How big is the website that you work on?
The most popular answer here was the range of 1,000-10,000 pages which 30% of in-house technical SEOs said they worked on. The largest size available was 1m+ pages which 23% of respondents worked on.
What the experts think…
It's encouraging to see a significant portion of technical SEO professionals managing websites of various sizes, from mid-range to over 1 million pages. This reflects the growing recognition of SEO's importance in driving growth across diverse online platforms.
The percentage of in-house SEOs who work on websites with 1m+ pages has grown from 18% to 23% in the span of a year. This signals a positive shift towards valuing in-depth SEO for large-scale sites.
This aligns with my experience and it's great to see companies with slightly smaller websites taking SEO seriously.
I'd love to compare a day-in-the-life of an SEO managing a 1-10k page website with someone managing 1m+ pages!
Do you use external agencies, freelancers or contractors for technical SEO?
The majority of technical SEOs (78%) said that they didn’t use any external resources such as agencies or freelancers to support their technical SEO efforts.
This is an increase from last year's results where 75% of respondents said that they didn’t use external resources for technical SEO support, and a further increase from 2022 where 70% said that they didn’t use external support.
What the experts think…
With how fast the industry has changed over the past year, it is no surprise to me the need for agencies and freelancers has increased.
Coupled with specialist knowledge, the added flexibility freelancers can provide I imagine has been really helpful in the current economic climate.
In-house SEOs tend to be often tech-savvy, and due to the nature of tech SEO, it makes sense to do majority of this work in-house. We're of course talking generally here, perhaps the figures would be different for specific project types, for example a migration.
With economic conditions prompting businesses to review budgets, I'm not surprised to see the number of SEOs outsourcing work decrease.
I'm curious about where that work sits now, though. Does it mean that we're not able to do as much technical SEO as we were, or does it mean that in-house SEOs are upskilling and plugging those gaps in addition to their existing work?
When you use external agencies, freelancers or contractors, how much budget, on average, do you invest per month?
For those who answered yes, we asked how much budget they invested per month on external technical SEO support. The most popular answer with 38% was $5,000 - $10,000 per month. The least popular answer (0%) was the largest budget range of over $50k per month.
This is a slight change in positioning from 2023, where the most popular budget level was the $1,000-$5,000 per month range.
What the experts think…
This answer coupled with the previous one suggests something interesting—that organizations may be partnering with external freelancers and agencies less often, but when they do, they may be asking for more help with high-level tasks or strategic direction rather than lower-cost, day-to-day execution.
Over the last 12 months, have your budgets been changed at all?
Given the economic uncertainty that many companies have been experiencing over the last 12 months, we asked in-house SEOs whether they’d experienced budget changes as a result.
The most popular answer (41%)was that budgets had been kept the same as expected, but was followed very closely by budgets being reduced (34%). Thankfully, no respondents reported that their budget had been removed completely, whilst 25% said their budget had been increased.
What the experts think…
Proving impact on revenue in technical SEO is an ongoing challenge for all marketers. The need to prove value and report on ROI and technical changes has notably increased for my clients. This means that often, getting budget is harder.
The need to prove value often comes from pressures from senior management tightening their belts. SEOs need to continue to prioritise technical SEO changes and analyse the cost-benefit, communicating the value and potential lost revenue impact when it comes to implementing fixes.
Economic uncertainty means that, like most businesses, we've seen added scrutiny when it comes to approving and maintaining budgets. However, scrutiny doesn't mean that these are automatically reduced, it just means that you need to validate that they're worthwhile. It can even mean revisiting relationships with developers and other vendors to ensure the tasks you're sharing are making the most effective use of their time, and yours.
Following on from this, are you expecting this budget to increase, decrease or stay the same next year?
The majority (59%) of respondents said that they expected budgets to stay the same over the next 12 months. Far fewer (19%) expect budgets to increase over the next year.
What the experts think…
With so much pressure to cut costs, I'm pleasantly surprised that SEO budgets have stayed the same for almost 60% of respondents, and that they've increased for almost 19%!
In my experience, SEO can have one of the lowest customer acquisition costs, so it should be one of the last channels to be turned down or rolled back.
Unfortunately, this value isn't recognized or communicated enough.
Have recent developments surrounding AI influenced your SEO planning and roadmap?
Given the hot topic of AI and its impact on SEO, we asked our respondents whether they’d changed their SEO planning as a result of recent developments. The most popular answer (59%) was yes, it’s changed things a little. Only 20% said that they haven’t changed their SEO planning or roadmap at all.
