SEO Strategies Unpacked: Amanda Natividad on When to Outsource SEO Services & How to Measure Success

In this video, you’ll learn: 

• Amanda’s Unplanned Journey: From Culinary School to Marketing
• 3 Types of SEO Services and When to Invest in Them
• How to Measure SEO Success & Sustainability
• In-house Talent vs. Outsourced SEO Services
• Rapid Fire Round: Amanda’s go-to podcasts and more!

Amanda’s Unplanned Journey: From Culinary School to Marketing

Welcome, Amanda. Could you take us through your backstory, how you started your career in marketing?

Amanda Natividad: [00:23] I never really intended to become a marketer. I thought I was going to get into journalism. I started my career working at a tech news site, paid content.org, which was later acquired by Google. I worked at Gigaom.com as an editorial producer. I did that for a number of years and felt myself starting to plateau. I always like to say that it wasn't that the job got boring, it was that I got boring for the job. After that, I went to culinary school, thinking I'd be a food writer. I didn't do any research into that industry when I decided that I wanted to be in it. I ended up stumbling into content marketing with a DTC snack company called NatureBox. From there, I got hands-on experience with marketing, including PR and corporate comms.

3 Types of SEO Services and When to Invest in Them

Let's talk about SEO investments. In your experience as a marketing leader, what are the different types of SEO services, and how should businesses think about when they might need to consider different types at various stages of their growth?

Amanda Natividad: [03:27] I think of SEO services in three categories: content audit, technical audit, and implementation. A content audit identifies SEO content opportunities, looking at your existing content and potential keywords to target for organic traffic. A technical audit ensures your website is set up correctly from an SEO perspective, identifying problems and fixes. Implementation involves creating SEO-driven content or fixing site structure. Agencies might offer all or some of these services, and some may cater to specific business types like B2C, e-commerce, or B2B. When hiring an agency, consider your industry, specific SEO needs, and what job you want SEO to do for you. For example, a local small business might focus on local SEO and setting up their Google business profile, while a startup might target high-volume keywords for their blog. Think clearly about the specific SEO service you need. 

How to Measure SEO Success & Sustainability

Are there specific tactics you look for that yield better ROI, or particular KPIs you recommend tracking?

Amanda Natividad: [08:01] I always recommend people get a good sense of their current benchmarks. Look at your organic traffic, page views, and social media metrics over the past three months. Get a baseline to compare against later. Create a spreadsheet to estimate the organic traffic opportunity from an SEO-driven strategy. Use tools like Moz or Ahrefs for keyword search volume data to estimate potential traffic. Challenge agencies on how they track success. Ask how most clients measure success or what similar businesses do. Know what you're hiring for and go in with eyes wide open. It's on both parties to track success. Content or operational sustainability is an important KPI. If you hire an agency to create content, what are you doing with it? Are you repurposing it into email campaigns, webinars, or social media assets? As a business owner, figure out how to maximize that content. Think about the sustainability factor of the content.

In-House Talent vs. Outsourcing SEO Services

How do you decide what to outsource versus keep internal when it comes to content creation or promotion?

Amanda Natividad: [11:47] It depends on the in-house team's skills. If they're proficient in content marketing, they might outsource paid advertising, or vice versa. Consider the team's core skills and find complementary external resources. It's important to distinguish what should always be in-house versus what can be outsourced. Things deeply tied to company values and strong points of view should come from in-house. Think about ghostwriters— when it's done well, you can't tell. Successful ghostwriters often work with people who've been creating content and developing their viewpoint for years. Core values, strong opinions, and how you see the world should come from in-house, like a CEO piece on why they started the company. You can outsource things like media outreach or repurposing content into social media assets. You can train people to do aspects of your job, but it's harder to train someone to think like you.

What qualities do you look for when contracting for SEO or PR services?

Amanda Natividad: [15:40]  I look first and foremost for transparency about how they do their jobs, track success, and who does what in the team. I want to meet the executing team early on. I expect the VP to set the vision and strategy, and review things before they come to me. I want to understand how the work gets done and who's involved. Transparency is really important to me. References are important, and I actually check them. I want to know about past clients they no longer work with and why. Lastly, I don't like overuse of jargon or things that are too polished. I prefer plain communication over splashy presentations.

Rapid Fire Round: Amanda’s go-to podcasts and more!

If you could swap jobs with any marketer for a day, who would it be?

Amanda Natividad: [18:32] Seth Godin. I want to know what his day is like and see his full creative process. I think every marketer admires him. 

What's a go-to podcast that you're listening to right now?

Amanda Natividad: [19:00] I don’t know how honest I should be about this so I will give you two answers. Lenny Rachitsky’s Podcast for thorough, deep dives into companies or business functions. What I really appreciate about that show is that whatever the topic is, you feel like an expert after that full episode. My other favorite podcast right now is called Trashy Divorces which is about celebrity breakups. It’s my favorite podcast to listen to while folding and sorting laundry. 

About Amanda Natividad, VP of Marketing at SparkToro

Amanda Natividad is the VP of Marketing at SparkToro, a market research and audience intelligence platform, and a respected expert in content marketing, SEO, and digital strategy. With a background in journalism and tech, Amanda is known for her insightful approach to audience research and her ability to create impactful, data-driven marketing campaigns.

Interviewed by: Katie Hollar, VP of Marketing at Clutch
 

About the Author

Katie Hollar Former VP of Marketing at Clutch

Katie lead the marketing team at Clutch where we’re on a mission to empower better business decisions as the leading global marketplace of business service providers. Since joining Clutch in 2022, Katie has been focused on hiring and developing a team of multi-disciplinary marketers responsible for accelerating growth on both the buyer and vendor sides of Clutch’s marketplace.

As a marketing leader, Katie is a big believer that brand drives demand. She has worked with high-growth businesses from seed-stage startups through $200m+ ARR businesses. With a mix of digital and traditional media experience targeting both B2B and B2C audiences, Katie loves marrying the art and science of modern marketing.

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