Why Internally Run SEO doesn’t work

We work with alot of companies in all different industries. Regardless of the size of the company, small, startup, or large organization we often hear that “SEO is managed internally”  In 15 years of technology marketing, I have yet to find an organization that has done even a so so job on SEO. Why? Typically, SEO gets alot of attention when some senior executive or sales person Googles a term and sees that there company is not present. Marketing then panics and makes some quick changes to meta tags, maybe writes a few blogs etc. until that term moves up. The executive or sales person eventually forgets about the issue and the IT group or web master moves on to other tasks, leaving SEO up to chance. Well, SEO doesn’t happen by chance, it is a long term and intensive process that needs to be managed 24 x 7 x 365. And only a group that exists by being paid for this work is going to give it the attention it needs to be successful.  Furthermore, companies often make poor choices when selecting key words. They will select key words based on internal politics rather than what keywords make sense.

Another issue is keeping up with the constantly changing requirements of the search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing.  Even managing 100s of clients, our own team often struggles keeping up with the constantly changing needs of organic SEO.  If a company that specializes in SEO struggles with the evolving SEO needs, how can a single company do it well?

If you decide you’ve had enough of trying to do all this in house, look for an agency that uses the most advanced, real-time analytical tools available – such as Jungle Torch (www.jungletorch.com), a new service developed by the founders of Alta Vista.