What the experts think…
I think this response is very reasonable - although I'm surprised of the number of people who say it's impacted their strategy a lot. It would be interesting to know whether people mean utilising AI tools has impacted SEO planning (i.e. made it easier), or whether they mean the rise of AI and LLMs in search engines. Perhaps both?
I'm extremely surprised that 20% haven't changed their planning and roadmap at all. I personally use AI incorporated into my role most days, and a result have become much more conscious of competitors in the space and whether they use AI in their content production process.
Incorporating AI into existing can, in many cases streamline your roadmap and speed things up, particularly in the case of research, briefing content, writing meta and more.
How worried are you about AI developments negatively impacting your job security as a Technical SEO?
We also wanted to know if job security was a concern to in-house SEOs. The most popular answer (64%) was not at all. 36% admitted that they are worried, with 6% being very worried.
IH - How worried are you about AI developments negatively impacting your job security as a Technical SEO?
What the experts think…
Just shy of one-third of SEO professionals harbor concerns about AI replacing their roles. While such worries are not without merit, it's crucial for business leaders to recognize that AI is not an all-encompassing substitute for human employees. Particularly in the realm of SEO, the nuanced application of common sense is key—a quality AI has yet to master. Moreover, while AI can expedite content creation, it requires astute guidance to avoid producing material that falls short of the quality standards, as evidenced by Google's latest core update, which has been deindexing subpar content.
Like the majority of respondents, I'm not hugely worried about AI developments impacting my job security. It's reassuring to know that so many SEOs feel the same way!
However, AI developments do create uncertainty, and we've seen that a lot with SGE and the dilution of the SERPs with AI content.
If you are concerned, the best advice I've heard is to find opportunities to diversify your traffic sources and skill set according to these changes.
It's really nice to see the positive sentiment here in general, as I think the common consensus is that AI is there to support, not replace. I'm yet to see an AI tool that could act as a full-time technical SEO, so I agree with this sentiment.
With all the scaremongering that's happened in the industry for the past 12 months, it's great to see that SEOs are confident in their abilities compared to AI.
Which element(s) of SEO do you typically outsource to agencies or freelancers?
We asked in-house SEOs which elements they typically outsourced and the most popular answer was technical/on-page SEO at 63%. However, outsourcing link building has seen a noticeable increase this year (56%) compared to last year where 45% of in-house SEOs said that they outsourced it.
What the experts think…
There's also a decrease from 51% last year to 47% this year of SEOs who say they outsource content production. That could be due to more organizations experimenting with and using generative AI to do the work that outsourced writers have done in the past.
It's not a surprise to see outsourcing of link building & off-site SEO becoming more and more popular - it can be challenging to find the resources to do this in-house. And I think the value of content marketing and digital PR is much better understood now in many industries, so many brands will want to tap into this approach.
It's particularly interesting that link building and off-page SEO has become more outsourced, but this is not a surprise.
With a whole host of Google changes over the past 12 months, from EEAT to the rush of AI produced content, in-house marketers are looking for a way to stand out. Marketers are beginning to understand the importance of building trust signals to their wider SEO strategy.
It's more than just "building links", but showing that your site is the more authoritative source in the space.
As someone with a content background, I'm not too surprised that content production sits at the bottom of this list.
I think content production is often dismissed as 'writing' and therefore easy to outsource. However, great content requires an in-depth understanding of the business, offering and objectives. Multi-media content is also growing in value, and this requires teams to collaborate effectively with internal stakeholders.
As content becomes increasingly sophisticated and nuanced, it will naturally become harder to outsource predictably and affordably.
In your organisation, in which team does accountability for technical SEO sit?
Most (68%) in-house technical SEOs said that accountability for their function sits within the marketing and brand team, followed by engineering/tech at 22% and sales/product at 10%.
What the experts think…
As an agency marketer, this certainly checks out. While we often work with tech or product teams as stakeholders along the way, I don't think I've ever had a primary contact live outside of the marketing team.
This links to the other results we've seen.
Marketers have to wear many hats, so investing in agencies and freelancers allow the team to acquire specialist knowledge to support technical SEO implementation.
Accountability for technical SEO sits with the marketing team, in particular, the content and SEO team.
However, I believe that different stakeholders play different roles in maintaining technical SEO, so we encourage best practices proactively across the wider marketing team.
If, like me, your time is split between content and technical tasks, ongoing maintenance and awareness is important to ensure both parts of the role remain manageable.
