How To Effectively Manage Your SEO Team: Asking Experts

At Booking.com, we do not have SEOs in the traditional sense; rather my team consists of Backend Developers, Frontend Developers, Designers, Analysts and Copywriters. All of them contribute to a collectively designed vision in our agile environment, but approach this from a different angle.

As a Product Manager, I prioritize the tasks for the team in alignment with business priorities, although this isn't without input from the team. At Booking.com, we put the customer at the center of everything we do, and all of us are working together to leverage their own special skill sets to accomplish this collective goal.

We have monthly goals, as well as expectations for the rest of the year.

There are two main KPIs which we track:

• organic traffic

• conversions from organic traffic.

Also, we have several individual metrics for each SEO area we work on:

• On-page SEO optimization — we check before/after improvements in terms of organic traffic change

• For off-page SEO, we track how many unique referring domains we gained (when it comes to off-page SEO, we create a different type of content — linkable assets, as we call them). We also check how powerful are these links, DA/DR metrics, are these links contextual, did they move the needle and helped that page rank better.
  

The main things that I'm looking to accomplish are:

• Empower everyone to create their performance and task roadmap – you may know far better than I, what's essential and when it should be done. I want people to have the flexibility and freedom to choose.

• Reward value where it's due – some of the most crucial tasks in our department have no impact (at least not directly) on organic search performance. Nonetheless, they are critical in getting other things (that do have a direct impact) moving forward. Therefore, for those individuals that are great at moving these particular pieces, we put less importance on the traffic growth side of performance. In general, I want people to do what they do best and measure them fairly for those tasks, whether they impact performance directly or not. Because in the end, it's even the stairs to the ship that make its voyage possible.

When it comes to measuring SEO performance for client and personal projects, I like to break it down by macro and micro KPIs. These will vary depending on the client, but here is an example:

Macro KPIs: these are the most important indicators of success.

• Conversions from organic traffic

• Total organic traffic
• Brand vs. non-brand
• Key pages
  

We like to monitor these on a MoM, QoQ and YoY basis to show trends and validate our work is moving the needle in the business.

Micro conversions: these KPIs are generally campaign specific, and support the macro KPIs.

• Keyword ranking distribution/ trends (# in top 3, 4-10, 11-20 etc)

• Number of new referring domains built to priority pages

• User engagement (time on page, bounce rates etc)
  

I'm using Jira as a project management tool with my team, but this isn't the only tool used across Booking.com.

We usually use Google Search Console.

Usually Salesforce.

I usually use several tools for SEO purposes: Serpstat, Google Sheets, Website Auditor, Google Analytics, Google Data Studio, and Reports.io.

We offer a competitive salary (not only our SEO team, at Shopify as a company, salaries are on a high level, as well as other perks and benefits.)

In my team, we try to be results-driven. But when a team grows, all soft skills become essential: the ability to work in a team, culture fit, eager to learn, taking ownership and getting shit done – everything becomes important. As a team lead, I try to evaluate all these things and reward my team members when the time comes. Also, you need to set the right expectations to direct reports in the first place. What do you expect from them? What must be achieved to get a salary increase or promotion? Sometimes it could be a tough decision to make.

We use general market rates for salaries. For incentives, we take into consideration a variety of activities, including rank-a-thons and point-based "achievement unlocks."

I typically pay for hours worked (provided tasks are completed in a reasonable time). As for the rates, it will depend on the level of work needed. For example, if someone is doing an SEO audit, that can take more skill than researching link opportunities.

Objectives are crucial to reporting and results at Booking.com. As a team, we continuously align on objectives, spending time to regularly discuss how we are delivering against the objectives and whether these are still the most impactful priorities for us to work on. We really do believe that our performance is based on what we deliver, but also how we deliver it.

That may include factors like quality, velocity and resilience; but I think it also encourages an environment where everyone is empowered to bring their ideas to the table to anticipate issues and solve problems. When we do this, we really are showing our best talent and feel more invested a given project.

As a Product Manager, I am not in the line of management of the team and within this structure, we are able to build trust and improve performance across the team because people are encouraged to raise their hand when they have an idea or solution.

We hold one-on-one weekly meetings and I think it is an excellent way to touch a base and track the progress. We also monitor monthly updates.

We generally the following results: ticket status, task pacing, and performance dashboards (macro/micro/nano) that we configure via APIs to bring real-time data. We also use Ryte.com to monitor site changes which are essential in understanding the ongoing evolution of the site. It's amazing to see the changes that happen to the site daily that would otherwise go undetected.

Each month we report on the macro and micro KPIs via a Google Data Studio dashboard. But, we're gradually moving our reporting over to Databox.

On top of the KPI reporting, we also add clients to Asana Projects so they have visibility into what we are working on each month. We'll typically meet with clients bi-weekly to discuss progress, and address any potential bottlenecks.