Identifying the Site Development Process and Players

Before you start the SEO process, it is imperative to identify who your target audience is, what your message is, and how your message is relevant. There are no web design tools or programming languages that tell you these things. Your company’s marketing, advertising, and PR teams have to set the objectives before you can implement them—successful SEO requires a team effort.

Your SEO team should be cross-functional and multidisciplinary, consisting of the team manager, the technical team, the creative team, the data and analytics team (if you have one), and the major stakeholders from marketing, advertising, and PR. In a smaller organization, you may have to wear all of those hats yourself.

The team leader wants to know who the target audience is. What does the marketing team know about them? How did we find them? What metrics will we use to track them? All of this is key information that should have an impact on the project’s technical implementation.

Advertising messages need to be well thought out and prepared. You do not want your team bickering over whether to optimize for “hardcore widget analysis” or “take your widgets to the next level.” Advertising serves multiple purposes, but its most fundamental purpose is to compel people to take a specific action. What action are you hoping to compel people to take?

The PR team has to take your story to the media and entice them into writing and talking about it. What message do they want to deliver? You have to mirror that message in your content. If they say you’re relevant to organic cotton clothes but your project plan says you’re relevant to yoga attire, the whole project is in trouble. When you’re creating visibility, the people who build up your brand have to see a clear, concise focus in what you do. If you provide them with anything less, they’ll find someone else to talk about.

The technical and creative team is responsible for delivering the project. They take direction from marketing, advertising, and PR on what needs to be accomplished, but from there on out they have to put the pieces into place. As the project unfolds, marketing has to come back and say whether the target audience is being reached, advertising has to come back and say whether the message is clear, and PR has to come back and say whether the media like what they see.

Ongoing feedback is essential because the success of your project is determined solely by whether you’re meeting your goals. A successful SEO team understands all of these interactions and is comfortable relying on each team member to do his part. Establishing good communication among team members is essential.

And even if you are a team of one, you need to understand all of these steps. Addressing all aspects of the marketing problem (as relates to SEO) is a requirement for success.

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