3. You have an SEO director who can be a liaison between marketing and technical, create success metrics and strategize for short and long-term SEO

As much as it's important to have dedicated staff focused on SEO tasks, employing an SEO director guarantees that one person coordinates an integrated SEO and SEM strategy. An SEO director versed in both technical and marketing skills skillfully links departments, ensuring that the company's SEO vision is being followed. In addition, the SEO director pinpoints companywide training needs, helping team members stay up to date with the latest search opportunities.

This multitasking maven is typically the one point of contact for everything SEO. He or she would create a company's SEO road map to success, evaluate metric milestones for SEO/SEM projects and develop strategies for any seasonal sales or new products or services. The SEO champion would also strategize SEO initiatives around other parts of a company's integrated marketing mix (such as print, radio, television and other online media.)

Which team member understands marketing objectives as well as technical SEO components and could successfully communicate and share information between the two departments? Remember, that person doesn't have to be an expert in both fields—but should have a firm grasp of the fundamentals and be able to "talk the talk" with both teams.

Often, a person with a more "marketing" focus is chosen for this position. Often, this is because the director is tasked with more "marketing" duties, such as creating a long-term and seasonal SEO marketing plan, integrating search with the marketing mix and measuring campaign ROI. It is important that this person, to be successful, have SEO knowledge; a marketing professional just "learning the SEO ropes" may not recognize all possible SEO opportunities.

Ways to work with your SEO director:

• Is there an existing team member with a solid foundation in IT and marketing SEO? If not, this is one position where it may be advantageous to hire an expert who can coordinate efforts between departments.
  
  
• Does your company use a Web analytics program? If not, work with your new SEO director to find a package that meets your company's needs. Reliable analytics will help measure results and success, providing the necessary data for enhancing your SEO strategy, as well as integrating this data with other marketing efforts.
  
  
• What other forms of online and offline marketing does your company implement? Consider frequent meetings between your SEO director and the directors of other marketing initiatives. That way, all departments can share data as well as strategize and integrate short and long-term marketing plans.

4. Your marketing and technical teams actually have time to implement your company's SEO plan

Search marketing is not an "other duties as assigned" gig. Sadly, good campaigns go bad when companies force their teams to take on more work then they can realistically handle.

Sometimes, companies are cross-eyed about cross-training, figuring that one person (such as the IT director) can handle marketing and technical duties. Other times, the teams are maxed out with other demands, without time to master the SEO basics (much less implement them). The result is that SEO efforts are pushed to the back burner. And the site suffers sub-par positions—or sky-high PPC costs without a streamlined spend.

Take a realistic look at your teams and their existing responsibilities. Remember, content written fast isn't necessarily written well. If you see the quality drop with the new demands, you may need to hire another writer. And every minute that the technical department can't upload new changes means lost money and a reduced opportunity. When in doubt, hire out your SEO—or bring on new staff.

Ways to determine whether your company has time for in-house SEO:

• Consider each team's existing workload, and ask team members what their current availability is for SEO tasks. It's common for people to say, "I don't have time for this," so determine whether there are lower-level tasks that can be shuffled to other employees.
  
  
• Think about how many pages will need to be written or revised for SEO purposes (the SEO director will suggest a weekly/monthly strategy for this). Creating a large volume of content will take time for marketing to write and for IT to upload—and, in the case of seasonal content, it will need to be written and uploaded by a firm deadline for maximum marketability.
  
  
• Ensure that the person managing the PPC campaign has adequate time to implement changes and collaborate with IT (which may need to include tracking codes for any new landing pages.)
  
  
• Remember, you can't have an in-house SEO department if your teams don't have time to do the work (and do it well.) If you are facing staffing gaps and any implementation timeline would be prohibitive, consider hiring new staff.

5. Your company can provide ongoing training for both your marketing and your technical teams

One SEM/SEO constant is that the search engines are never static. Algorithms change, new search marketing opportunities hit the marketplace and more robust technology is developed. Search marketing training guarantees that your IT and marketing staff master the latest search engine machinations and can leverage that knowledge.

Consider ways that the marketing and IT departments can participate in customized SEO training. Group training helps both departments "get on the same page" and helps them understand the other's role in the site's search engine success. If you aren't sure how to focus the training sessions, a site evaluation from an SEO company (especially one that offers SEO training) can help. An evaluation will indicate any existing site challenges and pinpoint necessary training areas.

Some companies send a new-to-SEO team member to a conference. This SEO newbie is typically tasked with learning everything about search marketing and training the team upon his or her return. Although this is a very inexpensive way to train someone (usually, it's the price of the conference plus travel,) it's also inefficient if the team member has little or no SEO knowledge. Conference presentations are not customized to your company's needs, and frequently the information can be contradictory. As a result, it is hard for someone without a solid SEO foundation to assimilate the new knowledge and intelligently present it to marketing and technical teams.

After any initial team training, consider ongoing training that guarantees that your teams will be up to date with the latest techniques and tools. Although ongoing education does provide an extra layer of complexity and expense, your company would be assured that every task performed is completed according to best practices—and all new SEO/SEM opportunities are leveraged.

Ways to plan for SEO training:

• Determine what team members should be trained (preferably all of them) and consider available training resources. It's best to ensure that the first training block is customized to your company's needs. After an initial SEO training session, general ongoing training sessions (like conferences) are typically sufficient.
  
  
• Remember that search marketing has a learning curve. Although it may be possible for more experienced team members to be trained in a few hours, it's best to allocate enough time (around 10 hours—or a one-day in-house session,) so team members can grasp SEO concepts and implement strategy.
  
  
• Ask your training company whether it provides an initial site evaluation prior to training. This evaluation will help pinpoint any SEO "trouble spots" and help pinpoint preferred training areas for both marketing and technical. That is, if the marketing team is new to SEO copywriting, its members can be specifically trained in SEO copywriting techniques that may apply to a site's current templates and copywriting style guides.
  
  
• Review with your SEO director other long-term training strategies and consider having a "train the trainer" program in place. This way, a core group of team members (usually the team leaders) can attend conferences and webinars, bringing that information back to the teams.

Conclusion

Creating a search-savvy in-house search marketing team gives you the power of managing your search initiatives in-house. Start by evaluating each team's skill set and time commitments, determining how much time and training will be needed for an in-house SEO campaign.

Once an evaluation takes place, training will help the marketing and technical teams master best practice SEO/SEM techniques and understand the important role each department plays in your search marketing campaign.

Soon, your company will see targeted clicks flying and ROI increasing—and your SEO initiative will realize stellar search engine success.