I'm newly hired to start the SEO department at a company with 50+ websites, 30+ brands... Need help organizing this.

[iDingo]

I was recently hired at a company with 30 brands, and many information portal sites. I'm having trouble figuring out how to squeeze 50+ sites into the 5 site limit of our Moz plan, and how to aggragate/organize all the sites into a system for the CEO. Imagine you wake up one day, and you now have 50 clients, all with heavy demands... And they all have the same CEO, who doesn't understand SEO, and expects you to explain everything to him in basic terms.

The CEO wants more micromanagement, more analysis, more organization... Not quite sure how to go about it.

I have woorank for some good data to act on. I setup a whole slew of google docs to track my workers and their SEO off-site tasks. I have buzzbundle and have setup nearly 100 accounts with my Social Media employee...

It seems the CEO always feels that I'm not organized enough, not on top of enough etc... But its a massive job, and I was hired to literally start the entire department myself! They may be hiring an 'assistant' for me... But I'm worried the CEO feels that I'm just not on the ball enough...

And with Moz, having only 5 'campaigns'/websites I can have going at a time... I'm short by at least 45 'campaigns'. Order another 10 Moz accounts?? There must be some solutions..

Thanks guys

[Kingof5]

For the future - if you feel like you're getting into a situation where you won't be fully supported to do the best you can, stop and get out.

[PeaSoupDigital]

I guess it's a very delicate situation, especially if your CEO doesn't have a clue about SEO. You asking him for more money/manpower could come across to him as "I can't handle the workload". But, in reality, that workload is pretty much impossible. At best, you'll just end up treading water without making any meaningful improvements.

What I'd do is create some kind of document detailing everything SEO-related that needs to be done for each site. This would include things like blog writing, on-page content, proof reading, technical SEO (this could cover a multitude of tasks), link building, reporting, keyword research, etc. Then jot down how much time you would need to spend on each of these tasks for each site, times this by 50 and that should give your CEO a good idea of the workload involved. If he's not prepared to meet your demands, your position will be pretty much rendered untenable, in my opinion.

[Highland]

First and foremost, you need to understand (or perhaps your CEO as well) that SEO is really a subset of marketing. Seriously, go watch some Whiteboard Fridays and you'll find them talking about marketing in pretty much every one.

Now that we're all on the same page about marketing... what your boss is asking for isn't impossible but very difficult and very much underpaid and overworked. 50 sites and 30 brands... really? For one person? That means each brand is getting, at most, one day of your time. It's a recipe for disaster. But to answer the question...

First, organize the sites and brands. Group them together (spreadsheets can help with this). Try to group by categories and then associate brands with websites. Next, come up with a way to address these. In other words, you can only practically work on one site at any given time. So I would pick 5 sites and set up a Moz campaign for each. Let each run 2 weeks and then Archive them. Moz only allows you 5 active campaigns at a time. I don't know what, if any, limits there are on archived campaigns. Now, assess the 5 reports while you set 5 new ones up and let them run. Rinse and repeat.

Now, for actions, you need to have a list for each website. Again, spreadsheets help here. Document what you do, when you did it and why. Then use Moz to keep tabs on what happens as a result. This will be painfully slow but if they don't want to give you the tools necessary it's the best you can do. If you do get an assistant you can use these reports and lists to delegate things for them to do.

Last but not least, sit down with the CEO and hammer out expectations. What does this CEO want? Does he want you to just make suggestions or is he expecting you to implement them as well? What kind of authority do you have to make these changes? An SEO without authority to make changes is impotent and your job will eventually be called into question (corporations are notorious for mandating things without conveying the associated authority to accomplish them). Try to work with this person to ensure that you know what they want and what you intend to do to get that result.

[iDingo]

I agree. But the CEO is very careful with what he approves spending wise

I think I'm going to have to pitch it anyway.

By the way... I do have a team of about 5 SEO people, from the phillipines mostly... at $3/hr.... They are doing some offsite linkbuilding now. But I don't think that will cut it for the upper management related stuff.

[PeaSoupDigital]

Sounds like you have your work cut out for you. I don't see the point in having Moz if you can't use it for all of your sites. 50 websites seems an absurd amount of SEO for one person to deal with. I'd be sitting down with the CEO and advising it's simply not possible to do a decent job with just one person.

If you want to use Moz, you're going to have to upgrade to a premium package. Get some more staff in. I'd be tempted to ask for an SEO for every two or three sites.