SEO as Product Management — Craig Harkins // CoStar

Craig Harkins, Director of SEO and Content at CoStar, talks about the impact of user research and product management in enterprise SEO. Product management and SEO are two crucial components that must work hand in hand for successful SEO outcomes. However, there's a common misconception that SEO should belong to either marketing or product teams. Today, Craig discusses enterprise SEO and its impact on product management.
About the speaker

Craig Harkins

CoStar

is a little camera shy

Craig is Director of SEO and Content at CoStar

Show Notes

  • 02:32
    Why product management and SEO work together
    When SEO lives in product management, being closer to the engineering team makes it easier to launch SEO strategies and get them on the development boards. Whether SEO should live in product management or marketing may vary depending on the business and its specific needs.
  • 04:32
    Balancing Google's policies with internal capabilities to make SEO decisions
    Having external documentation like Google's search features gallery is helpful but sometimes testing shows a different approach could be more effective. In those edge cases, building relationships and having a track record of success with engineering teams leads to more trust.
  • 07:55
    Prioritizing SEO tasks and packaging them up for effective implementation
    Prioritizing SEO tasks can be challenging due to the opportunity cost of choosing which ones to do. Rolling up smaller tasks into larger features and themes can make it easier to get prioritized and implemented by product leadership and engineering teams.
  • 10:57
    Core skills required for the product management role in SEO
    The core skill required for a product management role in SEO is storytelling in a way that resonates with the engineering and product teams. Its about being able to convey why SEO features are important and how they benefit the business and users to get buy-in.
  • 14:21
    SEO knowledge vs storytelling ability in effective product management
    To be a successful product manager in SEO, you need to have functional knowledge of SEO and know what makes websites rank in Google. Additionally, you need to be able to communicate SEO requirements effectively to development teams.

Quotes

  • "It really depends on the business youre doing and the kind of scale you need whether SEO needs to be within marketing or product management." -Craig Harkins, Director of SEO and Content, CoStar

  • "I will give a shout-out to Google and their documentation team. Over the past year, they've gotten a lot better at documenting how things work in Google." -Craig Harkins, Director of SEO and Content, CoStar

  • "As you build those relationships with your engineering team, and you've got a track record of success, they listen more to you in those edge cases." -Craig Harkins, Director of SEO and Content, CoStar

  • "The Google search features gallery is something I go back to all the time when I am writing up requirements for different things we're trying to do on our sites." -Craig Harkins, Director of SEO and Content, CoStar

  • "Being able to package your tickets up so that internal teams have an easier time getting that work prioritized and getting it through is very helpful." -Craig Harkins, Director of SEO and Content, CoStar

  • "If it's 100 small tickets with very little impact, itll be hard to get those through. If you can roll them together into a feature, that gets prioritized by your product leadership." -Craig Harkins, Director of SEO and Content, CoStar

  • "The Google search features gallery is something I go back to all the time when I am writing up requirements for different things we're trying to do on our sites." -Craig Harkins, Director of SEO and Content, CoStar

About the speaker

Craig Harkins

CoStar

is a little camera shy

Craig is Director of SEO and Content at CoStar

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