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Where SEO Lives Matters More Than You Think

Updated: May 19

Three worried people in an office hold a smoking potato labeled "SEO." Speech bubbles read "Marketing," "Product," and "IT."
Just to be clear this AI generated image is that of a "hot potato" not poop... not stinky poop...

Most companies treat SEO like a hot potato.


Nobody wants to own it. Nobody really understands it. And so it ends up shoved into whatever department has the fewest objections.


Usually Marketing. Sometimes Product. Occasionally IT.


And wherever it lands? That shapes everything.


Here's the Problem:


SEO is cross-functional by design. It touches:

  • Strategy

  • UX

  • Tech stack

  • Content

  • Brand

  • Legal


But org charts aren’t built that way. So SEO ends up reporting into one lane—while being held accountable for the ones it can’t touch.


SEO in Marketing


Pros:

  • Content alignment is easier

  • Brand and messaging teams are nearby

  • Usually some budget flexibility


Cons:

  • Seen as a “channel,” not infrastructure

  • Focus often skews toward top-of-funnel traffic, not full-funnel performance

  • May get deprioritized behind paid channels with faster, easier attribution


Marketing is great if your org already values organic. If it doesn’t, SEO becomes the weird cousin no one invites to the media plan.



Behold SEO found in the wild habitat of the IT Department
Behold SEO found in the wild habitat of the IT Department

SEO in IT


Pros:

  • Technical issues get visibility (site speed, crawl issues, schema, etc.)

  • You’re closer to dev tickets and architecture planning


Cons:

  • Content? What content?

  • SEO gets lumped into sprint cycles where it dies

  • Strategic thinking gets buried under backlog


When SEO reports to IT, it risks becoming a maintenance function—not a growth engine.


SEO in Product


Pros:

  • Ties into user behavior and lifecycle

  • Can influence site architecture and feature-level decisions


Cons:

  • Often no content creation resources

  • SEO treated as UX enhancement, not acquisition strategy

  • Can get stuck in roadmap hell with no bandwidth for foundational work


In Product, SEO has strategic potential—but often no execution support.


Grid chart comparing department roles in content access, support, alignment, and more. Each cell notes role impact from low to high.



Truth Is, There’s No Perfect Place


There is no magic home for SEO. But there is a wrong approach: treating it like a one-department job.


You don’t need the “perfect home.” You need:

  • A team structure with clear authority

  • A mandate to influence across functions

  • Support at the exec level

  • A seat at the table early, not retroactively


What That Actually Looks Like


I’ve seen it work best when SEO has:

  • A cross-functional steering committee

  • A strong senior advocate (VP or C-level) who gets it

  • KPIs tied to business goals, not just search traffic

  • Resources from marketing, input from product, access to tech


That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when the org decides SEO is a strategic capability, not a channel to manage.


Practical Takeaways


1. Map where SEO decisions are happening now. Are they centralized or scattered? Who really owns the outcomes?


2. Advocate for SEO as a bridge function. You need access to content, UX, dev, and data. Make the case—don’t wait to be granted permission.


3. Pitch SEO like a product, not a campaign. Campaigns get measured and closed. Products evolve and scale. Your SEO program should be the latter.




Coming Up Next:


Part 3: Why SEO ROI Feels Like a Mirage (And How to Prove It Anyway) Attribution.


Branded search. Last-click bias. Let’s untangle why SEO gets judged unfairly—and how to finally show its real value.

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