Be flexible and prepare to adapt

Manu says: “Be flexible and be ready to face the unknown.

Essentially, be prepared to adapt to all the new and broader challenges we have as marketers, and also flexible enough and ready to absorb knowledge, data, and information about things you might not know, but need to explore.”

How do you incorporate flexibility into an SEO strategy?

“Long story short, try to anticipate trends. Be flexible by being able to detect trends and adjust your strategy on the go. Don't be stiff and only stick to what was planned 6 or 12 months before, because trends can change swiftly nowadays.

Also, you might find that users are changing their behaviour. They may be using a feature or a platform now, but then switch because of recent changes and technological advancements. That’s the kind of flexibility you need in terms of technology and strategy.

You also need to be able to discuss and have a more holistic approach. Don't just focus on what you do as a marketer. SEOs tend to work in their silo and just focus on Excel spreadsheets and optimizations. Now, you need to be flexible. Discuss with other teams and other channels to find the best way to achieve the business targets – not only for your channel but overall.”

What length of time is it reasonable to have a tactics plan for?

“It’s a classic SEO answer, but it depends. The best strategy is to have an adaptable approach and balance. Usually, especially if you work in big agencies and you work for big clients, you will discuss the scope – the contracts, budget, etc. – on a yearly basis. You tend to plan your strategy to cover 12 months.

However, you cannot be as granular as you should be in what you do day-to-day or week-over-week. You can just block some key pillars or, for example, decide that you’re going to have one technical audit every six months. Then, for a specific market, do a content audit or something specific.

Then you need to break it down, especially when it comes to content creation, because you may need to follow seasonality, for example. Again, you need to be flexible because user intent and user behaviour may change, and trends and interests may change. You need to adapt.

Even the business could change something internally, so you are not able to create something, or they need to jump on another priority.

You tend to plan and cover 12 months and have key pillars and milestones in your strategy, then you can cover the more granular aspects every 6 months, but then heavily plan all the activity more regularly – on a market or a local basis – every 3 months.

Then, you rediscuss and review everything once a quarter, in a quarterly review or retrospective meeting.”

How do you differentiate between the shiny things to pay attention to and change your tactics for, and what to ignore?

“From my experience, it depends on the client, and at which scale you're working. Normally, the bigger the client is, the more difficult it is to tackle all the shiny and nice challenges.

You need to open a business case, first of all, but there may be higher, bigger concerns about security when it comes to implementation and new things. Normally, you need to discuss how to do it and why, and you need to demonstrate the value and the business case, or even share use cases.

The smaller the client is, the easier they can change things on a website, both literally and physically. They are also typically more keen to explore. The bigger the client is, and the broader the strategy is, you tend to plan more in advance and more around strategic KPIs and targets.

When it comes to testing something specific, again, it's more about spending one month demonstrating the value, doing a bit of a forecast, and then showing how to do it. If multiple teams are involved (maybe there are two or three teams, like marketing, the devs, etc.), it usually takes longer to implement recommendations or discuss, because they've got their priorities.

It can also be challenging in FinTech or e-commerce, or with very large brands. I used to work for Vodafone, for example, and Community Fibre. They have a lot of high-priority items when it comes to IT or development, because they've got customer log-ins, broadband issues, etc.

Sometimes, with technical SEO, if you go to them and say, ‘We need to optimize the sitemap,’ it is a priority, but at the end of the day, the website is not burning. The business is still receiving revenue, so it really becomes a conversation regarding the backlog that IT has, and then when you can prioritise things.”

How do you decide which people to pay attention to and get your information from?

“There is so much noise. It's becoming too much – but having diversity and a lot of different people who share an interest is key.

One of the best things we have in The SEO Community is that it's open; everybody can share and give back to the community. However, there is so much noise. It becomes confusing to first identify opportunities and then analyse what is good data and what is just noise.

It is good to follow a few people that you find to be consistent and reliable, then specific voices for interesting things. I follow a lot of very good SEO experts. When they share good nuggets, they’re exciting, but you might need 2-3 months to convince the client, so you lose traction. That is an issue.

That’s where it’s vital to have solo side projects, like your own website, where you can test small things. Then, you will be able to demonstrate the value, because you're already testing it yourself, first-hand.”

