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This nugget was excerpted from an email exchange with a friend. I’ve often thought this but never put the words on paper (or pixels) until now. I thought it was worth sharing:

When I look 5-10 years ahead in SEO, choosing quantity over quality is a move in the wrong direction, if you ask me. There are going to be more competitors and more search-friendly platforms for websites. Basic crawler accessibility will be web dev 101. The truly successful SEO will approach search from marketing perspective, not the other way around.

That’s why it’s called Search Engine Marketing.

Penny for your thoughts? Literally. Stop by the Brickyard. I’ve got a mug full of ‘em.

Enterprise SEO is not an island unto itself. In a medium-sized or large company, it’s nearly impossible for a single person or team to control everything related to optimizing the website, developing content, promotion, and analysis. Too many other people have decision-making abilities, competing priorities, or veto power over the strategic and tactical levers that the SEO needs to do their job well.

Whether you are an SEO agency, consultant, or in-house practitioner, here are the people that you need to buddy up to:

Public Relations Manager

Potentially your best friend when you get to the link building and content promotion phase of your SEO campaign, the PR team is essentially the mouthpiece of the company. Take advantage of their expertise and connections to help get the word out about new site features, company news, or any other newsworthy content.

Bonus Tip: Increasingly, PR folks are getting involved in social media and search-optimized press releases. Don’t miss the opportunity to partner with them to increase your reach.

Webmaster

Who controls the website infrastructure and design? Sometimes it’s a Marketing function, other times it’s managed with IT resources. Get to know the decision-makers and figure out how you can influence their processes. They are gatekeepers to any on-site changes that need to be made. Given the pressures they are already facing with their jobs, you can bet that SEO is going to come in direct competition with some of their priorities and success metrics.

Bonus Tip: Recognizing and showing genuine appreciation for the work your designers and programmers put in goes a long way towards building a two-way relationship.

CMO

Senior-level marketing officers have the clout to bust through any obstacles that get in your way. The challenge is aligning their visions, objectives, and metrics with yours. Convince them that SEO is an efficient and effective way to make them look good and you will never have trouble getting buy-in or approvals from other marketing people that used to get in your way.

Bonus Tip: Build a strong business case for SEO by projecting results based on the metrics that matter most to the bottom line. Present different potential outcomes based on the level of resources committed to SEO.

PPC Specialist

Your Pay Per Click advertising specialists face many of the same challenges that you do. Share information and analytics for traffic volume, conversion data, pricing, competitive movement, landing page strategy, and keyword selection. By aligning your goals and looking for overlaps in strategies and tactics, you may be able to make each others’ lives much easier.

Bonus Tip: Offer to help optimize PPC landing pages for higher Quality Scores. This will help them achieve lower Costs Per Click and improve their KPI’s.

Analyst

If you have access to top-line rankings, traffic, and conversion data as the SEO, good for you. Chances are your friends on the Consumer Insights (Analysis, Strategy, etc.) teams have even more sales, revenue, and forecasting information that can help you make decisions, guide your SEO strategy, and realize results.

Bonus Tip: Analysts often have the ear of senior management and can be a strong advocate for your SEO program if you can demonstrate its positive results. To do this, you need the data!

How To Get Their Attention

Approach #1: Persistence pays off. Show a genuine interest in their work and help them look good.

Approach #2: If Approach #1 fails, bribes often do the trick. Think beer or baked goods.

Approach #3: I’m not a big fan of this, but sometimes you just have to go over their head.

In a recent post I talked about the challenges and opportunities inherent in in-house SEO, particularly enterprise-level SEO managers. I promised to follow up with a list of traits that can contribute to success at the individual and team levels.

At the enterprise level, SEO managers typically aren’t the ones responsible for writing copy or making changes to the website but they have to work with the teams that do. Look for these characteristics if you are hiring an in-house SEO manager or work on developing these if you are seeking a job with a medium or large company.

“Big Picture” Perspective

A good SEO manager has to balance the company’s needs and objectives with those of the teams of specialists (copywriters, designers, developers, etc) and the SEO program. He or she must understand and promote SEO’s role in the big picture without disrupting the flow of progress.

Attention to Detail

SEO is all about the little things. One misplaced character in a site’s code or a subtle copy bug can have major consequences. An in-house SEO can’t ignore or overlook the details and expect to be kept around very long.

Mediator and Negotiator

Many times there are competing objectives between SEO and other functions that seem inextricably at odds with each other. A smart SEO can work with other teams to find a mutually agreeable solution that serves both needs.

