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Managing 90 SEOs: What Actually Scales (And What Breaks)

Managing 90 SEOs: What Actually Scales (And What Breaks)

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Summary

 E1045: This is what it takes to carry the responsibility of managing 90 SEOs AT THE SAME TIME. I sit down with Travis Tallent, former Managing Director of AI SEO at Brainlabs, where he led a team of 90 SEOs, CROs, digital PR specialists, and content strategists across enterprise clients like Microsoft and GitHub. We break down what scales inside a large SEO organization, what quietly breaks, and what most people get wrong about hiring, systems, and AI. This is not surface-level advice. It's what happens when you grow a team from 15 people to 90 in four and a half years and have to build the infrastructure to support it. What we cover: Leadership and scale - What leading 90 SEOs is really like day to day - The growing pains of scaling from 15 to 90 people - Why process matters more than talent at scale - How to build systems for communication across large teams - Decision rights, hierarchy, and why clarity prevents chaos - How to stop teams from getting in each other's way Hiring and onboarding - The most underrated skill in SEO hires - How to screen for real operators, not surface-level knowledge - The interview question that reveals everything - What a three-month onboarding program actually looks like - Why mock calls and repetition build communication skill - How to design onboarding that produces confident, client-ready SEOs Digital PR and link building - Why traditional outreach often fails at enterprise scale - What actually works in digital PR today - How to build data-driven linkable assets - Personalizing outreach without burning your domain reputation - Creative examples of assets that generate thousands of backlinks - Why brand investment matters more in the AI era CRO and conversion strategy - Why incremental button tests rarely move the needle - When full funnel redesigns drive major revenue gains - Common CRO mistakes that hurt SEO - How poor design damages both traffic and conversions - Why cross-functional alignment between SEO, paid, design, and CRO is critical AI, automation, and hype cycles - The real risks of migrating from .com to .ai - How executives think about AI branding decisions - Why most companies are trying to automate too early - The danger of vibe-coded sites without real strategy - What AI search actually requires to win Enterprise SEO lessons - How to fix cannibalization at scale - Why internal linking and taxonomy are often overlooked - What separates plateauing sites from compounding ones - How to push back on clients using data instead of ego - The metrics that actually matter when you lead a large SEO team This conversation is about ownership, discipline, and long-term thinking. Scaling SEO is not about adding more people. It's about building clarity into hiring, onboarding, communication, and execution. If you're running an agency, managing a marketing team, or building a SaaS company that depends on search, this episode will give you a more realistic view of what scale actually requires. ⭐️ Travis Tallent on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/travistallent/ ⭐️ Out in AI, Travis's LGBTQ+ & ally AI group: https://outinai.com/ ⭐️ Travis's company - Daynova - AI Change Management - https://daynova.ai/ 🚀 Edward's SEO Articles - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/search-engine-optimization/ 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Managing 90 SEOs 01:51 Underrated SEO Skills 03:14 Communication Systems 05:31 Mock Calls Training 07:22 Scaling Team Onboarding 11:15 Fastest Way Learn SEO 13:37 First Three SEO Hires 17:23 Digital PR That Works 20:04 Creative Linkable Assets 27:55 Weird SEO Stories 30:42 Com to AI Migration Risks 36:24 Screening SEO Candidates 37:49 SEO Audit Process 41:07 GitHub Content Win 44:46 Preventing Team Mayhem 46:41 CRO Big Wins 48:24 Revamp Funnels Not Buttons 49:46 CRO Mistakes To Avoid 51:48 Design And SEO Alignment 53:28 Clarity Beats Cleverness 55:11 Measuring Team Success 56:25 Systems RACI And Tools 01:00:44 AI Scales Chaos 01:03:50 Pushing Back On Clients 01:05:36 Compounding SEO Investment 01:10:13 Overlooked SEO Tactics 01:11:57 Source SEO For AI Search 01:15:48 AI Impact On SEO Teams 01:17:43 SEO Disaster Story 01:20:09 Becoming Top One Percent 01:22:11 Final Lessons And Wrap The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #marketingagencies #seo #digitalmarketing
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