Before 2020, about 6% of the employees worked mostly from home, and roughly three-quarters of workers had never worked remotely. Since then, that figure has risen to 77%. PwC estimates that 55% of employees will continue to work from home at least part of the time (in a hybrid work setup).
There are two ways to get your SEO work done. First, you can hire an SEO company for professional SEO services or build your own SEO team working remotely. In that case, How would you ensure empowering team members working from different corners of the world in the latter case?
When you establish a remote SEO team, you have no scarcity of qualified candidates. A global pool of prospects is at your disposal. Hiring workers from different countries is also possible, but that brings a lot of other bottlenecks.
Consider your company’s size, industry, and desired SEO results in putting together your SEO team. As a result, your SEO teams will have a good mix of people with varying skill sets. Check out some quick tips that help empower the remote SEO team and get the best of them.
Strategize an efficient remote SEO team routine
It is best to set clear expectations and effective communication channels when dealing with remote SEO teams. If they operate from different time zones, make sure you have a virtual meeting once a week or fortnightly. This will help everyone in the team know about their work deliverables.
For instance, you may be an American corporation working with an Australian digital marketing agency. In such a case, you must consider the time difference of more than ten hours and have the SEO team adapt appropriately.
Such a situation demands the scheduling of meetings and deliverables at times that are convenient for everyone involved. For this, you must ensure setting up routine tasks for the remote SEO teams. This will require regular sign-ins, frequent scrum meetings, and a project management tool with a list of tasks to keep the teams updated.
Hire a dedicated SEO manager and give them the right tools
A remote work environment will require you to create a digital workplace for the SEO team. This means you will need an SEO manager and a set of tools for working remotely. Usually, the SEO manager is responsible for coming up with new keyword ideas that help deliver results. An individual working in this position is responsible for assessing which articles need additional links, which content needs marketing, and which pieces need optimization to rank higher in the Google search engine while monitoring other daily SEO activities.
Now, to provide your business with the predefined SEO results, they need a set of SEO tools. Usually, your SEO manager would want keyword research tools like Ahrefs, Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, etc. Giving them access to such powerful tools when working remotely ensures that they have reports to share and the data to set priorities with remote workers.
Streamlining SEO team communication
Dealing with remote SEO teams will need you to set up a clear and effective communication process. Consider the time difference when working with remote SEO teams having specialists from across the globe. Such an approach requires you to alter your schedule accordingly.
This will need the organization to work out the best ways to communicate — using messenger apps like Slack, Microsoft Teams, etc., and adopting a robust project management tool like Trello or Asana. The purpose is to have everyone in sync and not let any member of the remote SEO teamwork in silos.
Let us consider a business in the US and a digital marketing agency in Sydney that needs some adjustments and consideration. This situation necessitates scheduling meetings and deliverables convenient for everyone in both teams. All these should be done without impeding the flow of communication.
Therefore, you need to find out the best times for your remote SEO team to communicate and adhere to a communication plan that works for everyone.
Pair your SEO and sales teams with web analytics data
First, your remote SEO team will need insight into website analytics, using tools like Google Analytics. For instance, everyone in the remote team will need answers to common questions like:
- What are some of the best ways for leads to go through the site’s conversion funnel?
- What works best to entice people to your site and convert them to leads?
- How much time do people spend on-page, and how many of them are new visitors?
All such data will help the sales team determine what works best and improve their lead generation and onboarding strategies.
Empowering your remote SEO team with web analytics insight will be useful, especially when they have unique dashboards to look at data. Also, blend it with frequent meetings to share information about your site’s performance. You can also blend in with your sales team to interact with the remote SEO team.
Providing sales staff with web analytics data will improve the bottom line and drive more data-backed decisions.
And based on such data, you can have your SEO team make detailed reports of their activities and impact. Remote teams often yearn for the collaboration that drives meaningful results. Usually, you can rely on reports that everyone in the team creates with every individual contributing based on their expertise. Such a strategy will help everyone in the remote environment to stay abreast with necessary information.
Create an ongoing SEO training program
Your SEO team needs to stay updated with the latest trends in the industry. And, as a business, you must provide them with the necessary training that helps them stay ahead of the competition. When investing in SEO workforce optimization skills, it is crucial to adopt the right technologies and tools to keep them engaged in training. For this, you need to pick the right training and development tools for remote teams that help boost efficiency and employee satisfaction.
Instruction techniques may be basic, such as a pre-recorded podcast, or a bit more in-depth, such as live webinar training. You can also consider an approach like enabling screen sharing, getting into chat, remote access to each other’s desktops, and exchanging files. Ensure you take time to address the SEO team’s queries and concerns to boost effective collaboration in the longer run.
It’s important to create a well-developed training toolkit using one or all the following tools.
- A Learning Management System (LMS) like 360Learning
- Remote Video Training Tools like Zoom
- Project Management and Communication Tools, such as Asana and Slack
Encourage knowledge and resources sharing
Remote teams can follow a systematized approach to upskill themselves. This involves sharing knowledge and resources internally by learning from one another. Consider rewarding your remote teams who create training materials, share experience in an organized internal knowledge base, and conduct monthly meetings to exchange knowledge.
Here, SEO managers can play a crucial role in workers’ knowledge-sharing initiatives. For this, you can schedule frequent meetings for remote employees to get to know one another. Let everyone in the team discuss their weekly tasks and share their learnings. For that, you can try the following:
- Virtual town hall meetings in which leaders communicate important information with employees around the organization.
- Conduct weekly virtual meetups with remote SEO team members without purpose. It can mimic water cooler breaks or coffee conversations.
- Organize peer help hangouts or webinars that bring together a team working on a project with experienced counterparts from other teams to drive collaboration.
On the resource sharing front, ensure that key information is shared over time and distance and documented. Constant training and a well-functioning team knowledge base are necessary. This will keep your library of team knowledge consistent for remote SEO team workers and those who leave and rejoin your team.
Conclusion
Setting up and creating a remote SEO team will take time and effort. But it is worth operating in such a way when you have enough means and resources to keep them charged up. In turn, your business can cut labor expenditures and drive more productivity. This is possible since you have access to an infinite pool of potential employees without providing a physical environment.
Overall, your remote SEO team management is all about finding the right balance between keeping anything structured and inspiring everyone to develop new ideas that drive collaboration.