For larger, more complex websites, or websites with a lot of technical SEO debt, you'll probably need to invest more heavily in the tech and engineering side instead.
Including yourself, how many people are responsible for SEO in your organisation?
34% of in-house technical SEOs are solely responsible for SEO in their organisation, followed by 20% who have a team of between 3-5 people.
What the experts think…
One-third of in-house SEO professionals work in isolation, without the benefit of collaborating with peers within their organisations. The absence of a team to share and develop ideas with underscores the significance of nurturing diverse and inclusive SEO communities.
These communities offer a sanctuary for connection and exchange, catering to the need for collective wisdom among SEO specialists seeking support and shared knowledge.
Although it can be a lonely existence, being the sole SEO can also bring benefits: honing on soft skills (like presentation, negotiation, communication skills) becomes ever more important and inevitable when you're the sole person responsible for results, SEO tools, budgets and roadmap. It's a big job, but in my experience can also teach a lot!
Which areas of SEO do you focus on in your day-to-day role? Tick all that apply;
To try and understand how in-house SEOs spend their time, we asked them to share where they typically spend their days. Nearly all (97%) said that they spend day-to-day time on technical and on-page SEO. Three quarters (74%) spend time on content production. Whilst only 38% spend their time on link building.
Which areas of SEO do you focus on in your day-to-day role? Tick all that apply;
What the experts think…
It makes sense that technical / on-page SEO is the biggest focus. After all, it underpins and facilitates the rest of our work.
For example, content production is a big focus in my role, but I address on-page SEO as part of this, covering everything from site content to internal linking, appropriate heading hierarchies, schema markups, and more.
By taking a proactive approach and baking on-page optimizations into our content production process, we minimize double work and have neater boundaries when it comes to accountability.
Please rank the following in order of which ones you spend the most time on, with the task requiring the most time at the top:
To get more specific, we asked in-house SEOs to order common SEO tasks by which ones they spend the most amount of time on. The most popular task was the proactive improvement of known issues, followed by examining the website to find more issues.
Rank | Task |
1 | Proactive improvement of known issues |
2 | Examining the site to look for issues |
3 | Incremental improvements/testing of new opportunities |
4 | Reactive handling of issues introduced by site updates |
What the experts think…
It's nice to see that "reactive handling of issues" is the least popular item on this list—hopefully that means that more internal stakeholders are recognizing the need to loop SEO in early in the process of making any changes to the website!
How do you handle implementing technical SEO tasks that require developers?
Over three quarters of the respondents (80%) said that they used an in-house development team to handle technical SEO tasks. Only 8% of technical SEOs said that they fix issues themselves.
What the experts think…
I always ask my clients for developer to be there when I need them, we have a very good communications. I add a sheet for all the issues, how to solve them and priority. Also we have good Telegram chatroom for any questions and communication.
But that doesn't mean that I like to fix them myself as long as I know-how and have access to fix them.
Having some kind of development resource is essential for many reasons. To ensuring you have a team onside incase things go wrong, to having the resources for a regular maintenance budget that can help tackle technical SEO issues.
Many senior leaders do not understand that SEOs aren't developers, we can support and advise on fixes, but most SEOs do not have the coding skills required to complete fixes in their entirety.
Given the significant number of SEO professionals who work closely with development teams, it's essential that they acquire the ability to articulate technical issues through the lens of engineering as well as SEO.
The collaboration and mutual understanding between SEOs and engineers, each contributing their unique expertise toward a unified objective, leads to true innovation.
When you work with web developers to implement SEO tasks, do they have time set aside regularly for this, or do you need to request it ad hoc?
57% of in-house technical SEOs said that they need to request web development time as when they need it for SEO tasks. 31% are amongst the most fortunate and have quick access to web developers who can make changes straight away.
What the experts think…
Getting SEO tasks into the development priority lists can seem like an uphill battle. It's vital to create a prioritised list and clearly outline the cost-benefit of each fix so developers understand the real impact.
Building relationships with developers is a big part of this process, creating an environment where both developers and SEOs can communicate openly and ask questions is super important, whilst understanding that both sides are busy.
Make sure you credit your developers when they've enabled a fix- They've done the work to support you and a 'thank you' goes a long way.
It's great to see that 31% of in-house technical SEOs have instant access to developers.
Although requesting time can add an element of unpredictability to your workflows, I also think it encourages agility, depending on your briefing and development process.
