Search engine optimization is much more than tactics. There is a whole strategy that goes along with, and drives the various tactics. Google tries to make it clear what it wants to see and how it expects websites to be set up in order to make it to the top of the ranking. However, the way in which you implement those “suggestions” is entirely dependent on your business and customer needs. It is the strategic nature of SEO that means it needs to be pushed higher up in the organization.

This is not to say that your CEO and top executives need to become SEO gurus. What it does mean is that SEO needs to be part of the conversation at the strategic level. If not, you are forever playing catch up and trying to stuff the proverbial square peg in a round hole. It doesn’t fit well and it shows to your customers and to the search engines.

Marketing and IT have gone through this evolution and move up the food chain as well. Once upon a time companies built a product that they liked and then pushed it on a reluctant marketing staff whose job it was to go out and sell these things, dammit!   Then companies started to understand that if they involved marketing, who represented the customer’s viewpoint, into the process from the beginning, they would create a product the market actually wanted and sales grew accordingly.

Technology has also earned a place at the top of the executive ladder. It used to be that computers were the problem of the IT guys who were kept in a dark, cold room with their servers and other computers. Now every aspect of business and manufacturing has a technology component to it and must be considered at the strategic level to be most effective.

SEO is primed for the same evolution and it is starting to happen. For example, if a company is planning a major rebranding campaign, SEO must be considered. How do you change the name and maintain all the great age and ranking patina that the old URL earned? If you are entering new markets, how can advanced SEO planning pave the way for a faster move up the ranking for the new market or product? And so on.

The tactics still remain the preview of the SEO team, but the strategy of SEO must be represented at the highest strategic levels in order to be successful in today’s Internet dependent world.