When Hiring For Website: SEO Vs Design vs Development?

[Monsterfit]

I want to make sure I am approaching this project of mine correctly. I've built a couple internet businesses in clothing brands before after reading 4 hour work week, but ultimately there were things I didn't do (due diligence, market research) that made them fail. I went onto a different path with life but now have the opp to scale it online and I want to make sure I do everything right. (i'll share my story more some other time)

I'm looking to get a website built out with everything from content, design, development, and seo outsourced and have a website that looks full, sticky, and to look like it's been around for a little while, as well as be designed to convert and be optimized for seo. While I focus the majority of my on clients, and learning about getting traffic.

I'm trying to learn all I can but just need to get set straight on what aspects of IM are different mechanisms from each other and need to be hired separately when building a website to be most effective...

For example, I hire a designer but that's just for aesthetics (correct?) and then I would need to get a webmaster/SEO expert to help me optimize all the pages/articles?

Or is that ^ aspect of SEO dead?

Also, I can't imagine the best graphic designers are also the best SEO or programming experts as the best are usually a master of one? (assumption)

Then have a good foundation of content (get content writer) and this helps with SEO as well as just general appeal to customer when visiting site?

So am I correct by having my project pieced out/outlined in this fashion? Are some one in the same, and/or can usually be combined by one provider:

Designer - build out graphic design of website/banners/etc
Programmer - all aspects of website programming
SEO- make sure all pages are optimized in backend, and indexed etc
Links- buy them?
Webmaster - is that one of the above?
Content Writer- to write bulk of articles
Copy - ebook, email sequence

Basically, how do I need to outline this project? Am I following the right steps?

Boobs for the WF gods

 

[CCarter]

Alright so OP PMed me, so I'll give this a crack.​

I'm looking to get a website built out with everything from content, design, development, and seo outsourced and have a website that looks full, sticky, and to look like it's been around for a little while, as well as be designed to convert and be optimized for seo.

Aren't we all. ​

I'm trying to learn all I can but just need to get set straight on what aspects of IM are different mechanisms from each other and need to be hired separately when building a website to be most effective...

For example, I hire a designer but that's just for aesthetics (correct?) and then I would need to get a webmaster/SEO expert to help me optimize all the pages/articles?

Or is that ^ aspect of SEO dead?

Also, I can't imagine the best graphic designers are also the best SEO or programming experts as the best are usually a master of one? (assumption)

Then have a good foundation of content (get content writer) and this helps with SEO as well as just general appeal to customer when visiting site?

So am I correct by having my project pieced out/outlined in this fashion? Are some one in the same, and/or can usually be combined by one provider:

Designer - build out graphic design of website/banners/etc
Programmer - all aspects of website programming
SEO- make sure all pages are optimized in backend, and indexed etc
Links- buy them?
Webmaster - is that one of the above?
Content Writer- to write bulk of articles
Copy - ebook, email sequence

Basically, how do I need to outline this project? Am I following the right steps?

It's going to really depend on the skill set of the person who oversees the project. I prefer project managers that understand the importance of all aspects of the project, and know where to draw the line and balance out the multitude of factors. If the project manager doesn't have the skills necessary, they'll have blindspots, and depending on how important the blindspot is, it'll cost you a lot more down the road or you can just get straight up scammed.

A project manager needs to understand the designer is there to make the website user friendly, easy to navigate, not overly complicated, and up-to par with your industry/niche in terms of functionality and what users expect. The designer should have a varying degree of knowledge in the programming language needed to make their designs work. Otherwise, you just got an illustrator, that designs fantasies which are not practical.

The project manager also needs to understand the SEOer needs to help the designer add elements which are necessary for search engines. The SEOer needs to give 'some' insight and guidance to the content writer, but ultimately the content writer's main focus should be to answer users questions, deliver what they are looking for. The content writer needs to use online tools that are available to SEOers on what people are searching for and figure out the questions that visitors may have, in order to answer those questions and write content that's geared towards driving search engine traffic. The SEOer is the guy that will be in charge of building links, and off-site optimization, - the programmer will need to be necessary for on-site optimization at various stages. Now depending on your strategy, blackhat, grayhat, bluehat, or whitehat, the SEOer and programmer are going to have a more intimate relationship the darker the SEO you use - if you are smart . A pure SEOer is not user focused - that is his weakness. They are search engine focused. Your marketing needs to be user focused.

The project manager needs to understand that the SEOer should NOT be the Social Media guy. Social Media is a completely different beast in terms of engagement. So if the SEOer is hired to do Social Media, they'll think in terms of SEO, and not social engagement. The Social Media guy needs to take the content, wrap it, and deliver it to the audience in ways that will drive targeted traffic and create sales (or start the sales process - or if your revenue is advertisement based - generate traffic that your advertisers prefer, so they'll continue buying ad-space on your site).

The project manager needs to understand the programmer needs to help the SEOer achieve their goals, balance the designer's design and user interface with any 3rd party systems and backend operations that are involved. The programmer needs to facilitate an environment where the content writer can publish content easily, quickly, and without hassle. The programmer needs to integrate social plugins and other tools the social media guy will need to make their jobs easier. The programmer is the guy that makes everything work. The programmer will also have to understand varying degrees of SEO, content writing, social media, marketing, and design, to help the others do their job, and understand why the others need XYZ. He might be called the 'webmaster', in this case.

The project manager should also understand that the sales copy should be written by an expert in sales copy versus the content writer. There is A HUGE DIFFERENCE. The content writer and sales writer will need to work with the marketing dude (we haven't even gotten to this guy) and designer to make the final work and additional corporate communications compelling.

The Marketing Dude - should focus on all aspects of marketing, can be the project manager, but if they can't comprehend the programmer or other guy's roles correctly, the marketing will fail cause there is no support. The marketing dude should oversee everything that users/visitors/customers/clients are suppose to see, read, comprehend, and ultimately buy. Ultimately I prefer this guy be about online and offline methods of generating traffic. And rely on more than SEO and social media. His team can consist of a media buying guy, a paid search guy (PPC), and an advertising guy (offline), and so on. It can get extensive depending on your budget, goals, and target audience.

Are there designers who are programmers, yes. Can they do both well, maybe. They are rare, but it's more than possible - very rare - two different mindsets. I do programming and design, but that took years to craft each talent, and I can't do both at the same time, two different mindsets - creative versus logic. I'm creative in the morning, and logical at night. There is absolutely no logic right now for me to be answering this question this in-depth. Last night, I LOLed, now, I'm loving it.

Are there SEOers that understand Social Media. Yes. Can they do both well, probably, but I'm apprehensive. I love social media, but I'll be the first one to hire a social media expert as soon as I see someone's technique is better then mine. I hate SEO, cause it's a waiting game. I prefer concentrating on marketing - offline and online.

Are there content writers that can write sales copy. Very rare, and if you find one, jesus christ, hold on to them for dear life. I can't write for shit mate. I know who to go to for great content, I know who to go to for great sales copy, and I know who to go to for trolling the internetz.

Good luck bro.​

Boobs for the WF gods

They were alright... 4/10​

 

[Monsterfit]

CCarter - this helps tremendously! Thanks for taking the time to answer all my questions..

Hopefully these boobs are better than a 4/10 for ya

 

[emp]

Yes, second set of boobs was better. That very first one in the first set was hideous.

::emp::