While laying in bed this morning I decided I would write about the difference between the skill set of successful agency SEOs and in house search marketers.
Skills that can really help agency style workers:
- Have very strong basics - much of your day is getting sites to basic compliance.
- Be methodical - when you do a LOT of the same thing process is priceless.
- Like the numbers and data - you will do basic keyword research over and over. You will do titles and tags over and over. If you like HTML you will be happier.
- Learn as many systems as possible - agency clients are a grab bag of systems and software. You have to be able to do the basics in as many ways as possible.
Skills that will be useful for an in house worker:
- Have a high level understanding - you need to keep your department ahead of search engines.
- Like dealing with people - your job is going to require more inter-department politics. Also your success may be dependent on your ability to get others to understand the campaign goals and how they contribute.
- Be a problem solver - you are going to experience some outlandish roadblocks.
- Be a reader - you will likely have to have a broad understanding of how you fit into the business in total, so learn to connect your work to the language and goals of other departments.
- Understand your technology very well - in house you have one system, learn it inside and out.
Have a nice day all.
5 Comments
Interesting post, Carlos.
Working at an agency, in my experience, has resulted in the involuntary disassociation of the work from any true sense of the benefits. I’ve worked at two agencies: at the first I managed 10-12 accounts, at the second (and current) I manage 50+ accounts. It’s abundantly clear to me at this point that one person in charge of 50+ campaigns is no way to handle SEM effectively. Sure, routine helps get the research/optimization done, but routine doesn’t speak much to the “big picture” strategy these clients really need. Of course, the reason most of these clients came to these agencies is because they didn’t have the budget to hire a full-time marketing agency or department.
Most clients I’ve dealt with have been sold the myth of SEO as a silver bullet for online marketing. In 95% of the cases they need a hell of a lot more than some on-page optimization to see anything close to a positive ROI.
You really do get what you pay for.
Sadly, many agencies fall into the too many clients to be effective range. A good team needs to include the big picture strategist and the in the guts workers — but I definitely think that most agencies have a deficiency of manpower.
I am sure that if you had another set of hand, maybe two, it could make a huge difference in the results you could attain.
Undoubtedly - but it’s a rough go to convince the decision makers that they need to take on more employees to handle the same amount of clients (income) they have now. The long-term benefits of doing so would be tremendous and would facilitate growth and a loyal customer base…but in my experience the fear of losing profit in the short term outweighs that idea.
One of the reasons I’m thinking lately that being an in-house would be a bit more rewarding. Of course, that green grass would probably look a bit different up close…
I have been on both sides and I feel like they are very different experiences.
If you enjoy the “big picture” approach I think you will prefer working in house. But, in house also means honing a different set of tools, because success ends up being defined in a distinctly different way — often coupled to things that are outside your control.
Interesting. I’ve given the in-house thing some thought lately, but I do have some reservations about the bureaucratic issues that role would involve.
I started out turned-on by the agency model, but the way that role is handled in my experience has left a bad taste in my mouth. Similar to the bad name that SEO has outside the “industry,” I’ve come to realize that many so-called “SEO agencies” really are not offering a valuable service. It’s a shame - the knowledge gap is leveraged to dishonest ends.