How SEO can collaborate with content teams

Without content, SEO practitioners would have nothing to optimize.

And content is less likely to ever be found without SEO.

Improving the collaboration and communication between SEO and editorial teams can help boost your site’s rankings, traffic and user engagement.

Here’s how to do it.

Define roles and responsibilities

SEO and content are closely linked. So close coordination and clear responsibilities are essential.

Start by asking questions like:

• What level of keyword research and page performance is editorial expected to do? Are they trained to do it?
• What level of content updates is SEO expected to do? Are they trained to do it?
• How much detail should SEO provide? Should they share basic outlines or more detailed briefs?
• When should SEO and editorial check in during the update process?
• Do teams know what issues to look for and how to raise concerns?
• Who should publish page updates on each platform? 
• Who should check and share page performance after updates go live?
• Should the process be the same for editorial staff vs. freelancers?

You might end up outlining different processes for how you work right now versus how you want to work in the future. 

For example, maybe you have a team of two people managing SEO and content right now, and you’re thinking of hiring a writer or content marketer in the future so your team can focus solely on SEO.

Sometimes, your future vision will require extra time, training or resources to make it happen. Lay out those scenarios now so you can start to make progress toward short-term and long-term goals.

Dig deeper: How SEO and content marketing work together

Test processes that work for both teams

You may decide on different roles and processes depending on how your departments are laid out. 

For example, maybe your company is grouped by product or category, so each team contains both content and SEO members. Each product pod might have a different process, but they should make sure to share general learnings across pods.

Or with a marketing department where the SEO team is separate from the content team, both teams may need to make more of an effort to communicate with each other.

Get feedback on the process

Remember the process is not set in stone.

Once you’ve established a way of working that everyone feels good about, try it out and get regular feedback. Find out directly from team members what works and what doesn’t. Make tweaks to the process as you go. 

This is easier if you’ve already developed a culture where it’s encouraged to question the process and actively share feedback.

Ask questions like:

• Are we meeting the right amount?
• Do we have the right people in those meetings?
• Are we sharing what’s relevant for each team?
• Do people feel comfortable working with other teams?
• Do we have enough communication outside meetings?
• Are we hearing about the right things?
• What are we missing?

Want to get feedback in 10 seconds? Ask for a thumbs up or thumbs down. (This works in person or remote.) 

Was this message relevant to you? Did you get anything out of this meeting? Do you still have questions about how this works?

Dig deeper: Content marketing and SEO: Creating an integrated SEO plan

Set up clear communication channels

As part of your process, set up regular meetings and methods for sharing updates between SEO specialists and content teams.

Slack, Teams and even Google Chat all work to share quick, asynchronous updates across remote teams in different time zones. 

You can also use tools like Slack, Trello, Notion or Asana to track workloads, updates, handoffs and progress.

How to get the most out of collaboration tools

The larger your team, the more important it is to use group communication channels for most questions instead of relying on direct messages to one person. 

When someone asks a question about SEO or content, there’s a good chance it’s either a question someone else already asked or the answer could be relevant to others too. 

If questions are shared in group channels, your team can:

• Search for that answer again in the future.
• Answer peers’ questions, which empowers the team to help each other find answers together.
• See what kinds of questions people ask, which can reveal areas where you need more communication or training. If someone asks a question that was covered in the meeting last Tuesday, why did you have the meeting? Should someone share notes or a recording with the group?
• Learn who people turn to for certain questions. And if they’re the only expert on that tool, ask them to start training someone else or create documentation.

Best tools for SEO and content teams

Jira

Jira is great if you want more customization and tracking features or to collaborate with other teams that already use those tools.

That might look like creating one ticket that goes from copy to compliance to design to dev. The ticket can stay on the same board with a different column or swim lane per team, for example.

Pros

• Customize fields, boards and ticket status.
• Tons of features like tracking progress or team workload.
• Organize projects with tags, epics and linked tasks.
• Links with Confluence, another good collaboration tool for documentation.

Cons

• Complicated to set up and customize.
• Search isn’t simple or helpful.

Trello

Trello is ideal if you want to quickly get started with a basic tool. You won’t have to worry about setting up boards, custom fields or advanced permission levels.

Pros

• Easy to use and add people.
• Set up a simple kanban board in minutes.
• Simple interface.

Cons

• Not as customizable.
• Boards can get unwieldy.

Collaborate with content planning

SEO and editorial should collaborate on keyword research to identify high-value keywords for new topics and prioritize existing content that needs to be updated.

Develop a content calendar that aligns with SEO goals and get buy-in from both teams. Include time for brainstorming and sharing ideas together.

In your content plan, include different types of projects and assign them based on who’s best suited for the work according to your defined roles.

SEO content plan project examples

• New pages that will make your library more comprehensive.
• Targeted improvements to important pages.
• Refresh updates to older pages.
• Updates based on industry news or user changes.
• Large project work that spans multiple pages.
• Small projects like updating shorter pieces of content.

Dig deeper: How to create a winning content strategy framework

Create and optimize content

The real fun starts once you have your roles and plan mapped out. Now the team can start working together to create high-quality, helpful content that’s optimized for users and search engines.

How to help SEO and content teams be most effective

• Ensure everyone is comfortable applying SEO best practices, such as keyword research, competitor analysis and internal linking.
• Make sure every copy update meets basic requirements for grammar, spelling and brand style guidelines.
• Include an SEO review and an editorial check at some point as part of your process.
• Empower everyone to edit website content directly (unless there’s a major reason this isn’t feasible for your website).
• Share case studies and success stories to illustrate the impact of effective SEO-content collaboration.

Encourage SEO and editorial to work together to ideate and test new ideas for content and layout on important pages. You’ll get a lot more ideas and perspectives.

Try this with your team: Get a writer and an SEO specialist together to brainstorm ideas for a page that’s underperforming or do in-depth competitor analysis on a topic as a group.

Dig deeper: The complete guide to optimizing content for SEO (with checklist)

Share performance updates

SEO and content decisions should be based on data. Set your team up for success by tracking the right things and sharing results early and often.

• Establish shared KPIs and metrics to track content performance.
• Set goals and benchmarks to define success.
• Create dashboards and reports everyone can access and understand.
• Schedule regular review sessions to discuss performance data.
• Change course when the data supports it.

Continue building the team with training and development

To help both SEO and editorial teams stay ahead of the curve, create a culture of continuous learning and sharing across all team members.

SEO specialists should offer training sessions for content teams on algorithm changes and SEO principles, like competitor research and SERP analysis.

Editorial teams can help SEOs create more effective copy by, for example, writing plainly and checking for keyword stuffing.

Your team of experts can keep improving and building each other up with a shared goal, which will make them more adaptable and effective at what they do.