You say to avoid silos, so what is the ideal way for SEOs to be working nowadays?

“I think it's becoming vital to escape the silos, especially for SEO.

Back in the day, we were all discussing working holistically, the need for SEO to be central, and then having a cross-channel approach. For context, I used to be self-employed for 10 years, and I wasn’t an SEO. I was doing marketing, so I was doing paid campaigns, I was doing newsletters, and I was the one working on Facebook for clients at the same time as the website. It was easier to have a holistic approach, and a broad view of what was needed.

At the end of the day, it wasn't SEO, it was maybe SEM (Search Engine Marketing): optimizing whatever was needed to place your client where they needed to be to then convert. Nowadays, particularly when you work in a large agency, large groups and large teams tend to work in silos just because it's easier. The clients are large, and you've got KPIs you need to achieve.

Because the search landscape is changing, and the technology is changing, the user journey is essentially not linear anymore. Back in the day, users learned how to use search engines to have a kind of conversation. They needed to find an answer for something they were looking for, so they went to a search engine.

You started with one query, and then a second query, and another query, and after 10 queries, you had an answer. Now that the technology has advanced, we've got AI overviews, AI Mode, and LLMs, so users are starting to use those to have the conversation, and then eventually come back to Google or the website to convert.

Everything's changed. As an SEO, you need to be aware of the different user personas and how they use the technology to find the answer to what they’re looking for. Also, what are they looking for? What’s the intent?

Then, you need to evaluate the opportunities across channels. Perhaps, for a specific client and a specific intent, you see that users are using TikTok. What’s the opportunity for SEO to share data for social strategies? What’s the opportunity for SEO to align with social media management, both paid and organic?

The opportunities are really becoming diversified for marketers, and specifically SEOs. We see the huge drop in clicks because people are using fewer search engines. They are using other means, but the conversions are increasing.

At the end of the day, the Google search engine is dino search. The standard, classic, organic search approach is fading. It's moving towards more of a conversational process that is diversified and multi-platform. However, there is still value in using search engines, and there is still huge value in a website, because this is what people are using.

It's acknowledging all of this and then starting to understand how AI is being used on paid campaigns. Where is the opportunity? How are the users converting? So, what can we do?

There are gaps because, as a marketer, you cannot know everything. The key is to be flexible and surround yourself with people who know a bit more about specific platforms and technologies. Then, discuss together to really find the opportunity.”

If an SEO can sit in a team of multiple disciplines, who should they work most closely with, and what can they learn from those roles?

“I work in a very big agency, so we have large teams and large clients – plus it's an umbrella of partner agencies under one name. I work for Publicis. Under Publicis, I'm part of Starcom, and I'm also part of Performics.

We either work collaboratively with another agency (if they're doing development for social media, for example) or we work with other teams that are covering other aspects. This conversation is becoming more about who knows the data, who owns the data, and who can give the strategic input to then coordinate the conversation between the other teams.

I would say that there are no specific roles you need to work most closely with, but based on the specific clients and what channels and verticals you can act on, really evaluate which levers you can pull.

Ideally, it’s everything. If you can act on affiliate, display, paid media, organic social, PR, blogging, microblogging, influencers, etc. (again, based on the client, the business goals, targets, and budget), ideally, you want all of those verticals, so you must have an understanding of how you can at least influence them.

If you’re working on a small client who doesn’t have the budget, then it’s a discussion of what to prioritise. SEO is losing clicks, so the first reaction is to put the budget from SEO to paid media, just to compensate. Therefore, SEO and paid media are becoming more of a marriage or more of a dual relationship in marketing. You see that across all agencies.

Social media is becoming very important as well, which is something that has always been there, but now it's becoming more of a priority because of the advancements in technology.”

Manu, what's the key takeaway from the tip you shared today?

“Try to be a new-era alchemist. Face your fears and your difficulties. Try to transform and transmute what's raw and unclear into golden opportunities.

Be open, be flexible, and surround yourself with people who know a bit more about other platforms and technologies – even younger people who can give you input – to then achieve a shared, common goal.”

Manu Madeddu is an SEO Director at Publicis UK. Find out more over on LinkedIn.