If you have your own in-house web site development team and your site struggles with achieving high search engine rankings and draws in very little organic (free) search engine traffic, it may be time to bring search engine optimization skills in-house as an addition to your IT staff.
Web site designers specialize in graphic arts and in developing an appealing look and feel for a web site. A web site developer specializes in writing the code that allows the site to interact with users on the front-end and databases and other system on the back-end. Search engine optimization is also a specialty that requires dedication and experience to learn and master. SEO is generally not taught in either programming schools or design schools. Anything about SEO that is taught in schools is typically so hopelessly outdated that is it useless today because SEO is a continually evolving mixture of art and science.
Search engine optimization is a specialty skill that requires years of immersion to master. There are two ways to add these skills to your IT shop and put in on the fast track for improving the profitability of your web site.
- Hire an experienced SEO professional as part of your team. There are people available with several years of SEO experience who choose to give up consulting work and decide to return to an in-house IT team environment. If you are looking for an employee to add to your IT staff, look for someone who can show proven results with search engines and who has significant programming experience with the languages and database that your site utilizes. It is generally not possible to fully optimize a web site without knowing how to properly structure a site’s architecture and code. Anyone who does not include in-depth programming skills on their resume will most likely only be able to add rudimentary SEO skills to your team. The recent addition of web site page loading speed as a Google ranking factor is all the more reason to bring someone in who understands how to structure a web page for peak performance.
- Bring in an SEO trainer and coach to train your team. A trainer can provide crash-course training to bring your web site development up-to-speed with the latest changes in search engine optimization. Some trainers also provide follow-up coaching services can keep your team up-to-date with the latest SEO techniques, as well as provide access to an SEO professional who will be available as-needed to answer questions from your team.
If you already have an in-house web development team, it probably makes good sense to add SEO skills to your staff. This can give you a high return on your investment by increasing the number of targeted visitors to your site, which in turn brings in more business. The choices are fairly simple. Either add the skills to your team by acquiring another employee, or hire an SEO professional who can provide training, coaching and support for your team.
