A Symbiotic Ecosystem

Carolyn Lyden is the Lead SEO and Owner of Search Hermit. Her Mission - To help women-owned companies drive sustainable growth through increased online presence.

Understanding User Intent

In contrast with a widely held belief, SEO is not something to be considered only as a last-minute addition to a project. For Carolyn, SEO should be the foundation of all marketing efforts as it creates an ecosystem that works well to understand user intent and pain points. The keyword research, which often includes interviews with potential clients, helps create ideal customer profiles and provides a baseline for everything else. Rebranding, to focus on the user rather than the search engine itself, can allow companies to utilize similar target customers.

Striving for One Goal

Using the information on what customers are searching for, teams can align their various efforts and customize messaging. For instance, Paid teams can work with Social teams as well as Email teams to effectively capitalize on opportunity; if more customers are searching for a specific product in a category/line, shifting posts to focus on the most traffic allows the company to produce greater outcomes. By being "ungreedy" with information, different departments are able to work together as a whole with search data as the foundation. Sharing data allows various teams to strive for the same goal in a fluid manner.

The Advantages of Internal Teams

Depending on the size of the company or the structure, there are advantages to having an in-house SEO team. For example, someone working 40 hours a week just on SEO efforts will vastly improve productivity compared to contracting out to an agency or a part-time freelancer. Generally, these team members will have access to all of the information (lead conversion from organic, etc) required to make impactful decisions. While agencies are able to see the macro-trends better, they cannot dedicate their full time to a single client, in the manner of an in-house employee. Some agencies/contractors have to jump through legal hoops, NDAs, and the like, to gain access to the Salesforce data that informs SEO decision-making.

A Culture of Experimentation

Fear of failure hinders teams and limits their ability to keep up with the changing technology. By fostering a 'culture of experimentation', marketers are more inclined to share data and adapt to the ideal clients through the various methods - paid, organic, email, social. Building connections and relationships can also ease the tension between marketers and dev teams. This was just a high-level overview of our conversation with Carolyn. Be sure to listen to the full episode!

See you next week!