is how best to guide your company to remain successful in such a new and rapidly evolving space. Without a doubt, it’s going to require you ramping up your own knowledge in a hurry, as others inside your company may already be starting the conversations you need to be involved with.

Don’t make the mistake of simply thinking you can gloss over hot topics like this, either. Mobile SEO has a wealth of individual learning points to wrap your head around from site structure issues to app search functionality. One of the best sources of info on this growing area of expertise is sitting right here on the Search Engine Land servers.

The choice is entirely yours on whether you arm yourself with the knowledge, then dig in on the work, or if you hand this area off to a consultant to manage. The bottom line in either case remains that you will still need to know the ins and outs to manage the consultant properly.

There is no secret that change is constant. In our world, change literally happens every day. If an engine tweaks their algorithm, we can see the end result if it affects our rankings and traffic. The key is to remain calm. I remember the monthly panic across the then-fledgling industry when it was time for the monthly “Google Dance”. Man, the posting forum lit up every month. Thankfully we’ve moved past such a cadence for changes as the changes were not usually problematic… but the distraction caused around my office with needless, panicked questions about them was.

While we all still see the difference changes to SEO make, take a moment to think back on how many of the “reported by the news” changes have really rocked your world.  Unless your world was a darker shade of gray in some manner, chances are good you’ve weathered most changes pretty well. Be those changes new technologies, algorithm updates and even new players in the game. You do your work, the results show increases in traffic and you wait for the next change.

Don’t panic, go for a coffee.

Let’s take a look at a three step plan to improve your internal SEO communications.

Newsletters

I’m sure everyone has thought of this approach by now. Not hard to see why either. A dedicated internal SEO newsletter is an obvious way to spread any news on the topic. The challenge is to get people to read the thing, though.

Your best approach is to apply the best practices for email marketing and apply them to your own newsletter. Make sure you are bringing relevant information that readers want. To this end, including graphs tracking the KPIs your readers watch is an excellent way to grab their eyeballs. If they track “visits”, you show “search visits” in a dedicated graph.

Don’t be afraid to include data targeting select groups, products or subdomains within your ecosystem, either. While no one likes to be called out in a negative way, it’s a powerful motivator when employed thoughtfully. Now you’re probably wondering how you “thoughtfully throw someone under the bus”, right? The answer is…with their permission.

I never publish negative numbers in a newsletter that haven’t already been talked about face-to-face with the group the data refers to. The object is to get work done, and showing everyone what not getting work done looks like means you can motivate the many at the expense of the few.

By meeting prior to dropping the newsletter, you can point out the problem and gain consensus on how to fix the issues. This allows the person in charge to have answers ready for the uncomfortable questions sure to follow. By not being afraid to showcase the negative you emphasize the non-partisan nature of your newsletter. People like this approach and respond by reading the newsletter more frequently.

Another winner is to include short-form “seo tips” articles. Easy to consume, and maybe a paragraph in length, such articles allow folks to assimilate information quickly, which not only gets the right message out to readers, but also ensures they view the newsletter as useful and easy to consume.

Executive updates

Someone is always watching the numbers, somewhere. Better to get in front of tings early and be seen as the go-to person for data around your internal SEO program. By setting up dedicated face-time with executives within your company, you can clearly articulate the wins, blockers and opportunity areas that need focus. This will help them consume data in a fashion they are comfortable with, and ensures your SEO program remains top of mind.

Never fear getting time in front of your executives to discuss all aspects of your program. Much better the details come direct from you than as sound bites from others in the company. Only your know how to state your message the best way. Since your executive set the tone for all work to be accomplished by setting the company’s direction and goals, it’s critical they not only understand how your work fits into the bigger picture, but that it is on track and will drive the planned results to support other plans.

Face-to-face

A lot of SEOs spend entire weeks of time building reports and sending them to people for execution. The best way to encourage those people to take the action you want is to go meet them face to face. This is truly the only way you will know if they actually understand what to do. Too many times I’m told “I understand completely” when I present work items to co-workers.  This often translates to “I don’t understand, but want to appear smart, so I’ll claim I understand and figure it out later”.

This is a dangerous situation as it often leads to work being accomplished in the wrong way, as interpretations can vary widely between people when reading the same information. Take the time to make people feel comfortable in asking you questions about what you are asking them to do.

