Julia Wisniewski Stewart is one of our in-house SEO experts and is a leader of our Client Success team. She has worked in SEO for over a decade alongside a variety of teams in the space - from global enterprise brands, to smaller, in-house teams.
Known within our organization as a true collaborator and problem-solver, here’s what Julia has to say for others in the industry looking to enhance their in-house SEO programs.
Connect with Julia (left) on LinkedIn.
Background
Many SEOs I know fall into the role by accident when they arrive at the intersection of technology and marketing, but I actually got my start in college while interning for an SEO agency doing keyword research.
Since then, I’ve been working at agencies and as an in-house SEO. Prior to joining the team at seoClarity, I was working within the pharmaceutical industry and was actually a client using the platform in that role.
Recommended Reading: 9 Ways to Get the Most from Working with Your Client Success Manager
Challenges SEOs Face at Enterprise Organizations
Because SEO sits at this intersection of a lot of other teams within any organization, SEOs should be spending their time on building relationships across other internal teams.
What I spend a lot of time working on with my team is creating reports to democratize and share data for cross-collaboration. I aim to create reporting that is easy to replicate; then, the better part of my time is spent training dev teams, paid search teams, and content teams on what that reporting means to them - as in, why it’s important or why they should care.
Successful SEO campaigns can happen when collaborative relationships are forged within the organization.
A lot of times, SEO is responsible for a large portion of an organization’s revenue but usually has the smallest team. Compared to other areas of an organization, this is why it’s so important to make those connections and build those in-house relationships because that’s how tasks get accomplished in SEO.
How an Enterprise SEO Platform Allows for Collaboration
The beauty of an enterprise SEO platform like seoClarity is that users are able to pull in many different data points from different sources all in one spot. Anyone can easily make connections between different data points in five minutes or less - it’s truly that easy.
Then, as I mentioned above, the majority of your time can be spent on using the data received from the platform to make internal connections within the organization.
This, therefore, allows you to show how other team members’ projects are driving revenue or traffic, and provides them with user demand data.
One Way to Democratize Your SEO
One strategy that I have shared with my clients is starting off by sharing SEO wins that they may not have realized they’ve had a hand in helping with.
Take for example the development team. By moving over to a new CMS, there may have been a lot of internal goals in making those changes. Oftentimes an improved CMS equals improved page speed which therefore equals improved SEO performance.
Recommended Reading: 9 Ways SEOs Bring Value to Every Team in Their Organization
So, a good foot in the door when you’re trying to create these conversations with other non-SEO teams within the organization would be to say,
Look how much your work has had an impact and think of how much more success we could have if we collaborate and work together to solve organizational challenges.”
Advice for Others in the Industry
When I was younger in my SEO career I was very aware that the industry was always changing but I never really knew where to look for insights or news about the industry. It was always very overwhelming!
My advice for my younger self would be to find people who I trust and admire as industry thought leaders to connect with for their take on the changing landscape of SEO.
These three SEOs whom I consider experts have provided me with valuable insights, directly and indirectly, over the course of my career:
- Mark Traphagen, VP of Product Marketing & Training for seoClarity
- Eric Enge, Digital Marketing Expert (Check out his contribution to our SMX Next Panel!)
- John Mueller, Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google
Are you an SEO expert looking to share your expertise with others in our industry? Our Marketing Team would love to tell you about available opportunities to share thought leadership on our blog. Email mmack@seoclarity.net to have your voice amplified to an SEO-focused audience!
Hear from other expert SEOs by clicking on their SEO expert interview below!
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