This works well for us because it enables us to move quickly, largely because we have so much flexibility with our roadmap of fixes and optimizations.
That isn't always possible when you have an allocated amount of time with developers, or when you have to wait for certain dates and milestones to request fixes.
The ad hoc approach to dev time is very common, and can work well within the type of work that tech SEOs need to do. Not every month is the same, so having flexible developers can make a huge difference.
Which of the following teams do you typically work alongside when it comes to technical SEO? Tick all that apply.
Next, we wanted to understand to what extent technical SEOs crossed over with other areas of their organisation. The most popular answer was the Engineering/Tech team with 86% of respondents saying that they crossed over with them.
What the experts think…
I would love to see this Sales/Product number increase! There's so much valuable information to be shared between these teams, especially when it comes to creating "jobs to be done"-style content. Customer teams are also missing from this list, but they're also full of stakeholders who can provide unique insights and recommendations to SEOs.
What's the longest timeframe you've had to wait to get a technical SEO change made for a website that you’ve worked on?
It was pretty much a tie between the two most popular answers here, with 27% saying 6 months and 26% saying 12 months.
What the experts think…
Unfortunately this is no surprise. Development teams can get extremely busy with a lot of stakeholders feeding requests into them. This is why it's vital to build relationships with your developers, provide training on insights and SEO, prioritise tasks and attach real consequences and value to getting them implemented. Once implemented, ensure that you highlight the team's hard work across the business, as this really helps with motivation and the likelihood of getting things done.
What's the shortest time frame you've had to wait to get a technical SEO change implemented within your organisation?
To look at the other end of the scale, we asked in-house SEOs about the shortest amount of time that they have waited to get a technical SEO change implemented. The most popular answer with 68% was a day. Thankfully, no one said over 12 months!
What the experts think…
One of the most empowering moments in my career was receiving access to make simple technical SEO changes myself. I understand that it's not feasible for many larger organizations to grant permissions to specialists to implement their own changes, but once I received access to the CMS, the time to implementation was immediately shortened for select technical projects, like broken link clean up, site structure changes, and reducing duplicate content.
The beauty of being in-house is that you can get technical SEO changes actioned on your own terms (most of the time).
The speed at which we get a technical SEO change implemented usually depends on the urgency of the fix and how we communicate that.
Generally, you can get your requests prioritized by communicating the advantages of that particular fix well or, in most cases, the risks of not doing so.
Giving that context and quantifying the value of the change in terms that resonate with other stakeholders is extremely valuable when it comes to receiving buy-in and progressing these asks.
What's the typical timeframe for a technical SEO change to be made on a website that you’ve worked on?
In terms of the typical timeframe for technical SEO changes to be made, the most popular answer was a week with 37%, closely followed by a month at 34%. Fortunately for most technical SEOs, waiting over 12 months was only the case for 1% of respondents.
What is typically the main blocker in getting changes made to the site?
When it comes to reasons why technical SEO changes can’t get made, by far the most common answer was existing non-SEO development tasks with 67% of respondents citing this reason.
What the experts think…
Developers will get lots of requests come in from across the business, so it's important to ensure that when tasks are detailed, they're made as easy to understand as possible, with clear instructions (and resources where possible) on how the issue can be resolved.
I'm optimistic that businesses will eventually consider the positive impact that SEO tasks have on non-SEO development tasks, and vice versa.
If we're striving for overall website health and hygiene, we should see the lines blur more often, which is a good thing!
It's time to start presenting our technical SEO tasks as broader website maintenance tasks instead, and to put the user at the heart of our requests for developers' time.
How do you present your technical SEO recommendations to your stakeholders? Pick all that apply:
In-house technical SEOs generally prefer using ticket systems such as JIRA or Asana to present their recommendations to stakeholders, with 71% of them saying this. The next popular answer was Google Sheets or Excel, with 55%.
What the experts think…
Having direct access to dev ticketing tools is so important - it can help speed things along massively, and help SEOs write requests in the right format from the start. Also it's good to have visibility on other web projects, to fully understand what else is in the queue ahead of SEO work.
How do you prioritise technical SEO tasks in terms of implementation? Please rank the following, starting with the most effective:
In terms of prioritising technical SEO tasks, most in-house SEOs said that they did so based on which ones may yield quick wins, leading to big impact but with little effort. This was followed by Expected impact on KPIs.
The least popular way to prioritise SEO tasks is to use industry changes and algorithm updates.
