Getting your management team behind an SEO strategy

Would you believe that there are companies that think SEO is unimportant in this day and age? It’s true! Surprisingly, IT companies can be among the most resistant to implementing good SEO. Whether it’s because of outdated business models (“We have a website, isn’t that enough?”), or because they don’t want to spend the money, or some other reason, as an SEO manager you have to persuade them. Here are some things you can do to do that.

Get an external agency to help

If your boss won’t believe you, getting an external team to examine your site’s SEO could give you the data you need to show that changes need to be made. Hiring an SEO agency like Adficient to do an audit will help your case and give you the facts without being a major investment.

Use a PPC cost argument

If your company is using PPC to advertise but is ignoring SEO, this is a mistake. Some businesses think that by paying for an ad they’re going to get a top result anyway, so why bother with SEO? But if you rank high in the search engine results, you actually spend less on PPC. After all, if you’ve got a keyword locked down tight with your, why buy an ad?

Show what the competitors are doing

If management doesn’t believe that SEO is a factor in their business success,show them that their competition is doing SEO and getting results from it. If you can prove that competitor XYZ is getting more clicks on their website and that you’re losing business as a result, that could be enough to spur them into action. Make your competitor a case study in how SEO can help a business in your industry.

Show results

SEO management is difficult, especially in the beginning. It takes months or even years to get a full-fledged SEO strategy in place long enough to generate new revenue. In the meantime, your bosses want to see results. Strive to find metrics you and management can agree are important indicators of future revenue driven by SEO, while also making it clear that such efforts aren’t going to show up as fast as quarterly investors may like. SEO is a long game and must be treated as such.