This type of meeting can be as simple as meeting in the hallway or as formal as a planned session with set agenda. Work with your co-workers to understand which approach fits their styles and be flexible yourself. This is relationship building at it’s finest, and it will pay dividends when you need critical work items completed.

This face-to-face approach will also support your efforts with the executive, and drive readership to your newsletter. Just be certain to always bring value.

If you’re already doing these three things, you’re in great shape. If you are not, then get started today. Jot down topics for a newsletter, try to publish it once a month and create a balance of reporting on success and reality. Talk with your up level report (your boss) and find out if it makes sense in your case to present to the executive once a month.  most importantly, get out of your trench and into the trenches of fellow coworkers. It’s a proven tactic to get things you want done, accomplished.

Time

Most agencies work on a model of overlapping time. This means you do not have a dedicated resource assigned to your work, despite what you might otherwise be told by an account rep. The account rep’s job is to maintain the client. To keep the workflow moving for them and ensure the client is happy. Sometimes the rep will also be part of the initial sales cycle, in which case their workload includes making the sale happen. If telling you there is a dedicated resource for your needs gets the sale, most sales people will state just that.

Your goal should be to understand how many hours of time will be applied each week to getting work done for you. Whether a dedicated body exists to serve you matters little. Getting time assigned matters, though. It’s perfectly reasonable that an agency would not have a dedicated person on hand for you. I mean, before you, this dedicated resource would be idle, costing them money. Thus, it’s unlikely the person is dedicated solely to your account. To clarify this a bit, I’m not talking about an account rep here – that you will have – I’m talking about dedicate search marketing expertise. You need to know how much of the agency’s dedicated search marketing expertise (or social marketing, or paid search expertise, etc.) will be allocated to your needs.

The agency will try to tell you “it’s a lot of time for you”, but press them to be honest and realistic. Give you a hard number. Ten hours might not sound like much, but its one quarter of the work week, so I’d say that’s a lot of time. In reality, even a few hours a week dedicated to your needs could have a huge positive impact for you, so don’t think down on an agency who says you get 5 hours per week of time. Their goal isn’t to do the work, but to tell you what needs to be done.

People

Look to meet their experts. I have never trusted an account rep to inform me that their experts know their stuff. I’m hiring the agency to be a force multiplier for me. Basically, I don’t have enough of a headcount to manage the work myself, so I need help. I want to be assured that help knows their stuff. I have no interest in being a training ground for newbies trying to enter a career path. I can tell you first hand that while the number of top experts in the various online marketing fields is continually growing, they don’t all work at agencies.

Therefore, you need to take the time to meet the folks who will be assigned to do the work you’re asking them to complete. Ideally, each person you meet will have experience doing the task assigned to them. Social folks should have their own maintained presence. SEO’s should be able to point to their own websites and note success in past efforts – and I don’t mean for other clients.  Paid search folks have it  a bit easier as theirs is a world which is pretty well defined. Still, you’ll want an accounting of results.

The bottom line here is that you need to know you can trust the troops, and trust that they know their disciplines.

When dealing with a consultant, this is often a very different experience. Usually the consult is for a dedicated point of knowledge, and their time may well be 100% dedicated to your project. The downside to this personal attention is their time with you may be limited. Fail to book them for another month or week of work and don’t be surprised to learn their calendar is full for the coming week or month. Most consultants can and will work with you on things like this, as loyalty does matter to them, but they may also run into walls they simply cannot move.

Some companies find it better to hire a series of consultants on different topics and blend the final output together in-house. This is an excellent way to facilitate learning internally. Where most agencies don’t offer dedicated training (or do, but its depth is lacking), consultants can often be counted on to develop dedicated training materials (at a cost, naturally) to help your teams learn the ins-and-outs of a particular discipline.

Depth of knowledge

You can be a jack of all trades and a master of none, or you can master something at the expense of broad knowledge. Most agencies will possess some knowledge of organic search marketing. They will probably possess more knowledge of paid search and even some knowledge about social media marketing. It’s your job to figure out how deep this knowledge extends. Many times, they will be very strong in one area, and only moderately knowledgeable in others.

For years, many agencies pursued paid search marketing exclusively, so their depth of knowledge surrounding SEO is lacking.  Essentially, it’s based on the knowledge of their staff. Today’s better agencies have not just a person with the title aligned to SEO work, but those individuals do in fact possess hands-on knowledge. This is where’s it’s back to finding out who will work on your job and for how much time. Having a Director of SEO with 10 years of experience on hand is great. But, is that person working on your project?

