Follow these 10 steps to build a team that will maximize your SEO impact

SEO is a competitive, rapidly evolving landscape. One of the best ways to develop and maintain a competitive advantage is to create a cross-functional team. Cross-functional teams are used in a wide selection of business and project environments, but as we’ll see, they’re especially necessary in the world of SEO.

What is a cross-functional team?

A cross-functional team is a team that brings together people with different competencies. Cross-functional teams, which might be used for a single project or as a everlasting team structure, are designed to avoid misunderstandings and streamline workflow. They can include people with different levels of seniority, different education and training, and a number of skilled experiences.

Cross-functional teams are a popular alternative to the traditional silo approach. A silo approach, which involves a stricter hierarchical structure and keeps departments separate, can hinder collaboration and stifle creativity. It can slow projects down by creating knowledge gaps or even misunderstandings. In the context of SEO, a silo approach can exaggerate any inconsistencies or separate priorities that exist between departments, creating, for example, a separation between the marketing team and the technical SEO team.

An effective SEO campaign includes SEO strategy, content creation, technical optimization, SEO evaluation, and a deep understanding of the brand, product, or service you’re promoting. Rather than expecting every team member to understand all of these areas, it’s simpler to leverage the diverse training and experience your staff already has to create a cross-functional team.

10 Tips for a Cross-Functional SEO Team

When well-organized and executed, cross-functional teams can streamline communication and minimize project turnaround time. Bringing together people with different training and mindsets can spur innovation and help your team find blind spots or knowledge gaps faster than a siloed structure. Here are some key steps to aid you build an effective cross-functional team:

1. Choose your team structure rigorously: Your team structure should encourage clear task assignments and a easy workflow. If you select a team leader, they need to have in-depth knowledge of every step of the SEO process.
2. (*10*) workflow processes: Since SEO projects involve collaboration across teams, it’s necessary to establish a consistent workflow. This could include templates for different tasks or automating task handoff processes. A transparent workflow will prevent tasks from being skipped or falling behind.
3. Schedule follow-up meetings: Meetings ought to be held repeatedly enough to keep everyone on the team on track and reduce dependencies. OvertakeOur SEO team has a each day meeting with several members of the Customer Success and Content teams. This allows us to keep our SEO campaigns consistent and adjust our goals repeatedly.
4. Prepare your workplace for success: This may include virtual platforms like a CMS, communication tools like Slack or Loom, or a physical workspace.
5. Align priorities: Some people think that SEO and content goals are naturally mutually exclusive, but in reality, they need to align and allow each team to take simpler SEO actions. A cross-functional team gives the content team a deep understanding of SEO priorities and keywords, while also giving the SEOs a higher understanding of selling and content guidelines. Without clear goals, nonetheless, a cross-functional team will flounder. Setting goals that cover details like technical SEO tasks, content goals, and scope of labor for each client will help keep the team aligned and on track.
6. Promoting holistic understanding: To help your team speak the same language and participate in discussions on an equal footing, you could need to promote regular cross-training. Content specialists should understand SEO fundamentals, especially terminology, keyword research, and KPIs, to participate in discussions and effectively develop optimized content. Your SEO specialists and marketing team might have to understand content processes, and each teams should concentrate on brand guidelines and industry terminology.
7. Leverage data from all teams: A cross-functional team ought to be doing less work, no more. What keywords can members of the marketing and PR teams suggest for optimization? What content strategies can the SEO team recommend? Leveraging the strengths and knowledge of others is the best way for a cross-functional team to grow and maintain momentum.
8. Assign clear tasks: To eliminate dependencies, the task ought to be assigned to one team member at a time and include clear, actionable steps.
9. Monitor progress: Setting clear goals and monitoring success with shared metrics is the only way to determine if your team is performing as effectively as possible. This requires rigorously analyzing SEO success in a language your entire team can understand.
10. Adjust: One of the fundamental advantages of a cross-functional team is that it allows different departments to discover problems and work together to develop solutions. The best teams are agile, can solve problems cohesively, and are continually improving their workflow.

Investing in an efficient, well-organized, cross-functional team can significantly improve your SEO efforts. While it could require reorganizing workflows and cross-training staff members, it will ultimately make your SEO campaigns more cohesive and reduce project turnaround time.