Is your SEO staff or agency now remote?
As working remotely becomes more popular, many businesses are finding it challenging to build a remote SEO team. It takes skill to optimize your SEO, which is why many companies use remote SEO services.
In this episode of Catalytic Leadership, Gert will share his expertise in creating a global agency–the SEOLeverage. He will also talk about the importance of SEO and remote work.
Table of Contents
How Gert Became a Freelancer to an International Agency Owner
Gert started out as a freelancer and quickly realized that he needed to outsource some of his work to have a better work-life balance. He started by finding freelancers who could help him with specific tasks, such as Google Ads and programming. This allowed him to deliver projects faster and make more money. Eventually, he grew his team to 30 people.
One critical aspect of Gert’s success was that he focused on a narrow niche: SEO. This made it easier to find specialists and deliver better service. He also developed repeatable processes, which were key to hiring, training, and scaling up the agency.
Gert’s team is 100% remote, with people working from all over the world. This has been a successful arrangement for Gert, as it has allowed him to attract top talent and save on office space.
Challenges and Strategies for Remote Work
In the modern workplace, remote work has become increasingly popular. While remote work offers many benefits, such as flexibility and work-life balance, it also has challenges.
Some challenges of remote work in Gert’s team are:
- Knowledge transfer can be difficult in a virtual environment.
- Maintaining company culture when team members are not physically present together.
To manage a remote team, you’ll need to adapt to these strategies, which SEOLeverage also implemented:
- Communicate regularly with team members through weekly team calls, individual division calls, group calls, group training, and Loom videos.
- Use Slack to communicate and track how much internal communication is going on.
- Treat people as human beings and focus on building relationships.
- Don’t time-track employees; trust them to get the work done.
- Get to know the employees on a personal level to build trust and rapport.
Overall, Gert’s experience suggests that communication and trust are essential for successful remote work.
Is SEO important?
SEO is more important than ever before, even with the rise of social media and AI. It’s still a thing because:
- People are producing more and more content every second, and this content needs to be organized.
- Search engines like Google are still trying to figure out how to understand and rank websites.
- People still search for brands online before they engage with them.
Google is constantly trying to improve its ability to understand and index websites. Many people also search for brands on Google before they make a decision about whether or not to engage with them. Therefore, it is important for businesses to optimize their website for search engines.
SEO Strategy and Reassessment’s Importance
SEO is a constantly changing field, and it is important to reassess your strategy regularly to make sure you are on the right track. This is especially important as Google’s algorithm changes and your client’s needs evolve.
You need to stay close to your core business and ensure your SEO strategy aligns with your overall goals. Don’t try to be Amazon. Be yourself and focus on what works for you.
Moreover, there are dangers of religiously following standard operating procedures (SOPs). Gert says that SOPs can be helpful. But you need to make sure that they’re still relevant and not preventing you from adapting to change.
Lastly, get help from an expert if you need it. Many SEO agencies like SEOLeverage can help you implement a successful SEO strategy.
Why Long-Term Brand Focus is Important
Relationships and referrals are key to business success. A strong brand can build trust with your clients.
Gert shares key points on having a long-term brand:
- Focus on building trust and relationships with clients.
- Be honest and transparent with clients.
- Don’t try to trick or deceive clients.
- Customer lifetime value is more important than short-term gains.
- Invest in your team and their development.
- Read “Work Less, Make More” by Tim Ferriss.
Inspire Everyone to Take Action
Working as a remote SEO employee has certain challenges. The good news is that you can turn your team into contributors to a productive remote SEO community.
A strong SEO remote team is essential for overseeing distant work. In that case, we can assist.
As a team who are in remote work, SEOLeverage can share more insights about SEO and remote work. More than that, we’re here to help you with Google and search engines.
