I’ve worked with 350+ companies.
The best way to scale SEO as a growth channel is this:
1. Hire a veteran SEO Director with 8-10 years experience
2. Give them a budget to work with
3. They will scout the best people in key verticals like technical, content, and link building
4. They will contract with them for guaranteed, top quality deliverables while guiding the internal strategy to hit growth KPIs
This exact structure above is…
(a) the most common I’ve seen in successful companies we work with
(b) always the most ROI and result-producing vs having a 10-person in-house SEO team.
Why?
Senior leaders are great at setting up strategy, putting the right people into place, and hitting KPIs.
You don’t want them doing tedious tasks.
SEO isn’t a one person job.
Heck, even writing a single, good content piece takes SEO research, a subject matter expert writer, a good editor, and then back to the SEO to do on-page, internal links, and more.
This is why you hire a veteran SEO to direct strategy + give them a budget.
Then, you bring on external agencies or firms for specific work:
Agencies and freelancers are best at silo’d work in their zone of genius.
They will guarantee output (links per month, content pieces per month, hours per month) for the money they charge.
In-house? You can’t guarantee your in-house link builder can get 30 links per month. And you pay salary regardless of whether they hit that goal.
Content? Want 20 pieces per month? If your in-house writers don’t hit that, you’re paying salary regardless.
With this structure, if things aren’t good, you can change directions quickly, without severance packages, firing, job boards, interviews, onboarding, training, and managing them every single day to make sure they are doing the tasks given.
The mantra of “in-house is best” is long gone.
Especially in SEO where deliverables are very clear-cut.
The best of the best keep it simple:
SEO managers at the top, give them a budget, and let them outsource core functions while managing the strategy that pulls it together.
-Jeremy