Rank | Task |
1 | Quick wins (big impact, little effort) |
2 | Expected impact on KPIs |
3 | Impact on users |
4 | Best practices based on Google Guidelines |
5 | Industry changes and algorithm updates |
What the experts think…
Most tasks can be scored based on ease, impact, and effort, helping you to identify the quickest and biggest wins out of a long list of recommendations.
However, it's important not to assume that the most talked about fix is the one with the biggest impact.
The next shiny thing won't necessarily be what is best aligned with your business objectives, so it's wise to prioritize the impact on KPIs over industry changes and algorithm updates.
Focus on fixing your money pages, improving user experience, and working to resolve the biggest risks to your company's success - not just the flavour of the week on LinkedIn.
The Pareto principle works! It can also be helpful when justifying the value of SEO. It goes hand in hand with KPI impact too.
Typically, are your technical SEO recommendations deployed to a staging environment prior to live?
The vast majority of respondents (80%) said that they deploy technical SEO changes to a staging environment before pushing live.
What the experts think…
This is really great to see. Testing in a staging environment is an essential part of ensuring technical SEO is implemented properly.
It's a relief to see that so many of the technical SEO changes are staged first.
Even with the best communication between SEOs and developers, there's still no guarantee that the deployment will be perfect first time.
It's much easier (and lower risk) to roll back changes from staging environments than it is production.
Do you carry out any form of A/B testing to understand the impact of technical SEO changes after they've been deployed?
45% of in-house SEOs said that they carry out A/B testing to understand the impact of technical SEO changes after deployment. This is a slight increase from last year when 40% reported doing this.
What's the hardest part of your job?
For in-house SEOs, the hardest part of their job is getting recommendations implemented, with 32% saying this. It was closely followed (29%) by being able to show the value of their work.
What the experts think…
I see the first (Getting recommendations implemented) and second (Showing the value of my work) going hand in hand. SEO recommendations are often stacked up against competing business priorities, and you must be able to show the value of getting your recommendations implemented to get them prioritized in the first place.
In my opinion, the hardest part of the job is staying in the loop with developments and new skills. This kind of work is rarely allocated time in your calendar, meaning most of the learning happens outside of work hours.
To solve this, I've started marking out time in my calendar and knowledge-sharing with the wider marketing team to lighten the load.
I've also started to be more selective about the content I engage with and the actions I take based on it. It's easy to find yourself overwhelmed with the commentary and theories being shared at scale. You won't be able to test or do everything, so keep that in mind when consuming this content.
It's a vicious cycle, trying to get recommendations implemented without having "proof" of the value of the SEO work. How can the value be shown if things aren't implemented? This demonstrates the importance of constant education and communication with stakeholders, and the use of the correct language. For example, devs will expect very different conversation that you would have with c-suite. Understanding what makes people tick is key to getting the right message across.
The gap between the intricacies of technical SEO and its tangible impact on business metrics often makes it challenging for SEOs to demonstrate the true value of their proposals. Much of what SEO professionals do centers around risk management, which typically doesn't reveal its worth until an issue arises—at which point, the cost of inaction becomes starkly apparent. Naturally, no one wants to reach that critical juncture.
Luckily enough, the SEO community is increasingly sharing insights on this topic, providing a wealth of resources to help connect technical SEO to concrete business outcomes, all we have to do is be willing to learn.
Showing value for technical SEO changes can be extremely difficult, especially when it comes to securing budget and continued investment in technical SEO.
If possible, use the click through rate and revenue from analytics data to get an understanding of potential revenue lost if this fix isn't implemented. Even if this is broad, it helps other stakeholders understand the impact of a technical fix.
Please rank the following in terms of how important you think they are for a technical SEO to fully understand, starting with the most important at the top.
We asked in-house SEOs for their views on the most important skills to fully understand. The highest ranked answer was data analysis, followed by reading and understanding HTML/CSS. The lowest ranked answers were link building and database knowledge such as BigQuery/SQL.
Rank | Task |
1 | Data analysis |
2 | Reading and understanding HTML/CSS |
3 | Reading and understanding JavaScript |
4 | Commercial awareness such as profit/loss and revenue |
5 | Log file analysis |
6 | Content strategy |
7 | RegEx |
8 | Machine Learning / AI |
9 | Database work such as SQL/BigQuery |
10 | Link building |
What the experts think…
So good to see tech SEOs rate data analysis high in importance - it's near impossible to make solid judgements and strategic decisions if you can't fully understand performance or site audit data.