Implementation Team Considerations
The Scientist
Search marketing (SEO/SEM) implementation requires certain fundamentals to succeed. First and foremost, you need a scientist—ideally a Google certified super-geek who reads analytics for breakfast after horrible, cost-per-click nightmares all night. This big brain serves as “mission control” and master strategy architect for SM component assembly and modification. Much like the guy who designed the atomic bomb—with the exception of administering the Adwords campaign—he doesn’t actually fly the plane.
The Project Manager
The second required element is your pilot—an empowered project manager with mad marketing skills who writes keyword-rich content like Charles Dickens on Ritalin. This heavy lifter manages the client and assembles the website/SM components while constantly checking in with the data scrutinizing scientist to ensure everything is being assembled properly. When I say empowered, I mean the project manager must be savvy enough to function unencumbered by interference as best illustrated in my favorite, hard-learned truism, “In spite of our clients we’ve managed to accomplish some great things”.
Support and Resources Framework
The third element concerns your web marketing consultant support framework. Search marketing is a highly specialized, multi-faceted discipline requiring many activities executed simultaneously. Because it’s so complicated, misunderstood and BORING (talk SEO on a first date and it will be an early night), most SM companies gunning for your business will always tell you “the other guy is doing it wrong.” In my experience, if an SM company has many clients, chances are they’re probably only delivering 80-100% effort on 50-70% of your requirements. With broad mandates, limited resources, and other clients constantly vying for attention, they’ll never be on top of everything—and they often depend on client ignorance to ensure this.
Ongoing Effort
So hiring and/or training the right people at the right time to do the right things at the right price prefaces this final point. One must acknowledge that bringing “best practices” search marketing in-house is only possible when genuine talent becomes congruent with managerial expertise. During this transition to online marketing, conviction and learning curve are now both equal partners in a time-sensitive struggle to plan, implement and manage the organizational and operational ramifications of an expertly designed, lead-converting website and inbound marketing strategy. Until this top-to-bottom organizational paradigm shift fully matures, never before has a little bit of knowledge been such a dangerous thing.