Writers and editors are the wordsmiths who
craft the all-important text that your siteaudience, and the
search engines, will see. Since SEO is so focused on text,
you aregoing to need some writers in your corner.
Writers and editors can help with these important
SEO tasks: keyword brainstorming, writing or rewriting
content with keywords and linkability in mind, writing or
reviewing ad content,and establishing a process for SEO review of new content.
Writers are a natural choice as SEO coconspirators.
Unfortunately, SEO is oftenperceived among writers as
something that will force them to alter, or maybe even degrade,
their creative content. If you’ve ever seen a page
of text that was written primarily for the benefit of search engines.
How can you
know exactly what Your SEO Plan will cost and what it will accomplish until you have
spent some time researching those very questions? Executives aren’t big fans of laying
out cash for an unknown outcome. So we recommend that you start the process by
seeking approval for an initial, investigatory month. That’s roughly 20 hours of labor
at 1 hour per day, and it’s all laid out for you in the next chapter. You’ll spend your
Prep Month figuring out what kind of performance your SEO campaign can expect
and be able to come back to the executives with a much more complete plan on hand.
Your initial request will be introductory. Prepare it with the following information on hand:
• A general introduction to SEO: what it is and how it is being used in the marketing
mix by many companies today. For starters, try the “Why SEO?” numbers
from the introduction to this book.
• Your Goals Worksheet from Chapter 1.
• Some telling screen shots showing your competition outranking you, your brand
looking awful onscreen, or any other SEO faux pas you can find.
• A detailed timeline for the Prep Month
Be prepared for plenty of questions from around the table: How much will this
really cost us? How long do we have to do it? Do we have the right staff in-house?
SEO is such a cost-effective marketing technique that it should be an easy sell.
But change is never easy. Does budgeting your SEO campaign mean that Ellen will
have to take Tim’s Yellow Pages budget away? Will an hour a day of SEO mean
someone is an hour late for dinner each night? No matter how persuasive your numbers and
worksheets are, your plan will need to address the realities of day-to-day operations.
As SEO team leader, you may have to step slightly outside of your comfort zone in order to be as
effective as you can be.You will have to keep yourself organized, which entails documenting
results, questions, and communications as you go. And like any team leader, you will sometimes
need to repeat yourself politely until you get that requested task completed or that important
concept understood. If it helps to take some of the pressure off, you as SEO project leader can
comfortably adopt a friendly, easy-going approach. Since SEO isn’t normally a deadline-driven
process.
craft the all-important text that your siteaudience, and the
search engines, will see. Since SEO is so focused on text,
you aregoing to need some writers in your corner.
Writers and editors can help with these important
SEO tasks: keyword brainstorming, writing or rewriting
content with keywords and linkability in mind, writing or
reviewing ad content,and establishing a process for SEO review of new content.
Writers are a natural choice as SEO coconspirators.
Unfortunately, SEO is oftenperceived among writers as
something that will force them to alter, or maybe even degrade,
their creative content. If you’ve ever seen a page
of text that was written primarily for the benefit of search engines.
How can you
know exactly what Your SEO Plan will cost and what it will accomplish until you have
spent some time researching those very questions? Executives aren’t big fans of laying
out cash for an unknown outcome. So we recommend that you start the process by
seeking approval for an initial, investigatory month. That’s roughly 20 hours of labor
at 1 hour per day, and it’s all laid out for you in the next chapter. You’ll spend your
Prep Month figuring out what kind of performance your SEO campaign can expect
and be able to come back to the executives with a much more complete plan on hand.
Your initial request will be introductory. Prepare it with the following information on hand:
• A general introduction to SEO: what it is and how it is being used in the marketing
mix by many companies today. For starters, try the “Why SEO?” numbers
from the introduction to this book.
• Your Goals Worksheet from Chapter 1.
• Some telling screen shots showing your competition outranking you, your brand
looking awful onscreen, or any other SEO faux pas you can find.
• A detailed timeline for the Prep Month
Be prepared for plenty of questions from around the table: How much will this
really cost us? How long do we have to do it? Do we have the right staff in-house?
SEO is such a cost-effective marketing technique that it should be an easy sell.
But change is never easy. Does budgeting your SEO campaign mean that Ellen will
have to take Tim’s Yellow Pages budget away? Will an hour a day of SEO mean
someone is an hour late for dinner each night? No matter how persuasive your numbers and
worksheets are, your plan will need to address the realities of day-to-day operations.
As SEO team leader, you may have to step slightly outside of your comfort zone in order to be as
effective as you can be.You will have to keep yourself organized, which entails documenting
results, questions, and communications as you go. And like any team leader, you will sometimes
need to repeat yourself politely until you get that requested task completed or that important
concept understood. If it helps to take some of the pressure off, you as SEO project leader can
comfortably adopt a friendly, easy-going approach. Since SEO isn’t normally a deadline-driven
process.
