To make a valuable impact, SEO has to be understood by more than just an organisation’s search marketers. This post suggests how to explain the concepts, and get buy-in, from different people within an organisation.

I’ve chosen some of the standard roles that you may find in a company or organisation with a web-presence and for each one have listed:

• Their role: a description of their position within the company and their responsibilities.
• Persuade them: once you’ve described SEO, this gives something extra to get them excited about the possibilities of SEO for them / their department, to help get them on side.
• Ask them: I’ve tried to list one particular request you can make to people in each role to benefit the SEO process within your organisation.

In addition, you should remember to give back to each of these stakeholders. There’ll be some metric, data or graphs that will demonstrate to them the ongoing effect they are having on the project, how it has benefited the organisation as a whole, and (for bonus points) how their role has benefited from SEO success. Inspiring people in this way leads to their ongoing commitment, and a successful organisation full of motivated, happy people.

CEO

• Their role: Responsible for the whole company; interested in the ‘big picture’ and needs to be able to justify decisions and costs to the board and shareholders.
• Persuade them: SEO gives a competitive advantage in attracting visitors and customers. Though it requires an initial push of effort, and ongoing resource, the work will show a demonstrable ROI, they’ll be provided with regular figures for the board about the profit generated by SEO efforts.