Persuasive and Motivational

Since SEO often requires going above and beyond what is necessary to “get it right”, team members must be convinced that the extra effort is worth it. This can be done in a variety of ways, but an effective SEO manager can usually get the desired results without resorting to unsavory tactics.

Tenacious and Persistent

Sometimes other people aren’t willing or able to incorporate SEO into their day-to-day work. A good SEO manager can identify the situations where using force is necessary. I’m not advocating violence or being a tattle-tale, but there are times when it may be necessary to go over somebody’s head and inform a manager or project manager of the lack of cooperation and/or the consequences of doing something wrong or not at all.

Educator

It’s nice to be the resident SEO expert, but sharing that knowledge to create an entire team of experts is essential. Once the team has a working knowledge of SEO fundamentals, everybody becomes an advocate and potential source for suggestions and recommendations.

Good Business Sense

Of course, nothing gets done internally without building a business case first. Developing success metrics and proving ROI can be difficult for something as unpredictable as SEO, but a good in-house SEO manager should set realistic goals based on company or website objectives and be accountable for the results.

On a slightly tangential note, a guest post I wrote on SEOmoz’s YOUmoz blog (member submissions) is now live. One of the aspects of successful SEO teams is good cooperation between the SEO lead and the developers that actually implement the recommendations.This post suggests ways to build and improve that relationship.

The post is here: Programmers Deserve Love Too

The grass is always greener on the other side, right? I’ve heard a few SEO consultants say that they want to trade in their entrepreneur hat for that of an in-house SEO at a medium-to-large company. In all fairness, I’ve heard MANY more in-house SEO’s say they want to become independent consultants, but that’s another topic for another time.

So you want to work in-house? Great, here’s what you need to know: it’s tough. It can be like banging your head against the wall. In fact, I would most liken it to herding cats in the sense that you are trying to corral dozens (if not hundreds) of people, teams, vendors, and departments. Each has their own job to do, their own deliverables and success metrics.

That’s the worst of it though. I found my time as an in-house SEO at CarMax to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my professional career. What made it all worthwhile? The people. The sense of teamwork and camaraderie that you can’t get working at home at your kitchen table. The pride that comes from knowing that at the end of the day, it isn’t just about selling used cars. It’s about working together towards a common goal. Sharing in the successes and encouraging each other through the defeats.

Your job as an in-house SEO is to share your knowledge of a somewhat obscure field and help others do their jobs better. You are the facilitator, the motivator, the ass-kicker, the coordinator, the educator, the sympathizer, and the collaborator. Here, as I see them, are the challenges and opportunities for in-house SEO’s. I’ll share the traits that will make you a successful SEO in your company in a follow-up post.

Challenges

• Corporate structures that are built around CYA, quick wins, and resistant to change.
• Entrenched processes and routines that make it difficult or impossible to break down the walls between business units and departments.
• People that don’t “get” SEO and its increasingly important role in the marketing mix.
• Other agencies or departments that knowingly exclude SEO representation in their recommendations or decision-making processes.
• Budgeting and planning processes that aren’t flexible enough to adapt to changing market conditions or new opportunities.
• Legacy sites and corporate systems that aren’t capable of evolving or adapting to the pace of technological change.
• Multiple business units that don’t know how or won’t give the in-house SEO a seat at the table when making strategic or tactical decisions.
• Smaller, more nimble competitors that can react to changes in the market much faster and exploit weaknesses or gaps in your SEO or marketing strategies.

Opportunities

• Established brands with more recognition and awareness can be leveraged to overcome the challenges caused by upstarts and smaller competitors.
• Existing customer base of satisfied purchasers that can be tapped to generate unique content, capitalize on word-of-mouth marketing, sample your newest offerings, and help launch any social networking or promotional initiatives.
• More marketing channels that create a big “brand footprint” and can each contribute to SEO.
• Teams of experts that know more about their respective fields than any SEO ever could. These could be media planners, PPC gurus, PR whizzes, sales superstars, or customer service wunderkinds.

Generally speaking, in-house SEO at a large company is like steering an ocean liner. Anything that heavy is unlikely to change course without monstrous effort. But once the momentum shifts is hard to stop and people either have to get on board or get the hell out of the way.

The next post will focus on the traits of successful in-house SEO’s and what you need to know to become one.

[UPDATE] Link to the new post about successful in-house SEO traits added.