Two years ago I was asked by a well known agency to swap “seo best practices.” Essentially, they felt I could learn from them and they could learn from me. A couple weeks went by, and eventually they sent me their list of best practices. A document containing 7 bullet points. That’s what they went over when consulting with clients about organic search optimization. I felt like a heel for not sharing my own, and as time passed, the conversation was dropped. I still look back on that surprised at how simple their list was.  My own list has 40+ top-line items for review.

Never assume a large brand agency knows it all. Often, they don’t. Be particularly careful when engaging with offline agencies trying to reposition themselves as online agencies, as well. These folks are usually still on a learning curve and are banking on their offline brand equity to help them gain clients to learn through.

Billing cycles

Agencies and consultants run businesses. They are hired, expert help, brought in to help you accomplish a goal on time and to a budget. This means, essentially, they are not one of your family. They do not work directly for your company, and all conversations around “we’re here for you”, “your business comes first”, “we treat everyone like family”, etc., can be tossed aside.  Though nice sentiments, its part of the sales pitch in most cases. I’d say 85% of consultants and agencies hit this pile. The other 15%, however, are solid folks, worth listening to who really meant when they say you are a priority.

The agency’s job is to provide enough satisfaction to you to keep the billing cycles moving. That’s how they stay in business, after all. So, while this might sound like a “boo” and a “hiss” against them, it’s not, it’s just a fact. A fact which you need to keep in mind.  After all, once a 3 month contract is signed, you’ll be billed each month, whether you get the work done or not. And therein lays the rub.

You cannot hold the agency or consultant accountable for work your own team or company has failed to execute on. I realize this may seem obvious, but even years later, when asked if you’d hire them again, you need to be clear about your own company’s failure to execute work on time. If the agency or consultant put their time into the work, delivered to you as promised and your end let the deal down, that doesn’t count against them.

With that in mind, be very careful before hiring an agency or consultant to ensure your side is ready for the work. This means you’ll have a lot more work to do than just hiring the third party vendor and introducing people to facilitate conversations. You’ll need to know in advance the types of work your team can accommodate.

After all, the agency will still be paid, because they did the work for you. Your team not being ready to implement the suggestions can lead to a large waste of time and money. If you want clean URLs, and the agency can guide the work on this, can your team accomodate the work items? It’s a big project in many cases, so be ready.

Dig deep

Don’t be afraid to use your own knowledge to ask the tough questions of any agency or consultant. Most will happily answer your questions or readily admit they’ll need to follow up on certain pints. Just be sure to dig in the corners, ask them to explain their process for building links. Ask to see sample websites they actually place links on. Try to understand their methodology for selecting sites to target. If they tell you it’s “proprietary data”, push harder. Don’t simply trust they will select the right sites for you – that’s a dangerous move.

Are they seeking exposure for you in dedicate niche social spaces, or just on Twitter? There are literally dozens of extremely focused niche social spaces online today, and these numbers grow every day. Chances are good there is a space targeted at the same people you want to use your website, so be sure the company or person you hire is savvy enough to know to look into those opportunities.

Don’t be afraid to ask for references. In fact, come prepped with a list of websites pulled from the agency’s own brag page, and ask for contact info for those who worked with the agency. If the agency balks at getting you in touch with them, ask why. Your goal should be 5 minutes with past clients to ask them about the experience. Critically ask those past clients if, knowing what they know now, would they hire the agency again for the same work?

Ask the agency to prep sample work for you. You want the people who would be assigned the everyday tasks on your account to prep sample work items direct from your website. This isn’t to get free advice, but rather to see the quality of the work you’ll get.  Same with reports. If the agency starts talking about ranking reports and how well you rank on branded terms, walk away.

Don’t be blinded

Social today seems like oxygen for marketing efforts. Both online and offline marketing efforts are seemingly in dire need of a “social infusion”. Be careful here, because if you’re being pitched coverage that relies heavily on social media to bring success, you could find yourself hurt if the agency relationship goes away. Who will maintain the social footprint? Who will continually update spaces and accounts with new information?

