The Marketing Manager's Guide to Owning SEO

The most common way to fail in this role is to be measured against a target that was never winnable. "Why aren't we number one for [the biggest term in our industry]?" is a question about a fight your site may not be able to win at its current strength.

Set expectations before you are judged against them.

Sort your targets into three groups.

• Winnable now. Searches where you already rank on page one or two and the competition is comparable to you.

• Build toward. Searches that matter and are reachable with sustained work.

• Not worth chasing yet. Searches dominated by sites far stronger than yours.

Write an expectations memo at the start of the year. One page:

More reports do not mean more value. Every report is time not spent on the work, and most are skimmed.

Report quarterly by default. Month-to-month movement in this channel is mostly noise. Roll up twice a year and annually.

Build every report on four questions.

• Where did we start? Restate the baseline each time. Do not assume anyone remembers.

• What did we do? List the initiatives: dated, scoped pieces of work, such as "rewrote titles and headings on ten product pages in March."

• What happened? Show the change for the pages and searches you worked on, next to ones you did not.

• What do we do next?

A report that shows a decline is still doing its job if it answers those four questions. Do not include a chart that tells no story.

Questions about this channel do not arrive by topic. They arrive by who is asking and what just happened. For each one below: what to say, what to show and the trap to avoid.

"Is AI killing SEO? Should we just stop?"

Say: "AI search is an expansion of the same channel. The assistants pull from the pages that rank in search, so the work carries over. Here is where we stand in AI answers today and our plan to grow it."

Show: A measured baseline of how often AI assistants mention or cite you, next to your search rankings for the same topics.

Trap: Agreeing to pause SEO to "focus on AI." You would be removing the foundation the AI results are built on.

Whether the work is done by an agency, a freelancer or a colleague, you manage it the same way.

You should be able to explain the plan without them in the room. If you cannot, ask them to explain it again in simpler terms. A good partner starts simple and goes deeper only when you ask.

Ask why, then ask what you will see. "Why this work, on these pages, now?" and "If it works, what changes and by when?"

Be wary of two things. Long lists of technical fixes with no link to the pages you care about. And link building described as a monthly quantity, with no plan for which pages or why.

Bring them your business, not just your website. New products, market shifts and what sales is hearing should change the strategy. Algorithm headlines mostly should not.

You do not need to become an SEO. A small set of ideas covers most conversations.

• Search engines do three things: find pages, work out what each is about and judge which deserve to rank.

• The work follows the same order: make sure pages can be found, make each page clearly about one customer need, then earn references from other sites.

• Relevance is the biggest lever. Most businesses are missing pages for things customers search for.

• Authority comes from other sites linking to your pages. It is built slowly and on purpose.

• Search engines rank pages, not websites. Be skeptical of whole-site health and authority scores.

• AI assistants lean on search results. Good search work carries over.

• Results come in sequence: rankings, then clicks, then conversions.

• The top three positions get most of the clicks. That is the target.

Days 1–30

• [ ] Meet sales and product leads. Write down how customers describe what you sell.

• [ ] Collect whatever research, reports and access already exist.

• [ ] Find out what leadership expects from this channel, and by when.

Days 31–60

• [ ] Get a map of how customers search, organized by what they want.

• [ ] Record your starting position in search and in AI answers.

• [ ] Sort targets into winnable now, build toward and not worth chasing.

Days 61–90

• [ ] Write the expectations memo and share it upward.

• [ ] Lay the year onto the 12-month plan.

• [ ] Start the initiative log.

• [ ] Schedule the first quarterly report.