*If you wish to skip the background story and get straight to the tips scroll down to the next header.

What I found with working at an agency (I realize this is just one experience and different agencies work in different ways) was that direct communication between the clients and me was very limited or none at all. The information I would receive would come down the line from the company to our sales people to our project manager to me. And questions would also go up all that way and come back down the same path.

Sort of like Chinese whispers I guess, depending on the client I was working with certain industries especially B2B researching the correct keywords and strategies can be extremely difficult without having clear conversations with the actual client.  As with many variables there may be different suggestions or ideas you may give. This lack of communication I believe is a huge problem within the industry and did not only happen in my “department” but others also.

Communication is the key, I found this especially within keyword research, I would be given a list of keywords or ideas that the business had and research those but then as we found out that those wouldn’t convert or didn’t really mean what the business did. This would mean going back and forth between emails and take up too much of my and the clients time.

Finally came the day that I was “allowed” to communicate with a certain client, and you guessed it the campaign was achieving its goals in very short periods. So much so that now I work in-house for that client full time and no longer work for the agency. (Note: I approached this client and asked them for a job)

So what has being an In-House SEO taught me that every other SEO/PPC Marketer should be using?

Listen and talk to the clients, directly understand their needs, goals, products, services and understand how the company works. Speak to different members of staff if the company provides a technical service or product speak to whoever is in charge of that and understand the product because, what I found is that great keyword “gems” can be found within these people as well as negative keywords if you doing a PPC campaign.

Of course you can charge way more for this and you can be known for providing this intimate service.

Think Differently.

My company is in the B2B sector (in a very seemingly boring part of it) and at first glance, most people would say there is no way you can start a link building campaign or have any interesting content or links from other websites (specially not ones with authoritative domains). As cliché as it sounds think outside the box, look at what other business in totally different niches are doing and try to do something similar for your clients.

Whether that is viral videos, infographics or whatever think big and think different try and think beyond the role of a standard SEO and that more of a marketer also. I wish I could show you what’s being done and what we have done at my company unfortunately I cannot.