Heading up a successful SEO team is no easy feat, especially in these times where clients are hesitant to spend money and tend to want to see results overnight. I’ve held a management role at the digital marketing firm I work at for the last few years, and by sticking to our motto of “Change or die”, we’ve weathered the changes in the SEO industry and the economy. We’re always a work in progress, but I’ve learned some fundamental strategies for managing an SEO team over the years.

1. “Change is the only constant” – Heraclitus: All members of your SEO team must embrace this mantra. Sure, the foundations of SEO have stuck around, but this is an industry that is constantly changing. Sticking to the old ways is going to have you losing customers and gaining a bad rep in no time.

2. Skilled Writers: It’s beneficial to have a savvy SEO programmer on your time, but the bulk of your team should be made up of proficient writers. Whether it’s scripting personalized emails to send to potential link partners or writing SEO copy for a client’s site, they need to be able to write cleanly and professionally. Never underestimate the value of a good writer.

3. Divide and Conquer: Each member of your team has their own strengths and weaknesses. Create sub-departments within your team to solely handle account management, SEO copy, social media monitoring, link building, blogging, press releases, etc. You’ll be building up your team’s confidence in their skills by giving them responsibility for their own mini-departments, and they’ll be able to focus on making their realm of SEO that much more successful.

4. Account Meetings – We hold monthly account meetings, where each client’s account team meets for a half hour, evaluates the stats for that month and develops an outline of the next month’s strategy. This ensures the team is in continual communication about how the account is doing, and we have a forum for ideas and innovation in place.

5. Client Check-in’s - You’re not going to be able to please every client, but it’s always best to take the bad with the good and welcome criticism. We check-in with each client mid-way through their contract term and send them a short survey regarding their perception of their SEO campaign’s performance, interaction with the team, and ways we can improve our relationship together. It may bring some issues to light, but knowing what you can do better with greatly strengthen your team.

These are just a few tips – feel free to share more about your experience managing an SEO team, what has worked for managing your team and ideas we can all benefit from!