The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of an organization has a broad range of responsibilities. They will be strategically planning how the business can grow through innovation, product development, and customer experience. Within their day-to-day work, a CMO will try to stay away from the intricate detail and marketing tactics that enable the overall strategy.

Search engine optimization (SEO) forms part of every marketing strategy. For a CMO, getting involved in SEO feels too granular as it is at the micro-level of marketing. However, it such a crucial part of the digital strategy, which can affect your entire marketing effort. As a CMO, having a solid understanding of SEO to guide and manage those heading up the process will make it far more effective.
In this post, we are not going to tell CMOs to start doing keyword research, creating link bait, or write content. The goal is to enable CMO’s to steer their team to SEO success and an essential part of driving business results.

SEO is not a one-hit-wonder

Google changes its search algorithm 500 to 600 times per year. Most of the time, users won’t notice the difference, but the point is that search criteria and trends always evolve. For that reason alone, SEO is a long-term venture and not a one time project. In web design, for example, content optimization is always a primary focus at launch. However, websites can quickly slip down search engine rankings without tweaking and updating their material.

A report from Google states that 40% of mobile consumers turn to a competitor following an unsatisfactory mobile experience. As Google uses a mobile-first index, meaning the mobile content of a web page determines search ranking, a lack of focus on SEO can damage the broader business performance.

SEO is an incremental process. Creating and managing content that works and generates traffic takes time. If your brand isn’t ranking well organically, turning SEO on isn’t a magic switch that brings overnight success. A CMO needs to understand that SEO should filter into every aspect of the digital effort as standard.

SEO should drive marketing strategy

It is easy to consider SEO as an afterthought. The marketing team can put together a campaign with all the right branding and beautiful design work, but there is little value if nobody sees it. In the B2B world, 71% of researchers begin looking for vendors generically. For example, they might jump type “IT Consultants near me” into Google to get a view of the landscape. Your company needs to be available when they do so, making SEO best practices a fundamental part of what you do.

Source: Think With Google 

The graphic above shows that, on average, a business will conduct twelve searches before engaging with a brand. If a lack of focus on SEO doesn’t make you discover, it’s the equivalent of marketing suicide.

The CMO needs to ensure their teams think about the people searching. Markering jargon is fine when meeting with a client to promote your brand, but that isn’t how they will seek you out. Any marketing activity should have keyword research as a standard function before working on content. A CMO should inform the marketing team to drive campaigns with SEO to maximize results.

SEO applies to every channel

SEO is not just about website content. It needs to embed into all digital marketing components. For example, email marketing is still an effective way to get in touch with your target customers. Some businesses send emails multiples times per week. According to HubSpot, 99% of consumers check their email every day, and 73% of millennials prefer communications from companies to come via email.

Shawn Burst, CEO of DirectMail.io, is a big advocate of SEO in email marketing. He says that emails offer another way of developing an efficient SEO strategy. A simple addition of a URL to your blog, social media page, and the website encourages sharing and link building.

A similar logic applies to social media and paid content advertising. Links can enforce your SEO strategy and create a solid foundation.

SEO is cost-effective

If a CMO or the business wants new leads quickly, it is essential to realize that it won’t happen with SEO. It is best to look into paid options like pay-per-click and social advertising if there is a desperate need for traffic.

SEO is an investment. It takes time to build a presence, but once you get there, there are no ongoing costs like other forms of marketing. In the long-run, a competitor who pursues an SEO strategy more aggressively than you will win leads and have a better ROI.

A CMO that invests in SEO should ask their team to monitor the traffic and business it generates. If they are not reporting back progress over time, there is something wrong, and it is necessary to look at the metrics behind it. Knowing key SEO performance indicators like bounce rate and click-through rate will enable a CMO to define the ongoing strategy best.

Matthew Van Niekerk, CEO of DataBroker, explains how his company has always had SEO at the forefront of their strategy.

“We are heavily invested in SEO, as we understand the growth potential organic traffic can bring. Our SEO strategy from the beginning has revolved around long-term results and piggybacking off all other online marketing efforts to amplify our organic results.” – Matthew Van Niekerk, DataBroker DAO

Summary

As we said at the outset of this article, it is not the job of a CMO to manage the granular details of SEO. However, given it is so vital to many aspects of a marketing strategy, understanding how it works can increase the impact throughout the business. In being aware of the growth potential of SEO, CMO’s must strive to map out a strategy with the long-term results in mind.