Sphinn - The IT Group: Friend Or Foe Of In-House Search Marketers?

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The IT Group: Friend Or Foe Of In-House Search Marketers?

Posted By: billse 354 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://searchengineland.com)
Category: Online Marketing

Funny because it's true - "The battle lines are drawn. On one side stands our plucky heroine: the redheaded stepchild of the corporation, the search marketer. Armed only with her knowledge and expertise, she stands, all alone. On the other side stand the massed hordes of the IT department. Armed with their "best development practices," their coding standards documentation and their knowledge and expertise, speaking in their arcane language of such strange topics as struts, asp, and refactoring. In the middle stands the prize—the corporate website. And conventional wisdom says that only one side can have control over the prize and only one group can win."

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from mpilatow 354 days ago #

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Great article. While our IT department is pretty good and open they sometimes do push back when I make recommendations. It was worse at first but once they realized I knew what I was doing they became more open. Once I proved my ideas worked and I was not an adversary they became more friendly. It also did not hurt that our CEO had good basic SEO knowledge and helped me to push things through.

from Lani 354 days ago #

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I'm going to have to disagree on the advice given in regards to approach by marketing/SEO to Programmers.
The Know it all should be your best friend, in this case. Giving him things to read, only tells him he doesn't know anything at all, which immediately puts him on defensive. How would you feel, if the IT department dumped every article found on Sphinn on your desk? The better approach is to bring a can of coke or Starbucks coffee and serve him up the problem you have as well as your perceived solution. Ask what he thinks about it, and if there's any easier way for him to work his magic and perform exactly what you need. The IT department, will sit there and solve the problem, giving you the same solution, but on his terms, and in his way. Marketers think the IT guys are black and white, which is far from truth - if I had only one way to write a 301 Redirect, Programming would be a bore. Make it exciting and don't ever let him know you're smarter than he is.
The close minded IT Person. Should not even be employed - if he's incompetent then he's in the wrong business. Never ever judge your IT department. From your description of what to do, you are saying that he's dumb and you're smarter. Best way to get nothing accomplished in my opinion. With this guy, you need to again give him your idea, let him come up with a way, help him come up with a solution. I reiterate, if he's incompetent then you should avoid him completely, take your perceived numbers to the boss and find a developer/programmer who is competent.
Control freaks work the same way as the know it all - make it their problem to solve. We programmers, enjoy solving problems, it's why we're in the business.
I work both Marketing and Development (IT) and I've worked with Fortune 500 IT departments, and top Vegas Casino IT Departments. They all want to make things work their way, so let them. You just give them the problem, and let them find the solution. If as marketers, we think a 301 is the only solution, we are lying to ourselves. There's more than one way to make things work - and programmers are determined to find the easiest and fastest way to make that happen. Respect them, and they will be your best friend. Show one ounce of "I'm better and Smarter or make more money" and you'll be having the most difficult time with them. The best part is watching the marketing person walk out of the room and the IT guys drawing stick cartoons with darts.
Trust me - this is the era of the IT department, growth is their only way of survival and encouragement. They want to hear what you want done, and the more challenging, the better - but do not ever tell them, how you want it done - you're just asking for trouble.

from JamesOmdahl 354 days ago #

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Like mpilatow said, the best way to get IT on your site is to show them some results. When we started working on SEO, IT seemed a bit annoyed by the whole thing (not as much as the designers, but that's another story), but as they have seen SEO add to our bottom line they have been more and more receptive.

No matter what the personality type, keep your IT team close and do your best to let them know when something they work on for you makes a difference in your rankings.

from SimonHeseltine 354 days ago #

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@Lani - Just to clarify, I'm not describing every IT person as a problem, just as I'm not describing every search marketer as the champion on the white steed. Every situation is different, and every person is different. These are just some of the personality types I've witnessed throughout my career.

I'm also not saying that you should tell IT how you want something to be implemented, I'm talking about the end result. As long as what I need shows up where I need it to in the format I want I could care less whether they used the MVC pattern in Java or the Factory pattern in Smalltalk. The issues I've had seen have been things like the IT department refusing to develop and implement 404 pages because "people shouldn't see them".

I agree with you on the topic of befriending IT, as with any department you most assuredly want to be on a good footing with them, as you never know when you'll need them in a pinch to get something done urgently. The challenges are when you hit extreme cases where they just won't listen.

As for the closed mind being 'dumb', I don't believe I said that, instead I tend to think of that as the person who has been with the organization for a long time, and has their way of doing things, and that's the only way they want things done. In some organizations that person is still there solely on tenure, as they haven't evolved with the position. That doesn't make them dumb, but it does make interactions with them difficult and frustrating.

from Lani 354 days ago #

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And all I'm saying, is if you want results from the IT department, treat them as equals and not try to spoon feed them so they are left feeling defensive. The idea that you should send your IT department research, is by far the worst thing anyone could do. Again - in return, the IT department shoving Bruce Clay articles on your desk makes things a bit awkward.
If you have an IT department that's not willing to develop a 404 page, simply because it cannot be seen, then the IT department, is not who should be speaking with. Something such as a 404 page should have already been sold to the decision maker making your job easier, and the IT departments job a must. Any SEO/Marketer who has not sold their boss or client on the fact that a 404 page is important to a website, is the flawed one, not the IT department. They get paid to do a job, it's our job to make sure that job is outlined and approved so we can achieve the results we want. SEO is about results, IT is about results - together that's an awesome equation.
I am not stating that you are wrong, what I am saying is that I disagree - I disagree fully because your technique of dealing with different personalities are flawed in my eyes. It doesn't mean it's wrong, I am sharing my opinion. My opinion is clear to myself and the happy IT departments I work with - I'm no better than they are, just because Google has a page rank drop - doesn't mean my IT department has to suffer under my duress - I simply work with them to find a solution.
Here's a fun tip: IT is always Smarter than the SEO/MarketersBill Gates, Sergey Brin and Larry Page

from torka 353 days ago #

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I've always found keeping in my office a large bin of chocolates, free for the taking, to be very beneficial in getting results from the programmers I've worked with.

Of course, now that I'm in a really small organization where I'm both the web-IT person and the web-marketing person, the policy of offering unlimited free chocolate to the IT side is less helpful, at least as long as I want to be able to fit into my "skinny" jeans. :)

On the other hand, the IT "group" and the marketing "group" generally are in total synch on what needs to be done and how to implement it.

But seriously, my experience has been the best bet is to help the programmers understand what the problem is (and why it's a problem), what the needed result (again, the "why" is important, too) is and let them work out how best to get from Point A to Point B. (The true purpose of my chocolate bribery was just to insure that my problems were always at or near the top of the priority list.)