The trick with social is to understand its only one piece of the puzzle. It’s an important one, but not the only one. Used properly, social can create excellent channels of feedback from clients and meaningful interaction with users. Many agencies and consultants can manage this well for you, though you should be clear about boundaries, message focal points and end goals well in advance of allowing anyone to move into the social world on your behalf.

It’s unlikely an agency or consultant would willfully do harm to your brand; but the fact is, they don’t know your brand and space as well as you do. They are also not as invested in it as you are, so you need to remain constantly vigilant to ensure you’re getting your money’s worth and no damage is happening along the way. In short, turning over control to do the work does not absolve you of the responsibility to ensure the work is done correctly. And by “correctly”, I mean it is completed according to your rules and needs.

In the end, you goal is simply to make the most informed decision possible. Legitimate, solid agencies and stand-up consultants won’t bat an eyelash at your probing questions. A lot of side stepping, questioning and vague answers should have you concerned.

It’s almost a dead certain reality that any inhouse search marketer today will need to develop new skills, if they don’t already possess them. For years, many in the industry have advocated the need to know more than SEO to be successful in SEO. In the near future that will be proven out, and skills beyond SEO will be demanded from anyone trying to make a career as an SEO. Just knowing the basics of SEO is often enough to get you started, and that will remain true – as a statement. The basics themselves will continue to expand, so this becomes a moving target. Let’s just say you cannot be too aware of emerging trends and how they impact your world.

There are undoubtedly many who could claim to have predicted the advent of social media. If you’ve got your head in the sand hoping social will go away, you should dig yourself out and take a serious look around. To state the obvious, social is here, and it matters. Years ago, however, social media was somewhat clunkier than what we enjoy today. The forerunner to today’s “social” activity was more aligned to discussion forums. Remember those? You’d go, post a question and folks would answer in line – no limits on characters.

Those who cut their teeth in those environments learned early on things such as etiquette, respect and how to play nice. Moving outside the lines back then resulted in you being banned from the community. How does this matter today? Well, when you have 140 characters to get your message across, you’d better be careful. Saying the wrong thing, or even the right things in the wrong way, can have big negative effects on your brand. The bottom line is that you need to be careful with social – mistakes in this arena hurt you immediately and can be difficult to recover from.

Mobile matters

So what does the future have in store for us? Let’s look to the mobile movement to set the stage.

To set the scene, I’ll construct a theoretical scenario:

I’m flying into Montreal and want to find a romantic restaurant for dinner on Friday evening.

Sound simple, right? You go to an engine, and search for restaurants in Montreal and look for reviews. And that would work fine, if you have your computer handy. Pretty much everyone carries a mobile device these days, though, so it’s becoming increasingly important to fit this paradigm.

In my personal world, I simple ask my phone to find me exactly what I want. It not only finds the results for me, but ranks them and shows me options to book a table at different times on my desired day. Even today, while this is nascent technology, it’s pretty good. Most time (80%) my system works. That ranks right up there against sitting at my laptop researching results. Plus, I can manage my search anywhere and when it’s most convenient for me.

How does this apply to SEO? Well, these search services, beyond being just plain cool, access dozens of search results to form their “answers” for you. The trick for an SEO then becomes to ensure your products or services rank well across many arenas of search. You simply don’t know when a query will trigger a result returning your information, and skipping things can have a big impact. Imagine if that restaurant found did not have comments and reviews enabled on their website? How would the search service know its “romantic” as I wanted?

Sure, the search systems could rely on plain old optimized content, but the signals from this social commentary mean much more to me than something an SEO stuck in a meta description tag. What if the restaurant didn’t subscribe to an online table booking service? Well, the next result pops to the top and I see a different result. To me, this matters not. I simply need one restaurant with the right atmosphere. I’m sure there are dozens or more in Montreal, so anyone skipping steps simply never appears to me as a result.

If you thought the race to rank in the top three results was tough, try being in the race where being the only one that matters. Are you building and executing a plan wide enough to encompass all the various factors that impact your organic search rankings? Better take another look at your plans, and those of others inside your organization, to make sure all efforts are commonly aligned.

So, do SEOs need to know more than just SEO tactics? Absolutely. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that to be a good SEO today, you need to be an expert in general online marketing, social media, link building, SEO, paid search, conversion optimization, copywriting and trend spotting. It’s a marathon, so pace yourself, and get learning if you don’t already know these areas in depth. The results you will achieve from being able to see the bigger picture will make all the learning worthwhile.