Since the pandemic began last year, there has been a marked shift in attitudes towards SEO, with all eyes on companies’ digital presence as the primary shop-front for customers.

Regardless of whether this is sustained, or if it eventually normalizes, companies have had no choice but to pay more attention to their digital presence, and how users find their site online.

In order to create a successful SEO program, it is imperative that we take the opportunities presented by this particular moment in time to drive towards a bigger and more integrated role in business. Unlike most digital marketing channels, SEO performance can be impacted by anyone in a company whose work touches the website, for better -or often for worse.

SEO practitioners’ goals are twofold: to capitalize on SEO opportunities and to minimize SEO risk. This can be done in silo to an extent by increasing the parts of the site that can be influenced by an SEO practitioner, but without real oversight and operational integration there will always be changes made to the website that will be out of the SEO’s field of vision.

This guide’s aim is to provide actionable insights on getting one step closer to operational organic marketing maturity using data.