I know this conversation takes place in boardrooms across the UK and US and it should make every CEO uncomfortable.

"Who's currently handling our SEO strategy?"

"Oh, that's Max from marketing. He's been with us six months, fresh out of university. Keen as mustard."

And there it is. The moment a business unknowingly caps its growth potential.

Most niche businesses treat SEO like it's digital homework for the new kid. It gets delegated down, pushed to the most junior person on the team and treated as a nice-to-have rather than the business-critical growth engine it actually is.

I've seen it countless times over my 25 years building niche businesses. A company will invest millions in product development, hire senior talent for sales and operations, pay premium rates for legal and financial expertise – then hand their most scalable growth channel to someone earning £25k a year who learned SEO from YouTube tutorials.

It's madness.

I do need to address this point though… I’m delighted that junior level marketers are showing interest in SEO. They’re learning and that’s great! It’s just that ‘SEO learning phase’ doesn’t (yet) translate to ‘SEO leadership phase’.

The problem starts with perception. SEO gets lumped in with "marketing tasks" something tactical, something you can learn from a blog post, something that doesn't require deep business understanding.

What really happens when you leave SEO in junior hands?

They optimise for metrics that don't matter. Traffic goes up, rankings improve, but revenue stays flat. Why? Because they're not thinking strategically about which keywords actually drive business value.

They miss the bigger picture. SEO isn't about getting found for anything, it's about getting found by the right people at the right moment in their buying journey. That requires understanding customer psychology, market dynamics, and competitive positioning.

They can't influence the business. When SEO requires changes to product pages, site architecture, or content strategy, junior staff don't have the authority or credibility to make things happen.

They follow tactics, not strategy. They'll implement the latest "hack" they read about, but they can't connect SEO activities to broader business objectives or measure true ROI.

Let me be clear about something: when done strategically, SEO should be your most significant business growth channel. Not one of them. THE most significant.

Every day, your prospects are searching for solutions to problems your business solves. They're typing their intent directly into Google, telling you exactly what they need, when they need it. It's market research and lead generation rolled into one.

Most of them never find you. Because while your competitors are investing in senior-level SEO strategy, you've got a junior trying to figure out why your blog post about "top tips" isn't ranking.

Strategic SEO isn't about tactics. It's about understanding your market at a fundamental level and positioning your business to capture demand at every stage of the customer journey.

It requires someone who can:

This isn't junior-level work. This is business strategy disguised as marketing.

When you leave SEO to junior staff, you're not just missing opportunities you're actively damaging your market position.

While you're celebrating a 20% increase in "brand awareness keywords," your competitors are capturing high-intent prospects searching for solutions. While your junior is optimising for "industry trends," your competition is dominating the searches that happen right before purchase decisions.

Every day you delay strategic SEO investment is another day your competitors strengthen their market position. And in niche B2B markets, once a competitor establishes search dominance, it becomes exponentially harder to catch up.

If you're serious about SEO (and you should be) it needs senior-level attention. That doesn't necessarily mean hiring a Head of SEO (though for many businesses, that's exactly what it means). But it does mean treating SEO as a business-critical function that requires strategic thinking, market understanding, and the authority to influence business decisions.

Some options that actually work:

Bring in strategic expertise. Work with someone who understands both SEO and business strategy, who can develop frameworks your team can execute.

Grow strategic SEO internally. If you have someone junior handling SEO, pair them with senior business strategy support. Don't leave them to figure out market positioning alone.

Invest in proper training. Not just "how to do keyword research" training. Strategic business training that helps your team understand how SEO connects to revenue.

Your market is full of prospects actively searching for what you offer. The question is: are they finding you, or are they finding your competitors?

If you're treating SEO like playground duty for the junior team member, you already know the answer.

It's time to get serious. Your growth depends on it.

I don’t use many tools. Instead I’ve learned over the years to get the best out of the ones I do use. AlsoAsked in a tool I use on a daily basis to deep dive niche marketers to discover the questions prospects need answering. That data then sits central to my content creation process. It’s priced for less than it should be for the insights you will discover…

Keep showing up, keep cheering each other on — and as always, run happy! 🏃‍♂️💛

The Stride Neighbors Team

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