Everyone who truly understands SEO knows that, at its core, this industry is about relationships. The relationships we build with the developers who need to understand and execute our goals. The relationships we build with clients who make an investment in us to deliver success. The relationships we build on Twitter and other social media outlets to help answer our questions and advance our own understanding of the industry. The relationships with bloggers, forum moderators, or website owners we need to get links from. And most importantly, the relationships with the team members you have by your side along the way.
In my humble opinion, a successful SEO campaign is not run by one person or even two or three people; it is run by a team of people all working towards the same end goal. The team-approach to SEO not only helps you improve your own understanding of the industry, but also helps promote innovative strategy development while preventing embarrassing mistakes or oversights.
Below Ive listed some of the tangible benefits to the team-SEO that have helped me grow personally and professionally:
- Personally, Ive always been fascinated by the story of the person behind the name, how someone got to where they are, and what mistakes and successes they had along the way. Alone, I can only learn from my own wins and failures, but with the team Im able to learn exponentially more.
- Having team members you trust is an asset that cannot be undervalued; being able to bring an idea to any one person and know that they will dig into it and give real, actionable feedback allows you to brainstorm and build strategies that cannot be manufactured without it.
- Knowing your team members on a personal level really adds to that trust. Meeting the girlfriend or husband outside of work makes you want to help your team member avoid 12-hour days so they can spend time with their family. Hearing about vacations pushes you work harder to make sure your team knows they can count on you in their absence, while at the same time fostering the appreciation that when its your turn to ask for help or to take that vacation, the team will have your back.
- The time it saves to know that you dont have to check up on someone or constantly follow-up with a task to know it gets done allows you to fully dedicate your time to developing new strategies and ideas.
- Micromanagement breeds inefficiencies; the term bottleneck comes to mind when I hear about friends who are waiting on an email confirmation from a boss just to post a Twitter comment. In some circumstances, such as with the American Dental Association, it can take up to 14 days to get approval for a Twitter post (thank to Miranda Miller for a great recap of SES Toronto last month). When you work on a team that trusts one another, you can rest assured that each person is handling their responsibilities and is comfortable asking for help if and when it's needed.
Relationships are the foundation of marketing, so I encourage you to always seek new ones and stay in touch with the ones you have. If you want get to know me or any of the SEER team better, you can find me on Twitter here and the rest of the team from our About Us page.
How have relationships helped your team to grow and create great successes for your business? Drop them in the comments, we'd love to hear your story!
