How to build and lead a successful remote SEO team

As SEO grows more collaborative and data-driven, more teams are operating remotely – sometimes by choice, sometimes by necessity. But managing SEO remotely brings its own challenges. 

Drawing on eight years of leading fully remote SEO teams, here are 10 key aspects of your workflow, setup, and strategy to get right for long-term success.

1. Culture

First, consider if you’re working with just a remote team or a fully remote company.

An SEO consulting firm could easily decide to go fully remote. But if you’re leading an in-house SEO team working for a larger company, you may not have that option.

Second, consider whether your team culture is remote-first versus remote-friendly.

Remote-first means assuming work will happen virtually. Leaders need to trust – or see proof – that people will get things done, even when they can’t see the work happening.

Remote-friendly means it’s OK for things to be remote, but some events or decisions may still require in-person interaction. 

Be deliberate about making that distinction, and you can still create a good culture for remote people.

Dig deeper: How to build a better remote team at your digital marketing agency

2. Hiring

Discuss your remote work policy upfront in job descriptions and during the interview process. Make it clear where you can work from, where your team is, and what that means for day-to-day work.

For example, you might let potential hires know that they may need to be proactive in searching for answers on their own first, but reassure them that you have good documentation and helpful channels to ask for help.

Ask questions about how they’ve handled remote work in the past. Don’t just assume they know how to do it.

• Have you worked remotely / for a fully remote company before?
• If not, what challenges do you anticipate, and how will you handle them?
• What does your work office setup look like?
• What hours do you work best?
• What’s your internet speed? Do you generally have reliable internet? Are you able to take video calls?

3. Training

Training and onboarding should set clear expectations for remote work.

The first day can be harder than walking into an office, so make sure new hires have everything they need to log in – and a backup contact in case they can’t access email or Slack/Teams.

Create a checklist of tasks and goals for the first week through 90 days, noting who to work with and when to check in. 

Build the plan together, based on what they already know and what they need to learn, and explain what you expect them to accomplish by the end of the onboarding process.

Keep updated training videos and reading materials available so new hires can learn independently without requiring constant oversight.

If you have an office, consider inviting new employees onsite for early onboarding, especially when hiring several people at once.

Dig deeper: How to set goals for your SEO team

4. Expectations

Set expectations early around availability, such as response times for email versus Slack or Teams. 

For example, you might set a rule that messages should be answered within a day and emails within a workweek.

Encourage keeping conversations in group channels or threads, rather than sending one-off direct messages, whenever possible. 

This keeps discussions organized and ensures everyone stays informed, rather than wasting time relaying information.

Each person’s time zone should be visible in email signatures and messaging tools, especially if your team spans multiple regions or countries.

Establish standard core working hours with some overlap across time zones. 

Clarify whether people can work during their most productive hours and step away for personal commitments, such as school pickups or appointments.

Equally important are boundaries. Make it clear what isn’t acceptable – like being offline for long stretches without notice. 

You might set a rule that team members update their status to “Away” if they’ll be gone for more than 30 minutes.

Finally, lead by example. Follow the same rules you set for the team. 

Tell people when you’re taking sick days to normalize rest and transparency. 

Schedule messages to send the next morning instead of at 7 p.m., after most of the team has logged off.

5. Documentation

Good documentation is essential when you can’t just walk up to someone with a question. It should be easy to find and search, with a clear process for keeping it up to date.

Make it everyone’s responsibility to maintain documentation. You don’t want people afraid to edit or contribute. Show them how to use version history so they understand mistakes can be undone and collaboration is safe.

Reference documentation links and folders in meetings or pin them to channels so they stay top of mind and easy to access.

If you’re unsure where to start, begin with a simple list of who is responsible for what and who to contact for specific needs. You can also use tools like ChatGPT to gather frequently asked questions from team channels and turn them into a troubleshooting or FAQ guide.

Documentation can take many forms and doesn’t need to be complicated. Record your process the next time you train someone, or copy your personal notes into a shared doc and ask a new hire to add questions or clarifications during onboarding.

A few key areas worth documenting include:

• Logins and access for CMS, VPN, and other tools.
• Content, drafts, and editorial workflows.
• Formatting guidelines, shortcodes, and UX standards.
• Tools and data sources.
• SEO, design, and development priorities.
• Team best practices.
• Industry and client or partner information.
• Goals, OKRs, and idea tracking.
• Testing and experimentation processes.
• Media, graphics, and video guidelines.

