Todd will be speaking about “Advanced On-site SEO” at SearchFest 2011, which will take place on February 23rd at the Governor Hotel in Portland, Oregon. Tickets are available now. To purchase, please click the following link.
1) Please give us your background and tell us what you do for a living.
I’ve been in the search space for over 10 years as an affiliate marketer, independent consultant and part of an agency team. Currently I’m the Director of SEO at Performics (www.performics.com) and I also run my own terribly stale blog at www.oilman.ca. I’ve written articles for Mediapost, SearchEngineLand and other mainstay Search publications and have spoken at SES, SMX, Searchfest, Shop.org, Pubcon and other conferences.
2) How can an advanced SEO optimally manage a team of less experienced SEO’s?
The key to managing a team of SEOs is based on education and empowerment in my experience. As a manager you need to able to effectively pass on your expert knowledge and at the same time be willing to learn from your team as they’re in the day to day SEO challenge with their dedicated clients.
Additionally your team needs to know you have their back so they can make decisions with confidence. I’ve always told my team that I trust them to do the best they can for their clients and for our agency. If there is a mistake it’s my job to step in and provide support to correct the situation. Being willing to fall on the sword for you team releases them to do amazing things with confidence.
3) What is the optimal level of communication between SEO’s and clients in the agency setting?
The optimal level of communication varies widely from client to client. Generally what you often hear in sales pitches and so forth is that the agency will be as available as needed and more often than not you wind up with a weekly status call and maybe a quarterly face to face meeting at the client’s offices. That’s all well and good but the key to good communication is not simply committing to a schedule. It goes deeper to how you manage your account teams. Whether your calls are monthly or weekly there needs to be someone available at all times that is up to speed on the account to cover off on team member vacations, sick time, and people that move on to other jobs. There should be no down time or catch up needed on an account. That will keep the communication open and the accounts running smoothly.
Todd Mintz knows PPC…knows Social Media…knows SEO…knows Blogging…knows Domaining…and knows them all real well. He runs growth marketing for )and is also a Director & Founding Member of SEMpdx: Portland, Oregon’s Search Engine Marketing Association, and he can be found here on Twitter and Facebook.