Working as an online team. Part one: What a Marketer should know about development

In todays world, people are being given the position of marketing and managing websites though SEO, analytics, social networking, etc. without any experience in neither web design nor web development. This article hopes to aid marketers in "fitting in" and preventing them from getting off on the wrong foot.

So you’ve graduated college and have obtained your degree. You’re now a fully-qualified Search Engine Optomisation (SEO) Marketing expert and you’ve managed to land yourself a job. Your first task is to pitch and promote an idea for a project. You’re dealing with developers and designers, for the first time, and you want everyone on board.

The following will help form a good relationship with the developer(s), avoid the bad, and prevent them from turning ugly.

1. The Developer Knows SEO Too.

Developers leave college with a knowledge of SEO, they know how to integrate this into a project and they value its importance. The skills the developers may not have acquired, however, are: networking, sales and the science of making money online.

Recently, I’ve been working with a marketer who wants the press ahead with an ‘experiment’. Which is, of course, a website. He was completely focused on SEO and SEO alone. I can accept this, as it is his main skill, but I felt obliged to tell him that this website needs a custom design and not something basic (and, in this case, horrible).

His reply was, along the lines of: “Don’t underestimate the importance of SEO.”

This annoyed me. I know and value the importance of SEO. After I grumbled to myself for awhile, I saw things from his point of view: He was focused on SEO and I de-prioritised it.

The project, in question, is an online shop. One where the competition is high, so SEO is hugely important and should go hand-in-hand with development in terms of priorities/importance. But my main point was: Websites are supposed to be made for people and not Google.

Web developers develop websites. They know the ins and outs. Before setting off on a project, consult them and find out if there’s any flaws or pitfalls in your project plan.

2. Take an Interest

This is an easy task. If developers know SEO and can read analytics, take an interest in what they do! Learn some HTML, CSS, read a few blog posts, even follow the same people/companies, as they do, on twitter.

In saying that, I remember once, a marketer sent me an email with a word document that included a piece that explained what an ‘alt’ tag was on an image. To make matters worse the description was wrong! According to the piece, alt tags are for keyword stuffing instead of being used as ‘alternative text’. Yes, they add to SEO but this could have got us blacklisted.

Take an interest, learn new things, and send on anything interesting. If they mention an interest in learning technologies such as: jQuery, Ajax, or Ruby on Rails, send on a link from a blog post you’ve read etc.

3. Always Write a Detailed Spec.

Forget everything you’ve learnt: Less is not more. It’s important to add every single last piece of detail for every project. The developer will always ask questions and be constantly looking for confirmation on individual tasks but it’s important to learn that a project, such as a website, cannot be summarised into a short email.

Be detailed. Use a Word document to explain projects you want carried out.

4. Give Detailed Feedback

Be even more detailed. I knew someone whose emails always said: “Looks good, John.” After a while I started doubting him. I never knew if I did a good job or not. Here’s a simple way of giving feedback on a project:

What do you like? Why?
What do you not like? Why? How would you change it?
What doesn’t it work as expected?

Again, use a Word document to structure your feedback. Ways to improve your critique are to include screenshots and references to URL’s of any pages mentioned.

5. The Developer Works With You, Not For You.

This is my most important point. When a marketer has an idea and wants it carried out, they go to the designers and developers and say “I want x, y, and z..etc.”

Stop there.

Now that the project has started with “I want” you’re in control. You’re managing the project. You’re calling the shots. At this point, however, you need a feasibility study on your project. You need to sit down with the designers and developers and find out if you’re doing things correctly. You need their professional opinion.

You’re all working as a team. People should work with you, not for you. Build a healthy relationship.

So that’s it! Has anyone got any more tips? Do you agree/disagree with any points? What are your personal experiences? Either way, I’m interested in any feedback. So please, leave comments below.

Next week, it’s time for developers to learn how to act around marketers. Hopefully I don’t contradict myself.

EDIT: Part 2 can be viewed here.

Tags: Development/Marketing/Team Building
Posted in Blog by John |