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6. Tools

Consistency is key when choosing tools. Decide early – Microsoft or Google, Slack or Teams – and stick with one ecosystem for everything.

Figma and Slack Canvas are great options for asynchronous feedback.

Make sure everyone has at least two browsers for testing. Use Google Analytics to see which browsers your users rely on most, usually Chrome or Safari, and ensure your team can access those at a minimum. 

Everyone should understand how VPNs and ad blockers can affect tracking, caching, troubleshooting, or geoIP settings.

Teach your team the most useful features for each tool. In Slack, for example, “remind me later,” voting, and scheduled sends help people stay focused without losing track of communication.

If someone struggles with new tools, address it privately when possible – unless it’s a quick or urgent matter, such as asking someone to mute background noise.

You may also need to show them how to use their phone as a mobile hotspot if the internet goes down during work hours.

For equipment, two monitors should be standard if the budget allows, plus a docking station if needed.

Some companies use either all PCs or all Macs, but it’s often better to let people choose their preferred OS. 

Having a mix of devices and browsers can help identify issues with your site that you might not catch otherwise. Either way, all devices should have access to the same apps.

Work with IT to set a clear technology policy, including:

• How to set up or switch to two-factor authentication.
• When to use personal devices.
• How to ask for help.

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7. Collaboration

Sharing ideas should be part of the process. Good ideas can come from anywhere, and everyone should feel encouraged to contribute.

Get feedback early and often. Involve people at the start, when you can define acceptance criteria or adjust direction before too much time is spent building. 

For larger projects, check in as work develops, again at release to coordinate launch details, and once more post-launch to confirm satisfaction or make final adjustments.

For meetings, teams should meet at least monthly. Managers should meet with direct reports weekly and with dotted-line reports or key collaborators monthly. Periodically review whether the meeting cadence, agenda, and attendees still make sense.

Sprints and agile workflows aren’t just for developers. They can help SEO teams stay flexible as priorities shift.

Set quarterly OKRs to review monthly, along with annual goals you revisit throughout the year. This helps everyone understand how their work connects to broader team objectives.

8. Meetings

Every meeting invite should include an agenda in advance so attendees can prepare questions, add topics, and know what they’ll be expected to cover.

To keep remote meetings engaging, consider rotating who presents or changing the order of updates. 

You can also assign someone to monitor chat messages or keep time for each agenda item to help the meeting stay on track.

Decide whether your default culture will be video on or video off. 

Participation is often better when cameras are on, but allow flexibility for when people need video off – such as during early meetings across time zones, low-energy days, or less-than-ideal workspaces.

Be mindful of time zones when scheduling. 

Afternoon meetings often work best for teams spread across U.S. coasts, but global teams may need creative overlap. A shared time zone calendar can help identify the best windows for collaboration.

Encourage everyone to keep their calendars up to date. Instead of asking when someone’s free, make it standard practice to check their availability and send the invite directly.

Finally, maintain a team vacation calendar that’s easy to view and update so everyone stays aware of upcoming time off.

Dig deeper: 12 strategies to scale your SEO team without losing your culture

9. Events

Occasional in-person events can be valuable even for fully remote teams.

When planning, include a mix of structured and unstructured activities, with time for doing, thinking, eating, and playing.

A few ideas include:

• Attend an industry conference as a team.
• Send small groups to conferences to collaborate, then share takeaways with the full group.
• Visit headquarters or another company location for an internal summit, and ask local experts to help plan venues and activities.
• Hold an annual strategy and planning session that includes time to reflect on the previous year.
• Vote on or randomly select a location for an in-person gathering.

10. Feedback

The principle of “catch people doing something right” applies just as much to remote teams. 

With less in-person interaction, consistent and thoughtful feedback becomes even more important.

There are many ways to recognize great work remotely:

• Regular or one-off feedback.
• Slack channels for praise and recognition.
• Messages that copy a person’s manager when they do something well.
• Rewards such as gift cards or company swag.
• Non-monetary rewards like a half-day off, summer hours, or a team movie day.
• Job swaps for a day.
• Letting someone choose the next training or activity.
• Virtual team-building activities like trivia or food tastings.
• Connecting small wins to larger goals.
• Sharing progress, not just finished work.
• Acknowledging mistakes and lessons learned, not just successes.
• Running retrospectives after big projects to celebrate wins and identify improvements.

Making remote SEO work in the long run

Building a strong remote SEO team takes more than the right tools. It takes clarity, trust, and consistency. 

When expectations, communication, and documentation all work together, your team can focus on what really matters: driving results no matter where they’re working from.